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Gender Language Differences Do men and women really speak differently?

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 ISSN
Global English-Oriented Research Journal (G E O R J) 2454-5511
Critical & Creative Explorations/Practices in
IMPACT FACTOR: 2.9
English Language, Literature, Linguistics & Education and Creative Writing
2015: 2.9

Gender Language Differences

Do men and women really speak differently?

Abderrazak Mohammed Saeed Chouchane

Sohar University (GFP), Sohar 311
Sultanate of Oman

Abstract
The focus of this research is in the area of Language and gender. It investigates the major
linguistic differences between men and women speech by examining the validity of the
conversational differences claimed by the Deficit and Dominance Theory. The research delves
into the major linguistic features that characterize women’s speech by analyzing a mixed
gender conversation. The findings from the conversation analysis provide evidence of
significant linguistic differences between female and male speech in using lexical hedges and
fillers, intensifiers and the lexical choice and intonation which supports the Deficit and
Dominance claims. However, in other features like the rising pitch and overlapping and
interruptions in turn taking, the conversation analysis does not clearly show a bias to neither
side. Although many of the linguistic features between both genders still exist, some other
features are starting to weaken as they do not show clear bias, which will keep the debate open
to further studies and theories.

Keywords: Gender sex deficit dominance status linguistic conversation

1. Introduction:

Gender language differences are one of the controversial issues in linguistics which generated a
substantial debate among linguists and resulted in a massive literature about language usage
between men and women. It would make sense looking at differences between men’s and
women’s language competences from an angle of superiority and inferiority in societies where
women are really suppressed and subordinated, which is thought to be something of the past,
at least for Western societies since a few decades back when women were supposed to stay at
home, take care of family domestic life, listen and obey commands from a man dominated
society. To still interpret language differences in terms of women low and subordinate social
status in the 21st century with the influential women’s rights and liberation movements and the

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Global English-Oriented Research Journal (G E O R J) 2454-5511
Critical & Creative Explorations/Practices in
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English Language, Literature, Linguistics & Education and Creative Writing
2015: 2.9

unlimited communal and equivalent social roles women are playing side by side with men, casts
qualms and spurs desire to investigate the validity of the claimed conversational differences
between both genders.
The study is based on an analysis of a 25 minute casual mixed-sex conversation between three
men and three women English native speakers of equal social status and delves into the major
features that characterize women’s speech suggested by Robin Lakoff and the Deficit,
Dominance Theory.

2. Overview of Language and Gender

2.1. Gender versus Sex
In common speech, sex and gender are used interchangeably to refer to the male and female
characters, whereas linguistically, they do make a difference. Sex is defined from a biological
angle whereas Gender is considered as a “social construct” involving genetic, psychological,
social, and cultural differences between men and women. Gender is a technical linguistic term
for sexism, (Wardhough, 2002). Romaine (2000), and Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003) state
that sex is a biological categorization primarily based on productive potential, while gender is
the social elaboration of this biological sex. Romaine (2000) sees differentiating between sex
and gender is differentiating between what is “innate” and what is “environmental” and points
out to the clear difference between female and male pitch; which supports Wodak’s (1997)
interpretation of gender as not what a person “has” but what a person “does” in accordance
with the social norms of that particular person, (cited in Wardhaugh, 2002). Cameron (1998)
and Elsewhere, (1997) both agree that to be a man or a woman cannot be interpreted in
isolation of the different social factors surrounding them, but they are determined in relation
with their ethnic, religious groups and social classes, as well as the different situations,
circumstances and positions of interactions they are put in. According to Bonvillain (2008) men
and women are assigned different social roles, values and communicative behavior, which
makes gender vary among generations, societies, and even settings. “…women and men are
socialized to express themselves in different ways in accordance with cultural norms that teach
and reinforce differentiated gender roles”. To wrap up, sex refers primarily to the biological
differences between male and female sexes while gender refers to the characteristics of their
behavior constructed throughout from their childhood by their social and cultural surroundings
resulting in presenting themselves as “gender being” behaving as man or woman, as explained
by Coates (1998). It is through the social gender concepts and norms that binary attitudes
towards men and women are established.

