Conversational Dominance as a Function of Gender and Expertise

ABSTRACT The study examines how gender and expertise, as bases of power, influenced the emergence of dominance and control in the conversations of 70 pairs of unacquainted college students who discussed television programming for approximately 10 minutes. Independent variables were sex composition of pairs (male-male, female-female, male-female) and expertise (partners equally uninformed or one specially informed). Typed transcripts of the openings and closings of conversations were used to obtain the following language measures: relative talkativeness, relative production of intrusions into speech, interruptions and overlaps, relative production of varying assent forms. “Powerful” persons (men and experts) were expected to talk more and intrude more than “powerless” persons (women and non-experts). “Powerless” persons were expected to do relatively more assenting or supportive work in conversation. To examine whether “powerless” language features relate to other indices of power, independent judges used opening and closing transcripts to rate subjects on measures reflecting conversational control. Subjects' own ratings of relative dominance were also taken. In general the interaction of gender and expertise (and not the single factors of being male or being expert) accounted for the major proportion of findings. There was a correspondence across three classes of measures (language features, objective judges' and participants' perceptual ratings) which suggest how male, but not female, experts realised power in conversation. Results for talkativeness and for assent terms supported the view that male experts pursue a style of interacting based on power, while female experts pursue a style based upon solidarity and support. Complex findings for intrusions into speech highlighted the importance of incorporating situational and contextual elements into an understanding of the relations between linguistic form to social function.