Gender Differences in Using Expressions of Agreement in Jordanian Spoken Arabic

Abstract

This research explores the different ways Jordanian male and female university students use expressions of agreement in correlation with the contextual situation in which a different addressee is involved. The sample of students consisted of 233 males and 380 females from different Jordanian universities. To collect the required data, a questionnaire was developed and given to the respondents. The questionnaire contained three different situations, each asking the respondents about the agreement expression that they would use with three different addressees. Jordanians males and females mostly use /t’ayeb/ طيب, /ma:ʃi/  ماشي, /tama:m/  تمام, and /əʊ ˈkeɪ/ اوك to show agreement when they are asked to do something by somebody. The study shows that these expressions are synonymous but vary according to the gender of both the speaker and the addressee. Females tend to use the variant /tama:m/  تمامin most formal contextual situations, i.e., with a university professor, whereas males are more apathetic regarding the formality of this situation, using the more casual variant /əʊ ˈkeɪ/ اوك. Furthermore, both males and females tend to be polite with their parents and avoid using borrowed foreign expressions, using the most polite variant, /t’ayeb/ طيب. In another contextual situation, i.e., a close friend, males tend mostly to use /ma:ʃi/ ماشيwithin their closed networks, showing that they are more strict in using the vernacular in such situations, whereas even with their close friends, females tend to use the borrowed variant  /əʊ ˈkeɪ/ اوك to seem more casual and cool.