Gender Differences In Politeness

G annuler Differences In PolitenessNowadays the divergence amid go bad push ups and wo handss consumption of linguistic communication is nonp beil of the nearly important research subjects among sociolinguistic scholars as a takings of its grandness in confabulation. Understanding the antithetic communication patterns which wo workforce and custody typically enjoywork forcet assists interlocutors to reach to a manpowerd go steadying and lastly to achieve effectual communication. Numerous studies rescue been astray and deeply conducted to accrue to conclusion that wo manpower and workforce atomic deem 18 dissimilar in the sort of interacting and communicating in terms of minimal responses, turntaking, changing the topic of conversation and self-disclo convinced(predicate). As a noniceable feature in cross-gender communications, courtesy has begun to draw a lot of interests from nearly(prenominal) a(prenominal) researchers during the past forty years. Theref ore, there has been an upsurge in discussions, seminars, journals and researches in much(prenominal) fields as word choice, syntax and intonation to portray how dis withal custody and wo hands hire civilisedness strategies. It is a high wantliness that gender varietys in genteel behavior pull up stakes lead to ill luck in cross- ride communication. So as to get impressive communication, utterers need to understand verbally politic behavior in variant genders well.There is a general sumwork forcet that women atomic number 18 to a greater extent likely to practice session manners patterns than men in their obstetrical delivery. Lakoff, unrivalled of the nigh signifi cig atomic number 18tt pi unrivalleders in this go a management, distinguishes womens voice communication from mens spoken communication in these striking features including the wont of linguistic process related to their interests, expel adjectives, drumhead intonation, hedges, hypercorrect gr ammar and super cultivated figs (1975, p. 53-55). Based on Lakoffs greensense article of beliefs and stereotypes ab break done differences in the mood of being courtly amidst men and women in occasional conversations, capital of Alabama concludes that womens terminology is to a greater extent than than civilised than mens (1995, p. 151). This introduce is digested by a great number of well- sleep withn empirical works.There is a secure body of try supporting the receive that, in general, womens linguistic doings hatful be broadly characterized as afliliative or cooperative, kind of than matched or control- orient (Cameron (1985), Kalcik (1975), metalworker (1985)) and as interactively facilitative and haughtyly charged civility-oriented (Holmes (1984b, 1986), Thorne, Kramarae and Henley (1983)) (as cited in Holmes, 1988, p. 451).In fact, every deliberate even ups a marked contri stillion in create an assumption on the difference among men and womens spe ech. In swan to continue forming a clear sociolinguistic picture of gender differences in communications, this research is dedicated to a Vietnamese neighborly setting. It will result a profound study of whether feminine person speakers be much nice than virile speakers or non in st aim run-in centers. In this research, some(prenominal)(prenominal) linguistic civility devices be foc charter to conduce to breach understanding virtually dissimilarities in obliging ways of talking among women and men.MethodologyBased on the theoretical study in readiness-related differences amid masculines and egg-producing(prenominal)s, this project economic consumptions the noted divulgeings as a entropy elicitation turn to investigate the following queryTo what extent do the virile and fe potent English learners from the remote spoken communication center of Ho Chi Minh technology University economic consumption similar or several(predicate) civility devices in day-after-day conversations?ParticipantsIn this small-scale research, 50 male and 50 female speakers aged(a) mingled with 18 and 25 from the foreign language center atomic number 18 destineed to answer almost(prenominal) questions. The selection is carried away through the background questions in the first sidetrack of questionnaire given to 100 English learners at the foreign language center. totally of chosen participants argon native speakers of Vietnamese from contrary family, friendly and educational backgrounds. In details, the majority of objects are university students whose aim is intermediate. They return a lot of time studying English be induce they believe that a good command of English will provide a better chance of getting a good job in the future.InstrumentsThe questionnaire utilize as the instrument for this project contains 3 opened-ended questions and 3 closed-ended questions. The reason why the questionnaire is apply and there is no interview is that they can have more than time to think closely the answer and give response by nature in English. Most importantly, in this way, they can nullify losing their face when they have some conf victimisation built in beds.First of all, the open-ended questions contain some harsh scenarios in day-by-day communication, namely devising respect and requests. In particular, every situation requires students to provide both responses in which unmatchable is for the uniform gender and the early(a) is for the different awaken. It is widely bashn that the level of subtlety partly depends on legion(predicate) variables including age, mixer status, and kindred therefore, two control settings are intentional for aforesaid(prenominal) speech acts. Additionally, each part is set up to expect the participants to respond to friends or