A cross-gender, cross-cultural approach

Women and men, girls and boys, can be seen to accomplish and display coherence in conversation in different but equally valid ways

Contextual cues are important: intonation, loudness, pitch, sequencing, and choice of words both signal and create the context in which communication takes place

Female-female

At four age levels (child/adult), girls and women sit closer to each other. They gaze at each other's faces with occasional glances away. They occasionally touch each other and they sit relatively still

Male-male

At every age level, boys and men are less directly aligned with each other in terms of posture and gaze. Their chairs are at angles to each other; they anchor their gaze elsewhere in the room, occasionally glancing at each other. Boys are active, men still still

Real differences?

The means by which males and females establish conversational engagement are different. These differences, however, do not imply that males are not engaged or involved

Content

At all ages, girls and women exhibit little if any difficulty finding something to discuss, usually on a small number of topics. At all ages, boys and men exhibit great difficulty finding something to discuss

Tannen argues that...

Gender differences can be understood as cultural differences

Different patterns of conversational involvement indicate different norms for establishing and displaying involvement

Conversational style is both a consequence and indicator of ethnicity, national identity, language of origin