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Related Experiment Videos

Gender and hedging: from sex differences to situated practice

J A Dixon1, D H Foster

  • 1Worcester College of Higher Education, United Kingdom.

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
|January 1, 1997
PubMed
Summary

Context, not gender, influences hedge use in South African students. Fewer hedges appear in competitive settings, and both genders use "sort of" for tentativeness with males, while men use "you know" more with females.

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Area of Science:

  • Linguistics
  • Sociolinguistics
  • Psycholinguistics

Background:

  • Previous research suggests women use hedges for warmth, men for tentativeness.
  • Holmes (1995) reanalyzed women's language, proposing hedges signal warmth, not uncertainty.
  • This study examines hedge usage in South African students, challenging gender-based assumptions.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the use of "sort of" and "you know" hedges in South African students.
  • To test Holmes's (1995) theory on hedge functions in relation to gender and context.
  • To determine if contextual factors override gender in hedge deployment.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of hedging behavior in 52 dyadic conversations.
  • Application of Holmes's (1995) analytical method.
  • Experimental design: 2 (Speaker Gender) x 2 (Audience Gender) x 2 (Condition: Competitive/Noncompetitive).

Main Results:

  • Contextual influences significantly impacted hedge use, eclipsing gender effects.
  • No main effects for speaker gender were observed.
  • Hedge deployment decreased in competitive conditions compared to noncompetitive ones.
  • Both genders used "sort of" more frequently for tentativeness when addressing males.
  • Men used "you know" more readily as a facilitative hedge when addressing females.

Conclusions:

  • Contextual factors, such as competitiveness and audience gender, are more influential than speaker gender in determining hedge usage.
  • The findings challenge the notion that hedge use is primarily determined by speaker gender, supporting a context-dependent view.
  • Social status and interactional goals appear to shape the pragmatic functions of hedges like "sort of" and "you know".

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