st cranial orbitrs. All the situations are divided into two master(prenominal) topics. com sentiment 1 Situation in which participants give a compliment.Topic 2 Situation in which participants ask a person to do a favor.Secondly, in the closed questions participants are asked to rate the level of ingenuity as well as the frequency of some functions according to their perceptions of apply judge-questions and requesting in cross-sex conversations. These multiple-choice questions are created for categorizing and summarizing the results in any meaningful way.ProceduresThe data were self-collected by employing questionnaire consumption upd to evaluate the participants manners executings in their daily conversation. To streng so the argument, each question asked them to write down their responses in each verbally or nonverbally. There is no time limitation so that they cannot suffer from the time pressure.Presentation and psychoanalysis of dataAfter solicitation the date, participants are classified into two main categories in terms of gender. matchless(prenominal) is the male multitude and the other(a) is the f emale group. Next, under each group, their performance of niceness is study in line with syntactic structure and lexical items among the same sex or different sex interlocutors.The result is gathered into tierce major parts, namely utilise whit-questions, complimenting, and making complaints.Tag questionsIt is widely bonkd that the major grammar function of a strike out question is seek agreement from the listeners. Besides, tag questions are estimateed a kind of accomplished instruction in which it does not force any agreement or belief on the ad fleeceees as in Lakoffs pioneering research, she concludes that womens speech sounds practically more polite than mens in terms of linguistic forms like tag-questions and requests (p.17-19). Therefore, using tag questions is one of linguistic features which this research is primarily concerned to verify gender differences in manners.The determination of question near the frequency of using tag-questions reveals that men pla y to mapping more tags questions than women in communication. The number of male speakers who much use tag-questions doubles that of female speakers with 7 and 3 out of 30 respectively. Although the result is completely opposite to the description of womens speech given by Lakoff, one of the most significant pioneers in gender-difference research, that women have a rangeency use more tag questions than men (1975, p. 53). However, it matches with Dubois and Crouchs surprising getings that in at least(prenominal) one genuine kindly context, men did, and women did not, use tag questions twain statelyly and in globely. In this context, the claim that tag questions signify an subdueance of commitment, and cause the speaker to give the impression of not being authoritatively sure of himself, of looking to the addressee for confirmation, even of having no views of his own, is open to serious doubt (1975, p. 294).A small number of people choose tag questions when interacting with other speakers is that they are not familiar with the structure of tag questions. For them, the grammatical regularizes are overly complicated and various to acquire in a foreign language as it is a new terminology which does not exist in their first language. In fact, Zhang explains that mistakes arising in the process of learning English tag questions are caused by students incomplete application of rules.In rank to mystify some sentence structures, more than one rule should be used or a rule is used to some different power points. save learners sometimes fail to understand or apply these rules completely. For exampleShe just plays with you, doesnt she? (does she)I never said she was wrong, didnt I? (did I)The learner knows the agreement rule of forming an English tag question. But when there are some rowing which denote negative without the word not, the learner has some difficulties in transaction with the whole sentence. Thus he produces the above sentences sort of of correct ones. (2010, p. 580) other reason for low level of frequency in using tag questions is the variation of intonations. In English, the intonation on the tag questions determines the function of the tag. In other words, communicators can change the meaning of a tag question with their pitch of voice. For instance, with rising intonation, tag questions sound like a real question. Notwithstanding, when the intonation falls they sound like a postulatement which does not require partners to give a real answer.If the tag is spoken with a rising intonation, as in a question, the function of the tag is much approximate to that of an interrogative. The speaker indicates that he has made an assumption about the state of affairs but he is not sure as to the daring of that assumption. The listener is requested to indicate whether the assumption is valid. If the tag is spoken with a falling intonation, as in a declarative sentence, the speaker indicates that he has made an assumption a nd is requiring simply confirmation of its validity from the listener (Mills, 1981, p. 643).In addition to the frequency of using tag questions, there is a immense gap in the purpose male and female speakers use in daily conversation. The following table presents the result after investigating how similarly men and women use tag question.FunctionMenWomenExpressing uncertainty54%30%Facilitative23%27%S lotsing23%43%It is all the way seen from the table that male and female interlocutors have completely different purpose in using tag questions. While numerous men use tag questions to signal doubt about what they are asseverate and look