Gender and Conversational Interaction / Edition 1

by Deborah Tannen

Overview

The author of the best-selling You Just Don't Understand, Deborah Tannen, has collected twelve papers about gender-related patterns in conversational interaction. The theoretical thrust of the collection, like that of Tannen's own work, is anthropological and sociolinguistic: female and male styles are approached as different "cultural" practice. Beginning with Tannen's own essay arguing for the relativity of discourse strategies, the volume challenges facile generalizations about gender-based styles and explores the complex relationship between gender and language use. The chapters, some previously unpublished and some classics in the field, address discourse across the lifespan, including preschool, junior high school, and adult interaction. They explore such varied discourse contexts as preschool disputes, romantic and sexual teasing among adolescent girls, cooperative competition in adolescent "girl talk," conversational storytelling, a faculty committee meeting, children in an urban black neighborhood at play, and a legal dispute in a Tenejapan village in Mexico. Two chapters review and evaluate the literature on key areas of gender-related linguistic phenomena: interruption and amount of talk. Gender and Conversational Interaction will interest general readers as well as students and scholars in a variety of disciplines including linguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, women's studies, and communications.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195081947
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/23/1993
Series:	Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.13(w) x 9.19(h) x 0.98(d)

About the Author

Georgetown University

Hometown:

Washington, D.C. metro area

Date of Birth:

June 7, 1945

Place of Birth:

Brooklyn, New York

Education:

B.A., Harpur College, 1966, Wayne State University, 1970; M.A. in Linguistics, UC Berkeley, 1976; Ph.D., 1979

