Gender and language in advertising

Another important difference between men and women is about the way a woman is thought by men and society: in fact according the English language it seems that a woman owes her existence and social role to her relationship with a man, such as her husband, her brother or her father. The more relevant example can be found again in Lakoff’s work and is that a woman is always condemned to be considered a sexual object and then the most important aspect of her life is her sexual relationship with a man. The scholar supports his thesis underlining the convention to differentiate the meaning of some common used words such as the marital status. It has been shown that for a woman, her marital status is the only way to be represented as a member of the society she is part of, especially if she is a popular personality. There is an undeniable difference between ‘Mrs’ and ‘Miss’, whereas a man’s name is always combined with ‘Mr’, an acronym which does not define his marital status (Lakoff 1973: 65).
Analysing the linguistic level, we also discover that women tend to use different syntactic rules than men, especially one: the tag-question (Lakoff 1973: 54).

The tag-question is a syntactic form which is considered between a direct question and a yes-no question. This aspect allows the speaker to show his own opinion while avoiding imposing on the addressee a certainty. This is the reason why tag-questions are often preferred by women: women are able to outline their thought without being too much outright or rude regarding their addressee, following the ideal path to become ‘ladylike’.
A part from the “lady” every woman should be, women are often seen as sexual objects and the language only confirms this statement. In fact, analysing some European languages, such as English or Italian, we can declare that both of them owns a large amount of mistakable words which meaning changes depending on the gender of the individual they refer to. In English, Lakoff had highlighted some ordinary words in the Seventies such as the contrast between ‘master’ and ‘mistress’ (Lakoff 1973: 63). These words had been associated with the creation of the social classes to underline the difference between the Lord and the servant. However, nowadays this powerful meaning has disappeared and if a woman is called ‘mistress’ the audience would think of a sexual or intimate meaning whereas a ‘master’ still recalls power and supremacy, even if we are speaking of an intimate relationship.
Lakoff does not dismiss his thesis: he adds another example which would seem clearer, using the difference between the noun ‘professional’ for a man and a woman (Lakoff 1973: 64). Whilst a man who is defined as a professional immediately suggests a surgeon, a lawyer or a scholar, a woman who has been associated with this word would only be a prostitute, whether a paid one or a libertine.