How Gender Affects the Topic of Conversation

How quickly different genders dismiss topics of conversation not

typical to their genders?

How would I test this?• I would gather three sets of three groups of the same

age, each with an equal amount of people in. One group would be all male, another all female and the third would be a equal mix of both. From this I would give them a couple of conversation starters, one a topic typically discussed my men, another typically discussed by female and the last a unisex topic. From here, I would record their conversations to be written up as transcripts and analyse their language, seeing how quickly they change the topic. I would rely on the people involved letting the conversation develop naturally instead of containing it for the purposes of the experiement.

How would I Process the Results?• By recording the conversations, I would be able

to see how long in minutes and seconds it would take until each group changed topic and also what tangents or topic shifts within the original stimulus of the conversation the group talk about. Their reaction to the stimulus can be evaluated by the tone of their voice, their use of language and use of language features typical to their gender. This experiment would look at prior knowledge of language and gender and whether mixed or single sex groups respond to topics differently based on their gender or who they are in a group with.

Previous Experiments In This Area• http://www.homestar.org/bryannan/tannen.ht

ml• Evidence we looked at when studying

Language and Gender (including various theorists etc)