Table of Contents

	Editor's Introduction	3
	Overview of the Chapters	6
	Notes	11
	References	11
I	Talking Among Friends
1.	"Go Get Ya a French!": Romantic and Sexual Teasing Among Adolescent Girls	17
	An Ethnographic and Sociolinguistic Approach	19
	Teasing About Romantic and Sexual Behavior	20
	Dealing with Multiple Social Concerns Through Teasing	24
	Discussion	29
	Notes	30
	References	30
2.	Cooperative Competition in Adolescent "Girl Talk"	32
	Women and Symbolic Capital	33
	Female Symbolic Capital in the High School Setting	35
	The Girl Talk	38
	Talk About Boys	41
Episode A	Third Parties	41
Episode B	Asking Boys Out	49
Episode C	Popular Boys	52
Episode D	Flaws	55
	Conclusion	60
	Notes	60
	References	61
3.	Community and Contest: Midwestern Men and Women Creating Their Worlds in Conversational Storytelling	62
	Discourse, Gender, and World	68
	Men's and Women's Narrative Worlds	69
	Language and Storyworld	71
	A Community Story	74
	Discussion	75
	Notes	76
	References	77
II	Conflict Talk
4.	Pickle Fights: Gendered Talk in Preschool Disputes	83
	Introduction	83
	Gender Socialization Through Language	83
	Gender Socialization Through Language Socialization	83
	Gender Role Socialization Through Peer Talk and Peer Play	84
	Gender Differences in Dispute Management	86
	Two Models of Gendered Styles in Children's Talk	87
	Affiliative Versus Adversarial Styles	87
	Focus on the Relationship Versus Focus on the Self	88
	Female-Associated Conflict Style: Focus on the Relationship	89
	Male-Associated Conflict Style: Focus on the Self	89
	The Pickle Fights	90
	Method	90
	Differences in the Use of the Pretend Frame by the Girls and the Boys	91
	The Girls' Session: Preliminary Discussion	92
	The Girls' Pickle Fight	94
	The Boys' Session: Preliminary Discussion	97
	The Boys' Pickle Fight	99
	Conclusion	104
	Notes	106
	References	106
5.	Tactical Uses of Stories: Participation Frameworks Within boys' and Girls' Disputes	110
	Introduction	110
	Fieldwork and Theoretical Approach	111
	Stories Within Disputes of Boys	112
	Disputes Built Through Reciprocal Counters	112
	Using a Story to Restructure a Dispute	114
	Participant Frameworks Invoked by the Story	115
	Audience Alignment Toward Opponent/Story Character	116
	Building a Multiparty Consensus	118
	Girls' Stories	119
	Structure in Telling and Listening to Instigating Stories	120
	Cited Characters and Current Participants	122
	Recipient Responses	125
	A Comparison of Boys' and Girls' Dispute Stories	127
Appendix A	The Children	130
Appendix B	Transcription	130
Appendix C	Boys' Dispute Story	131
Appendix D	Girls' Dispute Story	135
	Notes	141
	References	142
6.	Gender, Politeness, and Confrontation in Tenejapa	144
	Current Themes in Language and Gender Research	145
	Ethnographic Background	146
	Norms of Interaction	146
	Casual Conversational Style	147
	Arenas for Conflict	149
	A Tenejapan Court Case	149
	Format and Procedures	149
	The Case of the Runaway Daughter-in-Law	150
	Interaction in the Courtroom Context	152
	Speech Event Demarcation	152
	Participants	152
	Turn-Taking Structure	152
	Conclusion	156
	Notes	159
	References	161
III	The Relativity of Discourse Strategies
7.	The Relativity of Linguistic Strategies: Rethinking Power and Solidarity in Gender and Dominance	165
	Introduction	165
	Overview of the Chapter	166
	Theoretical Background	166
	Power and Solidarity	166
	The Ambiguity of Linguistic Strategies	167
	The Polysemy of Power and Solidarity	168
	Similarity/Difference	170
	The Relativity of Linguistic Strategies	173
	Indirectness	173
	Interruption	175
	Silence Versus Volubility	176
	Topic Raising	178
	Adversativeness: Conflict and Verbal Aggression	179
	Conclusion	183
	Notes	184
	References	185
8.	Who's Got the Floor?	189
	Introduction	189
	Theoretical Prods for the Study	190
	Initial Procedures	191
	A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Focus	191
	A New Focus	200
	Turns and Floors in the Literature	200
	One-At-A-Time	200
	Turns	201
	Floor	204
	Partial Answer to the First Research Question: What Is the Floor?	207
	Turn and Floor Defined	207
	Procedure for Analyzing the Data Objectively	212
	Preparing the Data for Analysis	212
	Inducing the Variables	213
	Data Analysis	214
	Counted Results	215
	Differences Between the Two Types of Floors	215
	Gender Differences	219
	Conclusions	221
	Notes	222
	References	224
IV	Critical Reviews of the Literature
9.	Women, Men, and Interruptions: A Critical Review	231
	Overview of Research Results: Questions in Need of Answers	231
	The Use of the Term "Interruption" in This Review	237
	The Functions of Interruptions	238
	Interruptions as Supportive and Cooperative Speech Acts	238
	Other Circumstances in Which Interruptions Do Not Violate the Speaking Rights of Others	240
	The Extent to Which Interruptions Are Likely to Be Dominance-Related in Different Types of Interaction	241
	"Successful" Interruptions and Dominance	244
	The Functions of Interruptions: Conclusions	246
	Gender and the Use of Dominance-Associated Interruptions	247
	Semantic Content as a Gauge of Gender Differences With Respect to Dominance-Related Interruptions	248
	Type of Context as a Gauge of Gender Differences With Respect to Dominance-Related Interruptions	249
	"Successful" Interruptions as a Gauge of Gender Differences With Respect to Dominance-Related Interruptions	250
	Dominance Predisposition and Power as Gauges of Gender Differences with Respect to Dominance-Related Interruptions	251
	Discrimination on the Basis of Gender of Interruptee as a Gauge of Gender Differences With Respect to Dominance-Related Interruptions	253
	Gender and Dominance-Associated Interruptions: Conclusions	258
	Gender and Cooperative Interruptions	258
	Other Factors Which May Have Affected Results in the Gender-Related Interruptions Literature	260
	Effects of Subject and Situational Variables	260
	Age	261
	Degree of Intimacy	261
	Personality Factors	262
	Status/Power in the Interaction Resulting From Some Source Other Than Gender	262
	Degree of Conflict Present, and the Extent to Which the Interaction is Task-Oriented	263
	Natural Versus Laboratory Setting	263
	Dyad Versus Group	263
	Topic of Conversation	263
	Change in Gender Behavior Over the Years	264
	Methodological Considerations	265
	Conclusions	268
	Notes	269
	References	274
10.	Understanding Gender Differences in Amount of Talk: A Critical Review of Research	281
	The Research Findings on Amount of Talk	281
	The Approach to Understanding the Research Findings	284
	Status Characteristics Theory	286
	The Relevance of Research Activity to Amount of Talk	287
	Amount of Talk in Formal Task Contexts	288
	Understanding the Results	289
	Amount of Talk in Formally Structured but Not Formally Task-Oriented Interaction	294
	Amount of Talk in Informal Task Contexts and Non-Task-Oriented Contexts	296
	Understanding Talk in Informal Contexts	297
	Conclusions	301
	Epilogue: Stereotypes Revisited	302
	Notes	303
	References	306
	Contributors	313
	Index	317

Editorial Reviews

"This will be an excellent text for gender classes and for social psychology classes. Current, well-researched chapters with generous references, solid data, and a respectable base of theory."—M. Karraker, University of St. Thomas

"This volume is a useful addition to the language and gender literature....Everyone will find something of value in this volume, and the reprinting of Edelsky's fine paper cannot be too loudly applauded."—Applied Linguistics

"This important volume provides sophisticated theorizing on both gender and discourse. Gender in Conversational Interaction will help us clarify complex issues of theoretical and methodological research on the study of gender and language, and it will be immensely useful in courses on the topic.... There is a fine line between generalization and a stereotype; because of this insightful book, progress will be made in knowing where that line lies."—Language in Society

"The empirical studies and critical reviews Tannen has collected cogently explain why we can no longer be satisfied with facile generalizations about differences between men's and women's discourse."—Discourse and Society

From the Publisher