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Global English-Oriented Research Journal (G E O R J) 2454-5511
Critical & Creative Explorations/Practices in
IMPACT FACTOR: 2.9
English Language, Literature, Linguistics & Education and Creative Writing
2015: 2.9

2.2. History of Language and Gender Studies

Concern about language and gender can date back to Otto Jesperson’s book Language: Its
Nature, Development and Origin in 1922; and later, in the 1940’s, the work of Simon de
Beaulivard, which apparently inspired linguists like Robin Lakoff in the 1970’s. At first, Gender
language was interpreted as a sociolinguistic variable like ethnicity, social class, age, race and
religion etc… It was not until the 1970’s when mainly Lakoff’s book, Language and Woman’s
place, was released that language and gender started to attract a major concern of linguists and
sociolinguists as a separate science, questioning men’s language as a “norm” and posited a split
between “ biological sex and sociocultural constructs of gender”, (Kendall and Tannen, 2001).
Since then, debate about language and gender among linguists and sociolinguists, the majority
of them feminists, started to intensify. Throughout the years, a substantial amount of research
has been carried out about language and the influence of social characteristics in shaping
language use and language change, and how language reflects the way its speakers behave and
think. Research about language and gender conversational differences during the 1990’s was
classified into two main categories. The Dominance theory adopted by Fishman, West, and
Zimmerman in support of Lakoff’s claims and they ascribe these differences to their “unequal
roles”. The Difference approach which emerged after Maltz and Broker (1982) and Tannen
(1990) interprets those differences as evolving from two separate sex cultures, (Kendall and
Tannen, 2001). Generally speaking, the majority of linguist researchers in language and gender
ascribe differences in language use between men and women to three main models: the Deficit
model, the Dominance model, and the Difference model.
2.3. The Deficit Model
In Language and Woman’s Place, one of the earliest studies in language and gender, lakoff
(1975) argued that in comparison with the established men’s linguistic conversational norms,
women’s language has characteristics showing its deficiency. She particularly argues that
woman’s language differs from men’s in the lack of authority and assertiveness. Lakoff
identifies several linguistic features which are more typical of the feminine speech and indicate
the woman’s tentativeness and uncertainty. Lakoff suggested the following 10 features being
characteristics of woman’s speech, (cited in Holmes 2001):
1. Use of lexical hedges and fillers, e.g. you know, sort of, well, you see.
2. Tag questions: e. g. she is very nice, isn’t she?
3. Rising intonation on declaratives: e.g. it’s really good?
4. Using ‘empty’ adjectives like: charming, cute, divine.
5. Using precise colour terms, like magenta, aquamarine.
6. use of intensifiers, like very, so, extremely
7. Hypercorrect grammar: consistency in using standard verb forms.

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English Language, Literature, Linguistics & Education and Creative Writing
2015: 2.9

8. Super polite forms by making indirect requests and euphemism

9. Avoidance of strong swear words, like fudge, my goodness.
10. Emphatic stress, e.g. it was a BRILLANT performance.

These features are interpreted and categorized by many linguists from several angles. Holms
(2001) divides them into two categories, “hedging devices” and “boosting devices” were they
linguistic or stylistic features. Hedging devices are features which may be used for hedging or
weakening the “force of an utterance”, like tag questions, lexical hedges and fillers, and rising
intonation on declaratives. Whereas, boosting devices include features that may boost or
intensify a statement like intensifiers and emphatic stress. Lakoff, (1975), states that, in
occasions where hedges reveal the woman’s unassertiveness to her statement, intensifiers add
force to it. She considers that women’s use of hedges and intensifiers in mixed-gender
conversation reflects her lack of power in comparison with men. O’ Barr and Atkins (1980) in
their research on women’s language in courtroom discourse pointed out that women use these
speech styles more than men because it is associated with their lower-status positions. Hence,
it is understandable why many linguists refer to the Deficit and the Dominance models
inseparably and in many occasions as one approach.
2.4. The Dominance Model
Building on the previous claims of the Deficit model explaining reasons why women’s language
is described as deficient, the Dominance model presents the woman’s speech from a negative
traditional attitude evolved from the social, cultural and political subordination of women with
regard to men. Investigations of this theory focused on mixed-sex conversations to explain
men’s tendency to dominate and how women are subordinated. Zimmerman and West (1975)
in their research about speech styles in mixed-sex conversations, found that 95% of
interruptions were made by men, and that men interrupted women more than women did to
men. Freeman and McElhinny (1996) attribute the linguistic conversational inadequacies of
women to the social inequalities between both genders, and similarly men’s conversational
dominance reflects males’ social and political dominance over females. Lakoff (1975) adds that
women’s different conversational performance reflects their subordinate social status, and the
gender-differentiated language is a result of the men-oriented society where men have more
power and influence and where women tend to be careful, more considerate and polite when
they speak.
2.5. The Difference Model
The assumption of relating gender talk to power and social status is challenged by the emerging
dual-culture which attribute sex differences to “…contrasting orientations towards relations”,
(Montgomery, 1995). This model could probably have evolved as a reaction to Lackoff’s

