Focuses on whether women and men have different perceptions about when simultaneous talk becomes interruptive. Asks participants to judge whether 20 overlaps are interruptive when presented with a conflictive interview between a high-power female and a low-power male. Suggests that verbal aggressiveness is a better predictor of recognition of…

Examines "girl talk" (a typically female speech event involving long and detailed personal discussions about people, norms, and beliefs). Demonstrates that girl-talk interaction constitutes a temporary community within which norms are cooperatively defined through a painstaking process of negotiation and consensus. (RS)

Examines how boys and girls use features of stories to accomplish and restructure social identities within encounters. Finds that boys use stories to continue an ongoing argument while reshaping the domain of dispute. Finds that girls use stories to restructure alignments of participants in the current interaction and at some future time. (RS)

Analyzes conflict talk among three-year-old friends playing in same-sex triads at their day care center. Interprets the gendered aspects of two disputes in terms of an anthropological linguistic model and a psychological framework. Demonstrates the gendered nature of children's peer talk at as young as three years of age. (RS)

Examines gender differences in topical coherence of same-sex best friends' conversations using John Gumperz's framework for cross-cultural communication. Finds that girls exhibit minimal or no difficulty in finding something to talk about. Finds that boys exhibit more discomfort, with tenth grade boys talking about their own highly personal…

Explores the kinds of persuasion used by preschool children in two role-playing tasks. Finds that children role played effectively and persistently, with Bargains and Guarantees the most frequently used strategies. Finds that the choice of strategies changed with age (more Positive Sanction, less Assertion) and with sex (boys used more Norm…

Examines whether preschool children take the gender of the addressee into account when disputing during peer exchanges. Finds that both boys and girls modified their language use in mixed-sex groups, with boys using fewer commands when more girls were present, and girls using more contradictions in mixed-sex than same-sex groups. (SR)

Outlines and analyzes the speech that mothers, fathers, and children spontaneously quote at dinnertime. Shows differences in the use of reported speech between mothers, fathers, and children. Describes the correlation between use of reported speech by mothers and children. (HB)

Examines some interactional details of a court case that took place in the Mexican community of Tenejapa. Suggests that courtroom behavior in Tenejapa uniquely allows for direct confrontation in a society where a premium is placed on interactional restraint. Explores the implications of this Tenejapan phenomenon for the relations between language…