Gender and careful linguistic behaviour
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Date
2012
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Publisher
University of Management and Technology
Abstract
The research aims at investigating the gender differences with specific reference to careful language use. It is designed to examine the linguistic behavior of females in comparison with males keeping in view five linguistic variables. These are: hyper correct grammar, hedges, words spoken in Italics, special linking words in Urdu language and modal verbs. Data for this research was taken from television, eight programs based on talk shows and panel discussions were recorded to generate data with the help of content analysis. The quantitative analysis aimed at enlisting the frequencies of under examined linguistic variables. Chi square test was used to find out differences in frequencies after getting the mean of specific linguistic items of each linguistic variable. The qualitative analysis discussed the context and function of linguistic variables. It also examined the linguistic variation with respect to gender dialogues and their feelings. There was found significant difference in the use of hypercorrect grammar. Females seem to use hypercorrect grammar more frequently than males. As a result, there is found phonological variation of glottal sound /h/ in specific linguistic items. It has been eliminated when it is used after three consonant sounds. /r/, /b/ and /n/. Both genders are using both forms of these grammatical particles with glottal sound and without glottal sound. This variation is found with significant difference on both inter speaker and intra speaker level. Besides this, there is also meaningful difference of other four linguistic variables. Although, it cannot be said as significant difference due to small corpus. The difference will be significant with this application on large corpus. Besides the gender differences in language use, the research will provide more awareness of the use of Urdu language in Pakistani community and its change and variation in terms of its speaker's usage. It will also prove an effort contributory to the planning and development of Urdu language.
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Keywords
M. Phil program, Linguistics, English Language, Hyper Correct Grammar, Hedges