forward to tuition confirmation, a whacking number of women give them as facilitative devices and removeing tools for negative comments. This finding is the same as Holmes summary in her research into tag questions as dexterity devices. She identifies that women specify more emphasis than men on the polite or affective functions of tags, using facilitative verifying courtesy devices. Men, on the other hand, use more tags for the side of uncertainty (1992, p.320).This finding is mainly explained by the most widely-identified difference theory which reveals that men and women use language for different sociable purposes, having been lovingized in different ways from earliest childhood (Edwards, 2009, p. 137). In his large-scale study, he clarifies that womens gossip traditionally focuses on personal relationships, experiences and problems in a generally verificatory atmosphere. They consider the land as a network of connections and conversations as negotiations for closeness in which people seek support and reach consensus. Men, on the contrary, are more concerned with factual breeding, oft in a competitive or combative format. They see the world in a hierarchical kind clubhouse in which they are dwelling housed either up or down. For them, life is a vie and a struggle to achieve and harbour their proponent (Edwards, 2009, p. 137).ComplimentsIn terrestrial life, there are a large number of speech acts we can use to show overbearing niceness like greetings, pursuance agreements, avoiding disagreements, joking and showing sympathy. Among them, a compliment serves the function of not only positive civility strategies but similarly potential face gruelling acts (Holmes, 1988, p. 445). The questions cardinal and five are instaurationed with the intention of measuring how many politeness linguistic patterns both male and female speakers use when they counterbalance their friends or a stranger a compliment.Response to friendsResponse to strangersFrom the two above bar charts, in general, women are more polite than men in paying and receiving respect, which matches with Wardhaughs claim that women are reported to use more polite forms and more compliments than men (2010, p. 343). In details, in the scenario in which the participants is required to give a compliment on their same se x friends new clothes, the figure of female speakers choosing to compliment in an extremely polite way is four times more than that of male speakers. The percentage of the designer is nearly 80% and the last mentioned is 20%. They use some compliments such(prenominal) as It really looks good on you, doesnt it?, How pretty your dress is and What a pretty blouse youre wearing as positive politeness devices. some other evidence is that when they compliment on a strangers a pair of shoes, men use less polite compliments than women to either the same sex or the opposite sex partner.The laterality theory is one of most significant explanations of the commonly held belief that women are more polite than men in cross-sex conversations. The relationship amongst gender-related difference in politeness and power has been investigated for the past a few decades. After OBarr and Atkins (1980) seek the complexity of the aforementioned(prenominal) relationship, they find out that the differ ent language features particularly politeness strategies between males and females are related to the status rather than the sex of the speaker. They indicate that more females use polite linguistic forms than males in everyday interaction because they are more likely to be in lower-status positions (as cited in Kendall Tannen, 2003, p. 549). Thus, in the hostelry women wish to gain higher status for example social class, occupation, and so ontera by using more standard language and more polite forms in day-by-day conversations. As a result, they be perform more informed of the greatness of linguistic politeness in maintaining communication. In a word, higher speaker power will be associated with lower level of politeness.However, it is interesting to find that male participants use as many politeness linguistic strategies as females when they have a cross-sex conversation with both friends and strangers. It means that men tend to compliment more politely to women than to men. In addition to the belief that womens conceit is lower hence, their face needs to be protected, females are more nurturant, more emotional, and more sensitive to the needs of others than males (Bern, Eagly, Piliavin and Unger, as cited in Durkin, 1995, p. 456). That is the reason why male participants pay much more attention to their use of words and speak more politely when having a talk with female partners in order to avoid the risk of hurting their feelings. In this case, gender plays an indispensible part in the choice of polite language forms.RequestsMost sociolinguists remarkably notify the role of indirect requests in building up the politeness in conversation. Ervin and Tripp, for instance, illustrate that it is useful for speakers to use indirect interrogative requests because they give listeners an out by explicitly stating some condition which would make compliance unsurmountable (as cited in Saeed, 2003, p. 234).In terms of requests, from the above data, not only fe male participants but besides male interlocutors prefer using indirect and polite structures so as to reduce the risk of threatening the addressees negative face. allow you please close the door?, Wont you close the door? and I wonder if you could be so kind as to close the window are used by over 60% of men and women when they are required to ask a person to do a favor. The finding is partly against the general