Gender theorists

• Language and communication matter more to men than women
• Women talk more than men
• Women are more verbally skilled than men
• Men's goals in language are about getting things done
• Women is to make connections with people

• Boys and girls grow up in different cultures so between sexes it is cross-cultural communication
• Looked at past studies and videos of cross-cultural communication and found that the male should be seen as the norm.
• Men get more air time, speak in public, avoid failure, speak one at a time.
• Women and rapport talk- talk too much, speak in private contexts, build relations, speak symmetrically. 
• Her research showed that men and women do speak differently.

• Sociolinguistic approach account of gender differences.
• Takes the idea of women and men performing different gender in their everyday interactions. 
• Looks at idea that gender is not given but socially constructed 
• Linguistic strategies used by male speakers to dominate female speakers 
• Children develop gender and learn the 'appropriate speech'

Studied 31 different conversations in the workplace and found that men interrupted 46 times whereas women only interrupted twice.

All male talk in a rugby team: Found men pay less regard to save face and using insults as a way of expressing solidarity.

Studied women's gossip

House talk: exchange of information and resources connected with a female role as an occupation.

Scandal: Judging behavior of others, especially women

Bitching: Expression of women's anger, make complaints in private to other women

Chatting: Everyday conversation- a form of female small talk

• Found in mixed conversations (men and women) women ask more questions than men.
• Argues conversation between sexes fail because of the way that they respond. 
• In mixed-sex interactions, men speak on average twice as long as women.
• Found women more likely to use minimal responses such as 'yea' or 'mhm'. 

Explanations of women's linguistic behavior:

Social status- Women are more aware of how their speech indicates their social status. They strive to appear as a higher social class.

They appear more conscious of status

Subordinate groups: Women must avoid offending men, being the subordinate group.

Women must try harder to be accepted by society so forced to use more standard forms.

Guardians of the values- Society expects them to speak in more standard forms.

Found male builders are highly collaborative in constructing narratives of in group and out group identities. Various other male groups are demonized in these conversations. This includes Polish immigrants who are seen as rude clients and rival builders. Women are almost forgotten about though as they are seen as so under threatening to male ascendency in the building industry that they do not feature in the 'out group'.