Abstract

This study investigates the use of masculine grammatical gender markers by young Jordanian women to refer to themselves in their daily conversations. It also explores the reasons behind their use of these forms. The corpus of the study consisted of 75 individual semi-structured interviews, followed by a questionnaire, with young Jordanian female students at the University of Jordan during the period January to March 2020. The female participants speak the three Jordanian spoken dialects, Madani/Urban, Falahi, and Bedouin. The data analysis was based on Sa’ar’s (2007) study, in which Sa’ar looked at the masculine grammatical gender markers that both Palestinian and Hebrew-Jewish women employed through their everyday interactions. The present study revealed that young Jordanian females use both masculine grammatical and lexical forms, instead of the feminine ones. In addition, they use lexical forms of Jordanian masculine expressions primarily to denote their intimate relationship by teasing and joking using masculine forms. The study also concluded that there are four reasons why young females use the masculine grammatical gender markers, namely, unconscious speech habits, economy of speech/ease of articulation, trendy language, and a resistance to the males’ dominance in society.