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Linguistic Contributors to the Gender-Linked Language Effect

Communication Studies Program, University of California, Santa Barbara

Torborg Louisa Lundell

Department of Germanic, Oriental and Slavic Languages and Literature, University of California, Santa Barbara

Forty Speakers (20 male, 20 female), ranging from 11 to 69 years of age, described landscape photographs orally to a researcher. Orthographic transcripts were analysed for 31 linguistic variables. A discriminant analysis showed that a combination of 17 variables predicted speaker gender with 87.5% accuracy. The 17 gender-discriminating language variables were used in multiple regression analyses to predict previously found (Mulac & Lundell, 1980) speaker attribution ratings for these speakers. Results showed significant predictive ability for all three attributional dimensions: Socio-Intellectual Status (R 2= 0.53), Aesthetic Quality (R² =0.43), and Dynamism (R²=0.33). Of the 14 language variables displaying effects consistent with the Gender-Linked Language Effect, seven were more indicative of male speakers: impersonals, fillers, elliptical sentences, units, justifiers, geographical references, and spatial references. Greater use of the other seven variables was more indicative of female speakers: intensive adverbs, personal pronouns, negations, verbs of cognition, dependent clauses with subordinating conjunctions understood, oppositions, and pauses. These clusters of male and female contributors to the effect are discussed in terms of potential underlying communication strategies.

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