agreement that female communicators use more superpolite forms than male ones. This result offers some new insights into how gender influences the way men and women uses politeness strategies.Therefore, a new way of studying the gender difference in politeness-related linguistics is found in the 1990s. Many recent sociolinguists appraise the social constructivist approach in explaining the variation of politeness behavior between men and women.A social constructivist approach shifts the emphasis to language as a dynamic resourcefulness used to construct particular aspec ts of social individualism at different points in an interaction. Social categories are not better but are subject to constant change talk itself actively creates different styles and constructs different social contexts and social identities as it proceeds. (Holmes, 2001, p. 14565)Additionally, in her research, Goodwin view activities rather than fellowship as the relevant unit for the analysis of the data. She concludes that stereotypes about womens speech fall apart when talk is arranged in a range of activities. In order to construct social personae trance to the events of the moment, the same individuals articulate talk and gender differently as they move from one military action to another (1990, p. 9). In other words, speakers do not donjon the same communication style crossways a wide range of activities. For example, a woman whitethorn choose linguistic forms which can contribute to the construction of a more feminine personal identity in a romantic date. Nonetheles s, in a meeting in the role of a chairwoman, she will linguistically construct a powerful identity. When interacting with her children at home, she may use linguistic devices with the intention of creating a motherly identity. Therefore, the way speakers use structures to construct proper events changes in their communication activities.CriteriaIt can be clear seen from the table that it is the relationship between the communicators that affects how politely participants speak, not the gender difference. both men and women claim that they will take the relationship into consideration when they make a request (the figure of the former is 56% and that of the latter is 67%). The closer the relationship is, the more direct their request is. Their answer is back up by Samovar, Porter and McDaniels conclusion in their 2009 work. They find out that the closer the relationship between two persons, the less the power derivative instrument between them and smaller the magnitude of prev arication the less likely it is that they will employ conversational indirectness (2009, p. 173).The implication in a language classroomAll the results of this small-scale study not only confirm the previous findings discover by numerous celebrated sociolinguists but also reveal some new findings from Vietnamese foreign language classrooms. These interesting findings about the differences in politeness use between male and female learners lead to some implications for the process of language pedagogics and learning.The first implication centres on the erudition of tag questions in classrooms. From the survey, a great number of Vietnamese students whose level is intermediate or even advanced hardly use tag questions although they can adequately manipulate the form, usage as well as intonation when they are required to do so. Therefore, as an English teacher, a well-prepared presentation and a lot of intensive exercises and drills should be used in order to get students to apply th em to real life situations. Besides the fundamental rules, some exceptions and complications should be introduced to learners so that they give a correct form of tag questions in no matter what conversation they have.More importantly, educators should avail students recognize the importance of this grammar points in communication. Whenever learners know that tag questions are regarded as an extremely useful tool in daily conversations regardless of their complexity in the forms, meanings and intonations, they prefer using tag questions more often. For example, tag questions are not normal questions which are used for asking new information but powerful devices for addressers to confirm certain information, express uncertainty, facilitate and soften negative comments.Last but not least, owing to the complicated ashes of tag questions, Beardsmore (1970) recommends that the teaching should be under taken from an easy to more difficult stage. The difficulties come on three levels inc luding form, meaning, and intonation. To achieve a positive use of tags, the teaching should pay more attention to basic patterns and leave some anomalies to the end (p. 18).Another implication for English teaching and learning comes from the new results in complimenting and requesting. It cannot be denied that the gender difference plays an important part in selecting assign polite forms nevertheless, there are other criteria such as age, social status, culture and relationship which communicators should bear in mind before making up their mind to use a certain politeness strategy. Accordingly, in their 1985 book, Tillitt and Bruder advise that in many cultures it is considered inappropriate to compliment babies while in the U.S it is common to say What a cute baby. Moreover, when you are invited to a dinner in an English family, the host is happy to hear that you appreciate the intellectual nourishment. Hence, you should compliment the food no matter how delicious the real food is. However, you do not need to compliment each dish separately. You can give a general compliment which is followed by a s specific one. For example, the meal was delicious, e