Ana Misir

DIPLOMSKI RAD
 Ana Misir

DIPLOMSKI RAD
Abstract

Language is used for communicative purposes, it is the main way of communication and
social interaction among people. It also has another important role, which is to establish and
maintain relationships among people. People use language to express their feelings,
emotions, opinions about things in the real world, which make them happy or annoy them.
Two people can speak about the same situation in the world, but their stories could be
completely different and unrelated to each other. That all depends on a person's character
and his desires, how this situation affects a certain person. The Different approach supports
the idea that male and female have different lifestyles, simply in communications and other
ways of interaction. What means that they use language for different outcomes. They can use
the other sex's dialect only when they are telling a story or a joke, in defined circumstances.

Key words: language, women, men, the world, culture, students

 SADRŽAJ:

1. INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................1

1.1. Subject and goal of the work...........................................................................................2

1.2. Data sources and collection methods...............................................................................2

1.3. Content and structure of work..........................................................................................2

2. SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND GENDER..........................................................................5

2.1. GENDER.............................................................................................................................7

2.1.1 LANGUAGE USE AND GENDER..................................................................................9

2.2. DIFERENCES IN GRAMMAR........................................................................................12

3. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MALE AND FEMALE SPEECH..................................15

3.1 VOCABULARY DIFFERENCES.....................................................................................17

4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...................................................................................24

5. RESEARCH RESULTS................................................................................................26

6. ZAKLJUČAK................................................................................................................37

LITERATURA.........................................................................................................................39

POPIS TABLICA.....................................................................................................................41

POPIS ILUSTRACIJA.............................................................................................................42

ATTACHMENT.......................................................................................................................43
 1. INTRODUCTION
Let's start from the fact that the share of women in the world population shows that the
numbers are equal: half half. However, in various spheres of life about equality still no
speech. When it comes to language, things are not even close equality, which says more about
us, that is, about our opinion, than about the language itself. The question is, therefore, in
which way women appear in language, how they speak and how they behave in conversation
men. Are they subordinate in communication with men and, if they are, how does it happen?
It doesn't matter how someone or something is called or denoted. In any language. And that's
really not news. But the fact is that if we consistently try to use the feminine gender,
especially if we language means leave that possibility.

Language is used for communicative purposes, it is the main way of communication and
social interaction among people. It also has another important role, which is to establish and
maintain relationships among people. Edward Sapir once stated that 'language is a purely
human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means
of a system of voluntarily produced symbols' (1921: 7). Man cannot be wrong with any
definition that concerns language. So, the study that deals with the connection between
language and society and the way people use language in different social situations is called
sociolinguistics (Crossman, 2021). Language needs to be standardized to become a legal or
official language in the country. Conventional forms of language, for example dialect or a
variety, are maintained and established through the process. Different cultural, political, social
and religious motivations induce the process of the language standardization, which are later
promoted mostly through the written form, but it also has a little influence on the spoken
language. Standardization is then more concerned with the lexical, morphological and
syntactical features of the certain language. The way in which men and women speak
becomes more interesting for scientists to investigate. People use language to express their
feelings, emotions, opinions about things in the real world, which make them happy or annoy
them. Two people can speak about the same situation in the world, but their stories could be
completely different and unrelated to each other. That all depends on a person's character and
his desires, how this situation affects a certain person. This kind of difference or inequity is
likely to happen in the areas of sexism that exists in most societies. The paper will discuss the
use of language by women and men, its similarities and differences, as well as the role of
women in the world and language.

1
 1.1. Subject and goal of the work

The goals of this work are:

1. First goal of the research is to examine the difference in male and female speech of the
English language students at the University of Mostar, whether women use language in a
politer and more correct way than men.

2. The second goal of the research is to compare the results of male and female use of
hedges, special adjectives and question tags in the communication.

3. Third goal of the research is to examine if women are less prone to profane and
obscene language than men.

1.2. Data sources and collection methods

Primary data representing the basis for empirical research were collected in the period from
August 2022 to August 2022. A random sampling method was used in the research, and a
survey method was used for data collection. The respondents are students of English language
and literature at the University of Mostar. Respondents filled out an electronic questionnaire
that consisted of two parts. Data were collected from 41 respondents. The analysis of the
collected data was carried out using the SPSS 19.0 statistical package (The Statistical Package
for the Social Sciences). Of the statistical methods of data analysis, descriptive statistical
analysis was implemented in this paper.

Respondents were asked closed-ended questions. In the first part, these are questions that
enable the demographic characteristics of the respondents to be identified (gender, age
structure, level of education). The second part of the questionnaire contained questions related
to respondents who speak the language, as well as factors that can determine the impact of
language use.

1.3. Content and structure of work

The paper will be designed so that it consists of three chapters with the following potential
content:

2
1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Subject and goal of the work

1.2. Data sources and collection methods

1.3. Content and structure of work

2. SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND GENDER

2.1 GENDER

2.1.1 LANGUAGE USE AND GENDER

2.2. DIFERENCES IN GRAMMAR

3. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MALE AND FEMALE SPEECH

3.1 VOCABULARY DIFFERENCE

4. METODOLOGIJA

5. ANALIZA I DISKUSIJA

6. ZAKLJUČAK

LITERATURA

POPIS TABLICA

POPIS ILUSTRACIJA

In the first chapter of the work, the language will be presented first. Analysis of variance is a
statistical method that examines the significance of the difference in the average values of
several populations. That examination is reduced to monitoring the influence of one or more
factors on the variability of the observed phenomenon. Analysis of variance with two factors
affects the variations in observations, because each of the factors affects the variability of the
given phenomenon through the level of the given factors and their combination. In a two-
factor analysis, each factor can be random or fixed. Variance analysis is widely used in
research, so this part of the paper will also provide an overview of the application of this
method in practice.

The second chapter of this thesis will be devoted to Differences between male and female
speech, Vocabulary differences, Differences in grammar, as well as Use of special adjectives
and question tags.

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In the third chapter of this thesis, the thinking of the old Robin Lakoff will be presented, as
well as a little general information about the roles of women in the world and language.

The results of the research will be presented in the fourth part. The simple random sample, on
which the research is based, included 41 respondents. The survey questionnaire consisted of
20 questions, which covered key aspects for analysis.

In the conclusion of the master's thesis, the results of the research will be summarized and the
conclusions related to the initial hypotheses will be explained.

