English Language AS theorists

Geoffrey Beattie. Geoffrey Beattie found that men and women interrupted with more or less equal frequency. Men 34.1 and women 33.8. Therefore men interrupted more although there’s not really a significant difference. When it comes to Zimmerman and Wests findings Beattie points out that “The problem with this is that you might simply have one very chatty man in the study which has a disproportionate effect on the total.” Beattie then goes on to say that “Interruptions don’t necessarily reflect dominance. Some interruptions reflect interest and involvement.” Deborah Tannen and difference. Tannen has summarised her you ‘you just don’t understand’ in an article in which she represents male and female language use in six contrasts; • Status vs support • Independence vs intimacy • Advice vs understanding • Information vs feelings • Orders vs proposals • Conflict vs compromise Status vs support. In a man’s world, conversation is competitive, they want to achieve the upper hand and prevent others from dominating them. Although, for women it’s a way to gain confirmation and support for their ideas. Men see the whole world as a place to gain status and try to keep it where as women see it as “a network of connections seeking support and consensus.” Independence vs intimacy. Women often think in terms of closeness and support and struggle to preserve intimacy whereas men tend to focus more on independence. This leads men and women to completely different views on the same situation. Advice vs understanding. Tannen claims that to many men, a complaint is a challenge to find a solution; “When my mother tells my father she doesn’t feel well, he invariably offers to take her to the doctor. Invariably, she is disappointed with this reaction. Like many men, he is focused on what he can do, whereas she wants sympathy.” Information vs feelings. A young man makes a quick phone call. His mum overhears it as a series of grunts. She then asks him about it. He has arranged to go to a specific place, where he will play football with various people and has to take the ball. A young woman makes a phone call, for about half an hour or more. The mum then asks about it, it emerges that she has been talking “you know” “about stuff”. Most of the talk has been on feelings. Historically, men’s concerns were seen as more important than women’s, but this has reversed today. The giving of information is considered less value than sharing of emotions and elaboration. Orders vs proposals. Women’s often suggest that people do things like... “Why don’t we?” men tend to use and prefer to hear a direct imperative. Conflict vs compromise. “In trying to prevent fights” writes Tannen, “some women refuse to oppose the will of others openly. But sometimes it’s far more effective for a woman to assert herself, even at the risk of conflict.” Tannen concludes, rather bathetically with a hint of an allusion to Neal Armstrong that, “Learning the others ways of talking is a leap across the communication gap between man and woman, and a giant step towards genuine understanding.”