| Researchers point out that we spend 70 percent of our awake time communicating. No matter what we do, we all have to communicate with the opposite sex at some time in our lives-fathers, mothers, siblings, schoolmates, bosses, co-workers, and so on. Thus, gender differences in communication are everywhere. When we work with someone of the opposite gender and he or she does something that seems a bit strange, we often become intolerant and defensive. In fact, each gender is a "culture" in itself, men and women behave according to two separate sets of rules about what "right" is. Men and women come from different cultures, even if they are raised in the same homes, are educated in the same schools and live in the same country. Tannen (1990: 18) claims "because boys and girls grow up in what are essentially different cultures ... talk between women and men is cross-cultural communication". Therefore, behavior that seems natural and appropriate to one gender culture can seem to be baffling, hurtful or wrong to others.It is well known that men and women have been misunderstanding each other in communication for generations-probably since the beginning of time. Researchers have been working on gender differences in communication for 60 years, and the work will go on unless there is no gender existing. Now we have stridden into a new century, and weare living in a highly exciting time in the history, new ideas are occurring all around us. Women and men, who were once offered prescriptions for communication effectively with each other, now find them outdated. More and more people focus on the conflict between men and women either in families or in the worksites when they communicate. They are looking forward to a better solution. Therefore, the author of this dissertation explores the subject of gender differences in communication from the socio-cultural perspective in the hope of developing our cross-gender communication awareness and our respect in communication, promoting the best possible communication between men and women.This dissertation is divided into seven chapters.Chapter One is an introduction, in which we outline the studies on gender differences in communication, the aims and the arrangement of this paper.Chapter Two deals with the exploration on gender, culture and communication, which covers the relationship between gender and culture, between gender and communication, and the discussion of cross-gender communication as intercultural communication.Chapter Three is concerned with gender differences in verbal communication. It focuses on language and gender. In our notions of gender, men are powerful, and \vomen are powerless. Women are characterized as more submissive, more susceptible to social pressure, and more "proper" and polite than men. All these are reflected in the language they use. This chapter explores some gender differences in vocabulary, in conversational interaction and in men's and women's speech style.Chapter Four discusses gender differences in nonverbal communication. Gender differences are various in nonverbal communication, this chapter focuses on gender differences in kinesics, proxemics and touch.Chapter Five focuses on gender differences in cyberspace communication. Four aspects are discussed: gender and computer science, gender differences between communication online and face to face, differences in online style and in communication ethics. Gender differences in cyberspace communication indicate that stereotypes of men and women are rooted in our culture, no matter people communicate face to face, or in cyberspace, these notions will be reflected.Chapter Six is concerned with the awareness of gender differences and ICC competence. Cross-gender communication is a form of intercultural communication, so to develop cross-gender communicative competence is to develop interculturalcommunicative competence. This chapter explores the intercultural communicative competence, including the conception of ICC competence, the models of ICC competence... |
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