ABSTRACT
While the Dudley study draws on the speech of both young men and young women, the focus of the present paper is the speech of the female participants in the study. The overall findings of our analysis do not indicate that sex has a statistically significant effect on the language behaviour of British Black people. None the less, I will argue that the variable of sex needs to be considered very carefully in relation to research design, sampling methodology and interpretation of results. Finally, I will discuss the way in which the stereotypical picture of the Patois speaker as the angry male underachiever is seriously challenged both by our findings as a whole and by considering a case study of one of the young women who took part in the study.
