跨文化交际11-Gender differences in Communication

Different meanings of home for men and women
For Many Men
The comfort of home means freedom from having to prove themselves and impress others through verbal display.
Women are better than men at: Verbal fluency Short term memory Listening skills
Male and Female have learned to become male or female when the grow up.
For Most Men
Talk is primarily a means to preserve independence and negotiate and maintain status in a hierarchical social order.
Men and women often have very different ideas of what’s important and at what point “important” topics should be raised.
Remember While one may be speaking plain English, the other’s probably listening in foreign!
The end
Men and women are programmed to receive, process and impart information in quite different ways.
He: What would you like for your birthday?
She: I don’t care, anything’s OK.
Yet Studies find that it is men who talk more at meetings in mixed-group discussions in classrooms where girls sit next to boys
Then, who talks more, women or men?

Women interrupt more, but usually only to murmur encouraging prompts like “I see” and “Really”.
Men interrupt in order to hijack the conversation altogether.
He: No, really, what do you want? I’d like to get you something nice. She: You don’t have to get me anything, besides we can’t afford much right now. He: Well, how about if we just go out for dinner together then? She: Sure, that’s fine. I don’t really want anything. You always give me whatever I want anyway. .
Girl babies are crooned over, talked to and stroked more than boys.
Girls learn to talk earlier, and better at languages and they have a better memory for details, respond better to facial expressions and body language more than boys.
More men feel comfortable doing “public” speaking while More women feel comfortable doing “private” speaking
For Most Women
The language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connection and negotiating relationsave an agreement: I make all the big decisions, but she gets to make the little ones. I decide what the United Nations should do, how to solve the world energy crisis, and who will win the next World Cup; she decides where we should live, what we should eat, how to educate the kids, and when we’ll retire.”
They are experts at reading non-verbal cues

Men tend to stick to factual stuff like current affairs, sport, business, etc.

Women like to talk about their feelings, families, and other people.

Women remember exactly what has been said, when, how and by whom.
Women may make a request in the form of a polite question; men are more likely to issue a direct command.

Men tend to take things at face value. Ask him a question and he’ll answer it.
Ask a woman and she’ll probably reply with another question.

Women tend to look for the meaning behind the words.
Gender Difference in Communication
Who talks more, Women or Men? Stereotype: Women talk too much.
Some proverbs: A woman’s tongue wags like a lamb’s tail. Foxes are all tail and women are all tongue. The north sea will sooner be found wanting water than a woman be at a loss for word.
For Many Women
The comfort of home means the freedom to talk without worrying about how their talk will be judged.
The difference between public and private speaking, or report-talk and rapporttalk, can be understood in terms of status and connections.
Boys and girls play differently. Girls tend to play in small groups and usually have a “best friend” with whom they share their secrets. Boys tend to form looser attachments. They bond through physical rather than verbal play.

Women never lose the need for a best friend with whom they can exchange confidences.
Men, who feel no such need in the first place, rarely form the same kind of one-to-one close friendships.