Middle-aged male syntax

Most sociolinguistic studies on gender differences seem to have concentrated more on female than on male speakers; discussed here are some aspects of the syntax of middle- & upper-class, middle-aged male informants (N = 6) from Oslo, Norway. This group was selected because, socially, it can be said to represent the complete opposite of any female group. Statistical data are drawn from some of the results of a large-scale sociolinguistic survey (N = 48, aged 20-75) in Oslo 1971-1976. It is shown here that in the Oslo project, the middle-aged, middle- & upper-class male group had on average longer sentences (more words per sentence) & overall fewer deviations from the rules of written syntax than any other social group. (The syntactic model employed was developed on the basis of the syntax of written language.) However, for syntactic deviations, this group showed a somewhat different pattern from that found in the other social groups. It turns out that these male informants show higher frequencies for those types of syntactic deviations that may be motivated by the speaker's speech strategy. The higher the incidence of these special syntactic deviations, the higher the degree of attention to speech strategy on the part of the speaker. These salient syntactic features seem to establish the middle-aged male group of this investigation as the one most preoccupied with correct syntactic form, contradicting the repeated claim in sociolinguistic studies that female speakers on average tend to follow a prestigious or official norm of language use more than male speakers do. At least for syntax, the present study suggests a different picture. 9 Tables, 18 References. AA