GenderDifferences inIntensifying
Modifiers: So,Very, Really, andPretty
Olivia Jean CoreyStudies have generally shown that women tend to use more amplifiers, also
called intensifiers, which are modifiers that scale up a quality. To test the validity of these claims, this study analyzed the speech of seven men and seven
women and looked for the frequency of four amplifers: so, very, really, andpretty. Contrary to previous research, in this study the men actually used
twice as many amplifiers as women. Furthermore, each gender preferred thesame intensifiers, with really being most common, followed by so, pretty, andvery. It is true that men and women responded differently, just not in theway expected.

Introduction

It has been widely acknowledged that males and females speak differently, and this difference is usually viewed as socially constructed(Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 2006). Many studies have focusedresearch on the differences between genders, ages, and regions when
considering intensifying modifiers, commonly known as amplifiers orintensifiers. These studies have shown varying results in which amplifiers are most commonly used by each gender. The majority of theresearch done on intensifiers, especially relating to gender, has been
done using corpora. However, studies have shown that intensifiers areused more frequently in speech than in writing (Xiao and Tao 2007).
This study analyzes intensifiers in speech by using recorded interviews
conducted in person. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine how
men and women differ in their use of intensifiers in speech.

Literature Review

There are many different theories that try to explain why the differences between male and female language exist. The “Cultural GenderDifference Approach” is a theory that says that the differences between
genders arise from girls and boys in America developing their speech
in separate communities, and this separate development influencesthem as adults. Generally, boys and girls separate into same-gendergroups when developing many of their language-use patterns. Girls
associate in groups that develop cooperation, equality, and emotionally charged friendships. From these groups, females tend to develop astyle of speech that is interactive, encouraging, and cooperative. Boys,
conversely, associate in groups where power is the most importantcharacteristic, and because of this, their style of speech often develops
into one of dominance and competition (Wolfram and SchillingEstes 2006).
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Intensifiers are defined as “adverbs that maximize or boostmeaning” (Murphy 2010) and are used to demonstrate verbal skills
and capture the attention of the audience. These intensifiers can bedivided into two groups: amplifiers and downtoners. Amplifiers areadverbs or adjectives that scale up a quality, while downtoners scaledown a quality. Intensifiers are used emotionally and socially to add
versatility and color to speech. The connection between intensifiers
and the speaker’s feelings has been studied by Brown and Tagliamonte(2012) as a type of self-presentation that contributes to a type of metanarrative. Amplifiers are most generally associated with female speech(Murphy 2010).
Female speech is identifiable by the use of modifiers, as seen in astudy done by Kramer (1974). Seventeen women and seventeen men
were asked to write a description of photographs of either a building ora group of people. These paragraphs were then given to another group,and their task was to determine the gender of the author. There werefifty-nine correct guesses and fifty-one incorrect ones, thus showingthat there is a slight difference between male and female speech.
Not only are intensifiers more common in female speech, they
are also more common in speech than in writing (primarily among
educated speakers) and are generally decreasing (Xiao and Tao 2007).
When looking at narratives and non-narratives (utterances given as
stories or just interactive speech), Brown and Tagliamonte (2012)
said that neither age nor gender plays a significant role in the amountof intensifiers present in narratives, but both play a significant role innon-narratives.
Other research shows differences of gender and intensifiers.
Suleiman and O’Connell (2008) analyzed the difference of speech
between Hillary and Bill Clinton. This study showed that there were anumber of male and female speech indicators between the two politicians, including the number of syllables, the amount of referencing,
and the use of the intensifier so. The study specifically noted that “in158

