A Comparison between the Language of Women and Men in the City of Amman in Jordan

Abstract

This research paper investigates between the language of women and men in city of Amman. The relatively recent upsurge of interest in the language of women and men at the international level men level owes a significant deal to sociolinguistics, conscious masculine and interesting awareness of civil rights. This interest is also great enhanced by the quick social change in the dress, appearance, and behavior of women and men in Jordan. However, as in all domains of scientific research, mainstream women and men‟s sociolinguistics is a field of controversy. Writing from various perspectives, authors address the subject of women and men language with different aims in mind. For instance, some of these authors (cf. Labove 1972; Ervin-Tripp 1978; Hymes 1974) have indicated the interdependence of patterns of speech variation and the gender of the speaker/ hearer. Moreover, other authors (Lakoff 1975; Zimmermann and West 1975) have proved that gender differences are basically attributed to the socialization factor, hence the relevance of other variables such as ethnic membership, age, and social class in the analysis of ladies language. On the other hand, other authors (Coates 1986; Bull and Swan 1992) believed that gender differences as reflexes of some types of women and men‟s sociolinguistic “subculture.”