Sociolinguistic Variations in Conversation - Essay Example

?Topic: Gendered-Language Lecturer: Introduction Sociolinguistic variation is a discipline of study that focuses on the way language varies and changes in the speakers’ communities and concentrates specifically on the interaction of social factors like the speaker's ethnicity, gender, age, and degree of integration into the community among others factors, and linguistic structures like words, sounds, intonation features, and grammatical forms among others (Crystal, 2007). This paper seeks to discuss aspects of gendered language. Through this, the paper will focus on sociolinguistic variations and the varying aspects employed during conversations. Sociolinguistics is the study of society and language. Sociolinguistics attempts to analyze the social factors which leading to the diversity of human languages, whereas many linguists concentrate on exploring unity under the diversity of human languages. In a nut shell, sociolinguists focus on the differences in languages and variation within a particular society language. As stated earlier, this paper will focus on the aspects of sociolinguistic variations in terms of gender based conversations. For instance, in the past few days when I was walking around, I heard two women chatting and discussing their issues. Naturally, I have never been interested in listening to them sharing their views but on this occasion, their subject attracted my attention. I listened keenly how they were praising their mode of presentation. The first woman was commenting on how her colleague had plaited her hair. “Jane! You look smart. Who plaited your hair? I like it! ” The second woman laughed, showing a sense of appreciation. “My husband took me out over the weekend where I was plaited. Imagine am proud of him.” The first woman was so curious, “Do you mind giving me directions so that I may go too? I should be as cute as you look!” “Oh please, I am not sure of the place, but it was so far that you can’t make it alone. It cost me good money to achieve this. I doubt if can afford. Probably you can look for another salon within this town.” The other woman seemed to break the heart of her colleague so that she could not trace the salon. “No, I don’t care! I need the same even it means selling part of my other belongings.” The woman replied with a lot of determination. Their conversation continued but I didn’t bother to listen more (Li, 2002). On another occasion when I had gone for a ride to my nearest shopping centre, I engaged in a discussion with my friends who were shaving. At some point, they began discussing on the recent men hair styles. I was keen on the on their dialogue. “Martin, have you seen my friend’s hair style who arrived recently from abroad? The guy is smart!” One gentleman came up. “Yeah! But that style isn’t all that new. I’ve seen many people shave like him.” Jack replied with very cool voice. “In fact I don’t see any need of one straining to cope that style. It may cost you a lot for nothing, after all our nearest barber shop can do it. You can save that money and do other things other than just shaving.” Most men in the discussion agreed on Jack’s opinion and all seem not to be interested on the topic again. They switched to discussing other issues (Chambers, 2003). From the set of the conversations, it is evident that women and men have different language of approach. Although they could have the same subject of discussion, women could approach differently as men could. In the instance above, women are seen to be admiring each other in the way they have dressed. One could realize how her colleague has plaited her hair and show admiration up to an extent of digging out where and how it can be done. Women are seen to invest much of their time on what the outsiders can see. Although the other woman wants to look beautiful as her fellow, it is clear that the first woman is possessive and wants to own the beauty alone. She tries all the impossibilities to ensure that the efforts of her counterpart are buried. She tells her that the salon is very far and it is not easy to access the place. On the other hand, men are seen to take the same matter lightly. When the issue of hair style is raised, all seem to agree that it is common in the place and no need to waste money to shaving such a style. Furthermore, the local barber shop can do it. The attention of men is not really in the style, but rather diversified to other form of investments as they concur that money could be used to do other things. Contrary, women in their speech want to invest in the presentation. Nature may dictate the interest of different gender. Each side may take different stands to address the same issue thus bringing gendered difference in speech. Language is particularly a form of social behavior and societies tend to split into groups displaying behavior differences. People react and behave variedly when giving information or involved in a particular conversation especially where a common gender is involved (Bruce, 2002). This is generally due to the fact that language defines group identity because of its deep social function. In another instance I watched over the television show recently, several presidential candidates had been sampled. The general election in Kenya was to be done in a week’s time and all potential candidates stood in a podium to sell their manifestos to the public. As the democracy of the country dictates, all the people from different backgrounds, gender, race or ethnic group can vie for the seat. All the candidates stood ready to address the posed issue directed to... On their presentation, sensitive matters like corruption were exhaustively analyzed with each candidate explaining how one would handle the issue if elected. All gave different approaches they could use to curb the menace. One a time, they came up on the show. Among the aspirants was a female candidate fighting for the same cake as her fellow male counterparts. All of them were eight in number. To be specific, one man who was new in politics and the woman came from the same region of the country with same ethnic group (Eckert, 2001). The matter, corruption, is a deep rooted menace that required a candidate to handle cautiously so as to justify her eligibility and win the majority. Every citizen, I guess, was curious and eager as I did. It was the turn of the woman, “corruption is within us but we were not born with. Why do we allow our conscience be buried with our eyes widely opened? The menace starts from me and you back at home. Imagine you being an imminent corrupt at your home. You sent your child to the shop, and when he/she refuses you tell him/her I will buy you queen cake. Surely, is that not the beginning? If we stop from there, then we shall have achieved…..” she paused as tears rolled down her cheeks. The podium was moved with her speech and those who were emotional like me wept. It was the turn of the next candidate to handle the same issue. Incidentally, the