Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-fmk2r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-26T16:47:18.803Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Gendered speech: sex as a factor of linguistic choice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Florian Coulmas
Affiliation:
German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo
Get access

Summary

In the eighteenth century, when logic and science were the fashion, women tried to talk like the men. The twentieth century has reversed the process.

Aldous Huxley, Two or Three Graces

(In)equality, difference, domination

Women and men choose their words differently. Why? An obvious answer is because they are different. What is more common sense than that the sexes are dissimilar, distinct and contrasting?! It's nature, a fundamental of the settled terms of existence. Intersexuality is an anomaly in any society. The overwhelming majority of all people know what sex they are (and want to be). That women and men speak differently is only natural. Just look at our speech apparatus. Men's vocal tracts are longer, their larynx is bigger and, accordingly, their voices are deeper because their vocal cords vibrate at a lower frequency than women's. Between 80 and 200 cycles per second (hertz) is the average range of male voices, while female voices range between 120 and 400 hertz. Frequencies are determined by physical conditions, the shape and length of the vocal tract. Does the resulting difference in the perceived pitch of female and male voices have anything to do with the fact that men and women talk differently? Isn't it just a natural given? It certainly is. However, the vocal tract is like a trumpet. You cannot make it sound like a double bass or a piano, but there are still many different ways of playing it.

Type
Chapter
Information
Sociolinguistics
The Study of Speakers' Choices
, pp. 36 - 51
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cameron, Deborah (ed.) 1990. The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cooper, Robert L. 1984. The avoidance of androcentric generics. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 50: 5–20.Google Scholar
Gibbon, Margaret. 1999. Feminist Perspectives on Language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Hellinger, Marlies and Bußmann, Hadumond (eds.) 2001/2. Gender Across Languages, vols. 1–3. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, Janet and Meyerhoff, Miriam (eds.) 2003. Handbook of Language and Gender. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romaine, Suzanne. 1999. Communicating Gender. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×