Social Dynamics and Changing Male and Female Speech Differences in Meiteilon

It is widely agreed that in most of the patriarchal societies, women speak more politely without much command than men do. The same pattern is observable in Manipuri society. There are observable differences in male and female speech in this society. However, in due course of time because of various feminist movements, empowerment of women and also the expansion of their representation from their traditional role of housewife to political, economic and other newly emerging sphere brought changes in the speech patterns of the women. In this study a corpus of 30 dramas of Meiteilon discourse has been utilized. In addition to it some of the speech made by male and females in various discussion sessions telecasted in few local TV channels, as well as its continuum at domestic sphere are also used. While using these sources, an attempt has been made to match the male and female characters, evaluating them from the same social scale and number of males and females are made equal to make the calculation and comparison easy. Keywords: Meithei society (Manipuri), socialization, subculture, polite forms, social dynamics, male and female speech.