How do Men and Women Do Gender in Same-sex and Mixed-sex Spoken Interactions

Abstract

This literature review paper on gender and human spoken interactions aims at answering two questions. Firstly, how do speakers do gender in their daily conversations, and do they perform gender in similar or varying ways as they are situated in an all-male group or an all-female group interaction? And, secondly, how to explain the gendered linguistic differentials in different social contexts, if there are differences? To achieve these purposes, the paper has examined some ground-breaking empirical studies in this line conducted by some Western noted scholars of gender and communication studies as Jennifer Coates ( 1998), Victoria L. DeFrancisco (1991), Janet Holmes (1998), Janet Pilkington (1998), and Deborah Tannen (1990). All these studies took conversational features of women and men as their foci. The author ends in providing a possible explanation for the gendered linguistic differences in same-sex and mixed-sex talks.