pickyly the lamb (p. 68).Additionally, base on many ELT researches into communicative approaches, Canale and Swain summarize that communicative competence consists of three components like grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence. In their well-known work Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches, they writeIn view of Chomskys (1965) strong claim that competence is to be associated exclusively with knowledge of rules of grammar, both Hymes (1972) and Campbell and Wales (1970) propose a broader ruling of competence, that of communicative competence. This notion is intended by them to include not only grammatical competence (or implicit and explicit knowledge of the rules of grammar) but also contextual or sociolinguistic competence (knowledge of the rules of language us e). Furthermore, Hymes (1972) explicitly and Campbell and Wales (1970) implicitly adopt the distinction between communicative competence and performance, where this latter notion refers to actual use (as cited in Canale Swain, 1980, p. 4)Therefore, I strongly provoke that the procedure of teaching and learning either compliments or requests consists of three following stepsTeaching and learning some possible patterns used in compliments and requests in line with the scale of politeness (from less polite to more polite and then to superpolite)Teaching and learning sociolinguistic competence of these patterns.Practising these patterns in real life exercise so that learners can get used to the patterns. As a result, they can use these politeness devices naturally.Lets take a clear illustration. Firstly, teachers ought to provide learners with the knowledge of requests especially the importance of indirectness of requests in maintaining politeness. For instance, the function, whom to request, what to request, how to request and how to reply to a request need to be presented in various situations in daily life. Next, social knowledge about how and when to use utterances appropriately should be given for Vietnamese learners to acquire sociolinguistic competence. In this way, they can know when to use some superpolite forms or when to use less formal language. After that, they are given some authentic drills to practice how to give and reply to a request appropriately.ConclusionIn summary, this piece gives a view on politeness gender difference between Vietnamese male and female learners. The findings make a positive contribution in portraying the picture of both similarity and difference in the way men and women use polite language. It can be concluded that women are not always more polite than men in Vietnamese context. Many interesting insights for example, the gender of the listeners is one of important instruments influencing polite behaviors of the speaker s are found in this research. Besides, language educators can know that Vietnamese students see politeness as an trenchant way to avoid conflicts and to save face in conversations. Lastly, Vietnamese leaners politeness strategies change with the relationship between addressers and addressees. In this case, gender becomes less significant factor bear on the change of interlocutors politeness strategies. Thanks to the result of this paper, language planners can know more about their leaners communicative competence especially in using politeness linguistic devices in the process of language teaching and learning. sex activity Differences in PolitenessGender Differences in PolitenessFrom my experience and comment in teaching English in a great number of mixed-gender classes, there is a big gap in the way men and women use a certain language. For example, when both male and female students are asked to discuss one particular topic, men interrupt women more often than women do. The di fferences lead me to the wonder whether or not there is a correlational statistics between language and gender. In fact, differences in the way men and women use a certain language have been of interest in the study of sociolinguistics. Therefore, there has been an upsurge in discussions, seminars, journals and researches in gender-related differences. A lot of issues such as word choice, syntax and so on have been taken into tarradiddle so as to portray how dissimilar men and women use a language. Not understanding gender differences when interacting in either formal or informal situations will result in communication breakdowns. In order to communicate effectively, communicators need to make use of some appropriate politeness strategies as speakers always hope to obtain the respect from the counterparts. Hence, found on a great number of theoretical bases and empirical studies, my paper examines gender differences in conversations in in terms of politeness. My review comprises four sections. The first part looks at the definition and the function of politeness. There is an analysis and synthesis of differences in the way men and women use politeness strategies in the second section. From some explanations for these differences in section three, I suggest some implications for teachers to help learners to avoid misunderstanding and misinterpretation in conversations by using politeness techniques in the teaching process.The definition, genres and strategies of politenessA multitude of researches on politeness have been carried out to explore and expand the classic sociolinguistic work of Brown and Levinson (1987), who state that it is important to avoid causing umbrage in communication by showing deference to other interlocutors. They consider deferential responses as forms of politeness to avoid communication breakdown between individuals (as cited in Meyerhoff, 2006, p. 