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Global English-Oriented Research Journal (G E O R J) 2454-5511
Critical & Creative Explorations/Practices in
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English Language, Literature, Linguistics & Education and Creative Writing
2015: 2.9

Dominance model. Deborah Tannen (9990) the most prolific linguist of the Difference model
attributes differences between men and women in conversational behavior not to their social
status based on weakness and subordination, but rather they have to be interpreted in the
same way as cultural differences because men and women grow up in two different
subcultures, brought differently and they both fill different roles, (Wardhagh, 2002). In her
book You Just Don’t Understand, Tannen (1990) argues that men dominate conversation over
women does not really mean they intentionally intend to, but this is due to the fact that both of
them behave in accordance with their sex class traits. From their childhood, girls are trained,
encouraged and reinforced to play a feminine role, whereas boys are brought up to play the
masculine role. Thus differences in gender-differentiated forms of language use stem from their
early dual socialization. “Men and women are social beings who have learned to act in certain
ways. Language behavior is largely learned behavior. Men learn to be men and women learn to
be women, linguistically speaking”, (Wardhough 2002). Maltz and Broker (1982) look at gender
differences within “cross-ethnic miscommunication” and relate cross-sex conversation
differences to “cultural differences between men and women” in their way of perceiving,
engaging and interpreting friendly conversation,(cited in Bonvillain, 2008). In conversations,
women tend to ask questions, to encourage responses from their interlocutors, make minimal
responses and allow interruptions, while men usually tend to interrupt, challenge their
interlocutors’ speech and make direct assertion of opinion and control topics. Women tend to
“create and maintain relationships of closeness and equality” and men tend to “assert positions
and dominance, attract and maintain audience”, (Maltz and Broker, 1982). These dual
contrasting sex tendencies are due to what each sex has learned throughout childhood. Tannen
(1986) deepens the dichotomy more than Maltz and Broker by strongly claiming that women
and men grow up in “different worlds” in their childhood and in their adulthood they “travel in
different worlds”. Tannen (1990) interprets women’s and men’s conversations from a
perspective where man sees himself as “an individual in a hierarchical social order in which he
is either one-up or one-down. In this world, conversations are negotiations in which people try
to achieve and maintain the upper hand if they can, and protect themselves from others’
attempts to put them down and push them around.” The woman, on the other side, sees
herself as “…an individual in a network of connections. In this world, conversations are
negotiations for closeness in which people try to seek and give confirmation and support, and
to reach consensus. They try to protect themselves from others’ attempts to push them away.”
Tannen considers that contrary to men who see life as “a contest, a struggle to preserve
independence and avoid failure”, women, see it as “a community, a struggle to preserve
intimacy and avoid isolation. Though there are hierarchies…they are…more of friendship than
of power and accomplishment.” Tannen looks at sex conversations from a motivational

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English Language, Literature, Linguistics & Education and Creative Writing
2015: 2.9

perspective according to the objectives and agendas each sex has behind conversation. She
conversely interprets the underestimations of the Dominance and Deficit theories of woman’s
speech from a positive perspective. Tannen (1990) makes distinction between men’s “report”
talk agenda and women’s “rapport-building” talk agenda. Her interpretations can be
summarized in six contrastive points: Status vs. support, independence vs. intimacy, advice vs.
understanding, information vs. feelings, orders vs. proposals, and conflict vs. compromise. To
justify her interpretations, Tannan suggests the following differences between women’s and
men’s conversational behavior:

