Interactional style
January 31, 2007

 A basic piece of gender ideology is that women are cooperative while men are competitive. In discussions of language and gender, this focuses on styles of interaction, in which women engage in supportive and more personal talk, while men are more inclined to avoid the personal, and to spar. The facts of the matter are far more complex, and this class will examine the nature of, and evidence for (or against), these claims.

Class Slides PDF

Readings

Cameron and Kulick, Chapter 3, p. 56-73

Scott Kiesling's paper on the interactional construction of homosociality in a fraternity provides some texture to the issue of men's social relations. Homosocial desire in men's talk:" Balancing and re-creating cultural discourses of masculinity. Language in society 34, 695-726.

This paper of Marjorie Harness Goodwin's offers a particularly nice counter-example to the "sugar and spice" view of girls: Exclusion in girls' peer groups:Ethnographic analysis of language practices on the playground. Human development. 2002. 45:392-415.

Purely Optional:

A nice accompaniment to this paper is Deborah Cameron's paper on fraternity boys as discussed in the Cameron and Kulick chapter. Performing gender identity: Young men's talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity. Language and masculinity, ed. by Sally Johnson and Ulrike Hanna Meinhof, 47-64. Oxford: Blackwell.