Street Remarks, Address Rights and the Urban Female: Socio-linguistics Politics of Gender in Harare

Abstract

This article explores and describes the socio-linguistics and cultural features of street remarks that take place between unaquainted people in the streets of Harare. Concern here is the male-to-female remarks. It seems women receives more an more vigorous, markers of public messages than men and they are less freqently the originators of such communicative markers. We argue that that the markers are pruposeful an intentional and that they are motivated by linguistic, socio-cultural and historical gender stereo-types and ideological constructs. The lingustics and communicative characteristics of street remarks, the indentities of the addressers and the addressees, the women's response to and the implications of the street remarks are also addressed.