Introduction

Research by many scientists confirms the existence of differences in the speech behavior of men and women. In our earlier works, we identified the dependence of people's speech behavior on their age, education, profession, level of acquaintance and other factors from the point of view of the use of dismembered questions, i.e., we established some sociolinguistic correlations for the British (BE) and American (AE) variants of the English language. Such a comprehensive approach, undertaken by us earlier, requires its completion from the point of view of gender linguistics (women-men).

In relation to this article, the main question that we pose to ourselves can be formulated as follows: are there any normative differences in the use of dismembered questions in American dramaturgy by women and men compared to British dramaturgy and what sociolinguistic reasons are they due to.

Literature review

We cannot limit ourselves to posing and resolving the question of the ontology of dismembered questions in the American variant. It will be necessary to move from the ontological level to the axiological level. The real competition between the variants of the English language under consideration makes this transition necessary, since the forecasts regarding the outcome of this competition are very different. On the one hand, we can refer to the opinion of such a linguist as D. Steiner, who, being English, admires the energy and expansiveness of the American variant. On the other hand, many opposing opinions are expressed, such as, for example, in the work of E. Newman, where the existence of the American variant is considered a destabilizing factor in relation to the norm of the English language. At the same time, there is also a point of view that the process of convergence of the two variants currently clearly prevails over the process of divergence, and, therefore, the problem of the difference between the two variants is removed (Belke, 2012).

The statement about men and women as different or identical people is incorrect. A person, regardless of his gender, is an individual with equal opportunities.  The various characteristics of men and women do not come from biological belonging to one or another sex. Moreover, these differences (physiology and spiritual state) are best reflected in the English words "sex" and "gender". G. Brandt claims that "sex is a set of biological, physiological, natural characteristics, given by nature. Gender is a set of speech, behavioral, personal characteristics that distinguish men and women in the spiritual sense, influenced by culture."

Indeed, modern linguistic genderology studies the language of women and men. The Dictionary of Gender Terms defines linguistic genderology (gender linguistics). "Language data obtained by linguistics are one of the main sources of information about the nature and dynamics of gender construction as a product of culture and social relations. ... Although gender is not a linguistic category (with the exception of socio- and partly psycholinguistics), the analysis of language structures allows us to obtain information about the role played by gender in a particular culture, what behavioral norms for men and women are recorded in texts of different types, ... what stylistic features can be classified as predominantly feminine or predominantly masculine, how masculinity and femininity are understood in different languages ​​and cultures, how gender affects language acquisition, and what fragments and thematic areas of the linguistic picture of the world it is associated with." People's speech is directly related to communication (Denisova, 2002).  According to the theory of communication and the statement of Laurie Arliss, "communication is the means by which we learn everything", "it always has a value load that reflects the worldview of the participants in communication" (Bowcott, 2016). Thus, significant differences in the female and male worldview affect communication. Communication cannot be considered separately from language, since the worldview and, accordingly, gender characteristics are expressed through language and other sign systems.

The difficulty in mastering this type of question is not so much in the need to coordinate the auxiliary verbs in the final part of the question with the verb in the main part of the question (these difficulties are quite surmountable as a result of more or less prolonged training), but in the fact that the pragmatics of these questions is not entirely clear from the point of view of gender linguistics. It is for this reason that Russian students most often simply do not use this type of question in their speech. We mean people who have a good command of English, who equally freely use other types of English questions in their speech.

Of fundamental importance is the remark of the Danish scientist S. Nesslin that studying the structure of tag questions in pragmatic and gender aspects is more promising than considering them as simply a certain grammatical phenomenon.  S. Nesslin convincingly shows with numerous examples that tag questions are both an absolutely necessary element of speech communication, and at the same time far from a simple linguistic means, since incorrect use of tag questions can lead to a very undesirable or completely unexpected reaction from the interlocutor (Butler,2016).

Research methodology

A characteristic feature of tag questions is that they are unthinkable outside of dialogic speech. The most acceptable genre in which tag questions are often used are plays by modern writers, where modern colloquial language is most fully and adequately reflected.

Domestic linguistics has always paid much attention to such problems as the relationship between language and culture and the ways in which society consciously influences language. The mutual influence of language and society can be traced at different levels of the language structure with varying degrees of clarity. It is no secret that the lexical composition of a language is the most sensitive to changes in society. As for the grammatical structure, there is hardly any doubt that some phenomena in this area are directly related to the specifics of a society. In other words, while agreeing with the traditional position on the lesser susceptibility of grammar to various changes, one cannot lose sight of the fundamental possibility of more direct contact between the grammar of a language and the specifics of the society in which this language is used.

If the level of education of people is directly related to the social status of a person, then gender and age, at first glance, do not relate to the social differentiation of society, but to natural differentiation.  However, it is well known that in any society there is a sociologization of natural differentiation, thus, natural characteristics of a person (gender, age) acquire social significance.

