Warning: This entry presents a compilation of ideas derived from a variety of articles in language and memory and is not meant to reflect an exhaustive or authoritative review of the literature!
What are men doing when they communicate? This is a question that keeps popping up in my mind as I review the literature on email and gender (sex) differences in language use. The convention seems to be that a long list of "feminine" language features (read: language characteristics used by women) is presented. Then, a much shorter list of "masculine" language features (read: language characteristics used by men) is sometimes offered. Not trusting my perception of this difference, I started to keep a list of the linguistic features ascribed to females and males in my readings.
First, I created a table of the specific (as possible) features coded and analyzed for gender-preferential use. While the difference wasn't quite as dramatic as I thought it was going to be, the list of features attributed to females is twice as long as that for males.
Then, I created a similar table for the topics that were described as female or male specific. Obviously, this list is less complete, but still indicates that females are "credited" with twice as many topics as males.
Well...perhaps these results are due to a default focus on "how women differ from men," but here's the issue--most of the research then demonstrates that there are no significant differences in the overall length of the e-mails/responses/letters in the study. So, if women are "doing" twice as many things linguistically (including digressing and using nonessentials), and have twice as many topics available to them, what are men doing to make up the difference in length of communication? Are men just much more focused on one topic? Previous research suggests otherwise; women tend to change topics less frequently, developing each topic more extensively.
These are lists I will continue to update as I trudge through the literature. As the scope of the literature reviewed expands, I'll feel more comfortable with the relative differences. In the meantime, I take away two impressions. First, you could never examine all these features in one study (and derive any meaningful observations). Second, men seem to be cussing each other out, insulting each other, and telling one another what to do (okay, simplistic and non-representative, but looking at the lists, I couldn't help it!).