The Talk of Teenage Girls

Here's the link to the article I shared in class yesterday:
http://linc.nus.edu.sg/search~S19?/Ygender+discourse&searchscope=19&SORT=D/Ygender+discourse&searchscope=19&SORT=D&SUBKEY=gender%20discourse/1%2C18%2C18%2CB/frameset&FF=Ygender+discourse&searchscope=19&SORT=D&12%2C12%2C

It's Chapter 6, Changing Femininities: The Talk of Teenage Girls, from the book Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse by Mary Bucholtz, A.C. Liang and Laurel A. Sutton, although the chapter itself is actually witten by Jennifer Coates. You will have to sign in through your NUSNET ID before you can view the e-book online, pages 123-141.

In this chapter, Coates analysed girl talk to explore the ways in which teenage girls negotiate their identity during adolescence as they move from girlhood to woman hood. She did so by listening to recorded conversations between a group of 4 white, middle-class girls as they grew up from age 12 to age 14. The girls were also allowed to delete any conversations they did not want Coates to hear. When the girls were 12 to 13 years old, Coates noted that the girls took weeks to fill up one 90-minute audio tape to pass to her, but as they progressed to 14 years old, one 90-minute audio tape was sometimes not enough for 1 conversation and they needed more.

The breakdown of her analysis is as follows:

Ages 12-13: The girls openly disagree with each other, cut each other off very often and vie for the floor’s attention. Talk is activity-oriented, hedges and minimal responses are hardly used.

Age 14: A transition to what Coates call CR/self-disclosure discourse, where the girls share more about intimate topics. They expressed agreement more, cut each other off less and does not vie as much for the floor’s attention, taking turns instead. There’s frequent use of minimal responses like “uh huh”, “mm” and hedges. The topic of the talk is now the focus and not on activity-oriented.

Significance: At age 12-13, the girls’ talk seems to resemble what is commonly regarded as masculine speech more, but by age 14, there is a transition to feminine speech already.

Why: Can be a result of the girls trying to cope with their changing identity as they move from being a girl to becoming a woman, and all these talk of mutual assent and understanding is how the girls seek and receive support from a close circle of friends.

Another interesting point: When the girls were talking about their periods, Coates has also noted that these young white middle-class girls, a privileged group who will be the professional women of the next generation, are positioned by their own words to be suffering at the mercy of their female bodies. They talk about their bodies in an overwhelmingly negative way which reflects negatively on their own femininity as a result. Femininity is seen as the cause of them becoming “really horrible” or “a bitch” and this shows how well the girls have internalized the values of patriarchy, where women are given a lower status than men. Coates then ends this point with the sentence, “Or is it more accurate to say that, although they think they are speaking, they are in fact being spoken?” This echoes Cameron’s point in “Myth and Why They Matter” about how language can be used as a tool to reinforce power relations between men and women.

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Reasons for choosing this clip: I chose this clip because the concept of it, a woman using her feminine wiles to persuade a man, is familiar. We all probably have experienced some variation of that concept to a certain extent, whether we were in the woman’s shoes or the man’s shoes, so it should be easy to identify with.

Response: While this video clip shows us the usual ways of communication that men and women are associated with, it also calls into question an observation that Tannen has made in “Can’t We Talk?”

Debra was being deliberately coy in her attempt to dissuade Raymond. This is an indirect approach, and to add to it, not once did she voice out her desire for Raymond not to go golfing. According to Tannen, men dislike being manipulated by indirect approaches. In this video however, Raymond clearly recognizes Debra’s indirect approach, clearly knows that he is being manipulated, but contrary to Tannen’s observations, Raymond likes it. This is because Raymond is enjoying himself during Debra’s indirect approach, which made me realize that in communicating with men, indirect approaches can be effective as well despite the general statement that men prefer direct approaches.

This in turn made me wonder: “Would a direct approach have worked better in this scenario?” After some consideration, I would say probably not. If Debra had asked Raymond directly not to go, he would probably turn her request down on the spot because he had already set his mind upon going. However by using this indirect approach, not only is Debra giving him incentive to stay, she is also giving him time to weigh the respective benefits of staying or not staying and reconsider his final position on the matter. Herein lie the key differences between the two approaches, which in my opinion ultimately determine the success of one and the potential failure of the other. 

Response to "Can't We Talk?" by Deborah Tannen

As an article written for the purpose of educating a general audience about the common causes of miscommunication between the opposite sexes, I think that Tannen has done an adequate job. She attributes it partially to the “different conversational rules by which men and women play” and breaks them down into 6 different categories. On their own, each category is clearly expressed and comprehension is facilitated by the everyday examples which Tannen has included. Put together however, I found the number of categories and respective names a little too overwhelming to digest within the span of 5 pages.

Of the 6 categories that Tannen has identified, I feel that 3 of them in particular, namely “Status vs. Support”, “Independence vs. Intimacy” and “Orders vs. Proposals” can instead be grouped together under another category called “Man’s Desire for Superiority”. In “Status vs. Support”, it has already been explained that it is a case of perceived superiority between the author’s personal marriage and other people’s marriages, so I have merely renamed the category and not added anything new. In “Independence vs. Intimacy”, it is a case of male superiority between friends, as the miscommunication stems from a desire to not appear as a henpecked husband who has to seek permission from his wife, and ultimately being mocked by his friends. As for “Orders vs. Proposals”, since Nathan had already interpreted Diana’s “Let’s” as a command, if he had followed through with her suggestion, he would be subtly acceding to her “authority”, which conflicts with his desire for superiority thus causing him to get angry and resulting in miscommunication. By putting these 3 categories under 1 broad category, I personally feel that it is much easier for me to remember.

On another note, I am also curious about the reasons behind the desire for superiority that is more commonly exhibited in men rather than women in general. As the summary for WP2201C stated, “are men and women different by nature or are gender roles socially constructed?” Perhaps nature plays a role, manifesting in a subconscious, deep-seated insecurity that spurs men to prove themselves (which is the only reason I can think of to explain the author’s husband’s reaction in “Status vs. Support”).  It might also be social norms which dictate that the man calls the shots within the family, which explains the conflict in “Independence vs. Intimacy” and “Orders vs. Proposals”. 

At the same time, there seem to be some hints of bias against men in this article, which is perhaps inevitable as it is written by a woman. While lines like “He doesn’t feel that talk is required at home,” convey the exact sentiment of the man at that moment in time accurately, they nevertheless contain a subtle tone of resentment and reproach behind them. As it is quite impossible to achieve an absolutely objective piece of writing on this topic, I do look forward to reading other readings penned by the opposite sex so to gain a male’s perspective on this issue.

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