Running Head: GENDER DIFFERENCE IN KOREAN SPEECH

Gender Difference in Korean Speech
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GENDER DIFFERENCE IN KOREAN SPEECH

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Introduction
Upon listening to a call in a radio show, one can usually guess a great deal concerning the
background of the caller. Maybe we can have an opinion of the guest’s background and culture
based on his or her accent, the pitch of the sound, and the various vocabulary he or she uses.
People integrate different strategies or methodologies in conveying their ideas efficiently at the
same time uphold their relationships with one another in the society. Language can be perceived
as cultural and societal manifestations of a given community, and the social customs and
ideologies are demonstrated through the use of language itself and also the way people use the
language. Thus, through the examination of the language and its usage, we can always determine
the people’s ways of thinking and also their respective social values. This paper will explicitly
discuss the relationship between gender ad language, with much emphasis on the Korean
language used by both men and women. The Korean culture appears to be increasingly molding
aside the masculine and feminine language differences and favoring a much more balanced
language.
The feminist movements are responsible for the growing debate and study of the gender
differences in language. These actions led to the development of three theories of models of
language and gender. The principles include the deficit model, the dominance model, and the
cultural differences model. Some observation has shown the differences in the lexicon and
syntax of women to support the dominance viewpoint to gender differences in language, which
argues that the differences were influenced by the subordination of women (Cameron, 2005).
Specifically, in the dominance approach, the female gender is viewed as human beings who are
in a weak position in their communications and interactions with the male gender. The men
privilege is reflected in these interactions by certain e=vents such as the people can quickly

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interrupt women while they are speaking. However, in the cultural differences model, the two
different genders including the male and female sexes all through childhood to adolescence from
differing conversational goals and objectives and styles. Therefore, the differences will later even
be manifested in the strategies of speech used by the different sexes. For instance, women can be
seen using softer and lower tone in their statement with the aim of reducing conflicts and
aggression among the men at the same time enhance the cooperation while they are socializing
with one another in the society. However, it also notable that the people can learn and develop
new strategies so an individual’s experience and background of different social roles and
responsibilities and their social settings may result in the development of speech objectives and
styles that cannot be easily categorized as either male or female speech. On the other hand, the in
the deficit model, the female gender are viewed as the underprivileged speakers mainly because
of their early sex role socialization. In this approach, it is proposed that the male language is
taken to the paradigm so that any discrepancies and deviations from this that are established in
the female language are understood as a shortage in the female speaker.
I comparison to the English language, the Korean language has a general lack of genderspecific pronouns, grammar, and vocabulary, which has freed the Korean language from many of
the challenges arising from the use of words such as he/she or actor/actress. However, there is
the use of the phrase which is gender inclusive and neutral for instance ku and baywu. In the
Korean culture, there i...