4. Compare your notes with those written by a partner. Do your partner's notes make you want to add anything to your own or to change anything in your own?

5. Listen again to the lecture and decide whether the following statements about it are true or false.

1. Deborah Cameron thinks highly of Robin Lakoff’s book.

2. Lakoff claims that women's language is more tentative and much less certain than neutral language.

3. Lakoff claims that women's language is an obstacle to their professional progress.

4. Organisers of courses to improve women's language have misinterpreted Lakoff’s work,

5. Lakoff’s findings are supported by a lot of facts and figures.

6. According to Cameron, there are no real differences in speech style between men and women.

7. Cameron claims that what Lakoff terms women's language is really the language of people of either sex in subordinate positions.

8. Cameron feels that training women in different speech styles has some potentially positive uses.

(From Panorama 1 by Felicity O’Dell. – CUP, 1999.)

6. Discuss with your partner the idea that either women "get their own way" by using the above features of language or women would be more powerful if they used male language features. To organize you discussion use the useful language from Reference Section.

LISTENING 2. Male-Female Conversation as Cross-cultural Communication

1. Researchers who study gender and communication have realized that women and men communicate in different ways.

What do our communication patterns originate from? Where and how do we learn them? Discuss with your partner.

2. The lecturer will talk about how children learn the communication patterns of their gender and about some false stereotypes people have of men’s and women’s communication patterns.

As you listen to the lecture for the first time, use the outline below to help you understand the general content of the lecture and the topics discussed.

1. Gender and communication

1. Gender is learned

1. Boys learn to be masculine

2. Girls learn to be feminine

2. Men and women communicate in different ways

2. Children can learn communication patterns from play

1. Boys

1. Play outside in large hierarchical groups

2. There is a leader – giving orders – higher status

3. Play games with set rules

4. Command attention by giving orders and setting rules

5. Winners and losers

2. Girls

1. Play in small groups or pairs – not large groups

2. Play at home

3. Every girl gets a chance to play

4. No winners or losers

5. Make suggestions not give orders

3. Boys and girls both want to get their way but they try to do so in different ways

4. Comparison of boys and girls doing a group task (Goodwin)

1. Boys had a leader

2. All girls made suggestions

3. Girls have a leader when they play house but this structure occurs less often in girls games

3. Stereotypes about gender and communication

1. Common stereotype – women talk too much

2. Research shows that men talk more – particularly in public settings

1. University faculty meetings (Eakins and Eakins)

1. Men spoke more often

2. men spoke longer

2. Women professors speak less at departmental meetings (Simeone)

C. Social concept of what is feminine and masculine

4. Researchers study gender’s effect on communication to understand why misunderstandings between men and women occur