Rethinking Gender Stereotype in Conflict Talk

Abstract

Gender stereotype has major influence on related academic studies; however, more and more researchers provide empirical evidences to refute the clear gender differences in real communication (Holmes, 2008). Therefore it is necessary to rethink the role of gender stereotype when examine cross-gender communication. This paper examines the typical traits of gender stereotype in the context of cross-gender conflict talk, and they are swear words, intensifiers and interruption. It is a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis, using 63 scenes of cross-gender conflict talks from American TV series The Newsroom. The results show that the influence of gender stereotype should be downplayed, and the dichotomy method may not be appropriate for research. A non-biased attitude is emphasized in order to treat the gender issue objectively. This research combines the analysis of linguistic devices with turn-taking mechanism, and it may provide a new angle for future research.