Exploring genderlectal variation in the English-speaking world

Abstract

Of the social factors that are known to influence linguistic behaviour, gender is considered to be among the clearest and most consistent (Labov, 1990). A substantial body of cognitive linguistic, sociolinguistic and variationist research demonstrates that there are differences in the linguistic behaviour of men and women, and that men and women play different roles in processes of language variation and change. Currently, language and gender is a particularly vibrant area of research and theory development within the larger study of language and society (Ehrlich, Meyerhoff & Holmes, 2014). The question of whether and how women and men differ in their language is a topic of keen interest to scholars and scholarly interest in this topic has resulted in a steady stream of publications on gender-based variation in language. As the latest addition to the series Studies in English Language, this collection of essays aims to explore the degree of variation based on gender in native-, secondand foreign-language varieties, by using examples from World Englishes in Africa, America, Asia, Britain and the Caribbean. This volume opens with a general introduction by the editor, which briefly introduces research on genderlectal variation in the English-speaking world. The following chapters in this book are arranged to reflect the continuation and expansion of research into gender and World Englishes in that Chapters 2–5 study traditionally genderlectal objects of investigation in World Englishes and Chapters 6–9 examine structures with rich histories of research in World Englishes to include a specific focus on gender. Chapter 2 presents a case study on variation and change in the quotative system of Ghanaian English (GhanE). After describing local and global variants in the quotative repertoire of GhanE, the chapter zooms in on the profile of the new global quotative be like and its gender association. It investigates whether female speakers are also the prime users of be like in this variety of English, even though gender relations in this country differ from those found in North America, where English is spoken as a native language (ENL). In Chapter 3, by investigating the use of intensifiers in spoken Indian English (IndE) in comparison to British English, Robert Fuchs aims to determine how far their frequency of use is influenced by the gender and age of the speakers, the composition of groups and the formality of the context. The analysis demonstrates that the interaction of multiple factors, including gender, age and formality, needs to be taken into account in order to arrive at a full analysis. Fuchs’ study has taken a first step towards broadening our view of gender-based variation in English. Chapter 4 aims at a finer level of granularity in considering the repertoire of tag questions in IndE, highlighting the role of gender in social interactions. The data derived from the International Corpus of English for India private dialogues are revisited with a multifactorial analysis to determine the interplay of sociolinguistic context factors for the occurrence of specific tag question types. Results show although Indian women notably use more tag questions overall, speaker gender has a weak effect on the type of tag question chosen as indicated by various association measures. In Chapter 5, Tobias Bernaisch investigates 16 hedging devices in data from the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English for Hong Kong, the Philippines and Singapore, alongside British English native-speaker reference data. The regional background and the gender of the speakers as well as whether spoken or written texts are produced could be profiled as robust factors influencing the choice of a hedge in a given communicative setting. It is argued that the variety-specific structures and