DIFFERENT INTERPRETIVE FRAMES IN GENDER DISCOURSE
I.A. Bokun
The discourse systems of different generations cut across the central communicative systems of a culture. In a similar way, the discourse systems of gender cut across culture and generations, corporate culture and professional specializations. As a subject of discourse research, the study of gender discourse is relatively new. Most of what is available for analysis is based on patterns of discourse within American society, and as a result, in what follows we will again need to restrict ourselves primarily to American discourse.
For our purposes the most useful research in this area is the work of Deborah Tannen [1]. From her analysis as well as that of many others, it is clear that the discourse of men and women forms two systems which are in many ways distinct from each other, in spite of the fact that, on the whole, boys and girls grow up in the same families, we are educated together, we form families together, and we work together in the same companies and offices and are members of the same professions and occupation groups.
The Scollons’ research [2] has shown that not only do men and women work within very different interpretive frames of discourse in the home, but in professional communication these different ways of seeing the world are a major source of miscommunication, to the frustration and loss of everyone involved in them. The aim of this article is to describe and interpret these different interpretive frames in organizational communication.
In organizational communication, from businesses to university and public school classrooms, a clear difference between the behavior of men and women has been observed. In a business meeting of a dozen people, both men and women, it has been observed that most of the talk is dominated by the men in the group. They take the most turns at talk, and when they talk they take longer turns. From this situation one might mistakenly draw the conclusion that men talk more than women, or that women are basically taciturn. On the other hand, a similar business meeting in which the participants are all women (though in our contemporary world that is still, unfortunately, a somewhat rare occasion) finds them highly voluble with rapid exchanges of turns, much simultaneous speech, and an overall polychromatic introduction of topics.
In university classrooms in which a discussion is being led by a teacher, Tannen [1] has observed that, again, men dominate the flow of the discussion, with women taking fewer and shorter turns. On the other hand, when the discussion takes the form of separate small groups, women who are silent in the larger setting emerge as having a good deal to say.
Both of these situations are in contrast to the common complaint of women that their men at home are sullen, silent, and withdrawn from them. This once again points up the fact that one cannot make a binary contrast between men and women, saying that women are taciturn and men are voluble. That might be said in the context of a mixed gender business meeting or a large university class discussion. On the other hand, if the context is a same-gender business meeting or a small group discussion, one would have to say that women are if anything more voluble than men. And if the context is the home, one would then want to say that men were actually taciturn.
The research literature on intergender discourse has pointed out at least nine dimensions along which men and women tend to form different interpretive frames. Many of these are quite closely related and might be considered just other ways of saying the same thing. These dimensions, which have been adapted from Tannen [3], are as follows:
1 intimacy - independence;
2 relationship - information;
3 connection - status;
4 inclusive - exclusive;
5 rapport - report;
6 community - contest;
7 problems - solutions;
8 novice - expert;
9 listening – lecturing.
Let us focus on the first two dimensions now.
Intimacy - independence
An example which is given by Tannen [3, 26] concerns a couple whom she names Linda and Josh. Josh gets a call from an old friend who will be visiting town, and he immediately invites him to stay at their house. Later on, when he tells Linda, she is upset because he has not discussed it with her before making the invitation. He tells her that he does not want to be seen as asking his wife for permission in front of his old friends.
While Josh's concern is that discussing it with his wife may show weakness by suggesting that he needs her permission, Linda's concern is motivated quite differently. Her concern is that he seems to be showing a greater degree of intimacy with his old friend than with his wife. She feels he owes it to her to display his intimacy with her to this friend, not the other way around.
From this point of view, what is of concern to the man is his independence whereas for the woman it is their intimacy. In other words, he is concerned for his status as being free to make up his own mind, in contemporary western society a prerogative of higher rather than lower status, whereas she is concerned for their connection. In addition to this, there is felt to be a different distribution of the contexts in which intimacy or connection should be displayed. The intimacy within which men seem most comfortable is that of equal, semi-public status, the sports club, or the pub, or even the difficult work assignment. The difficulty men have in expressing intimacy with their wives reflects a background assumption of an asymmetrical status. For them, showing intimacy shows equality of status.
This pull between independence and intimacy, status and connection, is displayed as well in a language of inclusive and exclusive statements. A man's boss calls him into the office to discuss with him the possible transfer to an overseas assignment.
Supervisor: You've done well for us here. Do you think you could adjust to working in Frankfurt?
Employee: Well, of course, I've never been there, but I see no reason why I could not perform as well there as anywhere.
When he goes home he says to his wife, "I've been given a transfer to Frankfurt. Maybe you should start looking into schools for the kids."
Throughout these situations he has quite unconsciously used a language of exclusion. Although this transfer is a transfer for not just him but for his entire family, he has never thought to broaden out the pronoun he is using to include them. He has not said, "We've never been there," or, "We're going to go to Frankfurt and maybe we should start looking into schools." A woman in the same situation might be quite concerned in the first place with not just how she would be able to perform her work, but how the whole family might get along in such a transfer. She would most likely feel it quite natural to want to discuss it with the family before saying that she was quite sure that it would work out well.
