Speech content analysis of male and female L2 teachers in Iranian EFL context

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating the speech content of male and female teachers in the context of Iranian EFL classes. Previous studies on speech content are mainly conducted on European cultures and there is a niche considering investigations of gender differences in Iranian EFL context with regard to speech content. To this end, 74 EFL classes were observed to figure out the quality of speech content in different genders among teachers. After observing the classes and recording teachers' voices, their speech was transcribed. The content of the transcribed texts was counted based on the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) principles. The data were analyzed according to Newman, Groom, Handelman, and Pennebaker' (2008) word-count model. Four categories were investigated to find out the gender differences among male and female teachers. The categories are linguistic dimensions, prepositions, psychological processes, and pronouns. The results revealed significant differences among male and female teachers considering various categories of speech content. The Chi-square formula was utilized to investigate the frequencies.