I definitely do think that men and women communicate differently. In my quantitative research class last semester we spent almost the entire semester working on a research project and our question was: Do men and women differ in the amount of adjectives used to describe a person/place/event? Well not surprisingly we found that the overwhelming answer was yes! Women tend to use more descriptive terms when describing something. Men are more general and don’t use many adjectives when speaking. I also find women to generally be more sympathetic and emotional during communication while men tend to be more direct while speaking. Men also tend to describe the opposite sex more by using their body image to describe them (i.e she was fat/skinny, short/tall, pretty/ugly etc.) I want to believe this is all stereotypical but after participating in the research study I can say that I do honestly believe women and men speak differently. It comes down to women being more indirect and formal and men being more direct and informal.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Men/Women communication
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Jenelle,
ReplyDeleteThat is a really interesting study you did! It’s funny how men and women can be so different. In this case, it seems all the stereotypes are true while women are more sympathetic and emotional and men are more direct, to-the-point speakers. Although this data is interesting, I don’t find it surprising. Conversations I have with my girlfriends are so different than the ones I have with men. My girlfriends and I overanalyze and dissect every detail of what we’re talking about – we could talk all day! It’s like therapy for us. But when I try to talk to my dad for example, the conversation is very short and to the point. We really only talk about things that are necessary while all other finer details are left out. Once we have each made our points, I notice he tries to end the phone call because in his mind there is nothing else to talk about, the conversation has fulfilled its purpose.
These are really good and specific examples of how men and women use language differently. The way that men tend to describe women by their physical image in more simplistic and seemingly caustic words really took my attention. I never really took that much notice about the differences in adjective use, but it is generally true. Most women tend to be sensitive to another person’s feelings, so there is the tendency to use adjectives that are softer and more sympathetic when describing a person. In contrast, men are taught to be “masculine” so they do tend to be generally more direct, simple and straightforward, not using many descriptive words. It is true that the overall way that women and men speak is different, in terms of directness, language structure, manner of speaking, and amount of vocabulary.
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