4
 2. SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND GENDER

Language is used for communicative purposes, it is the main way of communication and
social interaction among people. It has also another important role, which is to establish and
maintain the relationships among people. Edward Sapir once stated that 'language is a purely
human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means
of system of voluntarily produced symbols’ (1921: 7). Man cannot be wrong with any
definition that concerns language. So, the study that deals with the connection between
language and society and the way people use language in different social situations is called
sociolinguistics (Crossman, 2021). It consists of two words: ‘socio’ which comes from the
word sociology and ‘linguistics’, what means that there is a society on one hand and language
on the other hand. The principles of sociolinguistics give importance to two things: variability
of language and multiplicity of language forms. Variability of language represents the
existence of many languages around the world (e.g. French, German, Spanish), whereas
multiplicity of language forms means that one language has different variations or dialects
that will be mentioned in this chapter (e.g. variations of English: American English, British
English, Scottish English). Micro- and macro-sociolinguistics can be differentiated. Micro-
sociolinguistics deals with understanding the social aspect of the language and its variations.
On the other side macro-sociolinguistics is called sociology of the language. It deals with the
question what societies do with their language in terms of age, gender, social class.
Sociolinguistics is a very broad field that study language. It is about how individual, or group
of people use language differently in different social situations, how different social factors,
such as gender, ethnicity, age or social class affect the language. The aim of the sociolinguists
is to find out how the social environment of people shape the language they use. Holmes
(1992, p. 16) says that ‘the sociolinguist’s aim is to move towards a theory which provides a
motivated account of the way language is used in a community, and of the choices people
make when they use language.’ According to him the purpose of this study is to find out what
the variations in the language that people use can tell us about the speakers of the certain
language. For example, if people use some words that are specific for a certain area, you can
immediately know where they are from, or where they have spent a certain period of their
lives. Language variation is a variety of a language, spoken in one particular part of the

5
country. The father of the variation sociolinguistics is called William Labov. Sociolinguistics
is a systematic study of both, language and society. According to Coulmas (1997, p. 3):

There is no sharp dividing line between the two, but a large area of common concern. Although
sociolinguistic research centers about a number of different key issues, any rigid micro–macro
compartmentalization seems quite contrived and unnecessary in the present state of knowledge about
the complex interrelationships between linguistic and social structures. Contributions to a better
understanding of language as a necessary condition and product of social life will continue to come
from both quarters.1

Language is not uniform or constant, it is varied. The variation of the language depends
on the individual user of the language or the group of speakers. In different social situations
people speak in different ways, depending on whom they are with, whether they are talking
with their friend, with a child or with their boss. This social variation depends then on social
factors that are the ethnicity, age, gender of the participant. Many people are not aware of
their word choice during the communication with their friends, but on the other hand when
they talk to their boss they briefly and carefully choose the words. However, what is
concerned in this paper is how language varieties and patterns that people use correlate with
social attributes such as class, sex and age. Besides these variations, sociolinguists also study
dialect that is social, ethnic or regional variation of the language. People could speak the same
language and do not necessary need to understand each other. The reason of that is that people
may speak different dialect of that language. Each of the dialects is mutually intelligible with
the next dialect. In the world exist a lot of variations of English language, and each of that
variation has its own characteristics and features, for example different pronunciation or
different grammar rules. People who speak different varieties also use different vocabulary
which is characteristic only for their variety. For example, in American English they say fall,
apartment, vacation, closet, while in British English they use another words: autumn, flat,
holiday, wardrobe. Sociolinguistics study many other issues. People can also have a different
accent of a particular language. It often has a negative connotation, because some people are
embarrassed to talk because they have a certain accent. Despite their embarrassment everyone
who speaks any language needs to have an accent. Accents are not just regionally determined,
they can be also socially determined. The study takes place in the language standardization,
language behaviour, and educational and governmental policies concerning language.
Wardhaugh (2006) defines language standardization as “The process by which a language has

1
Coulmas, F. (ed.) (1997). The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell

6
been codified in some way. That process usually involves the development of such things as
grammars, spelling books, and dictionaries, and possibly a literature”. 2 Language needs to be
standardized to become legal or official language in the country. Conventional forms of
language, for example dialect or a variety, are maintained and established through the process.
Different cultural, political, social and religional motivations induce the process of the
language standardization, which are later promoted mostly through the written form, but it has
also a little bit influence on the spoken language. Standardization is then more concerned with
the lexical, morphological and syntactical features of the certain language. The support of
various public agencies, mass media and many people who use lower-class speech are
necessary for establishing the process of language standardization. Furthermore, the questions
that could be investigated or examined by using this study, sociolinguistics, are, for example,
what features of certain variety are being used by a group of teenagers?; which words people
pronounce differently according to age, gender, level of education?; do women use more
euphemisms than men? what are the different meanings of a certain word in other varieties?
and many other questions.

2.1. GENDER
The most interesting topic in the sociolinguistic, and also the major topic, is the connection
between vocabulary and ways of using particular languages by women and men all around the
world. Mostly, there exists a lot of differences in female and male use of particular languages.
Differences occur in the vocabulary they use, sentence structures, and even in the ways they
relate to each other. These issues have prompted numerous discussions among sociolinguists,
but also other scientists. Many of these discussions are still open and without any conclusion.
Firstly, gender refers to the features of women and men being who they are, and their
characteristics which are norms, behaviour, feelings and relationship between women and
men. As Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003, p. 50) say: ‘The force of gender categories in
society makes it impossible for us to move through our lives in a nongendered way and
impossible not to behave in a way that brings out gendered behavior in others.’ Furthermore,
Schilling (2011) elaborates that gender is not simply to a biological or physiological sex. It is
more than a complicated construct of sociocultural and socio-psychological aspects. (provjerit

2
(PDF) Language Standarization In General Point of View. Available from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329967792_Language_Standarization_In_General_Point_of_View
[accessed Aug 23 2022].

7
ovaj citat) Gender is a key component of identity. The term 'sex' is replaced with the term
'gender':

In the early 1970s, ‘gender’ was a linguistic category referring to a morphological characteristic of
nouns, and sociolinguists referred to sex differences. So linguistic analysis was oriented to the binary
male/female, a binary based on biology. But by the late 1980s linguists and discourse analysts had
adopted the new term ‘gender’ from the social sciences, and with it a new understanding that gender
was not a given, but was culturally constructed and malleable. 3

In this chapter some of the characteristics of both gender will be briefly explained, and later in
this paper differences between female and male speech will be discussed.

In English language ‘he’ and ‘she’ are used as pronouns for man and woman. There are also
some words which can be related with females and males, for example ‘boyfriend’ and
‘girlfriend’, ‘actor’ and ‘actress’, ‘waiter’ and ‘waitress’, ‘rooster’ and ‘hen’. On the other
side, there are a lot of words from which people cannot conclude whether a person is talking
about a man or a woman, for example friend, parent, child, cousin. Nowadays, people are
increasingly showing themselves to be neutral gender. Apart from the language point of view
women and men have their roles in households and everyday lives. These roles are some
kinds of stereotypes of men and women. Woman needs to keep house tidy and clean, do the
laundry and dishes, prepare food for family, and above all of that woman needs to look nice.
While on the other side man is mostly the head of the house and he has the last word in the
house. It is humiliating for men to do the women job in the house, they are immediately called
a henpecked person, a person who is controlled by and a little bit frightened of his wife. So,
the gender is what people do and how they behave in their lives. A little boy is doing his best
to become a man like his father. He watches football games, plays football, helps his dad to
fix the faucet. On the other side a little girl is imitating her mother and repeating each her act.
She dresses like her mother, puts on her mother’s high-heeled shoes, drinks coffee like her
mother or in another words, she behaves like a woman. From the earliest childhood little boys
and girls are doing things which show what their gender is. According to Eckert and
McConnel-Ginet (2003) ‘Gender builds on biological sex, it exaggerates biological difference
and, indeed, it carries biological difference into domains in which it is completely irrelevant.'
Nowhere in the world exists a law that women should put make-up and have red toe-nails and
men should not. Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000) sums up the situation as follows:

