Language and Gender: Differences between men and women in their language

Language and Gender

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080303120346.htm  - Article on biological reasons for differences in boys and girls' language. 

When it comes to language and gender I do believe that there is a difference between how men use language and how women use language. Women are stereo typically said to speak more in detail about topics they are talking about, whereas men are stereo typically known to get to the point quickly and not say as much in many words. These are the stereotypes of men and women using language but I do think it depends on the person whether these assumptions of language use are true or not.  

There are certain aspects of language which is seen to be more masculine, for example swearing is seen to be a more masculine form of language because of the stereotype that women are elegant and "lady-like" and so it is seen for it to be a more male dominated form of language. However, I do not believe that nowadays this is true. It may have been true once upon a time but nowadays since men and women have been given an equal status at the latest, swearing is a very gender equal form of language now.

Personally, it is a very female dominated form of language to use acronyms. In my personal experience I see more females saying acronyms like "lol" or "omg" than males. This goes back to the saying that women talk more and go into more detail than men in conversations. Using acronyms is also seen as not a very masculine thing to say and is more associated with the female gender. Then again, this may depend on the person because I do know personally of a few men that do use acronyms. 

It is said that girls have a larger vocabulary than boys even from a young age due to their more "talkative" natures so expand their vocabulary more quickly than boys do, this gives girls an advantage when it comes to starting school maybe due to them knowing what more words mean than boys as well. It is said that at the age of 10 months a baby girl will have twice the vocabulary of a 20 month year old boy. There was research done on this very topic to suggest that there are biological reasons to why girls seem to have a "superior language" from birth to boys. Girls apparently have a more active part of their brain which alerts them to more forms of language than boys at a young age leading to them wanting to talk more and learn more and more words than boys.  

Boys are known for "getting to the point" of conversations when talking to someone instead of explaining what happened and dragging things out. I personally agree with this as when I was younger I remember joking with my parents about how when my brother was on the phone to his friend, it was the same conversation every time. It consisted of "Hey" "Yeah you?" "Okay. Bye" and that was it. Whereas when I am on the phone to my friends, we can talk for ages on the phone and go completely off topic to why we were on the phone to each other in the first place. There is a difference in the way boys and girls talk which is definite because that is the nature of our language. But our language could also depend on how we have been nurtured instead of it being nature. You could have a very talkative boy and a very abstract girl which is different to the stereotype I just mentioned. I think if you are nurtured to talk in a way that boys stereo-typically talk like then you will have that kind of abstract language of getting to the point of things very quickly. It is the same with girls, it could also however depend on your age, my language use has changed since I was 7 years old completely. i talk a lot more now than I did back then due to my personality changing from being shy to being more confident in what I talk about in front of people.