Some experimental findings about the question of politeness and women's speech (Research note)

Abstract

A particular factor in linguistic variation which has often been connected to female speech is politeness, as first described by Lakoff (1973a, 1973b), manifested not only by means of intonation, but also through the use of particular formulae of courtesy, through the use of tag questions at the end of interrogatives, and the use of longer, less direct and peremptory sentences.