man in her department / works in a particularly competitive business »). In studies of verbal abilities and behaviour, the differences were slight. This is not a new observation. In 1988 Hyde and her colleague Marcia Linn carried out a meta-analysis of research dealing specifically with gender differences in verbal ability. [Hyde J., 1995]. The conclusion they came to was that the difference between men and women amounted to «about one-tenth of one standard deviation»- Statistician-speak for «negligible». Another scholar who has considered this question, the linguist Jack Chambers, suggests that the degree of non-overlap in the abilities of male and female speakers in any given population is «about 0.25%». That »s an overlap of 99.75%. It follows that for any array of verbal abilities found in an individual woman, there will almost certainly be a man with exactly the same array. As well as underplaying their similarities, statements of the form «women do this and men do that» disguise the extent of the variation that exists within each gender group. Focusing on the differences between men and women while ignoring the differences within them is extremely misleading but, unfortunately, all too common. If we are going to try to generalise about which sex talks more, a reliable way to do it is to observe both sexes in a single interaction, and measure their respective contributions. This cuts out extraneous variables that are likely to affect the amount of talk, and allows for a comparison of male and female behaviour under the same contextual conditions. Numerous studies have been done using this approach, and while the results have been mixed, the commonest finding is that men talk more than women. One review of 56 research studies categorises their findings as shown here:
Pattern of difference found / Number of studies talk more than women / 34 (60.8%) talk more than men / 2 (3.6%) and women talk the same amount / 16 (28.6%) clear pattern / 4 (7.0%) [Tannen D. 1989] reviewers are inclined to believe that this is a case of gender and amount of talk being linked indirectly rather than directly: the more direct link is with status, in combination with the formality of the setting (status tends to be more relevant in formal situations). The basic trend, especially in formal and public contexts, is for higher-status speakers to talk more than lower-status ones. The gender pattern is explained by the observation that in most contexts where status is relevant, men are more likely than women to occupy high-status positions; if all other things are equal, gender itself is a hierarchical system in which men are regarded as having higher status. «Regarded» is an important word here, because conversational dominance is not just about the way dominant speakers behave; it is also about the willingness of others to defer to them. Some experimental studies have found that you can reverse the «men talk more» pattern, or at least reduce the gap, by instructing subjects to discuss a topic that both sexes consider a distinctively female area of ??expertise. Status, then, is not a completely fixed attribute, but can vary relative to the setting, subject and purpose of conversation. That may be why some studies find that women talk more in domestic interactions with partners and family members: in the domestic sphere, women are often seen as being in charge. In other spheres, however, the default ...