3
Gee, J.P., Handford, M. (2013). The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Routledge.

8
labeling someone a man or a woman is a social decision. We may use scientific knowledge to help us
make the decision, but only our beliefs about gender -- not science -- can define our sex. Furthermore,
our beliefs about gender affect what kinds of knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first place.
(p. 3)

Gender as a social construction helps society to adjust the differentiation between masculine,
feminine and neuter gender. People are developing their gender through their lives, not only
in their childhood. During their lives people are conditioned and prompted to behave
according to their gender There are many obstacles on their life journies which characterize
their gender. When it comes to the thing which person first notices about someone when he
met him for the first time is not the T-shirt he wears, or the colour of his eyes. Despite that the
first thing a person notices about someone in their first meeting is a person's gender, whether
the person is a male or a female. This thing is so obvious that no one thinks about it in that
way as a basic difference. Socialization is important thing concerning gender. Particular
society or culture trains men and women to behave in a certain manner. In some societies men
are trained to behave more aggressively and superior to women, while in other societies men
are trained to behave more carefully and with empathy towards women. At the end an
individual by himself needs to make a decision in which way he will portray his gender to the
world. Gender is closely tied with the identity and identity construction, so that every
individual is very unique.

2.1.1 LANGUAGE USE AND GENDER

The relationship between language use and gender can be divided into two parts: How
language is used to talk about men and women? and How men and women use language?
When it comes to the language that is used to talk about men and women three categories can
be discussed: vocabulary, grammatical structures, and discourse patterns. Rudolf Virchow, an
eminent nineteenth-century physician and pathologist said: ‘woman is a pair of ovaries with a
human being attached; whereas man is a human being furnished with a pair of testes’ (Dally,
1991: 84). Women were not treated well before. They were treated in the way they are
possessing less moral depts and are less competent than men. Women's achievements were
belittled, because women are not men, no matter how intelectually capable they are, they are
not worth of the praise. All these things set the stereotypes about women as vulnerable, weak,
and unreliable creatures. When it comes to vocabulary that is used when talking about men
and women, people use a lot of instult terms, different titles for them. Insult terms that people
9
use for men are mostly about their intelectual capability, their physical strength and their
masculinity. On the other side insult terms for women are mostly about their sexuality.
Example that concerns titles that we put in front of a male name is Mr. However, there is a
different usage when it comes to women because women have three titles: Miss., Mrs., Ms.,
Miss. and Mrs. are used to indicate marital status; a female using title Miss. is not married,
while a female using a title Mrs. is married, and at the end Ms. is a title that is used for all
women. So the difference that is seen here is that women have more titles which differentiate
their maritial status, while men have only one. Titles like Dr., judge, president are generic
titles that are used equally for men and women. Sherry Ortner’s (1996) interesting assertion
that culture and construction are essentially male, while women are somehow more ‘natural’,
is also relevant here. Particular words that are usually positively takes on negative connotation
in specific situations and this is called semantic derogation. For example, word 'gentleman' is
superior to the word 'lady', and is usually used to describe a person in a positive manner. But
that is not the case for the word 'lady'. In certain situations the term 'lady' takes on negative
connotations, for example the term 'lady of the night' is used to indicate a prostitute, another
example is 'cleaning lady' which is used indicating someone who has been cleaning houses
and has a lower status in society or in economic way. Another example of semantic
derogation are terms 'bachelor' and 'spinster'. The term 'bachelor' is used to describe a single
attractive man and the term 'spinster' is used to describe a single woman with so much
negative connotation. People hearing that term immediately think of a woman who is very
old, eccentric and not considered successful, living with a lot of cats and do not have a social
life. Another term which is used by the term 'spinster' is a term 'bachelorette'. This term does
not have a strong negative connotation, it is used when talking about younger, less mature
women. When we turn to certain grammatical matters in English, we find that Brend (1975)
claims that the intonation patterns of men and women vary somewhat, women using certain
patterns associated with surprise and politeness more often than men. When people talk about
men and women at the discourse level, discours about men and women can be divided into
two categories. One categories deals with the words that are strung together to talk about men
and women and the other category is multimodal communication that is a combination of text
or words and pictures used to communicate about men and women. Multimodal
communication can be seen in the TV and internet advertisements. 'Be a Real Santa Claus to
the Wife' is one of the old advertisements fo washmaschines. If a man wanted to be a good
husband, his task was to buy her a washmaschine, so that she does not need to wash the
laundry with her hands anymore. This advertisement can also serve as an example of men's

10
superiority over women, who were placed in the households. So, there exists a lot of
discourses about women as housekeepers, cleaning ladies. Women were targets of
housekeeping goods and services. Furthermore, stereotypes appear early in life. Best et al.
(1977) found that, among 5- and 8-year-old children in the United States, Ireland and
England, knowledge of traditional sex-trait stereotypes was already well developed. The
children were asked different questions about male and female, one of which was 'Who cries
when something good happens or something went wrong?' When it comes to the results of the
research, they were very clear and from them people could conclude that stereotypes are
present from early childhood. It was clear that women are more gentle, emotional and
passionate, and that men are strong and more dominant than women. Studies of language and
gender often use two models or paradigms – that of Dominance and that of Difference. The
Dominance approach proposes that men are naturally more dominant than women, that can be
obtained through speech patterns or behaviour towards or around women. This theory also
states that women act in a less dominant way around men. The Different approach supports
the idea that male and female have different lifestyles, simply in communications and other
ways of interaction. What means that they use language for different outcomes. They can use
the other sex's dialect only when they are telling a story or a joke, in defined circumstances.
Australian aboriginal language has different dialects for each gender, different class-markings
prefixes on nouns, verbs, and pronouns. According to Bradley (1998), men use one dialect
among themselves and women use the other. Men also use men’s dialect to speak to women
and women use women’s dialect to speak to men. Another example is Dyirbal, where one
variety may be forbidden or taboo to one gender, and mostly to the female gender. The taboos
are mostly connected with the relationships and some religious practices. The language and
gender field consists of two main strands, first of which was developed as a part of
quantitative sociolinguistics. Having analysed the co-variations of language scientists began
to notice the gender differences in the language. 4 Peter Trudgill (1974, 1983), for example,
examining the pronunciation of a wide range of speakers living in Norwich, UK, realized that
women and men of the same social class patterned differently. Women on average used forms
closer to Standard English, while male speakers used a higher proportion of vernacular forms.
Trudgill found out in his research that the use of non-standard forms of language are not only
connected with the working-class speakers, but also with the male speakers. Within English
language are sex differences much smaller and less obvious. There surely exists a number of
certain words and phrases that are considered as male or female, and it also includes taboo
4
Gee, J.P., Handford, M. (2013). The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Routledge.

