Graduation Semester and Year

1986

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics

Department

Linguistics

First Advisor

Unknown

Abstract

This work applies insights from sociolinguistics, text-linguistics, social psychology, women's studies, informal logic, and tagmemic theory to the task of investigating sex-based textual differences in argumentative text. More specifically, it (1) lays out a means (both theoretical and methodological) of analyzing argumentative text; (2) analyzes the differences between argumentative texts produced by university freshman women and those produced by their male counterparts; (3) compares the findings of this analysis to previous studies in sex-based differences in English; (4) presents a sketch of these texts' social production context with an emphasis on sex-based social patterns in communication style and in moral reasoning; (5) analyzes the findings in #2 in light of #4, developing a sociolinguistic description of conductive and deductive arguments. In short, this work brings together the theoretical and methodological resources necessary to do interdisciplinary sociolinguistic analysis of argumentative text, and does some initial analysis, which can provide direction for later more exhaustive research into textual sex-based differences.

Keywords

Language, Literature and linguistics

Disciplines

Linguistics | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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