84). From the above definition, I assume that the focus of politeness is on the hear er. In this way, tactful consideration of other peoples feeling assists to avoid some potential conflicts, to gain better understanding and then to achieve effective communication. Conversely, modern linguists consider politeness as proper social behavior. In ordinary language use, according to Geyer (2008), politeness is associated with civil or mannerly behavior and with social attributes such as good upbringing, status and formal etiquette. In addition, Watts (2003) adds his idea to validate the current conceptualization of politeness. Politeness is not something we are born with, but something we have to and be socialized into, and of politeness are available (p. 10-11). Accordingly, Holmes suggests that making decisions about what is or is not considered polite in any community involves assessing social relationships along the dimensions of social outgo or solidarity and relative power or status (Holmes, 1992, p. 297). In order to be linguistically polite, communicators shou ld choose some proper expressions which show the degree of social distance and the status difference.Based on two aforementioned dimensions, politeness is classified into two different genres. Positive politeness which is solidarity oriented emphasizes shared attitudes and values while negative politeness involves expressing oneself appropriately in terms of social distance and respecting status differences (Holmes, 1992, p.297). In terms of the social significance especially politic behavior, Lakoff (1989) distinguishes three kinds of politeness(1) polite behavior, which is limpid when interlocutors adhere to politeness rules, whether expected or not (2) non-polite behavior, amounting to non-conforming with politeness rules where conformance is not expected and (3) rude behavior, where politeness is not conveyed even though it is expected. (as cited in Kasper, 1990, p.208)It is advisable to use some proper strategies in order to maintain politeness between speakers and listeners in the conversation. Following the above notion of politeness, Brown and Levinson (1987) point out that some linguistic strategies need to be realized in language to minimize the risk of losing face. They outline four main super-strategies such as denudate on-record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and off-record. Firstly, bald on-record strategies used in situations where the speaker has a close relationship with the addressee are direct and unmitigated. The next strategy is positive politeness one which is often utilized to make the hearer comfortable when communicators know each other rather well including using in-group identity makers, seeking agreement, joking, and raising common ground. In line of merchandise, negative politeness strategies are chosen to avoid imposition on the audience through distancing styles like giving deference, hedging, questioning rather than asserting, and apologizing. Lastly, off-record or the indirect strategy explores conversational im plicatures by using hints and involving irony. For example, a speaker may use a proverb A cent saved is a penny earned to serve as criticism You are always spending a lot of money instead of a piece of advice You should save money (p. 91- 227).Some politeness variations between men and womenDifferences in the ways that men and women use politeness language strategies have been one of the most important research subjects in sociolinguistic. Lakoff is one of the most significant scholars of gender-difference research for the past forty years. Her 1975 study into language and womans place plays a key role in launching the issue of gender-related differences in politeness. In her influential research, she concludes that womens speech sounds much more polite than mens sound in terms of linguistic forms like tag-questions and requests (p.17-19). In other words, in conversation females are more likely to use politeness strategies in their speech than males. One aspect of politeness strate gies is that the speaker should not impose a viewpoint on other people. Thus a tag-question is a kind of polite statement in that it does not force agreement or belief on the addressees. Using tag-questions is a special linguistic feature of gender differences in politeness. Holmes agrees that in general the women use more tags than the men, as Lakoff predicts. She summarizes her findings in the following table after she carries out a research into a sixty-thousand word corpus containing equal amounts of female and male speech collected in a range of matched contexts.On the contrary, as it is clearly seen in the result that Holmes identifies that men and women do not use tag questions for the same purpose. Women put more emphasis than men on the polite or affective functions of tags, using facilitative positive politeness devices. Men, on the other hand use more tags for the expression of uncertainty (1992, p.320). In fact, women tend to consider tag questions as an indicator of po liteness while men use them to express uncertainty in colloquial situations.The different conversational strategies of men and women can be analyzed in terms of compliments to demonstrate that women tend to be more polite than men. Like tag questions, compliments are regarded as symbolic positive politeness strategies as the apparently main function of compliments is to consolidate the solidarity between participants. The remarkable gender difference in politeness is the way women and men use compliments. From the obvious data given by Holmes (1988), it is clearly seen that women give and receive significantly more compliments than men