11
words. In this culture and society it is more acceptable for men to swaer more than women.
But the differences between male and female speech are mostly phonetic and phonological,
what will be discussed in the following chapter.

2.2. DIFERENCES IN GRAMMAR

Except for the fact that the noun that denotes it is masculine gender (in our language), the
question arises whether language has gender? Linguists have long established that language
reflects the patriarchal the structure of society, that is, that in languages that distinguish the
system gender, as in those without grammatical gender, is played by unequal treatment of
women. A certain gender is "implied", and that gender is masculine: women, on the other
hand, do not have the same opportunity to "understand" each other their value is reduced
through language, their visibility is limited, and they are latently discriminated against in
language.

Therefore, women are also exposed to violence in language: through language and
relationships within it, a man manifests his power (lovingness) and violence against women,
and oppresses her. Matters are actually even worse: language itself, that is, the language
system is an expression of patriarchal society and puts his stamp on that ruling relationship.
Such astonishing theses were presented by feminist linguists in the 1980s.

The metaphor is powerful - I'm not saying it's equal to beatings, but to say, an example works,
for someone that she is a divorcee (attachment is a female virtue, so it is therefore the
opposite - looseness - sin? Besides, such the qualification of a divorced woman indicates her
own responsibility for the existing situation – someone dissolved it, dismissed it), or sitter
(clearly alludes to the futility of existence - there is no female being purpose if it was not
realized in the marriage union!) is a form of violence.

According to the German feminist linguist, Senta Trömel-Plötz, feminist linguistics was born
when individuals began to critically observe their profession, or, rather, when certain linguists
began to apply feminist ideas on the science they are dealing with. Feminist linguistics first of
all underlines the fact that the generic gender is masculine.5

5
Svenka Savić, "A woman hidden by the language of the media: a code of non-sexist use of language"; p. 6. On
the page http://www.zenskestudie.edu.yu/pages/zenskestudie/
zs_s10/svenka.html

12
 There is too close a connection between (masculine) grammatical and biological gender,
because the semantic origin of most nouns is unambiguously derived from the masculine
gender. Feminist language critics demanded a symmetrical language structure, or at least a
form that would clearly include women. It is a directly political gesture: if you systematically
neutralize someone in language, you are exactly (!) making him invisible. Let's go back to the
psycholinguistic process: on the basis of the expressed, used language material in the process
of verbalization, we can judge the opinion and expect the appropriate reception of the
message by the recipient. There is no room for presumption: "If a person is male, how do we
know that in the author's mind, he is female?" (...) It is not grammatical but extra-
grammatical, more precisely ideological aspects, which are declared to be immanent in the
structure of language, that are hidden". 2 Perhaps that is why it is still important for many
women today that the linguistic embodiment of their positions in society is marked by the
male gender. It is not uncommon to hear from women that they do not think of being MPs,
politicians, engineers or journalists, because that way what they do is devalued. They, for
God's sake, are doing their job as "men". Having chosen a position in a male society, reaching
the mentioned "generic gender", as it were, they seem to be searching some kind of distinction
- to be called MPs, politicians, engineers or journalists. It is usually accompanied by the
remark, "I fought for it myself", that is, "Everything is possible when you want it", as if it
were the principle of equals

possibilities for everything is a completely natural thing, forgetting that she is a mother my
mother could only dream of until the end of World War II about the right to vote, not to
mention the job in the branch of choice.6

Which is why the masculine gender dominates the language, hidden under a cloak of neutral
"human" gender? Most often, one and the same fairy tale is marketed - women are taken for
granted, since women are people too. Another explanation is that language strives for
economy, which means that it has the task of giving birth to an utterance in the optimal, or
minimum number of language units, and se therefore it uses the option of only one gender.
Established linguistics transfers to the feminist-political variant the lack of a scientific
standard: since they pursue a predetermined goal, feminist linguists are unable to engage in
research without prejudice. On the other hand, some parts of the feminist movement criticize
the assumption about the determining influence of language on social reality - it has no basis
6
Svenka Savić, "A woman hidden by the language of the media: a code of non-sexist use of language"; p. 6. On
the page http://www.zenskestudie.edu.yu/pages/zenskestudie/
zs_s10/svenka.html

13
in reality, they say. The neglect of freedom of action and decision-making, which should be
possessed by social actors in relation to language, is considered particularly deficient. One can
often hear that such theses neglect the dialectic of language and social change - language
affects social change, but it still has a stronger effect on language change. Therefore, it is not
language that constructs reality, but rather the speaking subjects. Criticism of the feminist
analysis of communication primarily refers to the fact that the form is forced at the expense of
the content - first of all, it is examined how it is said, but not what is said. Women, therefore,
are not only oppressed through language, but also through the discourse that accompanies it.7

7
Svenka Savić, "A woman hidden by the language of the media: a code of non-sexist use of language"; p. 6. On
the page http://www.zenskestudie.edu.yu/pages/zenskestudie/
zs_s10/svenka.html

14
 3. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MALE AND FEMALE SPEECH

The way in which men and women speak becomes more interesting for scientists to
investigate. People use language to express their feelings, emotions, opinions about things in
the real world, which make them happy or annoy them. Two people can speak about the same
situation in the world, but their stories could be completely different and unrelated to each
other. That all depends on a person's character and his desires, how this situation affects a
certain person. This kind of difference or inequity is likely to happen in the areas of sexism
that exists in most societies. Differences in male and female speech can occur in the structure,
form, vocabulary, syntax. Men and women are brought up in different ways, and because of
that they have different roles in the world what affect their language use. Robin Lakoff (1975)
argued that language is fundamental to gender inequality and it could contribute to the lack of
women's power in two areas – language used about women and the language used by women.
Wardhaugh states that there have been a lot of differences in language used by men and
women, and these differences can be seen in language patterns, ways of interactions, topics or
subjects, and styles of using language. The differences in the language use are accordance
with the statements of Rasekh & Saeb (2015) emphasizing that men and women are also
different in linguistics. Gender differences in the use of linguistic forms exist in any speech
community. People can see exaggerations in TV shows and films about the ways how men
and women use the language. A lot of research on the topic how men and women use the
language is inconclusive. Some scientists states that there exists a lot of differences in male
and female speech, whereas other scentists claim that these differences are not so significant.
The first research that claims there exist differences in male and female speech within English
language consists of five areas. The first area of the research is the verbosity, whether women
speak more than men or men speak more than woman, or there is no difference. Verbosity
depends on the context of the situations. In the certain contexts women are more verbose than
men are, and in other contexts men are more verbose than women. This is closely linked to
the power dynamics, which means more precisely that a person having more power in a
certain situation will probably speak more. So the studies in this case are inconclusive. The
following area of the research is called turn-taking, whether men and women lead the
conversation in a different manner, who mostly leads the conversation. The big question in