Of course, a woman who takes such an inclusive stance in discussing the transfer with her boss might be thought to be a weak employee who could not make such crucial decisions on her own. While the man with his exclusive language communicates to his boss that he is quite independent and able to stand on his own (whether or not his family will get along), the woman communicates dependence and even suggests the possibility that if things did not go well with the family, she would not be able to perform her work up to standards.
Actual cases show that whether it is a man or a woman, work performance cannot be easily isolated from family matters, and most international corporations now recognize the need for providing support for not just the employee, but the employee's family as well. What we are concerned with here is that in such cases, the actual facts of the matter aside, the language of exclusion which a man uses will tend to emphasize his autonomy and independence and play down his intimate relationships; the language of inclusion used by a woman is more likely to play up the intimacy and relationships, recognizing them for the significant factors that they are.
Relationship-information
The use of deductive and inductive strategies for the introduction of topics is related to the question of whether relationship or informational functions of language predominate. In this case we are focusing largely on either situational or intercultural differences in expectations. In considering intergender discourse, the issue is the same, but with the difference that in many cases women as a group, according to the research, will tend to focus more on relationships than men, who will tend to direct their attention to information. The result, predictably, is that men will perceive women to be indirect or confused because their attention to the relationship will have led to a less deductive introduction of topics.
More generally, because women are concerned with intimacy, connection, and inclusion, they will tend to focus more attention on the use of language as a way of communicating relationships. Men, on the other hand, because of their focus on independence, status, and exclusion, will favor the informational functioning of language. Tannen [3] has referred to this as the distinction between rapport and report.
Even where men and women base their communications on the exchange of information, the types of information communicated are likely to be different. There is an old joke on the subject. A man says,
My wife and I have an agreement; I make all the big decisions, but she gets to make the little ones. I decide what the United Nations should do, how to solve the world energy crisis, and who will win the next World Cup; she decides where we should live, how we should eat, how to educate the kids, and where we’ll retire.
This joke, which men tend to find more amusing than women, suggests that the joke teller is henpecked and controlled by his wife. But the joke is based on observation of the fact that what men consider "information" is what we might call public affairs or news; what women consider "information" is more likely to be the close and important details of their daily lives.
One of the perennial sticking points in the debate over whether men and women in intimate relationships "talk" or not has to do with what they talk about. A man is more likely to say he had had a good talk with someone if the talk had ranged over broad subjects like the economy, politics, and sports. The more general and abstract the discussion, the more it would count as a good "talk." Women, on the other hand, are likely to consider it a good "talk" when close details of individual lives are brought out, particularly where those details show people's character, their feelings, and their reactions to the events of their ongoing lives. What women call a good talk, men might dismiss by saying it is "nothing but" gossip.
The focus of the talk of women is on the community of humans who are connected together in their daily lives. Men, on the other hand, tend to be more concerned with contest. Sports, politics, international business and economy, or, where they engage in personal details, success and advancement are the topics which interest men. Again, this reflects the ongoing concern in the discourse of women with how human beings manage to keep their communities together and functioning in spite of difficulties and conflicts. Men, being more concerned with independence and status, tend to focus on the ways in which individuals or groups manage to emerge victorious in combat, whether the combat is literal (war) or figurative (business competition).
One result of this difference in the topics men and women talk about leads to a major kind of intergender miscommunication, what we might call problems and solutions. Everyone, of course, has problems. The difference is in how we respond when others tell us theirs. Women tend to respond to hearing of someone else's problems by telling of their own problems. This indicates that they understand the situation the other person is in and that they feel sympathetic. Men, in contrast, are more likely to take it as a request for help and to offer a solution, however pointless the solution might be.
If a woman describes a problem she is having with a client, for example, to another woman, what will most likely happen is that her colleague will say, "Yes. I had one just like that last week. I felt awful, but there was nothing I could do." If she describes this same problem to a male colleague, she is more likely to hear, "Well, of course, what you should have done is X Y Z." He is likely either to offer a reprimand and explanation of what she did wrong, or, in a slightly more helpful case, offer some constructive suggestions about how she might deal with the problem. What he is quite unlikely to do is sympathize with her and share a similar problem.
The reason men and women take this different position goes back to the question of connection and status. A problem, for a woman, gives her an opportunity to show her sympathy and to emphasize her connections with others. A man is more likely to take the same situation as an opportunity to step into the role of the person with the status of problem solver. This dimension of novice-expert is one on which much frustration and a great deal of misinterpretation develop.
When a woman uses what Tannen [4] calls "troubles talk," that is, the discussion of problems, to emphasize connections, community, and sympathy for others, a man is likely to take this as a request for help and as a display of weakness or ignorance. Consequently, when a man hears problems aired, he is likely to take it as a challenge to his ability, his competence, his expertise. He is ready to rush in and show how easily he can solve this problem.