A Research on Female Language and Culture

黃秀娟

【Abstract】As a carrier of ideas and the most important communication tool，Language reflects the speaker's attitude and perspective inevitably.The paper tries to find sex prejudice through English language and delineates the cultural and social origin of these phenomena by making a analysis of female language.

【Key words】Language；Culture；Female language

1 The relation between language and culture

Language is an indispensable carrier of culture.Culture finds a better representation through language use.A joint study of these two subjects will definitely broaden the horizon of human knowledge in general and enrich the research of these sciences in particular.This correlation highlights the pursuit of the relationship between the two and makes this practice something both fascinating and challenging.

2 The characteristics of female language

Female language has its unique usage whether spoken or written language.Especially among spoken，it is almost can be studied as Black English which is researched as a unique social dialect.

2.1 Choices and appearance frequency of entry

Some English words are female proprietary，these words are "men should not，dare not，do not want to use.” For example，women are good at using some color words which are brought from the French to accurately describe colors， like aquamarine，azure，beige，lavender，mauve，taupe，etc.Men seldom use these words.

2.2 Grammar---- syntactic structure

According to some language materials analysis，it shows that women are more frequent use the following structure：

1）Adjustment structure.Which is commonly known as hedges，Women‘s linguistic behavior is more indirect and， hence，more polite than mens.including some ambiguous words（e.g.，I suppose，I think.Im afraid that，Im not sure that）

2）Tag questions.Use tag questions to express strong questioning flavor，to avoid too direct，too sure.

2.3 Voice--tone

1）Voice.The analysis of some recording materials （especially informal conversation） showed that the pronunciation of women is more standard than men.

2）Tone.Womens pitch is higher than men，in fact， thats because of physiological factors，but usually with the quality of the "cowardly" and emotional instability

3 The reasons for the differences

As mens muscle is more developed than women， and they dont need give a birth，so they take on hunting，farming's role，the body of women is frail，need to give a birth，so taking care of children，looking after home， collecting food.At that time，the roles of male and female are different，but no one have higher value than the other.endprint

The so-called "men go to work and women stay home." The outside world is essentially the male world， men go out to work.In a large sense，man can rule a large country，in a small sense；man can support the family，make a living for the family.While women's activities generally confined to the family.

The differences of social division are also reflected in the culture.Men Create outer World，creating art （Michelangelo），literature （Shakespeare），Science （Edison）， philosophy （Socrates），men create even manipulate Language.In fact，the "Bible" clearly declared that "man creates the world"，Man （Adam） first come to the world while woman made from a rib of mans.Woman is created only as a need to meet the satisfaction of man.

4 Conclusion

Language is part of the culture，is the carrier of culture；culture is made of inside information of the language.Gender differences have long been discovered by people in English language. Female language has its unique usage whether spoken or written language.

【Reference】

[1]Lakoff，R.Language and Womens plao[M].Harperand Row Publishers，1988.

[2]戴偉棟.《言語性別差異分析綜述》，《上海外國語大學學報》，1983（6）.

[3]楊紅梅.英語性別歧視現象分析和研究[J].陜西理工學院學報，2006（2）.endprint