International Journal of Language and Linguistics

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Language Variation: A Case Study of Gender Differences in Wolof-French Codeswitching

Received: 30 April 2020    Accepted: 11 June 2020    Published: 20 June 2020
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Abstract

Research on how gender affects language have been long documented by several studies in the world. In many of these works, mostly done in variationist sociolinguistics, it has been claimed that women and men are different in their speech from one another. The paper investigates gender variation in Wolof-French codeswitching. More specifically it examines how male and female codeswitching are different in terms of frequency, types and other linguistic forms. The conversations of twelve Wolof-French bilingual students and office workers are analysed in this study. Results from this study show that women codeswitch more frequently than men. The study also indicates that intra-sentential codeswitching is the mostly used type in men’s and women’s speech. It has also been shown that the French discourse marker “quoi” is far more used in men speech and constitutes then a linguistic feature that differentiates men and women language. However, even if both genders prefer intra-sentential types of codeswitching, women tend to use it more 61,44% of their speech against 56,66% for men. Men, on the other hand, produce more inter-sentential codeswitching instances than women 13,02% against 12,53%.

DOI 10.11648/j.ijll.20200804.11
Published in International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 8, Issue 4, July 2020)
Page(s) 122-127
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, Language Variation, Wolof, French, Codeswitching

References
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[3] Bokamba, E. (1989). Are there syntactic Constraints on Code-mixing? World Englishes, 8 (3).
[4] Chan, B. (2009). Code-Switching between typologically distinct languages. In D. Bullock and A. J. Toribio (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Code (pp. 182-198). CUP.
[5] Deklu, G. (2014). Gender Variation in Ewe-English Codeswitching, University of Ghana.
[6] Dzameshie, A. F. (2001). Toward a Global Explanation of Unmarked Codeswitching: Evidence from Ewe-English Bilingual Codeswitching. Reading Working Papers in Linguistics 5, 1-21.
[7] Farida, P., Pandhiani, S. M, and Buriro, A. A. (2018). Codeswitching and Gender Identity. The Women Research Journal, Volume 10, 42-59.
[8] Faye, P, (2009), Etude du discours mixte et du code switching Français-Seereer-Wolof: Approches sociolinguistique et psycholinguistique, Thèse de doctorat, Dakar, UCAD.
[9] Gadner-Cloros, P (2009). Codeswitching. CUP.
[10] Jagero, N. and Odongo, E, K. (2001). Patterns and Motivations of Code Switching among Male and Female in Different Ranks and Age in Nairobi Kenya. International Journal of Linguistics 3 (1), 1-13.
[11] Kane, H. (2012), “Morphological and syntactic analysis of code switching: A contrastive study of Wolof-French and Wolof-English cases”. Memoire of master, U. C. A. D, Dakar.
[12] Kane, H. (2019), “Grammatical aspects of codeswitching: a case study of Wolof-French in Senegal and Wolof-English in The Gambia”. Unpublished thesis, U. C. A. D, Dakar.
[13] Labov, William. (1966). The Social Stratification of English in New York City, Washington. DC: Center for applied linguistics.
[14] Legendre, G. and Schindler, M. (2010). Code switching in Urban Wolof: A case of violable constraint in syntax. ReVEL, special edition No. 4.
[15] Madeeha, N. and Shumaila, K. (2015). Motivation of codeswitching among female and male. European Journal of Academic Essays 2 (8): 1-5.
[16] Myers-Scotton, C. (1993a). Duelling languages: Grammatical structure in codeswitching. Oxford & New York: Clarendon Press.
[17] Ndao, Papa Alioune (1996) “Contacts De Langues Au Sénégal. Etude Du Code Switching Wolof-français en Milieu Urbain: Approches Linguistique, Sociolinguistique et Pragmatique”. Thèse de Doctorat d’Etat, Dakar, U. C. A. D.
[18] Poplack, S. (1980). “Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in Spanish and termino en español”: Toward a typology of code switching. Linguistics, 18, 581-618.
[19] Poplack, S. and Meechan, M. (1995). Patterns of language: Nominal structure in Wolof-French and Fongbe-French bilingual discourse. In Milroy L. and Muyesken, P. (eds), One speaker, Two languages. CUP.
[20] Subon, F. (2013). Gender Differences in the Use of Linguistic Forms in the Speech of Men and Women in the Malaysian Context. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, Volume 13, 67-79.
[21] Sunderland, Jane. (2009). Language and Gender: an advanced resource book. Milton: Routledge Applied Linguistics.
[22] Tannen, Deborah. (1990). You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New York: Ballatine Books.
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Author Information
  • Department of English Studies, Cheikh Anta DIOP University, Dakar, Senegal

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    Hafissatou Kane. (2020). Language Variation: A Case Study of Gender Differences in Wolof-French Codeswitching. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 8(4), 122-127. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20200804.11

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    Hafissatou Kane. Language Variation: A Case Study of Gender Differences in Wolof-French Codeswitching. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2020, 8(4), 122-127. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20200804.11

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    Hafissatou Kane. Language Variation: A Case Study of Gender Differences in Wolof-French Codeswitching. Int J Lang Linguist. 2020;8(4):122-127. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20200804.11

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijll.20200804.11,
      author = {Hafissatou Kane},
      title = {Language Variation: A Case Study of Gender Differences in Wolof-French Codeswitching},
      journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
      volume = {8},
      number = {4},
      pages = {122-127},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20200804.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20200804.11},
      eprint = {https://download.sciencepg.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20200804.11},
      abstract = {Research on how gender affects language have been long documented by several studies in the world. In many of these works, mostly done in variationist sociolinguistics, it has been claimed that women and men are different in their speech from one another. The paper investigates gender variation in Wolof-French codeswitching. More specifically it examines how male and female codeswitching are different in terms of frequency, types and other linguistic forms. The conversations of twelve Wolof-French bilingual students and office workers are analysed in this study. Results from this study show that women codeswitch more frequently than men. The study also indicates that intra-sentential codeswitching is the mostly used type in men’s and women’s speech. It has also been shown that the French discourse marker “quoi” is far more used in men speech and constitutes then a linguistic feature that differentiates men and women language. However, even if both genders prefer intra-sentential types of codeswitching, women tend to use it more 61,44% of their speech against 56,66% for men. Men, on the other hand, produce more inter-sentential codeswitching instances than women 13,02% against 12,53%.},
     year = {2020}
    }
    

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    AB  - Research on how gender affects language have been long documented by several studies in the world. In many of these works, mostly done in variationist sociolinguistics, it has been claimed that women and men are different in their speech from one another. The paper investigates gender variation in Wolof-French codeswitching. More specifically it examines how male and female codeswitching are different in terms of frequency, types and other linguistic forms. The conversations of twelve Wolof-French bilingual students and office workers are analysed in this study. Results from this study show that women codeswitch more frequently than men. The study also indicates that intra-sentential codeswitching is the mostly used type in men’s and women’s speech. It has also been shown that the French discourse marker “quoi” is far more used in men speech and constitutes then a linguistic feature that differentiates men and women language. However, even if both genders prefer intra-sentential types of codeswitching, women tend to use it more 61,44% of their speech against 56,66% for men. Men, on the other hand, produce more inter-sentential codeswitching instances than women 13,02% against 12,53%.
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