摘 要

不同社会群体的人们所使用的语言都具有他们各自的特点。女性，作为社会中一个较为弱势的群体，她们所使用的语言有着许多特点。女性语言在很多方面不同于男性语言，这归结于生理原因，社会原因以及文化原因。本文将从三个方面分析美剧《绝望的主妇》里的对白，总结出女性语言的特色，并以拉考夫的著作《语言与女性的地位》为基础，简单地分析造成此特点的原因，对女性语言有一个更好的了解，有助于减少日常生活中的交流障碍。

关键词：性别，女性语言，特点，《绝望的主妇》

Contents

1.Introduction.................................................................................................................1

2. Demonstration............................................................................................................2

2.1 Features at lexical level............................................................................................2

2.1.1 Intensifiers.............................................................................................................2

2.1.2 Euphemisms..........................................................................................................3

2.1.3 Exclamations.........................................................................................................4

2.1.4 Diminutives...........................................................................................................5

2.2 Features at syntactic level.........................................................................................5

2.2.1 Hedges...................................................................................................................6

2.2.2 Parentheses............................................................................................................7

2.2.3 Tag questions.........................................................................................................8

2.2.4 Declarative questions............................................................................................9

3. Conclusion................................................................................................................10

Work Cited....................................................................................................................11

Bibliography.................................................................................................................12

An Analysis of Features of Female Language in Desperate Housewives

1. Introduction

The research of language differences between male and female has always been a topic that scientists and linguists show a large amount of interest in. After 1960s, with the rise of feminist movement, people pay more and more attention to female. At the same time, the relationship between language and gender has attracted more and more concern. Denmark linguist, Jens Otto Harry Jesperson, one of the earliest researchers of female language, uses a whole chapter to describe features of female language in his famous work Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin. In this chapter, he proposes that female would like to use euphemism and hardly use expletive. As a result, he thinks that female are more conservative than male in terms of language use.

Since 1960s, female liberation movement has promoted the research of female language to be more and more professional. And gradually, what they study has been a system which attracts much concern. Western linguists explore the features of female language from three main aspects. Firstly, summing up and analyzing features of male and female language, especially discussing features of female language in order to expose sexism in language. Secondly, researching the differences of male and female in language use. Thirdly, analyzing social origin of the differences in terms of society, culture and psychology. As an expert in this field, British scholar Robin Lakoff identifies “ women’s register”, which she argues served to maintain female role in society. Lakoff argues that female tend to use linguistic forms that reflect and reinforce a subordinate role. These include tag questions, question intonation and ‘weak’ directives.

Not long after the publication of Language and Woman's Place, other scholars began to produce studies that both challenged Lakoff'’s arguments and expanded the field of language and gender studies. One refinement of the deficit argument is the so-called “dominance approach”, which posits that gender differences in language reflect power differences in society. What’s more, Jennifer Coates outlines the historical range of approaches to gender speech in her book Women, Men and Language. She contrasts the four approaches which are known as the deficit, dominance, difference, and dynamic approaches. Also, Prominent scholars including Deborah Cameron, Penelope Eckert, Janet Holmes, Deborah Tannen, and others make great contribution to this study.

To put it specifically, this thesis will discuss features of female language through analyzing US TV series Desperate Housewives. This thesis will be divided into two parts. The first part is at lexical level. Through the dialogues in Desperate Housewives, it’s obvious that female are more likely to use intensifiers, euphemism, exclamation, diminutives. The second part is at syntactic level. Compared with men, women would like to use hedges, parenthesis, tag questions, declarative questions. For different positions in society, what they focus on is absolutely different. As a result, their topics are also different. Female pay more attention to their daily life, feelings and family. However, male concern more about policy and career. From all these features, we can have a further cognition of differences in language between male and female.

2. Demonstration