Investigation into representation of gender through speech

Chiara Giovanni

Introduction:

The aim of the investigation is to find out whether gender affects speech features according to research carried out by theorists Lokoff, Holmes, Tannen and Fishman.

Methodology:

Primary research was undertaken. Three groups of Year 10 students were used: a control group consisting of three boys and three girls, a group with six girls, and a group with six boys. The students came from the top set single-sex English groups, which could be considered to be helpful, as not only have they had extensive experience of debating and discussion, but being in single-sex classes should have supposedly amplified the speech features affected by gender.

Each group was asked to discuss the issue of which gender were more likely to choose looks over personality, a discussion topic which would theoretically be more relevant and approachable than a controversial issue like abortion or euthanasia, and more interesting and original than school uniform or smoking.

Hypotheses:

Girls are more likely to seek approval from others in a group and “keep face”; boys are more likely to be confrontational and attempt to establish their individual identities rather than staying in a group
Girls are therefore more likely to use hedgers and fillers to soften their arguments and sound more hesitant and less sure of themselves than boys, who will sound more aggressive
Girls are also more likely to use monitoring devices and tag questions to check the response of the group when making a statement than boys
These features will remain the same whether the groups are mixed or not

Features to look for-

Aggression:

repetition
short sentences
simple sentence structure
first person voice used when stating opinions
divergence
interruption
directness

Hesitancy:

fillers
reformulation/recycling
monitoring devices
politeness techniques
convergence
tag questions
turn-taking
pauses
second person/third person voice
passive voice
minimal response
self-repair

Limitations of the investigation

Small sample size: it would be more accurate if there were more groups sampled (not larger groups, as the participants would have fewer opportunities to speak)
Sometimes the participants needed prompting which of course distorts the course of the conversation, and some groups needed more prompting than others, which leads to less valid results
Always the Observer’s Paradox: when teenagers especially are being observed, their behaviour and speech patterns ...

Investigation into representation of gender through speech

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