15
this area is also who interrupts more, men or women. Studies are here, same as with verbosity,
inconclusive, because it depends on the situation and context. The theme of the conservation
has a big role in these situations. On the other side, personality plays a key role here, whether
a person is talkative or shame and does not like to talk. Back channel support is the area of
research where person can see how much listener encourages a speaker to keep going in
leading a conversation by using active listener strategies, words like 'Oh!', 'interesting',
sentences like 'Really?', 'I did not know that!', eye contact, and different facial expressions.
Through this area of the research should be studied whether men and women support the
speaker in the same or different way. It is shown in the research that women are more
supportive in conversations than men. Since women need that support back, they want that
other people have their support during the conversations. Furthermore, the next area is called
mitigating. It represents when people use different language strategies to either strenghten but
usually weaken the power of the words that people are saying. For example, a person might
do something like hedge or hesitate, or use certainty words in order to mitigate or decrease the
strength or the power of what a person is saying. There are three main strategies that people
use in order to decrease the power of what they say. The first strategy is hedging, or in other
words hesitation. Hedging includes phrases like 'kind of', 'sort of', 'um', etc., so anything that
put any kind of hesitation in the conversation. Another strategy are epistemic modals 'should',
'would', 'could' and 'may' that reduce forcefulness. Words that people can add in such
situations are 'possibly', 'probably'. People with less power in a certain situation mitigate more
than people who have more power in the situation. At the end it could be concluded that the
mititgating is more a power issue rather than the gender issue. The final area of the research is
the use of rising intonation. The rising intonation has been identified by some researchers as a
female language use feature and it is mostly used by women to decrease the strength of what
they are saying. Unlike the other areas in this research, the area of the rising intonation has
clear result which shows that women use it more than men, and particularly female teenagers.
The rising intonation includes a questioning tone or degree of uncertainty to a statement. Men
were discovered as dominant in conversations and to talk more than women in ways such as:

“interruptions (Zimmerman and West 1975; Eakins and Eakins 1976; West & Zimmerman 1983; West 1984)
and simply to talk more than women (Swacker 1975; Eakins and Eakins 1976) In mixed-sex conversations it has
been found that men’s topics are more often pursued, while women play a ‘supportive’ role (Fishman 1978, 5
1983, Leet-Pellegrini 1980)” 8

8
Swann J. in Coates and Cameron 1989: 123

16
3.1 VOCABULARY DIFFERENCES
Our use of language embodies attitudes as well as referential meanings. ‘Woman's language’
has as foundation the attitude that women are marginal to the serious concerns of life, which
are pre-empted by men. The marginality and powerlessness of women is reflected in both the
ways women are expected to speak, and the ways in which women are spoken of. In
appropriate women's speech, strong expression of feeling is avoided, expression of
uncertainty is favored, and means of expression in regard to subject-matter deemed ‘trivial’ to
the ‘real’ world are elaborated. Speech about women implies an object, whose sexual nature
requires euphemism, and whose social roles are derivative and dependent in relation to men.
The personal identity of women thus is linguistically submerged; the language works against
treatment of women, as serious persons with individual views. These aspects of English are
explored with regard to lexicon (color terms, particles, evaluative adjectives), and syntax (tag-
questions, and related aspects of intonation in answers to requests, and of requests and
orders), as concerns speech by women. Speech about women is analyzed with regard to lady :
woman, master : mistress, widow : widower, and Mr : Mrs., Miss, with notice of differential
use of role terms not explicitly marked for sex (e.g. professional) as well. Some suggestions
and conclusions are offered for those working in the women's liberation movement and other
kinds of social reform; second language teaching; and theoretical linguistics. Relevant
generalizations in linguistics require study of social mores as well as of purely linguistic data.

It would be completely strange when men and women could not be able to understand each
other, even though when they are speaking the same language. Jespersen (1922) theorised that
novels written by women are easier to read as they use simpler words and terminology.
According to him women had a preference for veiled and indirect expressions which preclude
them from being as effective as men. Here can be seen a men's superior role over the women,
and how little importante were women at that time. A contemporary report (from the
seventeenth century) says:

The men have a great many expressions peculiar to them, which the women understand but never pronounce
themselves. On the other hand the women have words and phrases which the men never use, or they would be

17
laughed to scorn. Thus it happens that in their conversations it often seems as if the women had another language
than the men.9

Various findings within a speech community find out that women's speech is more standard
than the speech men use. According to those findings women tend to use more standard form
of language because of their status as a less secure person in the community. They tend to
express themselves by using this form of language. Women are not allowed to do certain
things or to speak in a certain way as if men do. They will be punished, disrespected, and
ostracized. For example, little girl who talks rough and bad as a boy will be made fun of since
she is a girl and cannot speak like a boy, or punished by her parents and teachers because she
needs to behave nice and polite in the society.

The share of women in the world population shows that the numbers are equal: half and half.
However, in various spheres of life about equality there is still no speech. When it comes to
language, things are not even close equality, which says more about us, that is, about our
opinion, than about the language itself. The question is, therefore, in which way women
appear

in language, how they speak and how they behave in conversation tomboy. Are they
subordinate in communication with men and, if they are, how does it happen? It doesn't
matter how someone or something is called or denoted.

In any language. And that's really not news. On the other hand, if the fact that the noun that
denotes it is masculine (in our language) is excluded, the question arises whether language has
a gender? Linguists have long established that language reflects the patriarchal the structure of
society, that is, that in languages that distinguish the system gender, as in those without
grammatical gender, is played by unequal treatment of women. A certain gender is "implied",
and that gender is masculine: women, on the other hand, do not have the same opportunity to
"understand" each other, and their value is reduced through language, their visibility is

limited, and they are latently discriminated against in language. Therefore, women are also
exposed to violence in language: through language and relationships within it, a man
manifests his power (lovingness) and violence against women, and oppresses her. In fact,
things are even worse: the language itself, that is, the language system is an expression of
patriarchal society and puts his stamp on that ruling relationship. Such astonishing theses

9
Trudgill, P. (2000). Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society. Penguin Books. Fourth Edition.

18
were presented by feminist linguists in the 1980s. The metaphor is powerful - I'm not saying
it's equal to beatings, but it's an example works, for someone who is a divorcee (attachment is
a female virtue, so it is therefore the opposite - looseness - sin? Besides, such the qualification
of a divorced woman refers to her own responsibility for the current situation - someone
dissolved it, dismissed it), or sitter (clearly alludes to the futility of existence - a female being
has no purpose unless it is realized in a marriage union!) is a form of violence. According to
the German feminist linguist, Senta Trömel-Plötz, feminist linguistics was created when
individuals began to critically observe their profession, or, rather, when certain linguists
began to apply feminist

ideas on the science they deal with. Feminist linguistics first of all underlines the fact that the
generic gender is masculine. Analyzing the conversation, feminists put it under the
microscope

the behavior of certain groups or persons during the conversation, that is examined the
different ways in which men and women communicate. Women more often choose wording
that weakens their statements – often by the use of diminutives or relativization, more often
than men, formulate a statement in the form of a question (it seems that..., I would say that...,
isn't it the case that..., ...right?) More often they use forms that take away their value (Oh, I'm
just a housewife..., What do I know..., That's just my idea...). Women use profanity far less
than men; they curse less often and use more appropriate expressions. Women have a
different vocabulary; in areas that traditionally belong to their duties and responsibilities
(household, upbringing

children, fashion), their terms in that sphere are far more precise than those used by men.

