language style and gender

In her book, Women, Men and Language, Jennifer Coates points out that men and women have two different kinds of conversational styles. Women speak in a collaborative style while men speak in an adversarial one. This means that the speaker in a collaborative conversation is much more likely to switch back and forth in turns, with many more interruptions and intercalated comments delivered by various different members of the group. The “rule of one person-at-a-time does not apply,” it is a “jam session” of words where “the speakers co-construct utterances” and “that the speakers talk at the same time.” Men, on the other hand adhere to a adversarial method of speaking. This takes different shapes, such as the monologue and the verbal sparring. In the first method, one person holds the floor about a subject as if he had some expertise on the subject while others listen. These monologues are often brought on by direct questions seeking information, a kind of questioning that women tend to shy away from in conversation. Another thing that men do differently is their form of dealing with disagreement which usually unfolds into verbal sparring, where women tend to avoid the aggressiveness of this kind of confrontation.
Hehe, I can see this reflected in conversations between my father and my sister. Where dad is giving his monologue on something and my sister keeps trying to collaborate by interrupting and finishing his sentences. Eventually, my father gets exasperated and shouts “let me finish” to which my sister gets frustrated at not being able to communicate. So both people end up feeling like they are not being listened to. Of course, it doesn’t help that my sister gets impatient quickly and my father likes to wax eloquent.