Women: Men:
Talk too much Get more air time
Speak in private contexts Speak in public
Build relations Negotiate status
Overlap Speak one at a time
Speak symmetrically Speak asymmetrically

3. Conversation Analysis
This study is based on a case study of a casual mixed-sex conversation between English native
speakers. For the sake of balance, variety of topics and talk continuity, six persons are
approached to take part in the conversation, three males and three females. The participants
are all English teachers in the same university, and their relationship is merely a work
friendship. The conversation was video-taped and then transcribed as per Jefferson’s
transcription system, (1972).

3.1. Vocabulary Differences

3.1.1. Lexical Hedges and Fillers

Lexical hedges and fillers can take the form of vocalized pauses like “ah”, “yeah”, “er”, “um”
etc… They also include other relatively meaningless words or phrases that fill a silence.
According to lakoff (1979) women’s speech is characterized by the use of hedges and fillers like
“well”, “you know”, “Sort of”, kind of”, “you see”. Hedges also include disclaimers like “I think”,
“I guess”, “maybe”, and “perhaps” etc.., (Bonvillain, 2008). Lakoff (1979) claims that these
hedges and fillers reduce the force of utterance and reflect the woman’s tentativeness, lack of
confidence and feeling of social insecurity. Holmes (2001) points out that the use of these “non-
essential” hedging devices “weaken the strength of an assertion”, although they can serve
other functions like attracting the addressee’s attention or inviting the interlocutor to
contribute.

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Critical & Creative Explorations/Practices in
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English Language, Literature, Linguistics & Education and Creative Writing
2015: 2.9

While analyzing this conversation, the lexical fillers such as “well”, “like”, and “I mean” are easy
to distinguish. However, some others are subject to different interpretations. The vocal fillers
“mm” and “eh” and “yeah” have different functions. When they occur in the beginning of a
speech turn or individually in minimal responses, they usually mean a “yes” answer or they
show the listener’s agreement and follow of the speaker. When they occur in between the
same speech, they are usually considered as fillers. Hence, the count is done on this basis. In
the conversation, the number of lexical hedges and fillers used by women is nearly double that
used by men. Out of a total of 92 hedges and fillers, 57 are used by women. Females use much
more vocal pauses “eh” and “mm” than males. The most frequent lexical feature here “like” is
used 15 times by women and 8 times by men. Wendi alone used it 6 times in her only two
“extended” speech turns, which may indicate that the use of these words are a matter of
personal and individual conversational habits far from being generalized. The two sample
speeches of Wendi and Cathy below illustrate clearly the frequency of these devices.

 Cathy: Some people eat in their kitchen, from here TV, bedroom, eating, like
that. So I need the bedroom to be a kind of, it’s like when I go to mm, you
know to Baskin-Robins…

 Wendi: Because we I have a friend and her daughter, their daughter is like
twelve I guess, and she’s too embarrassed to go with her parents... It was
awful, we had to stand there for like two and a half hours waiting for him to
come on stage and it was only standing and it’s just like packed in with ten
year old sobbing girls …

Fishman (1998) argues that when the woman uses more hedges than men does not necessarily
show lack of confidence or insecurity, rather it is a conversational strategy to draw her
listener’s attention and engage him/her more in the conversation when her partner becomes
careless or loses concentration. Maltz and Broker (1982) claim that women use these fillers to
indicate they are listening while men use them to express agreement. This supports Tannen’s
claim that women are rapport-builders and during their conversation they tend to “preserve
intimacy and avoid isolation”, (Tannen, 1990).
Apart from the interpretation dichotomy that lies behind the dual perspective of the
Dominance theory and the Difference theory, it is evident from this conversation that women
use more hedges and fillers than men do.

