Gender difference in children's language

Abstract

Up to the present day the gender difference in children's language has been studied by various researchers. The amount of research done, the differences in methods used, and the contradictory results raise questions about the initial idea - Are there gender based differences in childrenćs language? If there are, how are they demonstrated and what are they? What are the best research methods? Does the gender language difference in childhood, in any way, influence language skills in adulthood? The questions being so complex, it is impossible to cover all the areas mentioned above. What I want to do in this contribution is to summarize the actual research done in this field until today. I present a few theories that have been available over the last fifty years and I have given various research models and methods in order to cover this topic. The actual results are not surprising: differences do exist and the variations are huge. However the amount of gender innateness and the social influence of gender stereotypes create difficulties in measuring separately the difference in language caused by gender. We therefore, need to go back to the original biological and social questions of what makes a male male and what makes a female female. In the same way, all the other individual differences in children are posited under the same question - Are they a part of gender difference or is gender difference only a small part of the whole individual forming his or her personality?

Keywords

language;gender differences;innateness;social environment;girl's stereotypes;boy's stereotypes;language styles;

Data

Language:	English
Year of publishing:	2007
Typology:	1.02 - Review Article
Organization:	UP - University of Primorska
Publisher:	Centro di ricerche scientifiche della Repubblica di Slovenia
UDC:	81'27:159.922.1-053.2
COBISS:	1259987
ISSN:	1408-5348
Views:	2517
Downloads:	35
Average score:	0 (0 votes)
Metadata:

Other data

Secondary language:	Slovenian
Secondary keywords:	jezik;razlike med spoloma;prirojenost;socialno okolje;spolni stereotipi;jezikovni stili;
URN:	URN:NBN:SI
Type (COBISS):	Not categorized
Pages:	str. 197-206
Volume:	ǂLetn. ǂ17
Issue:	ǂšt. ǂ1
Chronology:	2007
ID:	1739491