Gender and language is such an interesting topic. I do believe that men and women use language differently. I can picture my girl friends and boy friends all having a great time at a party. As I look around the room I see how boys and girls are interacting and speaking to each other. I look at the girls and they are standing tall, using hand gestures and most of the time, complete sentences. I look over at the boys and they are looking in all directions, hands in their pockets and speaking quickly and incompletely. Men and women are on two different planets when it comes to communication. I love how the book describes different talk like, “trouble talk”, “rapport talk” and “report talk”. I can see each of these examples in my everyday life. I do believe that men like to talk to get right to the problem or subject of the matter and then its over. Women like to listen and figure out why and how we are going to fix it.
Conversations between two girls and two guys are obviously very different, but it is amazing to be in an important conversation with a guy and see how he reacts. You can automatically tell how a guy is feeling just by his first sentence. Guys do not notice this about women that quickly unless they start to cry right away. Men do not listen as well as women do, if at all. They would rather avoid a conversation at all costs. I’m generalizing here- I don’t believe all men are like this!
Table 4.5 in the book breaks down gender and communication very well. One that shot out at me was that men initiate the topic of a conversation more than a woman. We all know that is true! I was very interesting to read about the differences in gender communication.
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