Women allow themselves to be interrupted in a conversation much more often than men, they
remain silent more often and longer, they disguise their statements as questions.

All in all, most studies come to the same conclusion: talk women and men is mostly marked
as cooperative, that is the one who avoids conflict (in women) versus the confrontational one

(in men). We have to ask ourselves how the different forms of communication between
women and men are explained - usually existing prejudices are cited, which are transmitted to
them through typically male or typically female socialization, and which is responsible for
behavior in conversation. The following explanation concerns the position of women in
society -

19
in different social situations they are simply deficient (!). In this way, women are assigned a
weak, infantile position in compared to men. So, this also affects their usual approach
communication. In what way does this inequality arise and become a social coercion, and do
changes in the language simultaneously mean that the position of women can also be changed
through them? Has violence against women disappeared, or has it been suppressed, thanks to
the efforts of feminists, or feminist linguists? Representations about the power of language
explain why some linguists believe that by means of language changes they show decisive
honor to women, because they seem to see a more or less strong automaticity of social
changes through language change. However, such automation does not exist. "Language and
woman's place" by Robin Lakoff, published in 1973, is considered one of the key works on
the influence and reflection of gender issues on language. Pointing to the generally accepted
ability of language to reveal the speaker's attitudes and feelings, Lakoff connects the
marginalized position of women in society with her imposed subordinate place in language.

The inequality of women in language is studied in two situations, i.e. in women's speech itself
and in the speech of others about women, finding in both situations a threat to women's
linguistic identity, but also identity in general. Starting from the simple and proven fact that
the same word can sound differently to different speakers, especially when it comes to
emotionally charged areas such as sexism and other forms of discrimination, Lakoff points to
the different linguistic roles of women and men. It also emphasizes the existence of two
language styles, i.e. a neutral, universal language and the language of women. She is often
criticized for such a representation of the female language because it presents it not only as
different from the male, dominant, but also as inferior. In fact, Lakoff shows and describes the
language of the powerless and subordinate, regardless of gender, to which women also
belong.

Lakoff supported her study of gender-colored language with data collected through
introspection, that is, by examining her own speech and the speech of her acquaintances, even
the language of the media, because the language of advertising mirrors the language of the
users of the advertised product. Lakoff analyzes subjective and selected data with his own
intuition. "We may recall that this was not a work of empirical investigation but an example
of feminist folklinguistics, though informed by

the author's linguistic training." (Cameron 1992: 70). However, in addition to the obvious
objections to the methodology of data collection and research, it should be noted that Lakoff

20
is just pointing out the problems of gender and language, that is, he is just forming a gender
theory of language and has no predecessors' works to rely on. Also, she does not have a
specific corpus for finding examples, but has to find and record them herself in her
environment, which is difficult anyway in busy and interrupted oral communication. In the
study of women's speech, Lakoff points out the issue of the light purple wall, that is, the issue
of the women's lexicon, which is more precise in defining what is not considered an important
social topic. Specifying the expression, as opposed to ignoring the present but unimportant in
male communication, paradoxically reduces the social and linguistic prestige of women.
Namely, as men are culturally represented as responsible for socially important decisions,
they do not interfere in those conversations that do not belong to a higher value level, so
women, without the opportunity to participate in these levels, express their views on less
important topics, including the light purple wall .

In order to have the opportunity to be successful and participate in more important

conversations, Lakoff states that, in addition to the feminine language that is imposed on her
from early childhood, a woman must also learn a neutral language and

to become bilingual, which also brings with it numerous problems and increases her
insecurity in speaking. Thus, successful women are forced to transform their language by
adapting it to the language men and thereby further underestimating their own gender in
exchange for success. Because of the advice shown, Lakoff is often criticized because she
suggests changing women's speech instead of giving advice changing unequal language.
According to Lakoff, women are characterized by more polite and moderate speech, while
men express their emotions roughly, without social sanctions. As they cannot fully realize
their emotions, female speakers are in danger of being unable to realize themselves as a
person and of believing that their words do not have the same weight as men's. Lakoff
considers typical feminine words to be "adorable, charming, sweet, lovely, divine" (1973: 51),
while neutral words are "great, terrific, cool, neat" (1973: 51). It is important to pay attention
to the choice that speakers make when expressing themselves, especially if a certain type of
word is used more by one group of people than others, for example, a different social view of
male and female swearing. Of course, it is again about the difference between genders, which
results in different social positions. Many feminists objected to Lakoff's division into male
and female words, i.e. language, because they believe that such a difference further reinforces
the hierarchy between the sexes and makes it difficult for women to occupy an already
marginalized position in society.

21
"The first book to alert linguists to the political implications of sex differences, Robin
Lakoff's 1975 work Language and woman's place, is remarkable for creating a stereotype of
its own – and one not so very different from its overtly chauvinistic precursors." (Cameron
1992 : 43).

Penelope does not directly name Lakoff, but addresses those who study women's language.
"Some people talk about "women's languages", but these aren't languages at all. Rather, they
are social dialects women are taught to speak, and the features characteristic of these woman's
dialects mark us as subordinate to men in the world, as "weak", "passive", "stupid" because
we talk "like a woman". (Penelope 1990: 67) Women can be disenfranchised and humiliated
by language itself. Lakoff points out that women are linguistically discriminated in two ways:
first, they are taught that they must use language, which is only part of the general teaching
about how to become a lady, and second, they are disenfranchised by the way they are treated
in language (cf. Pišković 2014: 145–147). Both methods of linguistic discrimination result in
the disciplining of women's speech and suppression of authentic female verbal behavior, as
well as sending women into submissive positions: they can be either sex objects or maids.
Women speak differently than men because their speech is subject to strict social hygiene,
while men's speech is kept appropriate in its authentic form. Therefore, the way women speak
both reflects and produces their subordinate position in society. Lakoff illustrates the
differences between women's and men's language on the lexical, syntactic and prosodic levels,
never forgetting that the construction of these differences is "managed by the social context -

the social positions of the speaker and interlocutor and the impression they leave on each
other" (see the first chapter of this book). For example, he points out that there are many more
words for colors in women's vocabulary than in men's vocabulary (e.g. lilac, the color fuchsia)
and concludes that this is because men think that the precise distinction of colors in the real
world is trivial and unimportant like many other topics important to women (eg culture and
art). Women's language abounds in modal expressions and intensifiers (really, very, terribly,
really) and grammatical and lexical softeners (I mean, it seems to me, I would say), which
makes him insecure and powerless and disqualifies him from a position of power and
authority. Men are allowed to swear, yell and be angry in public; women are allowed to
complain, object and complain, but they must not lose their temper because that is not
befitting a lady. That's why women are not allowed anything more vulgar than euphemistic
swear words (fall the mouse, kid, go to the goat), which reaffirms that they must learn how a
real lady speaks. More specifically, all women must speak equally and thus erase their own

