Gender differences in foreign language learning: A study of Chinese university students' English usage
Daming Xu
Nanjing University
Summary in English
Sociolinguistics literature has shown ample evidence for gender differences in
language use, but the focus is usually on communities of native speakers and/or
monolingual situations. The present study explores the issue of gender
differences in language usage among foreign language learners, whose behaviors
are conditioned both by the language ideologies of the target language and that
of their first language. The case studied for the above purpose is that of
university students in China studying English as a foreign language. One hundred
students, half male and half female, were chosen to participate in the study,
with their levels of English learning strictly controlled. In the experiment,
the students were to provide twenty different but truthful answers to the
question “Who am I?”. The written answers to the question by the students were
examined both for their content and their linguistic characteristics, with a
focus on finding any significant differences between the gender groups. The
results are that both in the content, and in the vocabulary and syntactic ranges
uniformity is the major characteristic but significant gender differences are
found with a few variables. Gender differences in the content of writing include
the following: male students talked more about sports while female students more
about music; and female students talked more about their personal appearances.
Gender differences in language use include the following: male students used
“man” more often and “boy” less frequently when referring to themselves, while
the female students used “girl” extensively but seldom used “woman”. A few of
the female students also used “person” or “student” excessively to avoid
gender-indicating words. Female students, when faced with the same writing task,
used complex syntax structures more than the male students did. The study shows
that even among learners at the lower-intermediate level, gender differences in
English usage show up, reflecting both the inherent gender-bias of the lexical
structure of the target language and the socio-psychological predispositions of
the learners.