A study of gender-related differences in introductory letters

Abstract: It could be assumed that after having read many letters of personal style,
most of us would develop "some sort of sense", as to which letters are
written by men and which are written by women. This hints that it is
possible that there are differences in the way women and men use the English
language in introductory letters.

Some features that are supposed to distinguish women's speech are the use of
specialized vocabulary, expletives, 'empty' adjectives, tag questions,
intonation, 'superpolite' forms, hedges, hypercorrect grammar and joke-
telling and humor. Furthermore, women's speech is believed to be more
powerless than the language of men and it is assumpted that women tend to
deal with private topics more than men do. Naturally, the question is
whether these features and assumptions can be applied in the 100 letters
forming the base for this study or not.