Language and Gender

Working the Market: Use of varieties - Language, ideologies and linguistic varieties (1)

• Members of elite classes are and speak a more global / standard language
• Is designed to unite diverse populations
• Is associated with rationality, stability and with impersonal and formalized communications
• Symbolizes the objective knowledge from global sources
• Is associated with refinement
• One’s linguistic variety can enhance one’s chances in economic life

Working the Market: Use of varieties - Language, ideologies and linguistic varieties (2)

• Local language represents membership and loyalty to a local community
• Is associated with personal and affective engagement
• Knowledge and judgement function in a different realm
• Is associated with physical, practical knowledge, roughness and toughness

Working the Market: Use of varieties - Gender and the use of linguistic varieties

• Requires access to the communities in which the variety is used and the right to use it
• Being in the workplace may provide greater access to certain varieties
• Marriage opportunities may also play a role
• Social networks may also lead to differential linguistic patterns
• Modernization tended to affect men´s work before it affected women´s work
• Different employment opportunities for women in general

Working the Market: Use of varieties - Whose speech is more standard?

• It is commonly claimed that women’s speech and grammar is regularly more standard than men’s
• Possibly the educational patterns put women more in the standard language market than men
• Men use reductions more often than women
• Socio-economic difference is greater among women than among men