candidate came from the same region as the woman. Kenya is a country blessed with several tribes, of which people speak different languages of various ascents. More often than not, background influences the speech of the people. The man came on microphone, “Mine is to just ‘Colluption’ is like any other disease. We can cure it if we can, but given a chance, you will see miracles. It will be a forgotten story and you will never hear of it again.” He said with very coarse and masculine voice. His presentation was very stern and more of dictatorial than persuasive. The audience in the podium remained silent and to me I could look faces of dissatisfaction. The other candidates gave their views equally as their counterparts (Fischer & Carroll, 2002). Language variations vary from one person to another, gender to gender. From the debate, I came across difference in gendered speech. Although the candidates were addressing the same issue, they all had diverse approach. The woman candidate was a representative of other women who express their inner feelings by shading tears. Naturally, women are emotional. They keep their emotions in their hearts and their expression depends on how they feel concern of the matter. For this reason, she could not hold down as men do. Men on the other hand are more of psychological and would prefer keeping their concerns in their subconscious minds rather than their hearts. Researches have shown that most of the deaths that occur in psychiatric hospitals affect men. These occur because tears shaded by women reliefs them from the stress. Stress causes inner accumulation of pathogens in the body that may lead to hypertension and other body complexities. It is also evident that regional backgrounds affect the speech of people. During the presentation, the male candidate could use the term ‘Colluption’ in place of ‘corruption’. Although this was not the same for the woman candidate from the same regional background, women have been seen to have slightly different ascent on the same term. Aspects of gendered language may differ from different groups majorly due to factors such as: standard or codified language, state of the speakers, verbal conversations which cannot be used in writing, and prestige. People from a similar community may speak variedly. Regional identification may be established within the wider context as provided by urban or rural dialectology. Particular features of speech may be used to identify someone to be coming from specific part of the world; however, the area involved may extend to several languages, countries, or language families (Labov, 2002). During my last festive season, I visited my uncle who resides in the city. I had been bored with the life of the village and I decided to spend my holiday there. Although it was not all that enjoyable as I thought, I had nothing to do but to lock myself indoors. I had cultivated good study habits when I was in school hence I took my time to read magazines and newspapers. It was then that I found an interesting story of gendered speech difference. An advert was posted in the local newspaper to advertise on vacancies of security officers in the country. All interested candidates were to forward their credentials and academic certificates for the selection. Although it was open for everybody, females were encouraged most as they were very few in the sector. After all the procedures were over, an interview was carried out with over two hundred recruited. It was then that bosses were to be elected on the recruited. Several criteria were used to choose the best. At the last stage of the exercise, four were chosen to face the panel, three of whom were women. The advert had renounced favor on women and it was almost guaranteed that one would take. Interestingly, oral interview demanded each one of them to express his/herself on how he/she would handle security post if given a chance. The man was the first, “As a man, am ready to die standing. I owe my country peace and I promise to stand, give instructions and fight tooth and nail up to the end. Give me and you will never regret.” The man explained with bold and masculine. The next on the queue was a woman and she had this to say, “I promise to work with my colleagues to ensure enough security in the country. Given chance, every individual’s rights will be well catered for.” She said softly with fear of being asked how it will be done. All the other women had good reasons to deserve the job but their choice of language could not convince the panel. At the end, the man was given the post (Eckert, Penolope, Rickford, & John, 2001). Although nature sometimes dictates the type of chores for both male and female, there is no exceptional for work to be done. For this case, language difference has split women’s work from men’s. All underwent the same screening process with each having equal opportunity to be chosen. The only distinguishing character was the gendered language. The speech difference may classify people into different social classes. According to Hudson ( 2006) The varying gendered language conversations contains aspects of social classes, factors of lineage, family, occupation, rank, material possession, and education. How people talk in the conversation reflects their background greatly. People are also aware acutely of the speech patter differences marking their social classes. Men are naturally strong and masculine and are reflected mostly in how they speak. They speak with courage and bold especially when faced with situations in favor of their strength. It is for this reason that men are usually the heads of military sectors. On the other hand, women are soft tonic using too low tone to give stern instructions. This led to the women denied the job, but it is a universal rule. In conclusion, sociolinguistic variation is the study of the language variability and communities (Aitchison, 2008). It majorly concentrates on the interaction of social factors like the speaker's ethnicity, gender, age, and degree of integration into the community among others factors, and linguistic structures like words, sounds, intonation features, and grammatical forms among others. Bibliography Aitchison, Jean. 2008. Linguistics: An Introduction, 2nd edn. England: Hodder and Stoughton Bruce, J. 2002. Interview. Lamar University. Chambers, J. 2003. Sociolinguistic Theory. Oxford: Blackwell Crystal, David 2007. How Language Works, 1st edn. England: Penguin Group Eckert, P. 2001. Linguistic variation as social practice. Oxford: Blackwell. Eckert, Penolope and Rickford, John.R. 2001. Style and Sociolinguistic Variation 1st edn Fischer, C.H. & Carroll, C. 2002.  Orchids of the Bayou A Deaf Woman Faces Blindness.  Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. Hudson, R.A. 2006. Sociolinguistics, 2nd edn.U.K: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Labov, W. 2002. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Oxford: Blackwell. Li, Y. 2002. Interview. Lamar University. Read More