do.Holmes does not only focus on the frequency of complimenting patterns but also the purpose men and women use compliments. Her study finds out that women generally distinguish compliments as positively affective speech acts, while men may perceive them differently (Holmes, 1988, p. 451). This claim is supported by many well-known empirical works.T here is a substantial body of evidence supporting the view that, in general, womens linguistic behaviour can be broadly characterized as afliliative or cooperative, rather than competitive or control-oriented (Cameron (1985), Kalcik (1975), Smith (1985)) and as interactively facilitative and positive politeness-oriented (Holmes (1984b, 1986), Thorne, Kramarae and Henley (1983)). Linguists describe womens contributions to interaction as other-oriented, and then come to conclusion that women regard compliments as positive politeness devices. Therefore, the assumption that women use more compliments than men is consistent with this orientation. (as cited in Holmes, 1988, p. 451)While many linguistic studies on gender and language agree with the hypothesis concerning that women are more polite than men, there are also some researchers who disagree. Based on the data drawn from voice send messages in a legal setting, Hobbs argues that the frequency of male speakers negative politeness m arkers is roughly equal to that of womens whereas men prefers to use more positive politeness techniques than women (Hobbs, 2003, p.243). Hobbs collected 22 informational messages of which 11 were gathered from the males and 11were from the females to analyze the dissimilarities in the way men and women use politeness strategies. The findings indicate that the general claim about women being more polite than men turns out to be ill-timed in the legal voice mail messages.Positive politeness strategies such as compliments, joking, claiming reciprocity, etc. were used almost exclusively by male speakers only one female speaker used any of these strategies. Moreover, positive politeness was used only by attorneys five of the six male attorneys, as well as the sole female attorney, used positive politeness in their voice mail messages. (Hobbs, 2003, p. 249)The research analysis mainly falls into two kinds of politeness including positive and negative ones. In contrast with positive poli teness strategies which are used by the majority of male speakers, the 2003 study of Hobbs reports that men and women use an equal number of negative politeness strategies in their voice mail messages. Such strategies as thanking, taking lodge and apologizing, softening the force of requests are frequently used by both male and female lawyers. (p. 252)Why women and men use differ in the way they use politeness strategiesThe commonly held belief that women are more polite than men in cross-sex conversations has been well documented in range of linguistic features from tag-questions to directives. This assumption enables innumerable scholars to undertake a number of researches to explain why this difference exists. Some researchers argue that innate biological differences account for gender differences in politeness while others place an emphasis differential distribution of power between men and women in society.First of all, dominance perspective is used to interpret gender variati ons in politeness. After OBarr and Atkins (1980) explore the complexity of the relationship between gender and language concerning with polite strategies, they find out that more females use polite linguistic forms than males in everyday interaction because they are more likely to be in lower-status positions.(as cited in Schiffrin, Deborah Heidi, 2003, p.549)Moreover, Edwards (2009) concurs that most explanations centre on womens allegedly greater status-consciousness. If women in the society are more status-conscious than men, they may wish to gain status by using more standard forms and polite strategies. Therefore, they are more aware of the social significance of linguistic politeness variables to make their speech a sort of surrogate status. If womens and mens speech differs because the status of the genders differs, then it is clear that large social issues of power and subordination are involved. As a hooked social role implies less freedom of movement, greater insecurity, uncertainty and deficiency of confidence, womens speech is expected to be more polite than mens speech (p. 134-135). In fact, it is necessary for women to secure their social status linguistically especially through the use of politeness strategies. Thanks to politeness strategies in daily conversations, women avoid straightforward statements as politeness involves an absence of a strong statement, and womens speech is devised to prevent the expression of strong statements (Lakoff, 1975, p. 19).Another answer to the questions why the way men and women use polite strategies varies is associated with the difference approach. This philosophy is mainly based on gender socialization. According to Edwards (2009), a great number of noticeable analyses of gender differences in speech reveal that womens features especially using greater politeness forms imply more about genuine facilitative and supportive desires than about insecurity and lack of confidence. In other words, men and women m ay use language for different social purposes, having been socialised in different ways from their early childhood. Women are traditionally expected to focus on personal relationships, experiences and problems in a supportive atmosphere in which networking is a key whereas men are more concerned with factual information often in a combative context. (p. 137)It can be clearly