Page 181 - Culture Technology Communication

164 Concetta Stewart, et al.

in fact a strong relationship between culture and face concern in con-
flict resolution and negotiation, with high-context favoring other-face
and avoiding, obliging, compromising, and integrating, and low-con-
text favoring self-face and dominating.

Gender and Communication

Tannen (1990) believes that gender differences can also best be ob-
served from a cross-cultural approach, one that does not assume
that differences arise from men’s efforts to dominate women. The be-
lief that masculine and feminine styles of discourse are best viewed
as two distinct cultural dialects, rather than as inferior or superior
ways of speaking, typifies this stance and is summed up by the term
“genderlect.” While some scholars do not believe that identifying
gendered communication styles is important or even appropriate,
Herring (1996) and Tannen (1990) believe that ignoring those differ-
ences creates a greater risk than does the danger of naming them.
A significant body of research on the fundamental issue of gen-
der differences and communication practices exists (Lakoff 1973;
Rakow 1986; Spender 1985; Stewart and Ting-Toomey 1987; Tannen
1994). However, as Rakow (1986) states, we need to refocus this re-
search away from a conceptualization of gender as an individual at-
tribute to bring more attention to the structures of the relationship
between gender and power. The extent of the problem is dramati-
cally illustrated by research which finds that men perceive women
as dominating a discussion even when they contribute as little as
30% of the talk (Herring, Johnson, and DiBenedetto 1992; Spender
1989). Spender (1989) explains this finding by observing that since
it is the “natural order of things” for women to contribute signifi-
cantly less to a group discussion than their male counterparts,
women are then thought of as dominating the discussion when they
participate at anywhere beyond that minimal level.
A common perception, however, is that women talk more than
men. Tannen (1993) states that the context is essential to explaining
this misconception. For instance, research has shown that men talk
more in formal versus informal tasks and more in public versus pri-
vate communication. The effect is that while same-sex task teams
produce consistent amount of output, in mixed sex teams, the men
produce more than the women (James and Drakich 1993; Rakow
1988). In public spaces, for instance, men speak for a greater length
of time and men’s speech is more on task while women’s is more rein-
forcing. Men’s talk serves to hold floor for extended lengths of time, so