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 | |  | Kyle Love
Born: 9 September 1986
Lives: Sleaford, Lincolnshire
Time lived in area: More than 10 years
Occupation: Student |
Kyle reckons women and men speak a different language - at least when they're talking about someone attractive.
Language of interview: English
Duration: 00:37 (mins/secs)
The participants were asked to describe how they spoke in their own words.
How do you describe your accent: "Well-spoken, relative posh, quiet and smooth."
Have there been other influences on the way you speak: Not Given
Do you have skills in languages other than English?: Yes
Other languages: German, French
] They don't do that, yet we would, and we'd see it as quite a normal thing between us. But then again, when I'm speaking to a girl this and I wouldn't go saying that to them cos you feel a bit insecure by saying that - you feel comfortable around lads saying that sort of thing. KAREN: Cos you know they're probably thinking the same. KYLE: Exactly (laughter) Girls don't say that about lads, they use more... formal speak I find anyway.
Jonnie Robinson, Curator, English accents and dialects, British Library Sound Archive, writes Research has shown that men and women use different types of linguistic forms in all speech communities. In most cases this is generally a matter of small differences in pronunciation or vocabulary, although in extreme cases, such as some Indian communities in the Amazon forest, tradition dictates that marriage cannot occur within the same tribe and so adult women often speak an entirely different language to men. Kyle feels that there are certain styles of speech that are exclusive to all-male groups and that he would only use certain words if speaking to another male. A number of studies have indeed claimed that women are more linguistically polite than men and there is certainly a great deal of statistical evidence to confirm Kyle's impression that girls use more formal speak. Most research in English-speaking countries, for instance, suggests that women are far more likely to use prestigious forms than their male counterparts. Males, on the other hand, tend to use proportionately more stigmatised forms, such as H-dropping or non-standard grammatical constructions.
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