The limitations and problems of language and gender researches

Gender researches belong to the field of sociolinguistics which studies the relationship between language use and society. One can find several researches about language and gender but are these findings general facts? The purpose of this essay is to draw attention to the problems and limitations of language and gender researches. To represent problems and limitations, I chose a research from a publication called A gendernyelvészet horizontja. The selected research is Szóhasználati különbségek főiskolás lányok és fiúk között which was done by a student from the University of Pécs.

Community of Practice (CofP) is “a group whose joint engagement in some activity or enterprise is sufficiently intensive to give rise over time to a repertoire of shared practices” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 2). A CofP can be a family, a choir, a gang or a friendship group, in this way it is not isolated, but shapes relationships among the participants and with the rest of the world. CofP influences gender researches in a way that it is difficult to separate the construction of gender from age, race and status. According to Eckert and Mcconnell-Ginet, the basic beginning in order to obtain valid generalizations is to examine a wide variety of local CofP. The difficulty of gender researches is that social practices construct not only gender, but other aspects such as social class or ethnicity as well. Therefore, gender should be examined in interaction with other social variables.

The aim of the research was to represent the differences of linguistics usage between men and women. The research was done in 2013. The date is important since the recent changes in society affected the use of language as well. It is believed that there are smaller differences between the linguistics usage of men and women. The purpose of the research was to prove the unisex trend in linguistics usage among young people nowadays.  

The selected technique was the questionnaire which was filled in by forty undergraduates. Half of the participants were males, the other half were females which provided a good deal of data. According to this parameter, the sample can be considered homogeneous which plays an important role in the evaluation. However, the participants were not well-chosen since all of them studied at the Budapest Business School. The consequence of the non-variety data-based research is the limited set of generalization because the findings do not necessarily apply to other undergraduates from different backgrounds. One of the dimensions of CofP is shared repertoire including specialized terminology and linguistics routine which became a part of their lives. That is why it is important to take community of practice into consideration.

The use of questionnaires is a common technique to obtain statistically analysable data. In this research, there were ten questions with several sub-questions. The role of the sub-questions is to make certain of the reliability of the answers, as well as to focus attention to the object of the research. However, by this technique, participants might get conscious of what researches wants to know by repeating the same questions in different forms. Let’s take the first question as an example. It is clear that the same question is asked several times to get to know how students react when the age and gender of the participants change.

The result of the research proved the researcher’s hypothesis: there are not significant differences between the linguistics usages of young people. The researcher also admitted that these finding cannot be generalised because the participants had similar sphere of interest. Furthermore, the number of participants and questions was bare. A questionnaire is a good technique to analyse a large number of data. The researcher should have taken advantage of this possibility which is not present at interviews for example.  Besides having more participants, the researches should have expanded the sphere of interests. The last question of the questionnaire is about the use of words of foreign extraction. The researcher confirms her results with the use of internet among young people. However, the result could have been different, if students of language major had been asked about it.

To obtain coherent explanations, researchers must pay attention to local practice. Broad surveys and collections are also indispensable. According to Bergvall, the most important message of CofP research is to prepare for variation and also question the findings. Researchers should be cautious about generalizations; it is suggested to look for counterexamples. However, CofP itself does not show where and what generalizations may be found. This type of studies does not stand alone; it is crucial to compare them with other findings to get into the direction of new generalizations.

References:

Spolsky, B. (1998).  Sociolinguistics Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 1, pp.1-13.

Eckert, P. & Mcconnell-Ginet, S. (1999). New Generalizations and Explanations in Language and Gender Research. Language in Society, 28 (2), 185-201. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4168924

Bergvall, V. (1999). Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Language and Gender. Language in Society, 28 (2), 273-293. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4168929

Huszár, Á. (2013) A gendernyelvészet horintja. Pécsi Tudományegyetem Nyelvtudományi Doktori Iskola Retrieved from http://mek.oszk.hu/12100/12122/12122.pdf

Holmes, J. & Meyerhoff, M. (1999). The Community of Practice: Theories and Methodologies in Language and Gender Research. Language in Society, 28 (2), 173-183. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/4168923?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=The&searchText=Community&searchText=of&searchText=Practice:&searchText=Theories&searchText=and&searchText=methodologies&searchText=in&searchText=language&searchText=and&searchText=gender&searchText=research&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DThe%2BCommunity%2Bof%2BPractice%253A%2BTheories%2Band%2Bmethodologies%2Bin%2Blanguage%2Band%2Bgender%2Bresearch%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff