Gender differences in the use of affect with the Andalusian parliamentary forum

Abstract

Traditionally, gender language studies have considered that female language is more emotive than that of men (Lakoff, 1975, 1977, 1981). However, these studies attributed “affective” connotations to the weakness of personality derived from men’s domination in a patriarchal society (Fishman, 1983). A later trend in gender studies explained linguistic differences between men and women on the basis that they belong to two separate subgroups and their differences could be explained through cultural parameters (Coates, 1986; Tannen, 1990). However, both approaches, domination and difference, are loosing prominence in favor of less generalizing studies where the context seems to play a major role (Van Baalen, 2001; Carranza, 2011). In this work the affective factor will be addressed from a functional perspective which will be based mainly on J.R. Martin’s evaluative system (2000), appraisal, where affect is part of a wider evaluation scheme which, apart from affect, also implies judgement, and appreciation. This classification will be a tool in our work and it will help us find out why speakers choose certain options over others in the debates of the Parlamento Andaluz analyzed in this work. Our intention is to dilucidate if women prefer affection expressions in a higher degree than men within our corpus.