Gendered Social-interactional Contexts in Educational Institutions in Iraq

Social variables have a tremendous impact on the language spoken by the male and female genders, particularly in Eastern cultures. Because men and women in Arabic cultures are typically raised separately, they speak somewhat differently depending on their gender. Arabic is used exclusively in educational institutions in the Arab world. The objective of the present study was to examine certain social and linguistic aspects of the language spoken by females and males in mixed academic organisations from the point of view of female academics. It also examined some noted gender differences in previous gender studies of the interactional styles of the two genders in higher education institutions in Iraq from the perspective of female academics, as well as the results of Holmes and Stubbe’s (2003) work. Seventy female lecturers from a variety of disciplines at the University of Baghdad participated in the present research. The data analysis was quantitative in nature. The findings are discussed following a statistical analysis of the collected data using SPSS software. The researchers have reached a number of conclusions, including that female academics should be extremely careful in their choice of vocabulary when speaking to male colleagues because their vocabulary indicates their social status, which was rated as being very high. The female academics were found to use more polite words and compound sentences than did the male academics with regard to the topics of discussion and institutional interactions; none of the female academics disagreed with this point.