Discourse analysis

Does it matter if a men and women speak Language differently

(Adapted from Arndt,et al (2000) Alive to Language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Many people around the world learn English language because of its perceived importance in global contexts such as those of business, communication, academic study, scientific research, technology, politics or diplomacy. Coates (1998:295) terms such contexts collectively as 'the public domain'. She claims that it is 'a male-dominated domain, and the discourse patterns of male speakers have become an established norm in public life'. If women wish to succeed in this domain, therefore, the implication is that they need to adopt more assertive, 'masculine' - adversarial and information-focused - styles of discourse. However, there is a growing body of research which suggests that a more 'female' style of interaction - more co-operative, less confrontational and taking more account of others' 'face' needs - is more successful than the 'male' style in certain contexts such as doctor/patient relationships, or collaborative research, or teaching. Despite this, though, it still appears to be the case that in many public work-related domains, it is women who have to adapt their style to that of men.
Other research on gender-related matters has attempted to establish whether the so-called 'typical' features of female speech and interaction strategies do actually correlate with lack of power. For instance, women's speech has come to be characterized as relatively 'powerless' because of claims that women tend to use 'hedges' (expressions of tentativeness) or tag questions (said to indicate lack of assertiveness) to a much greater extent than men. Such views have been challenged, and refuted, with many researchers arguing that linguistic forms matter only insofar as they have a cultural value attached to them; they do not, of themselves, have any power-related meaning. Also, and not less important, the 'folklinguistic' view of women's speech which labels it as 'disfluent', 'non-logical' and 'non-competitive' has been shown to be seriously flawed, not only on the grounds that the stereotypes of both male and female usage simply do not hold up in the face of the evidence, but also that the all-important factor of contexts of utterances has been insufficiently taken into account in much past research.
If you want to be successful learner of language it is worth to think about that gender also effects our language learning experience and we need awareness about the cultural norms of the target language, and how these compare with norms in our native language.
Home task: Collect some interactional data of your own and look for differences in the way women and men interact, both in mixed groups and in single-gender groups. Consider to what extent these differences might hinge on factors other than gender - personality, ethnicity, age and status of interactants and context of interaction