Gender paradox (sociolinguistics)

William Labov identifies three main principles that in combination, constitute the gender paradox. They illuminate the juxtaposing roles of women, who display both conformist and nonconformist behavior in the treatment of linguistic variables.

The first of the three principles states, "For stable sociolinguistic variables, women show a lower rate of stigmatized variants and a higher rate of prestige variants than men."^[1] The principle gives the most general understanding of women's treatment of linguistic variables, in that when variables are not undergoing any change, women tend to prefer the standard form of the variable to the non-standard form. It is a commonly occurring phenomenon that sociolinguists have observed in a wide array of societies. Peter Trudgill's study of the (ng) variable in Norwich, England provides evidence to support this principle.

In his 1968 study, Trudgill studied the frequency of the (ng) variable among sixty random subjects and calculated the usage of the standard form [ɪŋ] versus that of the non-standard form [ən ~ n̩]. He classified his results into categories of class, style and sex. Women tended to avoid the stigmatized form and would prefer the standard form more than men did, which hold true for nearly all English dialects. Women were even more careful with their choice in variable when they spoke formally, which indicated a high level of linguistic awareness.^[2]

Occasionally considered a corollary to the first principle, the second principle states, "In linguistic change from above, women adopt prestige forms at a higher rate than men." These are language changes that individuals are generally conscious of. People are aware of the prestige associated with formal styles and thus are prone to hypercorrection – a product of linguistic insecurity. Several studies have shown that women are leaders both in eliminating stigmatized forms and adopting incoming prestige forms, and they do so at a notably higher rate than men.

This finding is widespread across languages and can be seen in examples such as (r)-pronunciation in New York City, the reversal of the Parisian French chain shift, and entire language shifts, like that from Hungarian to German in Austria.^[1]

The third principle is as follows: "In linguistic change from below, women use higher frequencies of innovative forms than men do."

Those changes, which generally occur below the level of social consciousness, are "the primary form of linguistic change that operates within the system." In these cases, women are the initiators and leaders of changes in progress.

The Northern Cities Shift (NCS) offers a clear example of women leading change from below. For instance, The Atlas of North American English provides data on the regression analysis of 56 speakers in the Inland North in which the most significant factor regarding sound change advancement is gender, with women being the leading innovators. Women-led sound change from below is particularly salient for new and vigorous changes, like that of the palatalization of /t/ and /d/ in Cairo Arabic.^[1]

Researchers in sociolinguistics have attempted to provide a unified account and explanation for the gender paradox, with varying levels of success.

One proposed explanation from J. K. Chambers is the notion that women lead sound change because of some inherent biological verbal advantage. Under that view, women command a greater range of variants and styles, despite similar gender roles, because of sex differences.^[3] That view is contradicted by the varying size of the "gender gap" and the fact that differences have not remained constant over time.^[4] Labov asserts that if Chambers's biological explanation were to hold true, it would need to produce a robust effect across generations.^[1]

Another possible explanation for women's leadership in language change is their greater sensitivity to the social status associated with certain variants. As women have historically been denied access to the standard economic capital available to men through education and job opportunities, that may have motivated the usage of prestige forms to help them gain social capital and advance their social standing, both consciously for cases of change from above and subconsciously for change from below. The notion that women's speech is in fact the "language of powerlessness" is supported by findings that some features of stereotypical women's speech were also used by men when in a position of subverted power.

However, women still consistently exhibit higher use of prestige forms even in contemporary societies with higher levels of gender equality. Studies of language variation in central Sweden show that gender differences in speech have been maintained or even increased since 1967 although recent legislation in Sweden has led to improvements in gender equality.^[4] Nonetheless, the legislation may be too recent to have any great effect on the power entrenched in language and the systemic and cultural sexism that might remain despite various new laws.

Gendered patterns of speech can also be explained by social network theory, which suggests that speech differences are accounted for by the differences between the social networks of men and women. Men tend to have denser and more local social networks, which are more conservative and resistant to change and result in higher usage of non-standard local variants. On the other hand, women tend to have more open and less local networks, which are more likely to use standard variants and have access to innovative forms because of weak ties to other speech communities.^[4]