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Gender Review
The Way We Talk
The Power of Language
Language is our means of ordering,
classifying and manipulating the world
 Through language we become members
of our human community

Sapir Whorf
Language controls what we can think
about
 It affects how you think--shaping our
reality

Language allows us to verbally
communicate what we think and feel
 It doesn’t have to control us, but we must
realize its significance in our gender
communication

1970’s

Scholars started studying “speech communities”
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These exist when a group of people share a set of norms
regarding communication practices
Communication culture exists when people share and
understand goals of communication strategies for enacting
those goals and ways of interpreting communication
This is easy to see when studying a
different language
 It is harder to see when it is our language,
but a different speech community
 Speech communities in Pecs?

Different Speech Communites
Some scholars say men and women live
in two different worlds
 This is evident in the different forms of
communication they use

How we are socialized

Lessons of childplay
We learn our gender through our
socialization process--partly through play
 Researchers are struck by two observations

• Young children almost always play in sex
segregated groups
• Girls and boys tend to play different games
Boys Games
Large groups
 Competitive
 Clear goals
 Organize by rules and roles that specify
who does what and how to play
 An individual’s status depends on
standing out, being better, and often
dominating other players

Boys Learn 3 Communication
Rules
Use communication to assert yourself and
your ideas; use talk to achieve something
 Use communication to attract and
maintain an audience
 Use communication to compete with
others for the “talk stage”


Emphasis is on achievement, competition
and individuality
Boys learn that they must do things to be
valued members of the team
 Personal relationships are not likely to form
in large groups
 Competition necessitates that you not show
vulnerability

Girl’s Games


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Small groups or pairs, no present, clear-cut goals, rules
and roles
No analogy for the touchdown
Not structured externally


So girls have to talk among themselves to decide what they’re
doing and what roles they have. This is more process than
product
Have to cooperate and work things out through talking
Three Communication Rules



Use collaborative, cooperative talk to create and main
relationships--the process is the heart of the
relationships
“Avoid criticizing, outdoing, or putting others down; if
criticism is necessary make it gentle
Pay attention to others and to relationships; interpret
and respond to feelings sensitively
In a study of 9-14 year old African Americans it was found
that:
 Boys give orders


Boys issues commands, used talk to compete and worked to
establish status hierarchies
Girls make requests

Girls learn that communication itself is the goal
Boys learn they have to do something to
be valuable
 Girls learn they have to be something
(good people, cooperative, inclusive,
sensitive)

Women Use Communication
To. . .
Establish and maintain relationships with
others
 Use language to share themselves and
learn about others
 Talk is the essence of the relationship

To achieve symmetry, equality, women
often match experiences (you are not
alone in how you feel)
 Respond to and build on each others
ideas in the process of conversing
 More interactive patterns with voices
weave together to create conversations

Also important is showing support
 Expressions of empathy and
understanding “you must feel terrible”
 Focus on feelings rather than content


Also important is maintenance work.
Efforts to sustain conversation by inviting
others to speak and by prompting them to
elaborate
“how was your trip?”
 “tell me about your day?”

Woman speak personally
use a concrete style--details, stories,
clarifications, additions

Women use responsiveness
Affirm others
 Lets them know you are listening

Tentativeness

Women use things like verbal hedges


“I kind of feel that maybe you are
overreacting”
Tag questions

“That was a pretty good movie, wasn’t it?”

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Lakoff indicated in the 70’s that this reflects women’s
socialization into subordinate roles and low self esteem
This has since been reinterpreted and suggested that
her interpretation implies that women’s speech is
inferior and based on using male speech patterns as
the standard
Now we see women’s speech as a desire to keep
conversation open and to include others
Men’s Speech
Men exert control, preserve
independence and enhance status
 Conversation is an area for proving
oneself and negotiating prestige

Two Tendencies
Men often use talk to establish and
defend their personal status and ideas by
asserting themselves and challenging
others
 When they show support they do it by
respecting the other’s independence and
avoiding communication they regard as
condescending

Features
Speak to exhibit knowledge, skill or ability
 To avoid disclosing personal information
that might make a man appear weal
 Focus on instrumental activity (here’s
what you should do)

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To women this sometimes appears
condescending and unfeeling
Instrumentality

Men are socialized to do things, to
achieve goals, get information, discover
facts, suggest solutions--sometimes to
women it seems as if men don’t care
about their feelings
Conversational Dominance
Men really do dominate conversations
 They reroute conversations by
challenging other speakers, wresting the
talk stage, interrupt (men interrupt to gain
control, women interrupt to ask questions,
show interest

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Men express themselves in fairly absolute
assertive ways--more forceful, direct, and
authoritative--less tentative speech


Men communication impersonally--in general terms that
are removed from personal experience and personal
feelings
Not highly responsive--give more “minimal response
cues” verbalizations such as “yeah” or “umhmmmm”
perceived as indicated a lack of involvement, lacking
expressed empathy
Misinterpretations

What happens when men and women
talk, each operating out of a distinctive
speech community--patterns, recurrent
misreadings between men and women?