Friday, March 2, 2012
Linguistics- Controlled by Young Women?
Linguistics, the study of language, is an incredibly important and more or less controversial subject. However, leading experts agree that young women have a major impact on the speaking patterns and words used. A prime example of this is the word "like". Professor David Crystal says that "like" works as quotation marks so instead of saying "I said..." every time we have opted for the shorter version "like". Another impression that young women have left upon our language is raising your inclination in your voice despite the sentence not being a question. Professor Crystal says that this is short hand equivalent. The rising inclination is synonymous with asking if the person you are speaking with is still understanding what you are saying. Here is a NY Times article concerning linguistics.
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I liked the idea that women wear the pants in the linguistic world, and I began to wonder why women evolutionarily became responsible for controlling language. Are women more concered with fitting in so they followed new trends? Do women react more to cues like voice changes and dialouge? Well, I found the article you posted interesting because it showed that women respond more to body language and auditory hints then men. As human language evovled, we have come up with more and more ways to effciently express out emotions and feeelings, and since women are percieved to be more likely to communicate their emotions, it makes sense that we direct linguistic change.
ReplyDeleteWhat an intruiging topic Max, and Marguerite, you have given a great summary of all the questions that come into one's mind after reading Max's blog.
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