Way back in the day when I took Linguistics classes, I learned that although the stereotype is that women talk more than men, in fact studies had shown that men talk more than women.
However there’s this new book out–“The Female Brain” by Luann somebody-or-other, which apparently claims that men use 7000 words a day while women use 20,000.
First of all, has anyone heard this latter claim? Does it mean 7000/20,000 different words, or rather, 7000/20,000 total utterances of words?
If the latter, then is this claim true or false? What’s the straight dope on whether women talk too much?
My wife (who is the one who reported this to me) says she also heard that in this book it is claimed that women literally “get a buzz,” equivalent to a shot of heroine, from hearing the sound of their own voice. And that men don’t. (I know, right? I’m just reporting what the book says.) I mean, is this simply crazy talk pure and simple, or is there some way in which this is a half-truth of some kind? I’m only inclined to ask because the book is apparently kind of popular and is written by a medical professional (I think? I saw an “MD” thrown in there on a couple of google links) and I’d like to be able to have debunking material onhand if it ever comes up.
It also gives very good reasons for me to think the book’s claims can generally be dismissed out of hand. If anyone brings up the book positively in my presence, I’ll tell them to actually follow up on some of her citations and discover for themselves the unsupported nature of her claims.
I only have anecdotal information to go on. But I spend about 5 minutes per non-work phone call, whereas my wife and daughter will sit on the phone all evening. I shudder at the thought. There must be some very chatty guys out there to even out the difference.
I have to leave a room full of women, because the chatter drives me nuts. Usually all going a mile a minute and talking at the same time. I have actually recently achieved the nirvana of tuning out the yakity yak of a non stop talker. It blends into white noise now, and I am my father.
My wife can talk, and talk, and talk for no other apparent reason than just talking. I tend to use speech as a communication vehicle to convey ideas, not as an entertainment vehicle to remain occupied. Seriously, she can say the same thing over and over in slightly different ways all night long. Long after I’ve tuned out and am trying desperately to grunt acknowledgment while keeping an eye on the news, or the game.
And the phone! Don’t get me started with the phone. The phone is there to call someone to make arrangements, or to exchange information. She can easily talk for an hour on the phone to someone who she just saw that very day! Incomprehensible.
I’m sure there are statistical outliers, but women definitely talk more than men.
There are plenty of quiet women and plenty of men who will talk your ear off if you give them a chance. I bet you can think of examples if you try. But cultural conditioning will make us remember only the people who conform to the stereotypes. I won’t believe that women talk more than men until I see a scientific study that says so, and I haven’t seen anything like that yet.
There are different styles of talking, too. Anecdotally, my observation has been that women are chattier, but if you run across a monologuist, it’s usually a man.
I think a study should be done of who uses more airtime (monthly) on their cell phones. I’d be willing to bet a weeks paycheck that the women come out ahead.
The above was found from here: Language Log: Sex-linked lexical budgets, also an interesting link as it discusses pedigree of the statistic found in “The Female Brain.”
As you’ve begun to discover, Language Log, and Mark Liberman in particular, has/have done a huge amount of debunking of The Female Brain and the claim that women speak much more than men. As I recall, all the actual evidence to date is that any difference between the sexes in this regard is marginal, but that studies do generally come out with men being the slightly more talkative ones. But people still cling to the stereotypes in support of the “common sense” opposite notion, as evidenced in this very thread.
Most studies show that men talk more than women. I’m getting my information from the book Language Myths (as well as info I gleaned from two language and gender classes), edited by Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill, particularly the article “Women Talk Too Much” (the article names are the myths, not the findings) by Janet Holmes who has written and edited many books on language and gender. One study she talks about looked at sixty-three studies that examined this exact question; women talked more than men in only two studies. She also talks about other studies, including her own, which follow this pattern. There are, however, some situations in which women do talk more than men, such as when talking with family and close friends. In situations such as classrooms, public seminars and business meetings, men talk more than women. When men and women are together, men talk more than women. Holmes breaks down talk into two large, general categories, public and private. Public talk, like that in class or at work, is usually aimed at informing and persuading, gaining status, and men usually talk more than women in these situation. On the other hand, private talk, like that between friends and family, is about making social connections, and women tend to talk more in these situations.
Of course, these are general trends, and anybody studying language and gender is quick to point out that there are always exceptions to any rule involving the behavior of genders as a whole. Furthermore, most of these studies are probably based on white, middle-class, English-speaking people, and should not be expected to include people from other social groups.
My wife outtalks me about 10 to 1. Mostly she is on the phone chatting with some lady friend. Her phone calls can last from 15 minutes to an hour with each friend. My phone calls are usually a minute or two.