22
individuality. Furthermore, some adjectives expressing approval or admiration are neutral, so
they can be used by both men and women (excellent, pleasant, good), while others are
allowed only by women (adorable, lovely, divine, cute) and men must avoid them so as not to
would question their masculinity. But this does not mean that the latter adjectives are neutral
in the female language; women can use them both literally and ironically, and men
exclusively ironically, as a confirmation of female triviality and excessive affectivity.The
same lexical unit can refer to both men and women, and at the same time denote them
differently (professional `professional; professional, prostitute'), which can only be argued by
the different social roles of men and women. Lakoff warns of numerous asymmetries between
nouns that denote men and women and that reflect social gender inequality, the silencing of
women in society, and much more aggressive encroachment into the marital, love, sexual and,
in general, private life of women than of men. Even when there are paired nouns for a man
and a woman (e.g. lady `lady' - gentleman `spodin', master `master, teacher, owner, craftsman,
expert' - mistress `mistress, teacher, owner; mistress', spinster `spinster' - bachelor ʻbachelor',
widow ʻwidowica' - widower ʻwidovac' ), feminine nouns often have a derogatory and/or
sexual connotation, while masculine nouns are neutral or even positively intoned. Lakoff adds
to this lexical gender asymmetry the absence of parallelism between the title Mr ``Mr.'' on the
one hand and the titles Mrs ``Ms., Mrs.'' and Miss ``Miss, Miss'' on the other hand. The title
with which we address a woman must give information about whether she is married or
single, because "the opinion formed about a woman's personality and social position largely
depends on her marital status" (see Lakoff, first chapter of this book). Although already in
February 1972, the US Government Printing Office approved the use of the neutral title Ms in
government documents, Lakoff maintains that language changes will not bring equality until
"the status of women in society changes, which will guarantee her that her identity is based on
one's own achievements". Therefore, a part of the discriminatory language forms that prevent
women from having an equal position in the language that they use has been presented
previously. Such language imbalance places real life imbalance and inequality at the center of
the problem. It is not enough to replace the existing ones discriminatory language forms more
acceptable because they are only external symptoms of the problem, but its center needs to be
changed. Of course, with changes in society, there will also be a change in such forms, which
will then not be imposed and artificial, but a reflection of a more equal society. Throughout
his work, Lakoff emphasizes the change of only necessary and critical forms, that is, what can
be changed at this moment.

23
24
 4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The implementation of this research is based on the following hypotheses (research

questions):

Hypotheses:

1. Differences in speech between male and female at the English department of the
University of Mostar exists. Women tend to use language in a politer and more correct
way than men.
2. Women use more hedges, special adjectives (e.g. lovely, charming) and question tags
than men.
3. Women are less prone to profane and obscene language than men.

Goals:

1. First goal of the research is to examine the difference in male and female speech of the
English language students at the University of Mostar, whether women use language
in a politer and more correct way than men.
2. The second goal of the research is to compare the results of male and female use of
hedges, special adjectives and question tags in the communication.
3. Third goal of the research is to examine if women are less prone to profane and
obscene language than men.

Problems:

1. Determine if there is a difference in speech between male and female at the English
department of the University of Mostar and whether women use language in a politer
and more correct way than men.
2. Determine if there is a difference in use of hedges, special adjectives and question tags
between male and female.
3. Determine if women are less prone to profane and obscene language than men.

25
Realization of the set subject and goal of the research will be made possible by the application
of a number of theoretical and empirical methods, such as:

• method of analysis,
• synthesis method,
• classification method,
• method of induction and deduction,
• comparative method,
• statistical methods – analysis of variance, multivariate analysis of variance.

26
 5. RESEARCH RESULTS

The respondents are students of English language and literature at the University of Mostar.
Respondents filled out an electronic questionnaire that consisted of two parts. Data were
collected from 41 respondents. The analysis of the collected data was carried out using the
SPSS 19.0 statistical package (The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). Of the
statistical methods of data analysis, descriptive statistical analysis was implemented in this
paper.

Respondents were asked closed-ended questions. In the first part, these are questions that
enable the demographic characteristics of the respondents to be identified (gender, age
structure, level of education). The second part of the questionnaire contained questions related
to respondents who speak the language, as well as factors that can determine the impact of
language use.

In a sample of 41 respondents, 34.1% of the respondents were male, 24 were female (65.9%)
and 5 respondents did not answer the question.

Picture 1 Structure of respondents by gender

Source: Author's calculations

27
The answer to the question related to age was given by 41 respondents.

Picture 2 Display of respondents by age

Source: Author's calculations

The youngest respondent was 19 years old. The average age of respondents in the sample is
26.21 years, with the most common age of respondents being 19 years. Half of the total
number of respondents are up to 23 years old, while the other half are older. The average age
deviation of each respondent from the average age in the sample is 10.91 years. The
coefficient of asymmetry is 2.25 and indicates a positive asymmetry in the distribution of
respondents in terms of gender. The coefficient of flattening is 5.29, which points to the
conclusion that the distribution of respondents according to age is more elongated.

Picture 3 Year of study at university

28
 Source: Author's calculations

In a sample of 41 respondents, the largest number of respondents has 5 years of study.

Picture 4

Source: Author's calculations

Picture 5

29
 Source: Author's calculations

Picture 6

Source: Author's calculations

30
Picture 7

Source: Author's calculations

Picture 8

Source: Author's calculations

31
On questions 4 to 8, the respondents had questions that they could answer with their visage.
The number of respondents who answered these questions is 41. The largest number of
respondents answered as follows and observed:

 Nice
 Lovely, wonderful, nice
 lovely, wonderful, pretty, nice
 Wonderful
 Lovely, pretty, nice
 Pretty, nice
 Yes, I mostly use the adjective nice.
 I use the adjectives pretty and nice the most, the other ones are more British.
 Yes, I use lovely, charming, nice, pretty, wonderful
 Nice, lovely, pretty
 lovely wonderful pretty nice
 Wonderful, pretty, nice

Picture 9 I swear frequently on a day to day basis

32
 Source: Author's calculations

Out of 41 respondents, 11 respondents swear every day, 12 swear 3 times a week, while the
other respondents swear less than 2 times a week.

Picture 10 Swear display by gender

33
 Source: Author's calculations

Out of 41 respondents, 82.9 percent of the respondents think that men curse more than
women.

Picture 11 Showing the sentences you type

Source: Author's calculations

Of the total number of respondents, 92.7% use "Oh dear, you forgot to pay the bills again."
while 7.3% use "Oh shit, you forgot to pay the bills again".

34
Picture 12 Display used sentence would you use when talking to your colleagues at the
university

Source: Author's calculations

Out of the total number of respondents, the following sentences are used:

 Close the door. - 9.8% of them

 Please close the door. - 37.1% of them
 Will you close the door? - 17.7% of them
 Will you please close the door? - 41.5% of them

From this we can see that a large number of respondents respectfully ask questions to their
colleagues.

35
Picture 13 Showing sentences would you use when talking to your friends at home

Source: Author's calculations

 Close the door. - 41.5% of them

 Please close the door. - 37.1% of them
 Will you close the door? - 14.6% of them
 Will you please close the door? - 12.2% of them

From this we conclude that they do not respond with respect to their friends in everyday life.

