The Impact of Social Frameworks and Stereotypes on Gendered Language
In verbal communication issues between men and women, we can trace significant narrative style and tactics differences. It is incorrect to say that physiological differences or cognitive features dictate these differences. According to psychologists dealing with psycholinguistics, the most critical factor influencing the discrepancy in men’s and women’s language is the social framework and stereotypes.
Because masculinity has long been associated with aggression of an uncontrollable nature, women tend to build speech with the use of leading and concluding expressions. For example, knowing that unpleasant news that I am going to tell may make my partner angry before I proclaim information, there is a need to formulate a little introduction in which I introduce the general topic of the dialogue and psychologically prepare a man as a perception of further information.
The Role of Speech Planning in Communication Between Genders
Another essential feature is the desire to plan what is said (Cannavaet al., 2018). Men are more inclined to improvisation and to enter into a dialogue regardless of its context without prior preparation. Consequently, more emotionally colored vocabulary, pauses, and short sentences with more superficial structures can be found in the vocabulary.
This discrepancy is evident when my partner and I tell the same story to different friends. My narrative usually lasts longer and is closer to a similar statement approximating a written form of speech. For men, the narrative is accompanied by leading questions; he is more easily distracted by the remarks of listeners and ready to go away for a while, changing the subject (Cannava et al., 2018).
For instance, when describing an event, males can use such phrases as: “And what would you do that in the situation?” or “It is just like the occasion in 2020, do you remember?”. On this basis, one can talk about a greater tendency to improvisation in men than in women. Nevertheless, this difference caused by gender stereotypes in society cannot influence the lack of understanding between partners during communication.
Reference
Cannava, K. E., High, A. C., Jones, S. M., & Bodie, G. D. (2018). The stuff that verbal person-centered support is made of: identifying linguistic markers of more and less supportive conversations. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 37(6), 656–679. Web.