Cross-Cultural Communication Behaviors And Differences Between Men And Women

Register to read the introduction… Using the work of Deborah Tannen it is important to recognize that these linguistic differences between men and women do not stem solely from what Tannen describes as “cross-cultural communication.” There are very apparent differences in speaking styles: women tend to offer suggestions, give reasons, gather information and include many points of view before deciding what to do, whereas men like to get to the point and control the circumstances and to have the control over other points of view to make their decisions. Women give cooperative discourses while men perceive it as a form of competition. While women express preferences by asking questions, men express their preferences directly and often blunt. Women tend to hear questions as a way to keep conversation going while men regard questions as a direct request for information. As well as men think silence is a sign of neutrality or appreciation, women rather use it to respond to offensive comments or to express quiet disapproval. In fact, men tend to interrupt more often and ask less questions. Impassive expression is seen as cold and disapproving by women, while men consider it as attentive and businesslike. Women prefer personal talk that seeks, men prefer impersonal talk that excludes emotions. Tannen asserts that the basic uses of conversation by women are to establish and support intimacy, while for men it is to acquire status. These …show more content…
Men and women not matching these role expectations are out-of-favour. So a woman who refuses to conclude a duty of a male college is considered as dominant with a ”pseudo male“ behaviour. In many different contexts Tannen detected that on the one hand men consider it appropriate to indicate their authority and take care not to displease superordinates. On the other hand women show a tendency to minimize their authority and avoid to offend subordinates. This may explain why men prefer a direct and confrontational communication style while women rather communicate indirectly and avoid confrontations. But the style of communication is decisive if a presentation is noted or ignored. This again explains why it easily happens that female contributions to a topic are less …show more content…
He established some rules for successful communication between genders in organisations. So it may be useful to create a positive atmosphere for conversation by mutual acceptance and reassurance. As well as to express orders and requests politely but clear and explicit and emphasize important matters to attract attention. In the same manner it should be minded that emotional language creates communicational proximity and transmits a human touch but exaggerated proximity may be misunderstood and undermine someone´s authority. Precaution is demanded when using monologues because they may harm the atmosphere for conversation. As well as it can be advantageous not to depict own cognitions as incontrovertible but to use restrictive or softer terms to facilitate a fair and cooperative communication. It is important to be able to concede mistakes and to say one is wrong, and to know that this is an indication of dignity and responsibility and not a gesture of repression. During processes of solution findings it can help to think loud and share one´s