A Comparative Study Of Gender Differences On Verbal Interactions In Classroom Discussions Between Chinese And American College Students

China has performed the reform and opening-up policy since the end of the 1970s, and not only more and more people have walked out of the country but quite a few foreigners have come into China as well. During this process, the communication issue becomes important. We all know that English is the most widely used language in the world and Chinese is spoken by the most people; in the process of opening up, the communication is accomplished mainly by these two languages, besides more and more foreigners hope to learn Chinese for their future or current business with China. In order to benefit the communication, native speakers have continually been invited to teach English in China, and our Chinese teachers also go abroad to teach Chinese. In this process, the classroom cross-culture communication plays an important role in the language teaching itself; for both the American teachers and Chinese teachers who teach a foreign language abroad, it is best to be involved naturally in the foreign classroom culture, which will help achieve the goal of the language teaching. Apart from the concern of different culture, the gender differences in the classroom activity should also be attached enough importance, which has received more and more concentration of scholars.Language and gender has become an important branch in sociolinguistics, especially since Robin Lakoff raised the issues"women's language"and"women's status"in her book in the 1970s. Up to now, the study on language and gender has been involved in many fields including psychology, sociology, communication and applied linguistics. The results of scholars show that the linguistic differences between males and females cannot be neglectable. These differences will affect the social-marked classroom activity and cross-culture communications.However, after reviewing the past researches and academic works, the author discovers that most of the studies of gender and language have been carried out within the aspects of conversational interactions in daily life, in conferences, at work or among family members. Relevant research on conversational interactions in classrooms is still in its infancy, let alone the comparison of gender differences under different cultures or countries. So the American teachers who teach English in China and Chinese teachers who teach Chinese in American cannot get useful information about the cross-culture communication and gender differences in classroom verbal interactions.The thesis tries to give necessary reference of classroom cross-culture communication and teaching strategies to both American teachers who teach English in China and Chinese teachers who teach Chinese in America by means of analyzing the gender and nation differences of the Chinese and American college students in their classroom verbal interactions. In order to achieve this goal, the author takes advantage of the questionnaire and the case study, based on theories of Coats, Tannen and Holmes. Four research questions are raised according to Don Zimmerman, Candace West and Spender's researching methods in 1970s:1. In classroom discussion, are there differences between males and females on topics, and if there are such differences, are the differences affected by the nationality.2. In classroom discussion, whether or not there are differences between males and females on amount of speech, and if there are such differences, are the differences affected by the nationality.3. In classroom discussion, whether or not there are differences between males and females on interruptions, and if there are such differences, are the differences affected by the nationality.4. In classroom discussion, whether or not there are differences between males and females on the frequency of back-channel response, and if there are such differences, are the differences affected by the nationality. After analyzing the data, the author gets his conclusion: the Chinese and American college students have gender and nation differences on the above four aspects. Afterwards, the author explains the differences mainly in the angle of culture differences. In the end, the author gives suggestions on the cross-culture communication and teaching strategies in classroom verbal interactions for the Chinese teachers who teach Chinese in American and American teachers who teach English in China.