Lakoff - 'Language and Women's Place' (1975)

Women...

• Speak less frequently
• Show they are listening by using minimal responses (mmm, yeah)
• Speak more quietly than men and tend to use the higher pitch range of their voices
• Use hyper-correct grammar and pronunciation: Standard English and clear enunciation
• Use a greater range of intonation and 'speak in italics' - so, very, quite

Women...

• Use question intonation in declarative statements: make declarative statements into questions by raising the pitch of their voice at the end of a statement, expressing uncertainty
• Overuse qualifiers (e.g. I think that)
• Hedge, using phrases like 'sort of', 'kind of', 'it seems like'
• Use super-polite forms: 'Would you mind', 'I'd appreciate it if', 'if you don't mind'
• Apologise more

Women...

• Use tag questions ("You're going to dinner, aren't you")
• Have a special lexicon - e.g. women use more words for colours, men use more words for sports
• Use empty adjectives (divine, lovely, adorable), and make more emotional evaluations rather than intellectual evaluations (great, wonderful, fantastic)
• Use more intensifiers, especially 'so' and 'very'
• Use more adjectives to describe approximate amounts, e.g. 'around', 'about'