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2015: 2.9

3.1.2. Lexical Choice: Empty Adjectives and Specific Colors

Among the other vocabulary choices that characterize women conversational behavior is the
use of certain “empty adjectives” such as charming, cute and divine Lakoff, (1975). Jespersen,
adding other adjectives like “lovely” and “wonderful”, relates the woman’s use of such
adjectives to her tendency for exaggeration and superficiality, (cited in Bonvillain, 2008). Lakoff
(1975) states that beside their literal meaning, adjectives express “the speaker's approbation or
admiration of something”. There are neutral adjectives used by both men and women alike and
others in their figurative use are specific to women’s speech. In the conversation, the adjectives
“beautiful”, “great” and “fantastic” are used equally. However, the adjectives “awful”,
“fabulous”, and “hysterical” occurred exclusively in female speeches; “fabulous” is used 5 times
and “hysterical” twice and none of these adjectives are used by male speakers. These adjectives
not only reveal an empty meaning, but in their figurative use can be interpreted in terms of
women’s tendency to intensify utterances and exaggerate meaning, (Lackoff, 1975).
Similarly, Lackoff points out that women tend to choose specific terms denoting colors such as
“mauve”, “lavender”, “magenta” and “turquoise”. These are not very common colors to occur
frequently in conversations. Nevertheless, Cathy’s choice of the colors “velvet bag”, “pale
green”, and “pink spoons” supports in some way the claim that the use of colors is also a
feature differentiating male and female speeches.

3.1.3. Intensifiers
“Intensifiers are words like very, rather, absolutely, that modify adjectives, adverbs, and verbs
by heightening or lowering their intensity”, (Thornbury, 2006). Jespersen (1922) and Lackoff
(1975) point out that women tend to use intensifiers such as “so”, “very”, and “extremely”
more than men do to exaggerate and superficially reinforce their statement. The Dominance
theory attributes this to the negative view subordinating and lowering the woman’s social
status. So she includes intensifiers to support and empower her speech by using boosting
devices.
There is a number of 38 intensifiers used in this conversation, 25 of them are used by the
female participants, which proves the claim that intensifiers occur more in women’s speech
than men’s. The conversation analysis reveals that females use “so” and “very” more often than
other intensifiers, while men tend to use “really” more frequently than “so” or “very”, which is
a point raised by Ito and Tagliamonte (2003) when they studied the use of “very” and “really”
by different age groups in York. In the same sense of boosting devices, the quantifier “all” is
used 8 times by females and only once by males, which again shows that women tend to
intensify and exaggerate their utterances. This can be achieved by either using lexical features
or even other ways like metaphors or intonation. In the following example, Cathy, not only uses

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2015: 2.9

“very” and “so” to boost her statement, but also adds a vocal booster “ooh” with emphatic
form.

 Cathy: Well, just because I’m a concerned citizen, yesterday when we

went to the new Chinese restaurant upstairs in Carrefour, very nice with
the Chinese=

 Andrew: = There’s a new Chinese restaurant?

 Cathy: OOH so good

Exaggeration and boosting reach a peak in the metaphor used by Cathy to describe Andrew’s
musical ability.

 Cathy: Well, he knows more about music than I ever dreamed [to know
in my life].

3.2. Grammatical Differences

3.2.1. Tag Questions

A question tag is a yes/no question about the assertion added at the end of a “declarative
statement”, (Bonvillain, 2008). Question tags are a common feature of spoken speech and their
functions lies behind the speaker’s intention. It can be an invitation to the addressee to
respond when the speaker is uncertain about his statement and wants the addressee to either
confirm or correct. In this case a rising intonation is used. If a falling intonation is used with the
tag question this means he just expect an agreement and confirmation to his/her statement,
(Thornbury, 2006). Many linguists consider tag questions as hedging devices that show
uncertainty and unassertiveness. Lakoff associates the woman’s use of tag question to her lack
of power and reluctance to make direct assertion. She usually tends to avoid committing herself
to taking decision instead of her interlocutor. Rather, she wants the addressee himself/ herself
to confirm the information, either by correction or assertion. Women use tag questions
because they usually tend to take the role of conversation facilitator, (Cameron et al. 1989).
Holmes (2001) adds that while men use tag questions for “speaker-oriented” goals to get
confirmation of information about their statement, women usually use them for “addressee-
oriented” goals as an invitation to the addressee to engage in the talk. Holmes (2001) describes
speaker-oriented tags as “modal tags” seeking additional knowledge from the addressee.

