Differences in Language and Gender
There are many differences in language between male and female. This is why we sometimes do not understand the opposite sex. These differences can be lexical, phonological, grammatical or conversational.
There have been many studies into gender and conversational behaviour one of which answers the most common question of who talks the most this was conducted by Fishman '90. He found that in mixed sex conversation, men talk twice as much as women. Although this cannot be generalised to all males and females as many people do not follow the trends.
Women are more supportive in their behaviour in conversation. They ask more questions, give more …show more content…
In same sex conversations, they found that interruptions were fairly even. However, in mixed sex conversation, almost all of the interruptions were from men and women hardly interrupted at all. In parent-child conversations, daughters are interrupted more than sons, and fathers interrupt more.
Researchers have also conducted studies to find out about topics of conversation. They found that women tend to talk about feelings whereas men talk about 'things.' This means that males tend to talk about sport, information and facts on the other hand, women talk about past experiences and problems.
Lakoff and Spender '70 believe that not only do men and women behave differently when turn taking, they also differ when it comes to other aspects of behaviour in turn taking. They have found that men are more likely to ignore Grice's 'maxim of relevance' This means that they do will keep returning to a topic that had finished a few minutes before. This in turn will disrupt the conversation. Men also compete for the floor more then women. Women listen actively and supportively and use more minimal responses whereas men delay their minimal responses, which could lead the talker to believe that they are inpatient or not interested. Women use more question tags, which are more friendly in conversation than
There are many differences in language between male and female. This is why we sometimes do not understand the opposite sex. These differences can be lexical, phonological, grammatical or conversational.
There have been many studies into gender and conversational behaviour one of which answers the most common question of who talks the most this was conducted by Fishman '90. He found that in mixed sex conversation, men talk twice as much as women. Although this cannot be generalised to all males and females as many people do not follow the trends.
Women are more supportive in their behaviour in conversation. They ask more questions, give more …show more content…
In same sex conversations, they found that interruptions were fairly even. However, in mixed sex conversation, almost all of the interruptions were from men and women hardly interrupted at all. In parent-child conversations, daughters are interrupted more than sons, and fathers interrupt more.
Researchers have also conducted studies to find out about topics of conversation. They found that women tend to talk about feelings whereas men talk about 'things.' This means that males tend to talk about sport, information and facts on the other hand, women talk about past experiences and problems.
Lakoff and Spender '70 believe that not only do men and women behave differently when turn taking, they also differ when it comes to other aspects of behaviour in turn taking. They have found that men are more likely to ignore Grice's 'maxim of relevance' This means that they do will keep returning to a topic that had finished a few minutes before. This in turn will disrupt the conversation. Men also compete for the floor more then women. Women listen actively and supportively and use more minimal responses whereas men delay their minimal responses, which could lead the talker to believe that they are inpatient or not interested. Women use more question tags, which are more friendly in conversation than