Peter Trudgill

Are his results/ideas questioned?

Evidence does support that gender does make a difference in spoken language. However, in some cases, men sometimes have feminine qualities in their speech and women sometimes have masculine qualities in their speech.

What was his experiment?

He compared people's grammar in terms of their gender and class. He did an experiment to see if people dropped the 'g' in 'ing' words and whether class or gender was a reason for doing so.

What did he find?

He found women were more likely to use more prestigious language than men/they would speak more properly and try to sound more of a higher class than what they were. This meant they didn't drop letters in words as much as men. He also found women are said to be more hyper-corrective (more cautious of using prestigious grammar).

What does prestigious mean?

In terms of language, prestigious means 'exerting influence by reason of high status and prestige'.

Who is he?

Peter Trudgill was a professor of Sociolinguistics, Linguistic Science, English Language and Linguistics.