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Addressee-oriented tags are “affective tags” with double function either facilitative to engage
the addressee in the conversation or as an indication of politeness to mitigate and soften “the
force of a command of criticism”.

In the conversation, 5 question tags occurred; three are used by men and 2 by women. 2 of the
question tags used by men are speaker-oriented, in which the speakers just need a
confirmation of the statement to continue the talk, whereas the 2 used by women are
“facilitative” and have an “affective” function inviting interlocutor to contribute and take turn.

 Cathy: I gave you a voucher, Sherlyn, didn’t I?

 Sherlyn: Yeah, I have a drawer full of pink spoons. Thank you, Cathy.

Apparently the number does not support the dominance theory claim that women use question
tags more than men. However there are certain utterances which can be interpreted as having
the same function as question tags.

 Cathy: You were playing harmonica in Korea, for what? Three

years?
 Andrew: Three years, em.

3.2.2. Standard Grammar

The Dominance theory interprets woman’s use of language based on her lower social status
with regard to men. Lakoff claims that women are socialized to see the men as a norm and
accordingly they are supposed to speak formally and try to take care of the language they use.
Trudgill (1993) explains that women being more conscious of their social status than men, they
not only tend to use “correct” forms, but “better” and more prestigious forms. In the
conversation, there are four attempts from female speakers to self-correct themselves,
whereas no attempt is made by male speakers, which indicates that females are self-conscious
of the language they are using and tend to use correct grammatical forms.

 Cathy: Does anybody else play music? Play musical instrument?

 Wendi: Because we I have a friend and her daughter, their daughter is …….

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2015: 2.9

3.3. Intonation

3.3.1. Dynamic Pitch

Intonation is an important feature in spoken language. It can add meaning to a statement as
well as it can influence the way that statement is interpreted. Generally speaking, research
investigating gender intonation patterns found out that women use a “wider range of pitches
within their repertory and a more rapid and marked shift in volume and velocity”, (Bonvillain,
2008). Men, on the other hand, have lower-pitched voices and their speech is characterized by
“narrow intonational patterns” with less pitch changes; and this indicates “control and
restraint”, (McConnell-Ginet, 1983 and Romaine, 2000). Dynamic speech which applies a
variety of intonation patterns indicates “emotionality and natural pulses”. The woman’s change
in pitch and volume has a social function as it attracts and holds the listener’s attention and
renders this to her “powerlessness”. This feature of using a variety of pitches in women’s
speech is evident throughout this conversation.
 Cathy: Did I tell you the first mm 3D film I saw in Oman was Conan the
Barbarian and there is a beautiful part in there where he says mm, ((with a
rough man’s voiced pitch)) “Oh Conan is going to the cave on the hill,
beautiful young woman would you like to join him because the ship doesn’t
sail until tomorrow”. She says ((changing voice into rapid soft girly voice)) >
“yes, yes, I’ll go to him”<. So she ran up the hill to go to Conan and the next
second PUVV like that, it’s dawn she says “bye”… the whole Omani audience,
the WHOLE audience OOUUUU. They knew something had happened in the
cave.

3.3.2. Emphatic Stress

Cathy, in the statement above not only does she change her pitch deliberately but also gives
emphatic form to some of her words to intensify their meaning, like the words “WHOLE” and
“PUVV”. Holmes (2001) categorizes emphatic forms as boosting devices like intensifiers. In the
example below, the adjectives “AWFUL” and “HYSTERICAL” are pronounced with an emphatic
form to intensify their meaning by giving them both louder pitch and a slower velocity.

 Cathy: I went to see it in 3D version because I hadn’t seen it for a long

time, that was <AWFUL> but, when I saw mm what’s the one with the cat
Puss n’ Boots. That was <HYSTERICAL> on 3D < HYSTERICAL> when he
jumps from roof to roof and he’s flying over the=

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According to Lakoff, the fact that women tend to exaggerate and amplify utterances, was it by
means of lexical devices or speech intonation, reflects a lack of confidence and state of
devaluation due to her early socialization.