Picture 14 View conversation between two women or two men

Source: Author's calculations

When asked about the conversation, 85.4% said it was a conversation between two women.

Picture 15 View conversation between two women or two men

36
 Source: Author's calculations

When asked about the conversation, 85.4% said it was a conversation between two men.

Picture 16 Display the answer to the question

Source: Author's calculations

Out of the total number of respondents, 84.5% were delighted with the invitation and
expressed delight, while the rest of them, 19,5%, thought it was nice.

Picture 17 Display the answer to the question

37
 Source: Author's calculations

To the question about information sharing, we got the following answers from 41
respondents:

 I am sorry, but I cannot provide you with that information.- 22% of them.
 I am really sorry, but we cannot provide you with that information.- 78% of them.

Based on the research, we can conclude that the first two hypotheses have been confirmed.

 Differences in speech between males and females at the English department of the
University of Mostar exist. Women tend to use language in a politer and more correct
way than men.
 Women use more hedges, special adjectives (e.g. lovely, charming) and question tags
than men.

We can also say that 3 hypotheses were not confirmed based on the research.

 Women are less prone to profane and obscene language than men.

38
 6. ZAKLJUČAK

Language constantly reflects our thinking, both new and different linguistic formulations can
certainly shape attitudes, in the same way as which are themselves reflected on what is
spoken. It is clear that the structures the patriarchy is abhorred by language policewomen,
who in every discussion will pre above all to point out that the speaker missed the feminine
countless times gender. Of course, members of the power structures protest when it comes to
change. And that means that nothing should be taken for granted. At no time should we lose
sight of the fact that language is life and a dynamic category, subject to change that does not
exclude (social)

influence. On the contrary. Each of us has the right to choose the appropriate language mark.
Even if at first it seemed petty or banal remark, a story about language is a story about
opinion, and it can have that too far-reaching affirmative consequences for all of us.

Debates about "feminist language" have led to significant number of language solutions that
resist exclusion, marginalization and discrimination. So, it's not just about women, let alone a
specific one to a group of women, but about the fact that feminist efforts lead to change for
everyone discriminatory elements and bad practices. To the credit of feminists it also includes
a valuable insight into the fact that differentiation is possible it does not occur only when it
comes to men and women, but also between them different social strata, generations, between
healthy and sick, members of ethnic groups. It is not unimportant to indicate that the position
of women as a member of different layers of society or of ethnic groups reflects differently on
their approach to discourse and on positioning within it. The question is to what extent this
insight, which feminists adopted not without controversy and which cost them (expensively),
became part of feminist linguistics, that is, linguistics in general, along with an improved way
of thinking about society and mutual behavior.

We can conclude that we have established that there is a difference in speech between men
and women at the Department of English at the University of Mostar, and whether women use
the language more politely and correctly than men. We also established that there is a
difference in the use of hedges, special adjectives and interrogatives between the male and
female sexes, as well as that women are less prone to vulgar and obscene language than men.
39
Likewise, it should be noted that we fulfilled the set goals 1. The first goal of the research was
to examine the difference in male and female English language students at the University of
Mostar, whether women use the language more politely and correctly than men. The second
goal of the research was to compare the results of male and female use of hedges, special
adjectives and interrogatives in communication, and the third goal of the research was to
examine whether women are less prone to vulgar and obscene language than men, which we
also proved through analysis.

40
LITERATURA
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Coates, J. & D. Cameron (eds.) (1989) Women in Their Speech Communities. Longman
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Dally, Ann 1991. Women Under the Knife: A History of Surgery. London: Hutchinson.

Eckert P., McConnell-Ginet, S. (2003). Language and Gender. Cambridge University Press.

Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 2000. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of
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McConnell-Ginet, S. (2003). ‘What’s in a Name?’ Social Labeling and Gender Practices. In

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Lakoff R. (1975) Language and Women’s Place Harper and Row, New York.

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Sapir, Edward (1921). Language. New York: Harcourt Brace

Trudgill, P. (1974) The Social Differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge

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Trudgill, P. (2000). Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society. Penguin
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(PDF) Language Standarization In General Point of View. Available from:

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POPIS TABLICA
No table of figures entries found.

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POPIS ILUSTRACIJA
No table of figures entries found.

44
ATTACHMENT
Survey

Differences in male and female speech

Gender:*

Male
Female

Age:*

Your answer

What year of study are you in?*

1
2
3
4
5
Other:

Which adjective would you use:

good – marvelous; cool – sweet; terrific - charming; neat – lovely.
*

Your answer

Do you use these adjectives in your everyday life? If yes, which of these do you use: lovely,
charming, delightful, wonderful, pretty, nice? You can choose more than one adjective.
*

Your answer

45
Which colour is on the picture? *

green
turquoise
blue

How would you describe this picture? *

Wow, this picture is lovely.

It is a nice picture.
Which sentence would you use? 
*

What a terrific idea!

What an amazing idea!

Which sentence would you use?

*

These pictures are gorgeous, aren’t they?

Are these pictures gorgeous?

Which sentence would you use?*

46
You know how to bake an apple pie, don’t you?
Do you know how to bake an apple pie?

I swear frequently on a day to day basis.

*

Never
1
2
3
4
5
All the time

I think that men swear more frequently than women.

*

True
False
List three words you consider "swear words". Feel free to include phrases and don't be shy :).
*

Your answer

Which sentence would you use?

*

Oh dear, you forgot to pay the bills again.

Oh shit, you forgot to pay the bills again.
What will you say if you see a nice boy/girl?
*

Your answer

Which sentence would you use when talking to your colleagues at the university?
*

Close the door.

Please close the door.
Will you close the door?

47
Will you please close the door?
Which sentences would you use when talking to your friends at home?
*

Close the door.

Please close the door.
Will you close the door?
Will you please close the door?
Do you think this is a conversation between two women or two men: 

-There are 1,400 gowns in this magazine and I have only seen 600 of them. I need help.
-Okay, listen, you need to chill out and hire yourself a stylist.
-A stylist?
-Yeah, some little minion to run around town and do your dress bidding.
-I can hire someone to do that for me?
-Oh, honey, this is New York City, you can hire someone to do anything. I’ll fax you some
names.
-Oh thank you thank you thank you!
*

Two women
Two men
Explain your answer!
*

Your answer

Do you think this is a conversation between two women or two men:

-What the hell’s the matter with you?! This is my favourite jersey.
-Well now you have two. Hey, I am good at math.
-All right, that’s it. Y'know I was still gonna let you have it. But now, forget about it. Prepare
to feel very bad about yourself.
-Hey! Well, I’ve been preparing for that my entire life! Or something about you that’s mean!
*

Two women
Two men

Explain your answer!*

Your answer

48
Your friends invited you to vacation with them. You have just entered your room and you
say: 
*

It's so nice to be here. The view is amazing.

It's good to be here. The view is very nice.
You work as a front desk agent in a company. A man comes in and asks for certain
information and you say:
*

I am sorry, but I cannot provide you with that information.

I am really sorry, but we cannot provide you with that information.
You are asking a stranger to take a picture of you and your friend. How would you say it?
*

49