Explaining the reasons why the characteristic of gender has recently come to the forefront in language studies, J. Coates in his work "Women, Men and Language" writes that this is primarily due to a more detailed, more subtle approach to linguistic phenomena, when the researcher's goal is not only to reflect general patterns, but also to take into account specific conditions of language use (Coates,2015).

Analysis and results

We analyzed the speech of only those male and female characters who, from the point of view of other sociolinguistic criteria, are in a more or less equal position. In other words, all the characters we analyzed are sufficiently educated, and, therefore, should speak standard language; these are older or middle-aged people. The article also provides examples of the use of dismembered questions in the speech of poorly educated characters for the purposes of comparative analysis.

In most cases, our commentary reveals the relationships of the communicants in the given dialogues, as parts of the microtext.  However, sometimes it was necessary to go beyond the dialogic microtexts and turn to the macrotext of a particular play. The analysis method thus fully takes into account modern requirements for studying a phenomenon as part of a whole work and comes down to examining the speech of women and men in British and American drama.

A significant difference was revealed in the use of dismembered questions by male characters as opposed to female ones.

Firstly, women tend to use dismembered questions in their speech more often than men (70-30%).

Secondly, there is a qualitative difference in dismembered questions in the speech of men and in the speech of women. The latter, as a rule, use dismembered questions with certain positive connotations. In men, negative connotations prevail. For example:

Frederica: I wonder what it was like then, when Nelson or Hood or poor Old Admiral Byng used to drop in.

Edward: Rather pleasant after being abroad those ships I should think

Frederica: We’re all right, aren’t we?

Edward: Fine.  All right... (Osborne, 1971).

In this case, a dismembered question, unlike a general question, expresses a greater degree of establishing contact between the participants in the conversation. However, its function is as close as possible to the function of a general question, but the form of a dismembered question itself is used to express one's feelings without any expectation of a reaction from the interlocutor. At the same time, a certain element of interrogativeness is preserved, judging by the interlocutor's remarks.

In the speech of uneducated male characters, exclamations do not take the form of dismembered questions.  Male characters in plays who are not familiar with each other do not rise to the level of friendly disposition upon first meeting and, as a rule, do not use dismembered questions, fearing to seem familiar.   But there are exceptions (non-committal exclamations about the weather, appearance, apologies, etc.).  There are cases of using dismembered questions during first acquaintance by representatives of certain professions (reporter, hairdresser, etc.).

A more modest range of negative connotations in English women can be explained by the well-known emotional restraint of the English compared to other nations.  As for the sharp increase in the number of negative connotations in the speech of American women, i.e.  the significant approximation of their speech to the speech of men, here the main reason should be the greater democratization of American society compared to British society.  When not only class differences are erased, but also any other (between adults and children, acquaintances and strangers, etc.).  In this regard, as S. Berkner quite rightly notes, "it is necessary to distinguish between real democratization and pseudo-democratization, which leads to the devaluation of cultural and moral values."

Dismembered questions carry socially significant information about the social status and social role of the speaker, his gender and age, socio-cultural level, professional and territorial affiliation, and the degree of acquaintance of the speakers (Popa, 2010).  At the same time, all of these factors are closely interconnected, which determines the importance of their conditional distinction into social oppositions and determining the methods of their interaction in the speaker's speech.

The choice of dismembered questions as the main operational unit of sociolinguistic analysis in a dialogue based on plays by British and American authors is very productive.   It seems promising to conduct a more detailed study of the dismembered questions on other material, their comprehensive description taking into account all the detectable pragmaticosocial factors that determine the variability of the English language (Malyuga, 2000).  It is also interesting and productive to include in this sphere the individual variation of social parameters determined by the psychophysical and physiological properties of a person, which undoubtedly have the most direct influence on his speech and, as a result, allow us to give a complete and comprehensive sociolinguistic characteristic of a particular person.

Conclusion

The analysis of gender-specific speech behavior across the main varieties of the English language reveals that language use is not only influenced by regional or sociolinguistic factors, but also significantly shaped by gender norms and communicative strategies. In British and American English, for instance, female speakers tend to employ more politeness strategies, hedging, and emotional expressiveness, whereas male speakers are more likely to use assertive, competitive, and minimal response styles. These distinctions, however, are not static; they evolve alongside societal shifts in gender roles and cultural expectations.

Furthermore, the intersection of gender and dialect shows how linguistic features                  such as intonation, lexical choices,               discourse markers, and turn-taking patterns vary within the same language depending on gendered communicative goals. The study              also underscores the role of media, education, and technology in reshaping traditional              speech behavior norms. As globalization accelerates linguistic convergence, gendered patterns in speech may also reflect hybridization, where local and global influences intermingle.

Therefore, understanding gendered speech behavior in different English varieties provides valuable insight into how identity, power dynamics, and cultural values are negotiated through language. This understanding has implications for language education, intercultural communication, sociolinguistics, and gender studies.