Linguistics – What's true about "genderlects"?

It’s well known that people coming from, and/or living in, different regions or countries speak different “versions” (varieties) of one and the same language. These kinds of varieties are commonly referred to as dialects.

But variation may also depend on other social factors. For example, people from different social classes or professions often speak differently, too. Or you might have noticed that your grandparents use words or phrases that simply don’t exist in “your” language – you might not even be sure what they actually mean. Language variation, then, partly depends on age as well. More generally, such varieties are known as sociolects.

What’s more controversial is the assumption that women and men (and other genders) also use different varieties (sometimes called genderlects). Differences in such varieties are less about the language system (pronunciation or grammar), but rather concern language use, which includes topics of conversation, speech acts (e.g. use of apologies, compliments, questions), and conversational behavior (e.g. politeness, directness, interrupting).

The reason why this assumption is still debated is that claims regarding genderlects are often premised on stereotypes rather than on valid research. Such stereotype-based claims tend to see women’s language as problematic (too talkative, too irrational, too superficial, too insecure, etc.).

Which of the following stereotypes about male and female language have been supported by studies?

Research appears to support the assumption that men try to gain control over communication, which includes the interruption of others. The question here, however, is whether this is really a consequence of gender or whether it intersects with other features such as social status (i.e. men of high social status interrupt, but not men of lower social status).

Although the evidence is not comprehensive and not fully convincing, some studies suggest that women use politeness strategies more often than men, especially giving compliments – to both men and other women – more often.

The question here is whether this is a consequence of gender or whether it intersects with other features (e.g. power). Interestingly, while men do not normally compliment other men on their appearance, they do compliment them on property (e.g. cars, houses) and they do praise their achievements.

Most studies examining conversations between men and women suggest that, contrary to common belief, men tend to talk more than women. However, research that compares estimates of speaking times by participants with objectively measured speaking times has shown that women are perceived as talking more than they actually do.

It is a common stereotype that women are difficult to understand for men and that men who can understand what women want enjoy a special status, which is reflected in the – slightly derogatory – German term Frauenversteher.

Due to the vagueness of what understand means, however, this assumption would be very difficult to research and so there have not been studies supporting it.

There does not seem to be systematic evidence supporting this assumption, even though some studies focusing on individual examples (rather than taking a wider perspective) suggest that there could be some truth to the claim.

Studies focusing on this question have not produced convincing evidence that women do in fact use all forms of taboo language less often. There is a common stereotype that women are not supposed to do this, which might influence our perception.
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