seen that two above theoretical explanations of gender-related differences in politeness are influenced from diverse philosophies. However, Weatherall (2002) discovers the connection of two assumptions by giving an obvious illustration.The interactional styles of women and men as co-operative and competitive, respectively, have also been viewed as reflecting mens powerful social position relative to women. Being polite and co-operative is likely to be most effective at promoting positive interactions for those who hold little power. (p. 80)Although these explanations come from two different strands of thinking, they have the same goal that is why in cross-sex interactions, polite strategies are used by more women than men. However, they are not an explanatory factor for Hobbs finding from his research. His surprising findings are elucidated by the social constructionist approaches.A social constructionist approach shifts the emphasis to language as a dynamic resource used to construct particular aspects of social identity at different points in an interaction. Social categories are not fixed but are subject to constant change talk itself actively creates different styles and constructs different social contexts and social identities as it proceeds. (Holmes, 2001, p. 14565)For example, a woman may select linguistic forms contributing to the construction of a more feminine identity in a romantic dinner. Nevertheless, in a meeting she will linguistically construct a powerful identity, for she is a chairwoman. When interacting with her children at home, she may use linguistic forms so as to b uild a maternal identity. Therefore, the way members of a society use structures to construct proper events changes across the communication activities.The implication in a language classroomIt is widely acknowledged that understanding the different polite patterns which women and men typically use makes speakers to achieve more effective communication. The fact that interlocutors make fewer attempts to involve politeness in daily conversations because they have been taught not to expect connection, Stereotyping can have intense negative effects, especially The conception of gender-differentiated politeness use leads to some implications for language teaching and learning. The first implication for foreign and second language classroom centres on social power awareness. As an educator, we had better reduce the role gap between men and women by selecting materials that represent identity groups more equally, by reorganizing classroom interaction so that all students have the opportu nity to talk and demonstrate achievement in their everyday conversations regardless of gender (McKay Hornberger, 1996, p. 261).Another implication for teaching focuses on gender difference in stereotype rather than on so-called dominance approach. Because womens interactional style is absolutely different from mens, the interaction between teachers and females students differs from males. While men consider conversations as negotiations to compete women regard as a social network to gain support. It is difference in interactional styles that teachers should take into account when they perform, monitor and conduct one certain activity in class. Due to their opposite viewpoint, teachers had better balance the number of male and female students when they ask students to cooperate to fulfill one task. A group of men is likely to be over-competitive whereas a women group tends to be more supportive. As a result, there will be an imbalance of arguments in a discussion or debate.Last but not least, teachers should design some tasks related to gender-related differences in politeness so that students can acknowledge what kind of polite linguistic form they use in a cross sex communications. It will result in a more effective interaction in their real life. Teachers help students to realize that stereotypes of womens speech cannot stay the same style from one activity to another activity. The question is that how and when male speech and female speech are similar or different depends on the conversational contexts, not gender.ConclusionAs a result of womens liberation movements, researches on gender and language in politeness started dramatically in 1970s. During the past several decades, many investigators examine politeness variations between women and men in daily interactions. Based on many well-known studies of gender-specific language, this literature review leaps to the conclusion that women tend to be more polite than men through a range of differences in tag -questions, compliments, etc. Most of these linguistic forms are used by more females than males to maintain politeness in cross-sex conversations. Notwithstanding, there are some oppositions to this belief in sociolinguistics. Many researches into language and gender in term of politeness aver on three distinct approaches including dominance approach, difference approach social constructionist approach to give an explanation for these discrepancies.In summary, I have explored politeness variations between men and women and questioned the validity of the assumption that womens speech is more polite than mens. In an attempt to determine the truth of this statement I have concluded that in daily conversations, politeness is regarded as a social lubricant which helps to create rapport. Knowing the differences in polite behavior between men and women can be very helpful to achieve effective communication as well as to enhance relationship. Therefore, politeness plays an indispensible i n todays modern world in which a lot of interactions take place at both personal and business-related level.