However, women participated to a very limited degree on love and marriage. Shen suggests the possibility that Chinese women may not be expected to, or be allowed to, talk about highly sensitive topics with people who are not closely related to them. Or perhaps women are simply not used to talking about sexuality in a public mixed-sex setting. These patterns are some of the results in Shen's quantitative study on conversational interaction. This study is probably the first of its kind for Chinese.
Language plays a key role in the construction and socialization of gender roles.
This is an area where Chinese can contribute, both cross-linguistically to the growing body of literature on the subject, and across disciplines to broader issues on gender. A Quantitative Study of Sociolinguistic Variation in Cantonese. Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University. Chan, Marjorie K.M. 1996. Sound symbolism and the Chinese language.