<p>The aim of this study was to find out how features that have been found to be typical of women’s language, such as hedges, tag questions and a high level of talkativeness etc., are represented in a popular TV series. Five cross-sex conversations from one episode of the sitcom <em>The New Adventures of Old Christine </em>were analyzed, and the results show that many of the features of interest, as for instance tag questions, minimal responses and indirect style, are unexpectedly used more frequently by men in this small investigation. In fact, the only feature that was used more frequently by the female main character was hedges. Several factors affect the results of the study, as for instance the fact that the conversations are fictional. The special characteristics of the speakers also affect the results, as well as the tone and the topic of the chosen conversations. Many of the features of interest were used to a very small extent, which is probably a result of the fact that the language in a sitcom is to be entertaining and rather quick, which leaves little or no room for the features studied.</p>

This study concerns simultaneous bilingual acquisition (2L1) of Swedish-Brazilian children growing up in mixed-lingual families in Stockholm, with Swedish as their dominant language. Earlier studies on this language combination were not found. Not even were there any studies considering 2L1 children of the same age group as our main subjects (Anna 7;7,3–9;1,30, Maria 6;1,16–6;11,11). An analysis of their acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) as a weaker language (WL) was carried out in a Generative Grammar approach, mainly through the selective theory of language acquisition. The corpus consists of interviews with 2L1 children in a semi-longitudinal registration of their production. The focus of this analysis lies on the observation of three domains of BP grammar that differ morpho-syntactically from Swedish: verb inflection; VP as minimal responses; NP number and gender agreement. Three main research questions were formulated: 1) Are the simple and robust structures, provided by domestic input enough for triggering the functional categories (FC) of their WL? 2) If the FCs are activated, do they develop in the same sequence as a WL as they would in BPL1? 3) If the 2L1 children show any deviations in acquiring the grammar of their WL, is it possible to distinguish any influence from Swedish? To answer these questions a contrastive study was carried out, comparing the acquisition of BPWL with studies on 2L1 and BPL1 acquisition. The results show that the domestic input is enough for triggering the grammar of the WL, and that it was triggered and developed through a similar procedure to that of BPL1, although delayed. Contact with BPL1 input in Brazil was necessary to activate the children’s oral production. When using VPs for minimal responses it requires more than domestic input, and the influence of Swedish was reflected in the subjects’ use of sim ‘yes’ instead of VPs, as in this case grammar enters the domain of discourse at the syntax/pragmatics interface.

The aim of this study was to find out how features that have been found to be typical of women’s language, such as hedges, tag questions and a high level of talkativeness etc., are represented in a popular TV series. Five cross-sex conversations from one episode of the sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine were analyzed, and the results show that many of the features of interest, as for instance tag questions, minimal responses and indirect style, are unexpectedly used more frequently by men in this small investigation. In fact, the only feature that was used more frequently by the female main character was hedges. Several factors affect the results of the study, as for instance the fact that the conversations are fictional. The special characteristics of the speakers also affect the results, as well as the tone and the topic of the chosen conversations. Many of the features of interest were used to a very small extent, which is probably a result of the fact that the language in a sitcom is to be entertaining and rather quick, which leaves little or no room for the features studied.

This essay investigates how the usage of minimal responses differs between men and women in different situations. There are three factors included in the analysis, gender of the interlocutor, formality, and the number of participants in the conversations. For each factor, the frequency and function of minimal responses are investigated. Eleven conversations are collected from the Santa Barbara Corpus to attain this aim. The method conducted to analyse the conversations is divided into two parts. The first part is to count the minimal responses used and calculate the frequency of usage for each speaker in all the conversations. The second part is a close analysis of the function of the minimal responses used by noticing whether they are disruptive or supportive. The results show that women use minimal responses at a higher frequency compared to men except in informal conversations. Also, there is no significant difference in the function of minimal responses between men and women. However, the minimal responses used in the informal conversations seem more disruptive. In pair and group conversations minimal responses can be used disruptively. However, if one considers the context, it seems that minimal responses in group conversations are collaborative, despite being disruptive.

The present study aims to examine the linguistic features of hedges, minimal responses and interruptions used by the female and male participants in the possible extramural activity of the reality-TV show Love is Blind. The term Extramural English (EE) refers to English that students are exposed to outside the classroom. According to previous research, Swedish teenagers watch a considerable amount of TV, which is a potential EE activity. By possible exposure to EE activities, such as watching TV, learners might gain pragmatic competence that might result in them improving their communicative abilities in the English language. Furthermore, the Swedish school openly strives for gender equality and, therefore, this study investigates the gender characteristics of linguistic features that are categorized as often employed by either females or males. The methodology of the study includes transcribing, counting the linguistic features, color coding and analyzing the findings in relation to previous research. Regarding speech distribution, results show that the male participants speak 5.1 percentage units more than female participants. Furthermore, female participants use hedges 33.4 percentage units more often than the male participants and minimal responses 24 percentage units more often. Additionally, the male participants interrupt 25 percentage units more often than the female participants.