On The Image Of Women's Language In English

On the basis of the achievements by the sociolinguists and the author's own understanding, this paper is designed to reanalyze the features of women's language and reevaluate the image of women's language. To that end, this paper centers on three main aspects:〈1〉the major features of women's language (i.e., in phonology, vocabulary, grammar, conversational topic and style);〈2〉the social and cultural roots for the early negative attitudes towards women's language (i.e., women's social status, the sex role socialization, the male dominance, gender culture, gender ideology and gender stereotypes);〈3〉the positive image of women's language (i.e., polite, supportive, cooperative, emotional and implicit) and the possible theories that shape the positive features of women's language (i.e., double values standards, speech accommodation theory and speech strategies).Then the author, based on the previous analysis, tries to arrive at the following conclusion: Directed at the major features of women's language, many linguists hold the negative attitudes towards women's language. Their negative attitudes are rooted in some social and cultural factors. However, through the reanalysis of the features of women's language, women's language is also discovered to be bestowed with many positive features and is found to be powerful and advantageous in many fields, such as in family, in workplace, and in dealing interpersonal relationship. In a word, women's language in English has its own negative sides as well as positive sides.Finally, the author points out that with women's social status being increasingly equal to men's, women's and men's languages will slowly be neutralized, those gender-related differences will gradually be ignored and the sexism against women will be eliminated. In the future, women's language will be widely advocated and accepted.