Gender identity and language usages in masculine-feminine discourse

Abstract

By exploring and categorizing the
different theoretical backgrounds which have been
developed over the years in the area of gender and
language into three major models, this paper argues
that to provide interpretations that move beyond the
cultural dichotomies of male and female, it is
necessary to take the contextual factors such as tasks
into account since the three models: (1) deficit; (2)
dominance; and (3) the sub-culture difference that
emphasized the linguistic and cultural factors, were
problematic to interpret language differences among
genders.
The statistics analysis in this study showed that
female students employed masculine (classical)
writing style as frequently and skillfully as male
students when they wrote argumentative texts, yet,
female students used feminine writing features more
frequent than male students when they wrote
narrative texts. This result, which indicated that
language differences connected more with different
tasks than gender, may help shift sex-stereotypes
mandates toward a cultural equality.