Towards a sociolinguistic study of North Sotho language and sex

Abstract

The influence of sex on North Sotho language usage is prominent and inevitable in everyday discourse. Language is used not only to express attitudes among members of a speech community but also to determine their social roles. This is demonstrated convincingly in the analysis of semantic derogations and other word images of approbation. The sexist language as another speech type in most of the world speech communities is also receiving attention. Furthermore, a distinction is made between male and female speech according to the principles of language restriction and avoidance. In order to accomplish this linguistic phenomenon, snippets from initiation language are analysed.