Organizing Multivoicedness:
The Organizational Psychology of Diversity and Differences

Sex specific communications

Sex specific communication Group 8

by

Andreas Ernst

1 INTRODUCTION  2

2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND  3
2.1 SEX-SPECIFIC COMMUNICATION AND CHARACTERISTICS OF PERCEPTIBILITY  3
2.1.1 The Development of a different language  3
2.1.2 Metacommunication  3
2.1.3. The language of women  5
2.1.3 The language of men  7
2.2 HOW TO DEAL WITH SEX-SPECIFIC COMMUNICATION  8
2.3 INDIVIDUALITY CONCERNING THE COMMUNICATION AS MEDIUM  8

3 EXPERIMENT  10
3.1 CONSTRUCTION  10
3.2 EXECUTION  11
3.3 FINDINGS  12
3.3.1 Quantitive analysis  12
3.3.2 Qualitative analysis  17

4 APPLICABILITY  19
4.1 INTERNAL COMMUNICATION  20
4.2 External Communication  21

5 CONCLUSION  21

6 BIBLIOGRAPHY (APA)  23

BOOK LITERATURE  23

INTERNET LITERATURE  23

- The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. 

(L.Wittgenstein)

1 Introduction

Since the beginning of time humans have been trying to put the world into scientific formulas. This constant search for all the coherence, which defines our reality, affects today′s civilisation and its achievements essentially. But not always has science led to enlightenment of humankind. It was used repeatedly to endorse existing prejudices and malicious thoughts. At the end of the day empirical and absolutely subjective research only exist in our minds, that science is and always will be a thin line surrounded by deep abysses.

This paper should be regarded as a pre-experiment serving towards the exploration of polyphony in both genders. The rise of short messaging service (SMS) enables to conduct research with modest effort. More and more one should ask what necessity an additional paper has, since this topic is already considered as well explored. Therefore it is important to emphasise that this paper is not another attempt to justify existing prejudices in a wannabe scientific manner. We, as a group are convinced, that every human being is unique and that there is ultimately no way to categorise this uniqueness without narrowing its diversity.

Nonetheless we intend to examine following two points. On one hand, if there are any tendencies of linguistic habit, which are consistent with the existing theory. But most of all if it possible for regular people (i.e. not specifically trained) to recognise a sex specific communication. Finally, one should keep in mind, that this experiment only represents a snapshot of our personal live, and environment, and should be treated as such.

2 Theoretical Background

2.1 Sex-specific communication and characteristics of perceptibility

For centuries the societies in our world have been strongly men orientated. Men determined politics, trade, science and art while women were in charge of housekeeping, the raising of children and following men′s orders. Each gender had and - despite of the process of emancipation - still has its own role to play. As a consequence men and women developed their own way of thinking, recognition and communication. This thesis is strengthened through some other authors who also believe that language used by women should fundamentally different. Feminist theorists corroborate this thesis by arguing that there are remarkable differences in how women write and speak (Steyaert 2001).

2.1.1 The Development of a different language

One very important factor is the education of boys and girls in connection with social expectations.

Boys still get rewarded when showing the ability to implement, girls when being friendly, kind and nice, or with other words, strive for harmony. As a consequence the language of boys develops with the focus on other values than the language of girls. As it is easier communicating with someone who puts the focus on the same values, this insight might be one reason why human beings usually find it easier to communicate with the same gender rather than the other (Oppermann & Weber, 1995).

2.1.2 Metacommunication

Today we know that every piece of information usually contains, besides the pure information aspect, another three messages. Including the information aspect the four messages are:

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