A Cultural Approach To Male-Female Communication Analysis

Improved Essays
In the article, “A cultural approach to male-female miscommunication” the authors Daniel Maltz and Ruth Borker talk about the different communication patterns of males and females. They talk about problems with male and female conversations and how we have a difficult time picking up on the opposite sexes verbal tendencies. The authors give an in depth analysis on how male and female think on a psychological level during a conversation. Women have many key tendencies in the way they communicate that make them completely different from men. First, “women display a greater tendency to ask questions” through my experiences this has been proven true. Most guys in class don’t really ask questions because most of them are on their phones but …show more content…
Me growing up I remember playing with not one or two people at a time but 20 possibly 30 people at a time. Boys do tend to play in large groups because most of the time we are playing some kind of sport that requires many people. We definitely assert our dominance above other men we find weaker then us. I don’t know why we do this but we just do and the article pegged it perfectly. We do like to be watched doing something great because it has to do with our ego. Some people even perform better under pressure and with more eyes watching. The article goes on to describe guys using verbal commands such as “you go over there” or “you’re a dolt.” I find these to only exist between the closest of friends. My friends and I insult each other on a daily basis but they aren’t really insults anymore because no one ever gets offended. When it comes down to it boys and girls are completely different. We were raised differently and as kids we would only spend time with the same sex, which has a great impact on our ability to communicate with the opposite sex. So I feel it is natural to have some differences in our communication process it only makes the opposite sex more appealing to get to know. We want to find out what makes them different so that we can properly blend in with their group and create new

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Girls In Guyland Analysis

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages

    As women, we either play into mens wants of us, or we do not follow the rules. This really defines our relations with men. When we act a babe, we devalue ourselves but we are praised by men. When we refuse to be stupefied, we are considered a bitch. Kimmel states, “To be taken seriously as a competent individual means minimizing, or even avoiding altogether, the trappings of femininity” (252).…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    According to psychologist Bruce Dorval, at every age girls and women faced each other making direct eye contact. While boys and men of all ages sat at angles to each other and looked at things within the room (Tannen 283). Therefore, the tendency for men to face away from women gives the impression that they are not listening even when they are. Also, girls, talk at length about one topic while boys seem to jump from one topic to the next. These conversational habits are as frustration to men as they are to women.…

    • 709 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Biologically a male individual has to technically catch up to a female in terms of early speaking habits. At an early age, females are linguistically and mathematically more advanced than males at an early age. (Tannen, Deborah. “Can’t we talk? Pg.…

    • 1007 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Communicating is an essential component to human life, without conversations life would be full of unknowns. Some conversations are awkward, others are tense, and some are full of happiness and commitment. During “But What Do You Mean” by Deborah Tannen, the author approaches the subject of why men and women have trouble with conversing in the workplace. Tannen uses seven different categories to classify communication problems between men and women that not only apply in the workplace but as well as everyday life. There are two people that come to my mind that have major communication problems and they are my mom and step-dad.…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It seems as if women are more ready to let other speakers into the conversation or to allow another speaker to dominate the discussion. Women use more Standard English. At an early age, girls tend to have one or two girlfriends with whom they play most of the time. They are more likely to talk about feelings and the effect of events upon themselves. Women use language to make and maintain social cohesiveness and their activities are generally co-operative and non-competitive.…

    • 369 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Diagnostic Writing Assignment Tannen has a very interesting point. She states that boys are more susceptible to learn in a more hostile environment such as criticizing and tearing apart the the message that they have read. Girls on the other hand want to talk out what they have read and try to relate to the message. I agree with Tannen and the claims she states about how girls and boys learn in different ways.…

    • 325 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The article “Sex, Lies and Conversation” by Deborah Tannen illustrates several points about the differences and similarities between the conversational techniques of men and women of varying ages. In her article, she mentions how men and women have different expectations of what a conversationalist is supposed to do, one of them being that women “assume a conversationalist's job is to express agreement and support” (para 19) meanwhile men “see their conversational duty as pointing out the other side of an argument” (para 19). This can create unintended tension between both people, such can be seen in the book Deep Down Dark by Hector Tobar. Chapter four of the book is when hunger and desperation first begins to show itself within the 33 men.…

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Deborah Tannen Analysis

    • 1131 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Task of Understanding One Another “Why aren’t you listening to me?” that is what I would ask my dad when I would not see him engaged in what I had to say. However he never failed to repeat exactly what I told him. Most women need eye contact to show that the listener is absorbed in the conversation. That is just one of the many examples that are presented as what we naturally expect a certain way to act or listen when one is present.…

    • 1131 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Girls typically talk less than men, since they worry about feelings, while men feel like they having something to prove causing them to talk…

    • 973 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gender Binaries: Fact or Fiction? Deborah Tannen’s piece, Sex, Lies and Conversation: Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other and Deborah Cameron’s piece, What language barrier, show comparisons and differences through the communication between men and women. Deborah Tannen, in her essay, argues that men and women have grown up with different types of communication with the same and opposite sexes. Deborah Cameron, in her essay, argues that there are more language differences between different men or women within their own sex than there are between sexes.…

    • 1250 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    and I learned about how gender plays a role in language. After studying these articles I have started to listen to the way both males and females talk to see if I could see examples of what these theorists mentioned. There is no clear answer in who talks more, but it can be said that women talk more in private and men talk more publically. Each year gender roles are seen showing lesser and lesser importance with women gaining the same opportunities as men, and their language adapting to conquer public…

    • 1411 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Deborah Tannen in her Essay, the “the Power of Talk” dissects how communication tells not only ideas, but the power structure of a conversation. Tannen looks at the fundamental differences within people to show how power can change in a conversation. Looking specifically at gender, culture, and job standings - Tannen can understand how those anthropological aspects affect conversation. Within individual speech patterns, communication can be used to pinpoint the imbalance of power in a group setting.…

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Apology and Gender: Why Are Women Always Saying Sorry? How many times have you apologized for something even though you were not at fault? More often than not, women are always saying sorry in everyday situations, such as asking a question or bumping into someone. And it is a widely accepted stereotype that women apologize more than men, but there is more to the interpretations of this gender difference.…

    • 2219 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Or does the communication style make men and women to decode the response differently? In what follows we will discuss the different ideas of the different communication styles given by Tannen in her book, metamesages, and the problem with glass ceiling. Tannen’s Ideas One of the most important ideas from Tannen’s chapter is asymmetry vs symmetry.…

    • 1706 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As we delve deeper into our theories on interpersonal communication, we begin to learn more about ourselves and how to interact with the people around us. Whether they are in our lives on a personal, professional or combined capacity. This week I have decided to look at the theories of Interactional View and Genderlect Styles (Griffin, 2015). When we study Interactional View, a theory developed by Paul Watzlawick, we can see how communication has shaped us into the people we are today. Watzlawick uses axioms to describe his theory.…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays