Verbal Communication Between Genders
The question of how men and women communicate verbally, and whether they do so differently, has been subjected to an onslaught of various scientific and sociological studies for the past four decades. It has spawned much social and scientific debate alongside many popular science books and magazines. And although this has resulted in generally accepted truths, there is also evidence that previous conclusions may not, in fact, be wholly accurate.
Other People Are Reading
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Specifics versus Generalities
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One commonly found result of several studies is that men tend to focus on generalities during verbal conversation while women focus more on specifics, according to the article "Why Are Women So Strange and Men So Weird?" on the website TellingItLikeItIs.net. While women enjoy conveying the specifics of a story, the article explains, men are waiting for the "bottom line" and become irritated when it is not explained quickly. In short, men have a tendency to want to get to the point.
Motives
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Deborah Tannen, a communications expert and the author of several books exploring how men and women communicate with each other, maintains that in general men use conversation as a way to establish dominance or status within a social hierarchy. Consequently, they have a tendency to interrupt more than women. Women, on the other hand, tend to use conversation as a means of establishing affinity and intimacy.
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Eye Contact
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An additional component of verbal communication between men and women is eye contact. Men have a tendency to maintain eye contact for shorter periods than women, according to TellingItLikeItis.net.
Verbal Cues
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Several studies maintain that women use more verbal cues, such as saying things like "Uh-huh," while nodding to show they are understanding the speaker, whereas men are less likely to do so.
According to the article "Gender Differences in Communication: An Intercultural Experience" on the Feminism and Women's Studies website, women also do this because they feel they are more submissive in conversation with men, particularly through "adopting linguistic practices such as using tag questions, qualifiers and fillers to soften their messages."
The Opposing Argument
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On the other hand, nearly all of the previous contentions are fiercely argued against and even called "myths" by Deborah Cameron in her article "What Language Barrier?" which features three excerpts from her book, "The Myth of Mars versus Venus."
Cameron argues that when many of the studies monitoring differences between men and women in verbal communication are taken as an aggregate body of evidence, there is little to no difference found in how the genders communicate.
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References
- TellingItLikeItIs.net: Why are women so strange and men so weird?
- Feminism and Women's Studies: Gender Differences in Communication: An Intercultural Experience
- TheGuardian.co.uk: What Language Barrier?
- Cornell.edu: Liguist lectures on differences between men and women's communications
- Everyman.org: Conversational Styles of Men and Women by David Hoffington
- Photo Credit gender simbol image by Nataliya Galkina from Fotolia.com
