Gender "sociolinguistics"

Gender

The word gender has been used since the 14th century as a grammatical term, referring to classes of noun designated as masculine, feminine, or neuter in some languages. The sense denoting biological sex has also been used since the 14th century, but this did not become common until the mid 20th century. Although the words gender and sex are often used interchangeably, they have slightly different connotations; sex tends to refer to biological differences, while gender more often refers to cultural and social differences and sometimes encompasses a broader range of identities than the binary of male and female

• Gender’ has replaced ‘sex’ in sociolinguistics.
• Sex: biologically or physiologically based distinction between males and females.
• Gender: a social and cultural notion. It indicates the social identity that emerges or is constructed through social action, and adherence to certain cultural norms and proscriptions.

Gender exclusive and gender preferential features

Gender exclusive features:

• Some linguistic features are used exclusively by (or to) speakers of a particular sex. e.g. kinship terms “My Auntie Kath”, grandson, niece, cousin, 
• Cultural differences. You in English vs. Arabic
•  Such (gender exclusive) linguistic features that directly index sex, or exclusively used by one sex rather than another are rare.

Gender preferential features:

• Some social dialect studies showed that some linguistic forms are more used by men or the opposite.
• Generalizations made about preferential gender differences in relation to the use of standard variants

Politeness

Politeness is prescribed, rules, norms. “Politeness can be defined as showing awareness of and consideration for another person’s face”. (Yule 2006, 119) Yule (2006, 119-120). Positive face is characterized as “the individual’s desire that her/his wants be appreciated and approved of in social interaction”, while negative face is “the desire for freedom of action and freedom from imposition”.

The concept of politeness is associated with Goffman (1967) study on face. Brown and Levinson (1987) define face as “the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself” They distinguished between Positive face vs. negative face. Positive face the desire to get the approval of others. Negative face the desire to be unimpeded by others in one’s actions. Freedom of actions and freedom form impositions