Gender assessment tendencies of the English term of endearment “baby” (and its variations) in the speakers of English
Sofia Nikolaishvili

This article analyses gender assessment tendenciesregarding the English term of endearment“baby” (and its variations) in mono and bilingualspeakers of English. Reflection of various societal,cultural and psychological elements of a linguisticcommunity, analysis of address terms, includingthe terms of endearment, may present valuableinformation about a particular language and itsspeakers. The data for this study are taken fromthe online questionnaires and online interviews toexamine the connection between gender and theabove-discussed aspects of the language, regardingterms of endearment specifically of “baby” and itsvariations.Due to the complexity of the issue, the results arestudied through the combination of linguistic,sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic methodology,specifically, on the theory introduced byPotter (1984). Other significant studies aboutgender, language and bilingualism, for instance,Weinreich’s (1954) classification of bilingualismand code-switching according to the Matrixlanguage Frame Model by Myers-Scotton (1993),are also used to complement the analysis.The study has revealed that there is a differencebetween the ways mono VS bilingual speakers ofEnglish assess gender regarding the particular term of endearment, as wellas endearment terms in general.It is proposed (Pavlenko, 2005) that linguistic peculiarities are instigatedby several factors, namely, by the type of grammatical category of genderin English and the second language of bilingual speakers, by the beliefs andideas that motivate the lexico-semantic gender conferred to words and re-flect the stereotypes and dominant ideologies in societies (Mills, 1995).