The gender-linked language effect: an empirical test of a general process model

The gender-linked language effect (GLLE) is a phenomenon in which transcripts of female communicators are rated higher on Socio-Intellectual Status and Aesthetic Quality and male communicators are rated higher on Dynamism. This study proposed and tested a new general process model explanation for the GLLE, a central mediating element of which posits that males and females have socialized schema of how each gender normatively communicates. Participants described five landscape photographs in writing. Participants were asked to describe the first photograph with no other instructions. The next four randomly ordered photos were described under two guises: “as if you were a man,” and “as if you were a woman.” Under both gender guises, participants described the photograph “to a man” and “to a woman.” Transcripts were coded for gender-distinguishing language features. Discriminant analysis indicated that the language used by male and female respondents in the male guise differed from that used by the same respondents in the female guise, supporting communicators’ consistent gender-linked language schemata, and stereotypes, and the new process model. While the data supported the new gender-linked language model, no effects were found for predictions also made regarding communication accommodation or gender identity salience.

► Theoretical model first appeared as a chapter in a Danish sociolinguistic festschrift.
► This is the first empirical test of the model (plus other theoretically-driven predictions).
► The experiment devised provided significant support for the model.
► Hence, a major statement for the gender and language literature.