WSTC28H3 Lecture Notes - False Dilemma, Deborah Tannen, John J. Gumperz
7 May 2012
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Also known as: the cultural difference approach, the difference approach. Associated with maltz and borker (1982: the first to conceptualize the two-culture approach to sex differences in speech and its impact on male-female miscommunication. Methodology meta-analysis of previous work on male/female linguistic differences. Takes a cultural approach to sex differences in speech. Linguistic differences and miscommunication between men and women are compared with inter-ethnic communication. Progresses in large part because of shared assumptions about what is going on. Indian women working at a cafeteria used falling intonation for questions do you want gravy vs. the rising intonation characteristic in english. To english-english speakers falling intonation didn"t signal a question but a statement which they interpreted as inappropriate and extremely rude. It does not assume that problems are the result of bad faith, but rather the result of individuals wrongly interpreting cues according to their own rules. (1982:201)
