Orthographic transcripts of 6 male and 6 female adults' (aged 26-37 years) spontaneous oral descriptions of landscape photographs served as stimulus language samples. These were rated by 264 university students and 239 older nonstudents who used the Speech Dialect Attitudinal Scale (SDAS), a 12-item semantic differential. Ratings showed high reliability and yielded a consistent factor structure: Socio-Intellectual Status, Aesthetic Quality, and Dynamism. Transcripts were presented in four language/stereotype conditions: (a) gender-linked language effect only (speaker sex not identified), (b) language effect plus stereotype (speaker sex correctly identified), (c) sex role stereotype effect only (language effect nullified), and (d) language effect versus stereotype (speaker sex incorrectly identified). Multivariate analysis of variance results indicated that the gender-linked language effect and sex role stereotypes had operated independently. A correlation of the pattern of effects resulting from the gender-linked language effect with the pattern resulting from sex role stereotypes revealed a striking similarity (r = .93). The findings are discussed in terms of the effects' additivity and mutual reinforcement.A preliminary version of this article was presented at a meeting of the Speech Communication Association, Louisville, Kentucky, November 1982, under the title "A Comparison of Sex Role Stereotypes and the Gender-Linked Language Effect."We thank James J. Bradac and Daphne B. Bugental for their insightful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.Requests for reprints should be sent to

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