Gender and Language in Bride Wars - Research Paper Example

Introduction

In the domain of sociolinguistics, the topic of interrelations between gender and different aspects of language has been increasingly popular in the recent decades, which is justified by the profound changes in gender relations as a whole. As Hailiang and colleagues note, women and men appear to be equal in the modern world, yet “the harsh reality tells us that women are not provided with an equal opportunity even for discussion, due to the fact that the two sexes respectively command different communication styles” (Hailing et al., 2010, p.127). Thereby, the considerable body of research shows that female and male speakers tend to use language in different ways: this tendency might concern different aspects of language and is believed to exist in most language communities. Even more, different patterns of language use are reflected nowadays in the media and popular culture including literature, journalist articles and cinema. In the present essay, the differences in the popular film Bride Wars (2009) will be considered.

Literature Review

Being a more complex category that biological sex, gender is a social construct internalised in the process of socialisation and expressed in interaction with others (including verbal communication) (Wood, 2013, p.20). As Mayor (1996, p.71) states in the study of language repertoires, when growing up, girls and boys internalise different patterns of language use which reflect the clearly demarcated gender roles. Baranauskienė and Adminienė support these findings stating that male and female speakers both use and interpret language differently according to their gender and social status (2012, p.113). The disparities in language use are generally explained by the different traits and behaviours induced by the socially accepted gender roles, with men being characterized by greater independence, pragmatism, assertiveness as well as lower emotionality and empathy. Gendered language use has been proved to exist in different aspects of language including vocabulary, syntax (Cornett, 2014), topic selection and request patterns (Hailing et al., 2010), amount of talk and word economy, prosodics, intonation and pronunciation (Xia, 2013) and other less significant aspects. Women tend to deploy peculiar lexemes, syntactic patterns and intonation is their speech; moreover, they tend to have greater language proficiency (Cornett, 2014) and use more colour words, many expressive adjectives and milder swear words (Xia, 2013, p.1486). A peculiar aspect of differences is use of “strong expletives”: women are not expected to use words such as shit or damn, but “are encouraged to substitute weaker ones like oh dear or fudge” (Malkawi, 2011, p.424). As the study shows, this tendency derives from the dominant position of men in society and impunity attached to expression of emotions in this way.

Method

In order to research expression of gender differences in language use and identify certain patterns typical for women and men in speech, the film Bride Wars was used for collecting empirical evidence. The key method of analysing the observations in this case is that of descriptive analysis, for it allows for coherent illustration of gendered patterns in English with provision of specific examples. Due to its genre and themes (that of relationships between men and women as well as male and female friendship), Bride Wars is quite illustrative in terms of the way women and men talk to each other, to the opposite sex and in the mixed companies.

Findings and Discussion

The observations made in the process of watching Bride Wars tend to reflect the differences in language use between the film’s female protagonists and their male partners. One of the most obvious tendencies identified in the speech of these characters is different levels of emotionality. Emma and Liv tend to express their emotions vividly not just in nonverbal means but also in language use: intonations, vocabulary and syntactic structures. Concerning the vocabulary, they tend to use fewer strong expletives or replace them with milder forms. When informed about the date confusion, Emma responds to this information saying “mother f”, that is, smoothing the swear-word with a less explicit form. Moreover, female characters tend to use milder expletives such as “oh God!” (e.g. Liv: Oh my God Emma!). However, there is also an interesting finding which shows interrelation between gender traits and language. Liv, who possess some typically masculine features in her character, uses ‘stronger’ words: “Dance lessons? Damn”. Men’s daily speech turns out to include more slang and sarcastic expressions (Hailing et al., 2010, p.127): in the film, Nate, Liv’s brother utters “Get out!” expressing surprise and incredulity.