addition Hillary Clinton uses so more frequently than [Bill] Clinton,. . . finding that women use intensifiers more than men” (Suleiman andO’Connell 2008).
Further distinctions have been made on which intensifiers areused most often and by which gender. A study done by Brown andTagliamonte (2012) says that really is the most popular intensifier, so ispreferred by adolescent women, and pretty is the intensifier preferred byadolescent men. In this study of the Toronto English Archive, it was also
found that younger women lead new language innovations into otherdiscourse contexts. In contrast, a study done in the Corpus of Spoken
Professional American English by Yaguchi, Iyeiri, and Baba (2010)
found that so, very, really, and pretty were in the top five most frequently
used amplifiers. In the breakdown of the intensifiers, the females usedthose four more than males did. These results also showed that women
depended on the use of very more than real/really. When looking at intensifiers used online by Newfoundlanders, Bulgin et al. (2008) showedthat so was used by females more than twice as often as by males. Males
used very somewhat more than women; women used really slightly
more than men.
There is not a general consensus on which intensifiers are used
more by males or females. The previously listed studies were mostly
based on corpus data. In this paper, I want to focus on the difference
between male and female speech based on in-person interviews. Afterlooking at all of the various results, I found that so, very, really, andpretty are generally agreed to be the most frequently used intensifiers.
I want to look specifically at which intensifiers each gender uses mostfrequently. I also want to further prove previous research, which statesthat females use intensifiers more often than males do. While there isplenty of research stating that age is a significant feature when looking
at intensifiers, I have decided to focus solely on gender and tried tokeep all of the participants of this study within a ten-year age range of
one another.
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In this study, I will try to prove that the female participants ofthis research use intensifiers more than males; I believe females will
prefer the intensifiers so and very, and males will prefer really and pretty
more than the other intensifiers. I will look at the methodology used togather the information needed for this comparison, analyze the resultsof the study, and discuss the limitations of this study and some opportunities for further research in this particular field.

Methodology

For this research on the different uses of amplifiers between genders,
I conducted a field study in which I interviewed fourteen individuals
currently attending Brigham Young University. Although fourteen isa smaller sample size than I would have liked, I did not have the timeor resources for more respondents. I interviewed seven males andseven females, and with their approval I recorded each interview. The
participants’ ages ranged from nineteen to twenty-eight. The sevenfemales aged from nineteen to twenty-eight, with two at age nineteen,
three at age twenty, one at age twenty-two, and one at age twentyeight. The seven males aged from nineteen to twenty-six, with one atage nineteen, three at age twenty-one, one at age twenty-two, one at age
twenty-four, and one at age twenty-six. The participants came fromvarious regions of the United States, including San Diego, California;
Redlands, California; Victorville, California; Logan, Utah; Ogden,Utah; Danton, Texas; Seattle, Washington; Buffalo, New York; Long
Island, New York; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Burley, Idaho. Four ofthe participants were from the Ogden, Utah area, and two were from theSeattle, Washington area.
Testing the Cultural Gender Difference Approach, I madesure to recreate the same situation for both genders of the study. The
participants were each given four prompts and asked to respond to one
or all of them until they had spoken for five minutes. Participants were160

told that it did not matter whether or not they covered all four prompts
or to which of the four prompts they responded; they were instructed
to use the prompts as material to talk about for the necessary five minutes. They were asked to describe (A) their favorite family vacation,(B) their favorite vacation, (C) their best day ever, or (D) their worst
day ever. They were each given the prompts before the recording began
and given some time to think over the questions so that they could
respond without stopping. The recording started when the individuals
indicated that they were ready to begin.
Each of these interviews was conducted on a one-on-one basis
in a semi-private setting; thirteen were done in the participants’ own
apartments, and one was done at a private table in a building locatedon the campus of Brigham Young University. I sat across from eachindividual, using my laptop as a recording device. There were otherpeople present for each interview; however, they were not directly
associated with the interview. To avoid skewed results, the participants
were not informed of what I was analyzing until after their interview
was over.
After all of the interviews were finished, I went through andcarefully listened to each recording, marking down each occurrenceof the intensifiers so, very, really, and pretty. I then listened to eachrecording a second time, making sure that I had accurately recorded
the correct number of intensifiers for each participant. The results wererecorded on separate sheets, one for the males and one for the females,
so that the data could be processed more easily.

Results

In this paper I hypothesized that the females of this study would use
intensifiers more than men would. I also hypothesized that the females
would use the intensifiers so and very more than the other intensifiers
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and that the males would use the intensifiers really and pretty morethan the other intensifiers. The results follow.
Table 1 shows the number of intensifiers the females usedthroughout the duration of their five-minute interviews. Table 2 shows
the number of intensifiers the males used during their five-minuteinterviews. Figure 1 and Figure 2 show the data from these tables in achart that better displays the occurrences of each intensifier.
Intensifying Modifiers

Speaker
Female 1
Female 2
Female 3
Female 4
Female 5
Female 6
Female 7
Total

So1
152
20
1
12

Very
0001
1002

Pretty20
1000
14Really540
745934

Very
200
10003

Pretty00003306

Really2122331115984

Table 1

Intensifying Modifiers

Speaker
Male 1
Male 2
Male 3
Male 4
Male 5
Male 6
Male 7
Total
Table 2
162

So611
1000
9

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3 shows the complete totals of all of the occurrencesof intensifiers used by both the males and females in the duration of
their five-minute interviews. Figure 4 shows the average number of times
each intensifier was used throughout all fourteen interviews, divided
up to compare females to males.

