As with our class experiment it was the female speaker who seem to be doing the initiating and keeping the conversation going. The difference is, the film used the stereotype ‘women talk more’ and the female speaker was given longer turn to represent this.The peaking/intonation of her voice reflected this to. The male speaker didn’t appear to follow any stereotype (this is my interpretation- I could be wrong), instead he used more politeness markers and strategies than the women which I found interesting because stereotypical men are supposed to be impersonal, impolite and use more swear words. In conclusion, the results were similar just the difference lay in that the film was following certain stereotypes which linguistic such as Cameron believe are false.
We then carried out the same test in respect of a transcript.
Activity – why not see you can analyse the following transcript?
This data has from research conducted by Jennifer Coates.
Female: How’s your paper coming?
Male: Alright I guess (1) haven’t done much in the last week
Female: Yeah, know how that can ]
Male: ] hey, ya got an extra cigarette
Female: Yeah sure (hand him packet) like my pa]
Female: Ere ya go uh like my pa]
Female: Sure (.) I was gonna tell you my]
Male: Hey I’d really like to talk but I gotta run(.) see ya
Female: How’s your paper coming?¹
Male: Alright I guess (1) haven’t done much in the last week
Female: Yeah, know how that can² ]
Male: ]³ hey, ya got an extra cigarette⁴
Female: Yeah sure⁵ (hand him packet) like my pa⁶]
Female: Ere ya go uh like my pa⁸]
Female: Sure (.) I was gonna tell you my¹⁰]
Male: Hey I’d really like to talk but I gotta run (.) see ya¹¹
1 = Initiates conversation
2 = Gives feedback and attempts to develop the conversation – strengthening shared space
3 = Power violation – he shows his dominance
4= completely changes the conversation – there are no politeness strategies used to show that he was listening to what she was saying.
6= Attempts to restart the conversation and develop the shared space
7 = Similar to a high rise terminal and again dismiss what she is saying with a power violation and attempts to change the conversation from being interactional to transactional. He uses no politeness strategies.
8= Still continues to make the conversation interactional and develop it further
9 = first politeness marker used after being rude
10 = For the fourth time she attempts to develop and maintain the conversation
11 = no closing sequences he just dismisses her and uses valediction. Meta-talks hints what he is about to do.
12 = back channeling – no valediction or closing sequence or meta -talk
I think this transcript clearly is evidence for many of the male stereotypes e.g. being dominant, exercising power and being rude with no politeness strategies utilise. Clearly as this also demonstrates the belief that women do the do the hard work in conversation e.g. keeping it going and maintaining it. Furthermore, I thought it could be that this women is known to talk too much and the male was having a rough and was not in the mood or something like that because that would effect the way they converse. If more information was provided we could come up with more precise answers.
_____________________________
Activity – which speaker has a male listener and which has a female listener?
Compare these two extracts. One has a women listening to the speaker and one has a man. Can you guess which is which?
In other words black women are white (2) y’now it’s really a simplistic article (0.5) you know he starts off saying – this- (1) you know (0.8) sort of this gross indiscriminate black versus white (1) vision.
And this put her into a bit if a flap (mhm) so before she could do anything about this she had to pull forwards (mhm) in order to er open the gates so she took the car out of reverse, put it into first gear (yeah) and pulled forward very gently (yeah).
Extract 1 has a male listener and and extract 2 has a female listener. This can be deduced by examining listener behaviour.
What is the difference in listener behaviour?
The male listener in extract one does not even once support the listener and as a result there are silences and a lot of ‘y’now’ from the speaker in attempt to connect to the listener. The female speaker in extract two supports the listener with a lot of back channeling e.g. ‘mhm’. She uses sympathetic circulatory markers to show she is listening as a result there is less direct language from the speaker and no silences.
_____________________________________
Some more linguistic empirical evidence…
There is empirical evidence showing that use more turn-taking violation. The table below shows the daily interaction of seven couples based on Defrancisco.
Throughout whatever research I conducted, I think Deborah Fishman’s point is correct. Women are the sex that do the ‘conversational shitwork’. As they are the ones always keeping the conversation going.
