do men and women speak differently? Flashcards
paragraph plans:
- John Gray (women are from mars)
- rapport vs report (Tannen) texting
- the female brain (women talking more than man) wrong stats
- Ubang
- physical gestures
intro:
Well, I guess maybe we should address it. I know what you’re thinking; ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’, yes there are evidently stereotypes that permeate our culture. But are they really true? Join me to discover the truths of this age-old debate.
John Gray model paragraph:
Speaking of John Gray and his global best-seller. I decided to start my own research before we began and had a little look at the public’s perspective, specifically the reviews. Let me share some of my favourites; “Idiotic sexist drivel. Catch a rocket back to Mars, Dr Gray.”, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and John Gray is from far, far further out in the solar system…” and “Men and women are actually from different planets! We’re an alien species! Women like to shop because they come from a planet full of shopping centres. Men like to fix things and play sports because that’s all they did on their planet.”. Seems like the space metaphors haven’t gone down well.
rapport vs report model paragraph:
Perhaps our highly acknowledged linguistic expert Deborah Tannen will let us get past this never-ending dispute. Rapport vs Report, Tannen recognises this concept as one of several in her Difference theory. She argues that male communication typically revolves around gaining status, independence, and information, whereas females prioritise intimacy, compromise, and support.
There is no doubt that we could all give an example to support this. Oxford University research analysed mobile phone data in the UK, and revealed that women rack up around 130 hours a year, 30 hours more than men.
Honestly, I was surprised that there wasn’t a larger gender gap between data. I personally can’t remember the last time I phoned my dad for longer than 2 minutes. And don’t even get me started on text messages, I think I could tell my dad that I’d broken a rib and he’d still reply with a thumbs up. I know it all sounds very stereotypical, but it is majorly the sheer truth. My mum would phone me right away, asking for every detail, paired with sending me 5 texts an hour to check up. But that’s it; males aren’t concerned with minor nuances; once they have the information, they’re satisfied. So, why waste time?
the female brain model paragraph:
Really all I’ve taken from this so far is that women just love to chat! Don’t they? It’s something one-half of the population has long suspected, and the other half always vocally denied. Key word vocally. If you were to look up online ‘Do women talk more than men?’ I could absolutely guarantee that you would be greeted with these statistics; ‘Women use an average of 20,000 words a day, compared to the mere 7,000 that men utter’.
These statistics appear in a book called ‘The Female Brain’, written by Louann Brizendine. However, one person who found it impossible to believe was Mark Liberman, a professor of phonetics. He had no luck trying to trace these figures, except from a similar claim in a 1993 Marriage Guidance Pamphlet, leading to Brizendine agreeing to remove these figures from future additions. Not quite the gold standard of scientific evidence… This did make me wonder, how many of these theories are really just myths that have acquired the status of a fact?
Ubang model paragraph:
Alright, let’s get away from these perpetual, ‘credible’ linguistic researchers. Here is a true (most definitely true) example of males and females speaking differently. Did you know that in Ubang, Nigeria, there are separate languages for males and females? Boys are expected to adopt the ‘male tongue’ by the age of 10, and if they don’t, and continue to use words from the opposite language, they are considered abnormal.
If it is necessary to create a whole new language I suppose men really are from mars and women really are from venus. Or maybe they’re just ahead of their time, we’ll all be next. And that’s what they suggested, they believed that God planned to give each ethnic group 2 gendered languages, but there weren’t enough languages to go around.
physical gestures model paragraph:
And if it wasn’t confusing enough, apparently it’s not just our language that’s different, it’s also our physical gestures. Yep that’s right, research in the Western world has found a significant gender difference in the connotations behind ‘the nod’. Generally speaking, if a man nods his head it’s a sign of agreement, an answer, a solid yes, and if you don’t receive that nod, then there really is no approval. However, for women, a head nod could also imply a ‘yes’, but not just that, it could also be a ‘yes, go on’ or a ‘mhm i’m listening’. Maybe Tannen was right when she conceptualised Rapport vs Report. Men really are simple creatures.
There’s a lot to unpack, so I think I’ll leave you on that note. Be sure to let me know your opinions on this debate and if you have any more to add, or have a go at your own research as I am sure there are plenty more myths to bust! I’ll see you next week, where we discuss the impacts of dreaded technology on the English Language. Is this the downfall?