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Figure 3

Figure 4

Based on these results, the data shows that the males almost
doubled the females’ use of intensifiers in their interviews. Females
chose to use (in order of frequency) first really, second so, third pretty,
and last very when selecting their modifiers. There was a 4.57 range inbetween the average occurrences of the most used intensifier, really,
and the least used intensifier, very. The males chose to use first really, second so, third pretty, and last very. There was an 11.57 range in between
the average occurrences of the most used intensifier, really, and theleast used intensifier, very. In the ranges between females and males,
there was a seven-point difference. While the males did use really the164

most, so did the females. The males’ second choice for intensifiers wasso, not my predicted pretty. The preferred choice of modifiers werein the same order for both females and males: (1) Really, (2) So, (3)Pretty, (4) Very.

Analysis

This simple study does not support the belief that females use intensifiers more often than males do. Looking at the totals presented fromall the intensifiers used illustrates that males used more intensifiers(102) than females (52), and the females lie at half the frequency ofthe males.
This study also did not support my hypothesis that females
use the intensifiers so and very most often. So was the females’ second
choice for intensifiers, providing evidence that so is a commonly usedfemale intensifier, being used more than it was by the males. However,really was used the most by both the males and the females of thisgroup. In this study, while both genders did differ in their usage ofintensifiers, they were similar in that their most preferred intensifiers
were the same.
My data also does not support the idea that very and so are thetwo most commonly used intensifiers, in contrast to previous studies. Instead, for both genders, the intensifier really was most common.
This may show that another shift is occurring in the use of amplifiers;
younger generations are gravitating toward using one intensifier. Thisgravitation may cause a resulting shift in general use of really as theintensifier used by all ages, genders, and groups.
Contrary to earlier research, the females in my research were notthe innovators. The males were the speakers that used a wider variety
of intensifiers along with using more of them overall. However, I did
not record the other intensifiers used by the females that were not in
the four listed previously. The females did tend to use other amplifiers
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such as super and way. These could be the next forms to be introduced
to the language.
I think the Cultural Gender Difference Approach still holds
some ground because of the vast difference in numbers that were seen
between the genders. When all variables were the same, the males andfemales still responded differently, not in the choice of modifiers, but
in the total times each intensifier was used. This indicates that there isanother variable here, but if it is solely based on gender, it cannot beshown with the narrow scope of this present data.
A possible answer to this variability is that males will use more
intensifiers when they are addressing a female audience. Seeing as I, afemale, was the interviewer, I may have had some effect on the malesof this research. Even though I never spoke during the interviews, participants tended to address their remarks towards me. Based off of Xiao
and Tao’s research (2007) this adaptation in speech would include
using more intensifiers in their speech (Xiao and Tao 2007).

Conclusion

According to these results, males and females do act differently inthe same type of situation, but they also act similarly. Both genders
favored the use of really as their intensifier. I think this shows thatwhile males and females are different, they do share similar aspectsof language. When all variables were the same, the males and females
still responded differently; however, I don’t think that judgments canbe based off of such a small sample size, and more research should bedone before coming to a concrete conclusion.
Further research could be done on the same age group to
avoid age influencing the use of intensifiers, but the study would
be expanded to a much larger sample size. I think that a male and afemale interviewer should be present for the interviews; this would
ensure that a one-gender audience would not change the results of166the intensifiers used by each gender. Looking at additional modifiers
used in the interviews would be beneficial in order to see if females use
more intensifiers or downtoners total compared to just more than four
intensifiers, specifically kinda, way, and super, which were all present in
my study but not explicitly analyzed.

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References

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Xiao, Richard, and Hongyin Tao. “A Corpus-Based Sociolinguistic Study ofAmplifiers in British English.” Sociolinguistic Studies 1, no. 2 (2007):
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Appendix

Questions given to interviewees before starting the recording:
You may answer one or all of these questions as long as you talkfor five minutes total. You are welcome to skip in between questions,and you are not required to answer them all.
1.

Tell me about your favorite family vacation.

2.

Tell me about your favorite vacation.

3.

Tell me about your best day ever.

4.

Tell me about your worst day ever.

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