Peter Trudgill, Norwich Research
Peter Trudgill studied how people's speech varied throughout in Norwich in comparison to the rest of England. More specifically he studied the final consonant in words like running and walking. He established that in Norwich, the pronunciation walkin' and talkin' is frequently heard.
Trudgill's study discovered the following:
1. In all social classes, the more careful the speech, the more likely people were to say walking rather than walkin'.
2. The proportion of walkin' type forms was higher in lower social classes.
3. The nonstandard -in' forms occurred much more often in men's speech than in women's, and this was true for all social classes.
4. When women were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the standard -ing forms more often than they really did.
5. When men were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the nonstandard -in' forms more often than they really did.
1. In all social classes, the more careful the speech, the more likely people were to say walking rather than walkin'.
2. The proportion of walkin' type forms was higher in lower social classes.
3. The nonstandard -in' forms occurred much more often in men's speech than in women's, and this was true for all social classes.
4. When women were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the standard -ing forms more often than they really did.
5. When men were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the nonstandard -in' forms more often than they really did.
Robin Lakoff's Research
Robin Lakoff, in 1975, published an influential account of women's language. This was the book Language and Woman's Place. In a related article, Woman's language, she published a set of basic assumptions about what marks out the language of women. Among these are claims that women:
- Hedge: using phrases like “sort of”, “kind of”, “it seems like”,and so on.
- Use (super)polite forms: “Would you mind...”,“I'd appreciate it if...”, “...if you don't mind”.
- Use tag questions: “You're going to dinner, aren't you?”
- Speak in italics: intonational emphasis equal to underlining words - so, very, quite.
- Use empty adjectives: divine, lovely, adorable, and so on
- Use hypercorrect grammar and pronunciation: English prestige grammar and clear enunciation.
- Use direct quotation: men paraphrase more often.
- Have a special lexicon: women use more words for things like colours, men for sports.
- Use question intonation in declarative statements: women make declarative statements into questions by raising the pitch of their voice at the end of a statement, expressing uncertainty. For example, “What school do you attend? Eton College?”
- Use “wh-” imperatives: (such as, “Why don't you open the door?”)
- Speak less frequently
- Overuse qualifiers: (for example, “I Think that...”)
- Apologize more: (for instance, “I'm sorry, but I think that...”)
- Use modal constructions: (such as can, would, should, ought - “Should we turn up the heat?”)
- Avoid coarse language or expletives
- Use indirect commands and requests: (for example, “My, isn't it cold in here?” - really a request to turn the heat on or close a window)
- Use more intensifiers: especially so and very (for instance, “I am so glad you came!”)
- Lack a sense of humour: women do not tell jokes well and often don't understand the punch line of jokes.
Lakoff suggested that women's language is deficient in comparison to men's language, this is shown in her findings, for example she concluded that women speak less, they apologize more than males and that women do not tell jokes well and often do not understand the punch lines of jokes.
