Differences in conversation style: men and women

Essay by umka May 2004

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Communication isn't as simple as saying what you mean;

The world you live in is not the one everyone lives in and the way you assume is the way to talk is really only one of many;

How we talk and listen are deeply influenced by cultural experience;

The main questions are:

- Who gets heard?

- Who gets credit?

- What gets done?

Linguistic style

- certain way of telling (tone of voice, rate of speed, degree of loudness);

- person's characteristic speaking pattern;

- set of culturally learned signals by which we not only communicate what we mean but also interpret other's meaning and evaluate one other as people.

Country or region of origin, ethic background influence on important points in conversation: consider turn talking, longness of pause, ects.

Differences in conversation style can have strong impact on who gets heard and on the judgments, including psychological ones, that are maid by people and their abilities.

Two levels language functions on:

1. Language communicates ideas.

2. Language negotiotes relationships.

Constitute linguistic style are different for men and women

Why? Different types of communications styles they are learned from childhood:

Girls tend to learn conversational rithuals that focus on the raport dimensions of relationships;

Boys tend to learn rituals that focus on status dimension;

!!!RESULT: Women and men tend to have different habitual ways of saying what they mean, and conversations between them can be like cross-cultural communications.

Men tend to be sensitive to the power dynamics of interaction, speaking in ways that position themselves as one up and resisting being put in one-down position by others;

Women tend to react more strongly to the rapport dynamic, speaking in the ways that save face for others and buffering statements that could be seen as putting others in one-down position;...