3.4.3 Rising Pitch on Declaratives

Another very important difference between women’s and men’s conversational styles is
applying rising intonation on declaratives. A declarative sentence is usually closed by a falling
pitch, while the rising pitch is an indication of a question, (Bonvillain, 2008). The rising
intonation can be interpreted as a sign of doubt and uncertainty as indicated by the study of
O'Connor & Arnold (1973) on intonation attitudes. A frequent feature of women’s speech is
rising pitch at the end of a declarative sentence, thus giving it the function of an interrogative
tone and makes a declarative statement look like a question, (Lakoff, 1975). Lakoff interprets
this as an indication of the woman’s inability to make firm statements or commands because
she often looks hesitant, and unassertive, which again reiterates her subordinate and
unauthoritative social status, (Romaine, 2000). The conversation statistics do not show clear
difference between both genders as men used rising pitch on declaratives 4 times and women 6
times.

 Andrew: So you decided?

 Cathy: Because you varied it too much?

3.4. Turn Taking

Overlapping and interruptions are better analysed in terms of turn taking and speakership.
There are several ways of taking turn in conversation. Turn taking can be arranged in two ways;
either the current speaker selects the next one or the listener himself decides to speak. In the
second case, many turn-taking attempts start with an overlapping speech either nearly by the
end of the speaker’s turn or before a speaker finishes his talk.

3.4.1. Overlapping
West and Zimmerman define overlapping speech as “simultaneous speech where a speaker
other than the current speaker begins to speak at or very close to a possible transition place in
a current speaker’s utterance (i.e., within the boundaries of the word)”, (cited in Bonvillain,
2008). Both Hutchby and Wooffitt (1998) and Bonvillain (2008) contrast overlapping and
interruptions. They describe overlapping as the failure of the next speaker to recognize the end

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of the current speaker’s talk and that most overlapping speeches occur during talk turn
transitions, they are merely a wrong estimation of the start time of the next turn, whereas,
interruptions are violations of the current speaker’s rights. Fishman (1983) in his study of talk
between couples, found out that women exert more effort to gain the listener’s attention and
respond to his/her talk, and to show they are interested and listening, they tend to put their
minimal responses like “yeah”, “em”, “ok“, “that’s right” within the speaker’s turn as a strategy
of encouraging and maintaining conversation. This strategy occurred frequently in this
conversation. Among the 32 overlapping speeches 22 are women’s and 18 of these 22 are
speeches within the interlocutor’s speech. On the other hand, male speakers have 10
overlapping speeches only 6 of them are speeches at the end of the interlocutor’s talk and end
in turn taking. This proves that while men’s overlapping speech is a signal of taking
conversation turn, women’s simultaneous speeches appear mostly in the middle of the
speaker’s turn to show interest and support. Tannen interprets this in terms of the woman’s
agenda behind conversation, which is her tendency to maintain conversation and be intimate,
collaborative and a rapport-builder.

3.4.2. Interruptions
In their study about interruptions, West and Zimmerman (1983, 1975) noted that interruption
occurs when an interlocutor violates a speaker’s turn and thus the speaker cannot finish his
talk. It is when the co-participant intrudes into the current speaker’s talk. They found out that
men frequently interrupt women more than the other way round. Interruptions are interpreted
from different angles by different linguists. West and Zimmerman (1983) and Clark (1993) see
them as means for dominating and controlling interaction, whereas, Tannen (1993) interprets it
as a way of maintaining conversation and supporting speakers. Research shows that women in
conversation tend to be cooperative and try to maintain talk and build rapport whereas men
tend to be competitive and try to dominate the talk and prove themselves as superior, (Holmes,
2001). In mixed-sex conversation, women are usually more interrupted by men, and men do
not allow to be interrupted and often succeed either in usurping the conversation turn from
women or in keeping their turns in case of being interrupted, (Romaine 2000 and Bonvillain
2008). Holmes (2001) and Bonvillain (2008) ascribe this difference to the woman’s social status
being subordinated to men from their early childhood socialization.
There are 31 interruptions in the conversation; 16 by men and 15 by women. What is significant
here is that 14 out of the 16 of men’s interruptions were towards women while women
interrupted men only 9 times. The claim that men do not allow interruption is clearly illustrated
when Cathy tries to interrupt Andrew, but he “rebuttals” and does not give up the floor and

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2015: 2.9

insists to continue his talk and consequently speaker switch fails and Cathy’s attempt of
interruption was “unsuccessful”.

