Gender identity and language usages in masculine-feminine discourse

By exploring and categorizing thedifferent theoretical backgrounds which have beendeveloped over the years in the area of gender andlanguage into three major models, this paper arguesthat to provide interpretations that move beyond thecultural dichotomies of male and female, it isnecessary to take the contextual factors such as tasksinto account since the three models: (1) deficit; (2)dominance; and (3) the sub-culture difference thatemphasized the linguistic and cultural factors, wereproblematic to interpret language differences amonggenders.The statistics analysis in this study showed thatfemale students employed masculine (classical)writing style as frequently and skillfully as malestudents when they wrote argumentative texts, yet,female students used feminine writing features morefrequent than male students when they wrotenarrative texts. This result, which indicated thatlanguage differences connected more with differenttasks than gender, may help shift sex-stereotypesmandates toward a cultural equality