Page 69 - Effective Communication Skills by Dalton Kehoe

Communication, Gender, and Culture
Lecture 20

The one social difference that has an impact across all subcultures is
gender. How we learn to view those of the opposite gender is embedded
in our society’s common language, and how we learn to see the world
through the eyes of our gender is a critical part of our learning to see
ourselves as “normal.” In this lecture, we examine the differences in
cultural learning that are created for children of different sexes.

ow does our cultural learning affect our gender roles, and how do
our gender roles, in turn, affect the way we speak? Children always
Hlearn more than just our language as they grow up; they learn our
way of life, our culture, and the taken-for-granted views of the world shared
by our group. Gender roles are among these learned cultural constructions.
Through some instruction, but mostly by observation and imitation, we
absorb the gender performance that is expected of us.

The interesting contradiction here is that while we learn to take differences
in gender behavior for granted, we also learn the commonsense assumption
that if everybody speaks the same language, they must be the same kind
of people. So if we all speak English—using whatever accents,
phrases, and words are
accepted in our region—we
must be using the words in
the same way. But words
have a variety of meanings
when we’re talking with
folks from different
subcultural backgrounds.
This is the basis for
considerable frustration © BananaStock/Thinkstock.
when we talk face-to-face.

Let’s look at male and Women use small talk to become closer with
female patterns of talk. one another.

61