 Andrew: … that type of harmonica is diatonic which means you need the
twelve different key harmonicas, Ok, you can’t play them all on the one
instrument. So [so, if you got twelve major keys], that’s one harmonica, as far
as I am concerned.

 Cathy: [So if you are going to do a sound?]

 Andrew: Yeah, so that’s what you carry around.

Notice that the overlapping speech starts just after the phrase “so if” and Cathy poses the
question [“So, if you are going to do a sound]” thinking that they are going for a “common
goal”. Surprisingly that does not happen and Andrew ignores her and continues his talk. Cathy
surrenders and loses the “conversation struggle” and does not even bother to pose her
question when Andrew finishes his talk. This supports the claim that boys are trained to
dominate talk from their early childhood and girls in parallel are socialized to expect being
interrupted and lose the talk without any protest. Consequently, men usually end up
dominating the conversation in spite of all the woman’s attempts of maintaining conversation
and building equal opportunities of interaction, (Romaine, 2000).

On the other hand, Cathy’s intervention in the following example, which may be considered
neither an interruption nor an overlap, is an attempt to facilitate, support and encourage
Andrew to express his thought.

 Andrew: That’s fun. There’s a lot of them. I don’t know, I won’t discuss the
opening scene because ((looking at the camera )) we’re being recorded but
mm but, but but there’s an opening scene on it which is is [which, which
would]=
 Cathy: = [a lot of porn?]
 Andrew: would send most Omanis into hospital with heart palpitations if
they saw it.

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Andrew wants to speak about an open porn scene but he is hesitant least his listeners should
feel offended as some of them are not very close friends. Cathy, recognizing his hesitation by
making repeated gap fillers and vocal pauses (but em eh, but but) and (which is is which which),
intervenes to facilitates and maintain the conversation. The latching of their speech turn taking
shows Andrew released and assured to continue. Holmes (2001) and James and Clarke (1993)
point out that women use interruptions and overlaps not as “disruptive”, but for “cooperative
and rapport building” goals.

4. Conclusion

Overall, this case study of a mixed-sex conversation aimed at evaluating the different features
that characterize women’s speech as claimed by the Deficit and Dominance theory. Many of
the features, in particular the lexical ones, show compatible evidences to those claims, whereas
others do not clearly figure out a pure bias to either of the genders such as rising intonation on
declaratives and question tags. It is apparent that gender language differences has been one of
the controversial issues in language change and variation among other variables within the
social dimensions of change variation, like age, ethnicity, regional and social dialects; and as
Wardhaugh (2002) stated, it “generated considerable amount of thought and discussion … and
many are still unresolved”. The issue will still spawn debate and research as women’s “social
status” does not seem to be stagnant and is changing rapidly with regard to the call for equality
in society, politics, and work place. The woman does not seem to still have that subordinate
status she had half a century ago. In several societies, particularly Western countries, the
woman reached a high social status not that very underestimated than men, which might put in
question the whole Dominance theory and gives way to other approaches to prevail.

5. Table of figures:

Conversation Analysis Statistics

Male speakers Total used Female speakers Total

by Men used by
women

8 18
fillers
hedges and
Lexical

eh & mm,

well 3 6

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You know 5 6

I mean 3

It’s like/ like that/ 8 15

just like/ sort of

I guess/ I think/ I 3 7
don’t know/ I hear/
they say 35 57

That thing/ 3 4
something etc…

others probably up to(1) All that stuff (1)

anyway(1)

so 1 6
intensifiers

very 1 5

too 3 2

really 6 2

Others whole(1) all (1) all(8) whole (1)

everything (1)
13 25

Sample adjectives Great (3) Great (5)

Adjectives

used
Fantastic (1) Beautiful(2)

Effective (1) Fabulous (4)

Awful (2)

Hysterical (2)

Fantastic

Colours Velvet/ pale

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green / pink

Tag questions 3 2

Interruptions To women 14 To 6
women
15
To men 2 To men 9
16

Overlapping 10 22

Rising intonation on 4 6
declaratives

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