Chapter One Literature Review
1.1 Overview of Gender Language in Cross-gender Communication
Up to the great discovery in the seventeenth century, when the colonists set footon four corners of the globe, they accidently found in some places, such as Americaand Asia, two distinct linguistic systems among primitive natives, and they took it foranother language mistakenly.Nowadays, it is wholly acknowledged that there are physical and emotionaldifferences between males and females. And the study of gender language is mainlylimited in the foreign language field. Ever since the women’s liberation movement inAmerica in the 1960s, the great interest in gender language has reached a climax.The study of gender language generally focuses on three aspects, namely, thestudy of sexism in language, the study of differences in language, and the analysis ofthe causes of sexism and differences. In China, the gender language began in the late 1970s, mainly about theintroduction of gender culture, analysis and analogy of gender language in the Englishfiled. In fact, the study of gender language and culture firstly was a part ofsociolinguistics, Chenyuan wrote a book Language and Social Life (1980). He wrote,―language is a kind of social phenomenon, language is not the upper construction andthe economic foundation, it is a sort of tool or transportation means by people,through which people can communicate with each other. Or in other words, languageis a medium among people to communicate the thoughts and minds.‖(Chenyuan,,1980:2) Later, in Modern Sociolinguistics (1997), Xudaming held the view that thelinguistic differences between males and females exist in phonetics, vocabulary, andgrammar. The differences are and will exist where there are differences in social statusbetween males and females.
…………..
1.2 Overview of Pragmatic Failures in Gender Language
Communication is a complicated phenomenon, and also a dynamic process. Incommunication, especially in cross-culture communication, pragmatic failures arerarely avoided. Pragmatic failures cause unhappiness, embarrassment, even conflicts.To some extent, they will hinder the comfortable communication. With thedevelopment of social living standard, the cooperation among people from othercountries has become increasingly important, and language, as a tool, plays a vitallysignificant part in the life. Pragmatic failures can be divided into two kinds, namely,inter-lingual pragmatic failures and intra-lingual pragmatic failures. In this thesis, wemainly focus on the pragmatic failures in gender language, which belong tointer-lingual pragmatic failures. In the year 1983, a British linguist, by the name of Jenny Thomas, wrote a thesisentitled Cross-culture Pragmatic Failures in the Renowned Applied Linguistics. In thefirst time, he put forward the concept and named it as ―pragmatic failure‖. He notonly provided a new vision for the second language learning, and cross-culturecommunication, but paved a new way for later studies as well. Inspired by JennyThomas’s work, Chinese scholars began to collect data from Chinese English learnersin order to prove the existence of pragmatic failure.
……..
Chapter Two Gender Language in Cross-genderCommunication
2.1 Sex Difference and Gender Difference
In Oxford Advanced Dictionary, sex is described as ―the state of being male andfemale‖. The gender means ―the fact of being male and female‖. In Merriam-WebsterDictionary, the meanings of the two words, the first known use in the 14thcentury,were summed up in one sentence ―either of the two major forms of individuals thatoccur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male,especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures‖. From thedefinition above, we could find little relation and distinction between them. And inChinese, sex and gender were also considered as one word xingbie for people. Inancient Chinese, Chinese boasted of the single-syllable system. One syllable standsfor one character and expresses one meaning. Ancient Chinese had moresingle-syllable words than modern Chinese. In Chinese Kangxi Dictionary, sex andgender were compressed into one character, xing. From the 18thcentury, people wentthrough a slow recognition process about the sex and gender, from the same word totwo different words with some implications. Now, sex and gender are still animportant phenomenon, we are differentiated by sex as male and female, our jobs areclassified into male-only and female-only, and our behaviors belong to respectivegroups. In the Saussre’s times, modern linguists only focused on internal study oflanguage, studied an idealized man, excluding the relationship between language andsociety or language and gender.
………..
2.2 Gender, Language and Society
Before we are ready to study gender language, we should first have aunderstanding of what the relationship among them is and what makes them importantin studying gender. Taking a look at the development process of linguistics, we willfind it hard to study linguistics without the consideration of the history and geographyin that times, or in ignorance of the speakers and the hearers involved. So this is whymany linguists felt bored with the static and dull studies into linguistics, for example,Chomsky, because he neglected the language, its users and its surroundings. In 2.1.1, we know gender difference and sex difference are two distinct terms,gender difference derived from the society, culture and history based on sex. So wecan get this, gender difference in language is derived from the society. Language is akind of social phenomenon, language comes from culture, and culture reflects itslanguage, which is normally accepted by linguists. Language is a little bit gendered,with male or female features. Keenan (1974) found in Madagascan Island, thelanguage used by men is gentle, indirect and ambiguous. They would never embarrassothers.
………..
Chapter Three Pragmatic Failures and their Causes.......45
3.1 Pragmatic Failures...........45
3.1.1 Definition of Pragmatic Failure........45
3.1.2 Pragmatic Failures of Gender Language....46
3.2 Causes of Pragmatic Failures in Cross-gender Communication ....54
3.2.1 Cultural Causes ...........54
3.2.2 Psychological Cause...........55
3.2.3 Physiological Cause ...........55
Chapter Four Strategies to Avoid the Pragmatic Failure.....57
4.1 Awareness of the Differences ........57
4.1.1 Adaption to Conversational Style.....57
4.1.2 Attention to Conversational Theme.........58
4.2 Mutual Understanding and Respect .....58
4.2.1 A Little Change for Each Other........58
4.2.2 Respective Needs in the Relationship between Men and Women.....59
4.3 Cooperation and Politeness ...........60
Chapter Four Strategies to Avoid the Pragmatic Failures in Cross-gender Communication
4.1 Awareness of the Differences
It is important to admit that the differences existed between both groups in verbaland non-verbal communication, the gender culture was also distinct, to admit it andnever to force one group to act as the other’s will was the priority. Sometimes, a manalways wanted to expect his girl could think and do in his way, reacted as he thought,while women wished their men to feel and communicate in their way, showing moretenderness. But they forget one point, that is, they are different. The female conversational style was indirect, passionate, and trivial, mostlyusing questions, exaggerations, and compliments to keep peace with others. Menshould learn to understand women’s indirect complaints, and dig out the real meaningbehind what their women said, other than quarrel with them. But, in fact, most of mendidn't understand women’s special conversational skills; they just guessed and blindlyreached the conclusion. So, for men, the real challenge and change were when theirwomen talked, men should be vigilant and gave proper support and sympathy.
………
Conclusion
As time goes by, the study of Cross-gender communication now is becomingmore and more frequent. The pragmatic failure existed in cross-culturalcommunication, because men and women belonged to different sub-cultures, sostrictly speaking, we could find pragmatic failure in cross-gender communication.Pragmatic failure was firstly put forward by Jenny Thomas, according to hisperspective, pragmatic failure could be divided into pragmalinguistic failure andsociopragmatic failure, a Chinese scholar also classified them into two parts, theinter-lingual and intra-lingual pragmatic failures, this thesis mainly analyzes theintra-lingual pragmatic failure, which was studied less frequently than intra-lingualpragmatic failure.This thesis begins with literature review of gender language and pragmaticfailures and the theoretical foundation, that is, the cooperative principle and thepoliteness principle. Some results by former researchers are listed here.Then, in the thesis, the author gives a detailed explanation of features of genderlanguage in cross-gender communication from linguistic aspects. Then the authorintroduces the cross-gender communication from the verbal and non-verbal aspectsand pragmatic failure between men and women.
…………
Reference (omitted)