Describe and explain how the composition of conversational groups affects the spoken interactive style of men and women.
Describe and explain how the composition of conversational groups affects the spoken interactive style of men and women.
The composition of conversational groups affects the spoken interactive style of both male and female. Men and women each contain different techniques and methods when interacting with one another within groups. Each gender differ when speaking to the same sex and when speaking to the opposite sex, the certain studies on language and gender provide their own interpretation and evaluation on groups and genders.
When males and females are groups with either the same sex or opposite sex they communicate differently, the use of turn taking hugely differs which is why the researchers Zimmerman and West looked at theses aspects. The two researches specifically looked at the speaker switches and turn taking in casual conversations by analysing thirty one conversations. The conversations took place in typical public places between males and males, females and females, and males and females. From these conversations Zimmerman and west concluded that the turn taking within groups contained abnormalities, the switches in speakers did not have the smooth flowing patteren in the change over. Typically one person should speak whereas another should acknowledge and listen, however from the study there were two main irregularities in the conversations. The first was overlaps and the second was interruptions, the uses of interruptions were high in the males. However men do not tend to interrupt other men but on the other hand use the interruptions when speaking to women. This illustrates that in mixed gender groups, males interrupt to show dominance and feel superior whereas the female then feels inferior and limits the equality and right to speak. In contrast the females lack the use of overlaps and interruptions when talking to men, which supports their weakness and inferior status. Overall the experiment was conducting on 1975 where their lied a big difference in society with men and women, men were seen as the dominant gender and there was distinct difference in equality. This unequal is reflected in the conversations which makes it hard to take aboard in the present day. However this typical status in gender still exists but not to the level in those times, women of today have far more confidence and authority. The overlaps and interruptions from men still exists in groups however they are also found women, women now like to achieve dominance over men and are not afraid to be rude and challenge other males. This links with the study by Victoria Defrancisco as she studied the conversations between married couples. She found that the men in the conversations break the typical turn taking rules to establish their dominance over the women. Furthermore the males also interrupt the other sex and may leave a conversation altogether. This neatly supports the work from Zimmerman and west as they both establish how dominance is used within men. However Defrancisco work was not done directly or discreetly, in a result the married couples knew they had make conversation and maybe complied with the typical gender rules in order to satisfy and help Defrancisco.
