Guy talk
Now let’s look at David Crystal’s How Language Works to find out more about ‘dude discourse’.
If girls are all about cooing, sing-songy, questioning conversation peppered with we and you, guys are more like, Let’s Talk About Me.
According to Crystal:
“Men are much more likely to interrupt (more than three times as much, in some studies), to dispute what has been said, to ignore or respond poorly to what has been said, to introduce more new topics into the conversation, and to make more declarations of fact or opinion.”
Sounds like a good time, right? But just as the lady-talk rules are simply products of the unspoken rules of social conduct, this description of men’s speech habits strikes me as somewhat oversimplified. Granted, Crystal does admit that none of these patterns are inherent to gender:
“Men are seen to reflect in their conversational dominance the power they have traditionally received from society; women, likewise, exercise the supporting role that they have been taught to adopt — in this case, helping the conversation along and providing men with opportunities to express this dominance.”
Even with this concession, the explanation feels outdated for a book published in 2005. I mean, thinking about it, I just really feel like my womanly-emotive adjectives are going to explode. Doesn’t it make you, like, soooo sad to hear the girls and guys stereotyped like this? Mmmhhm? Don’t you think, maybe, that we could all benefit from a little Judith Butler-style performative gender in our everyday conversations?
At least for the sake of a balanced discussion.
