On the Gender Differences in the Use of Hedges from a Pragmatic Perspective—Taking Friends as an Example

Abstract

Based on the gender differences between male and female, the languages that the two genders use, such as the selection of words, sentence styles and moods unavoidably differ from each other. The same condition applies to the use of hedges. There are many causes to this phenomenon, such as biological, social and psychological factors. However, due to the fact that men and women are the same species, the language they use also share something in common. Based on the examples taken from TV series Friends, from the pragmatic perspective (mainly focusing on Speech Act Theory and Cooperative Principle), and through exploring the male and female use of hedges as well as the reasons leading to the discrepancies, this thesis aims to make its contribution to the study of the gender differences in the use of hedges, as well as the extent to which the gender difference influences hedge usage. This dissertation will especially relate to the pragmatics point of view.