Xia (2013) stresses differences in use of adjectives and adverbs by women and men. This assumption finds its proof in the film, too. Liv, Emma and other female characters often use more adjectives and adverbs, and many of them are more florid than those usually used by the men: extravagant (Marion); Isn’t Daniel the sweetest? (Liv); tacky (Liv); horrible (Liv); absolutely (Emma); You would totally side with me (Emma); excellent (Liv). Moreover, Xia (2013, p.1486) notes that women, unlike men, often use so in their speech to emphasise emotional charge of the utterance: “It’s so not ideal!” (Liv). Another finding is the frequent use of diminutives by the female characters: there are often such words as sweetie and honey, and they are mostly uttered by the women. In addition, there is also an example of a typical discrepancy in perception and description of colours: as women are believed to have a special feminine vocabulary of colour words, Liv uses words Canary Song and Dandelion to denote different shades of yellow. On the other hand, the men’s vocabulary in the film is marked by word economy and plainer vocabulary. However, there is an episode when Fletcher replies in a rather feminine manner using an adverb incredibly: “I’m incredibly concerned with our couple style”. Although this expression is quite atypical for a man, it becomes clear that he simply mocks his fiancée.

The language of the film characters reveals differences in syntax, too. First of all, the female characters – and especially more feminine Emma – tend to use modulation in their speech: their utterances are often interrupted by such elements as I think…, well…, kind of… and maybe. Furthermore, “women use more interrogative sentences than men do” (Xia, 2013, p.1486), and the evidence from the researched film prove it. Liv and Emma use a lot of interrogative structures for different purposes: reassuring themselves (Liv: I never get a sympathy vote, do I?; Emma: I am a bride, too. Okay?); expressing anger and discontent (Liv: What is that? What is that?); and even answering questions (Liv: Will you stand there with me? – Emma: Where else would I be?).

Furthermore, male speakers in the film tend to use less grammatically correct language structures, while “women pay more attention to the correctness of syntax” (Xia, 2013, p.1487). The following are the examples of ‘male’ syntax from the film:

Nate: How you doing, Emm? How you feeling?

Daniel: Yo, Fletch. No, nothin’ much.

Fletcher: I don’t know, baby. Dance class?

The male characters put less emotions into their utterances, tend to talk less and discuss the issues at hand pragmatically: such approach is observed in the phone conversation between Fletcher and Daniel. On the other hand, women’s approach to syntax is also demonstrated by the use of repeated syntactic structures which serve to emphasise emotional colouring of the utterance. There are examples of such expressions:

Emma: Not this time. No. No. No.

Emma: It’s too cruel. It’s too mean-spirited.

Emma: I’m hurt. I’m very hurt, Liv.

Liv: What is that? What is that?

Conclusion

Gender differences in language are socially constructed just like gender itself is; and gender roles leave imprints on the way men and women speak. The present research demonstrates the typical gender differences in language use as they are reflected in popular culture and the casual conversations of the movie characters. Thereby, the female and male speakers have been proved to use different approaches to vocabulary, pragmatic function of language, syntax and ways of expressing emotions by linguistic means. Based on the research evidence, one could conclude that women are characterised by greater language proficiency, high emotionality of utterances, more elaborate lexical choices, stricter adherence to syntax rules and lesser pragmatism.

Reference List

Baranauskienė, R., & Adminienė, V. (2012). GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE LANGUAGE OF E. HEMINGWAY'S FICTION. Gender Studies & Research, 10111-118.

Cornett, H. E. (2014). "Gender Differences in Syntactic Development Among English Speaking Adolescents." Student Pulse, 6(03). Retrieved from http://www.studentpulse.com/a?id=875

Hailiang, N., Xue, D., & Fachun, Z. (2010). On Gender Difference in English Language and Its Causes. Asian Social Science, (2), 126-130.

Malkawi, A. H. (2011). Males' and Females' Language in Jordanian Society. Journal Of Language Teaching & Research, 2(2), 424-427. doi:10.4304/jltr.2.2.424-427

Mayor, B. (1996). English in the repertoire. In Mercer, N. & Swann, J. (Eds.) Learning English: Development and Diversity. Psychology Press, 46-84.

Wood, J. T. (2013). Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender and Culture. Cengage Learning. Retrieved May 21, 2016 from http://www.cengagebrain.com.au/content/9781133752578.pdf

Xia, X. (2013). Gender Differences in Using Language. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 3, 8, pp. 1485-1489. Retrieved May 21, 2016 from http://www.academypublication.com/issues/past/tpls/vol03/08/28.pdf