English Language, Literature & Culture

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Gender and Tag-Questions in the Iraqi Dialect

Received: 23 September 2017    Accepted: 08 November 2017    Published: 20 December 2017
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Abstract

The issue of inequality between males and females is a significant phenomenon in the Arabic world. Gender equality and women’s freedom in the Islamic world generally, and the Arabic countries especially have always been questioned. These issues, no doubt, have an impact on the language of men and women. The teachings of the Holy Quran and the prophet Mohammad (PBUH), or let's say how people perceive them play a significant role in shaping the society, especially in a religious city like Holy Najaf where everything is centered on religion, and where the data of this study were collected. However, the understanding and application of these teachings are even more important in regard to putting in action the effects of these teachings on shaping men and women’s language. This research was conducted to look at tag-questions and their different uses by males and females in that Iraqi city. The results were interesting in accordance with the social relationships between men and women and the power relationship coming from the Islamic constitution and the understanding of some men and women of this constitution.

DOI 10.11648/j.ellc.20170206.13
Published in English Language, Literature & Culture (Volume 2, Issue 6, November 2017)
Page(s) 105-114
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Gender and Language, Tag-Questions, Iraqi Arabic, Language and Power

References
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[5] O’Barr, W and Atkins, B. (1980). Women’s Langue or Powerhouse Language? In S. McConnell-Ginet et al. (eds.) Women and Language in Literature and Society. New York: Praeger.
[6] Lakoff, Robin. (1975). Language and Woman’s Place. New York: Harper Colophon.
[7] Cameron, Deborah. (1997). Performing Gender Identity: Young Men’s Talk and the Construction of Heterosexual Masculinity. In Sally Johnson and Ulrika Hanna Meinhof, Language and Masculinity (47-64). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
[8] Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand. New York: Ballantine.‏
[9] Trudgill, Peter. (2010). Sex, Covert Prestige. In Sally Johnson and Ulrika Hanna Meinhof, Language and Masculinity (21-28). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
[10] Holmes, Janet. (1995). Women, Men and Politeness. London: Longman.
[11] Chang, Yu-Ying. (2012). The Use of Questions By Professionals in Lectures Given in English: A Cross-Gender Comparison. Taiwan International ESP Journal 3 (2), 19-50.
[12] Holmes, Janet. (1986). Functions of You Know in Women’s and Men’s Speech. Language in Society 15 (1), 1-21.
[13] Huddleston, R. (1970). Two Approaches to the Analysis of Tags. Journal of Linguistics 6, 215-221.
[14] Armagost, J. L. (1972). English Declarative Tags, Intonation Tags and Tag Questions. Studies in Linguistic and Language Learning 10, 1-53.
[15] Watson, Janet C. E. (2002). The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic. New York: Oxford.
[16] Smrž, Otakar. (2007). Functional Arabic Morphology: Formal System and Implementation (published dissertation). Charles University. Prague, Czech Republic.
[17] Dubois, B. L., & Crouch, I. (1975). The question of tag question in women’s speech: They don’t really use more of them, do they? Language in Society 4, 289-294.
[18] Wehner, L. W. (1999). Tag Questions in News Interviews (unpublished master's thesis). Aalborg University. Aalborg, Denmark.
[19] Holmes, Janet. (1983). Functions of Tag Questions. English Language Research Journal 3, 40-65.
[20] Harres, Annette. (1998). But Basically You’re Feeling Well, Are You?: Tag Questions in Medical Consultations. Health Communication 10 (2), 111-123.
[21] Holmes, Janet. (1984). Hedging Your Bets and Sitting on the Fence: Some Evidence for Hedges and Support Structures. Te Reo 27, 47-62.
[22] Holmes, J. (1997). Women, language and identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 1 (2), 195-223.‏
[23] Cameron, D., McAlinden, F., & O’Leary, K. (1988). Lakoff in context: the social and linguistic functions of tag questions. Women in their speech communities, 74-93.
[24] Cameron, D. (1992). ′Not gender difference but the difference gender makes′—explanation in research on sex and language. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 94 (1), 13-26.
[25] Nemati, A., & Bayer, J. M. (2007). Gender differences in the use of linguistic forms in the speech of men and women: A comparative study of Persian and English. Language in India, 7 (9), 1-16.‏‏
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Author Information
  • Department of English, College of Education, University of Kufa, Najaf, Iraq

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  • APA Style

    Raed A. Albanon. (2017). Gender and Tag-Questions in the Iraqi Dialect. English Language, Literature & Culture, 2(6), 105-114. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20170206.13

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    Raed A. Albanon. Gender and Tag-Questions in the Iraqi Dialect. Engl. Lang. Lit. Cult. 2017, 2(6), 105-114. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20170206.13

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    AMA Style

    Raed A. Albanon. Gender and Tag-Questions in the Iraqi Dialect. Engl Lang Lit Cult. 2017;2(6):105-114. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20170206.13

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ellc.20170206.13,
      author = {Raed A. Albanon},
      title = {Gender and Tag-Questions in the Iraqi Dialect},
      journal = {English Language, Literature & Culture},
      volume = {2},
      number = {6},
      pages = {105-114},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ellc.20170206.13},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20170206.13},
      eprint = {https://download.sciencepg.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ellc.20170206.13},
      abstract = {The issue of inequality between males and females is a significant phenomenon in the Arabic world. Gender equality and women’s freedom in the Islamic world generally, and the Arabic countries especially have always been questioned. These issues, no doubt, have an impact on the language of men and women. The teachings of the Holy Quran and the prophet Mohammad (PBUH), or let's say how people perceive them play a significant role in shaping the society, especially in a religious city like Holy Najaf where everything is centered on religion, and where the data of this study were collected. However, the understanding and application of these teachings are even more important in regard to putting in action the effects of these teachings on shaping men and women’s language. This research was conducted to look at tag-questions and their different uses by males and females in that Iraqi city. The results were interesting in accordance with the social relationships between men and women and the power relationship coming from the Islamic constitution and the understanding of some men and women of this constitution.},
     year = {2017}
    }
    

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    AU  - Raed A. Albanon
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    AB  - The issue of inequality between males and females is a significant phenomenon in the Arabic world. Gender equality and women’s freedom in the Islamic world generally, and the Arabic countries especially have always been questioned. These issues, no doubt, have an impact on the language of men and women. The teachings of the Holy Quran and the prophet Mohammad (PBUH), or let's say how people perceive them play a significant role in shaping the society, especially in a religious city like Holy Najaf where everything is centered on religion, and where the data of this study were collected. However, the understanding and application of these teachings are even more important in regard to putting in action the effects of these teachings on shaping men and women’s language. This research was conducted to look at tag-questions and their different uses by males and females in that Iraqi city. The results were interesting in accordance with the social relationships between men and women and the power relationship coming from the Islamic constitution and the understanding of some men and women of this constitution.
    VL  - 2
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