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Functions of you know in women's and men's speech

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Janet Holmes
Janet Holmes
Affiliation:
Linguistics Section, Victoria University of Wellington
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Abstract

You know, like the tag question and the parenthetical I think, has been regarded as a linguistic hedging device, and consequently as a “women's language” form. This paper describes a range of forms and functions expressed by you know, as well as its use by women and men in a corpus of spontaneous speech. While there is no difference in this corpus in the total number of occurrences of you know produced by women and men, there are interesting contrasts in the most frequent functions expressed by you know in female and male usage. Finally, the possibility that negative stereotypes may distort perceptions of women's usage is briefly discussed. (Sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, contextual styles, women's and men's speech)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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