FACULTY OF ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE AND POLICY STUDIES

(FSPPP)

BACHELOR IN CORPORATE ADMINISTRATION

(AM2253D)

ENGLISH FOR CRITICAL ACADEMIC READING

(ELC501)

WRITTEN ARTICLE ANALYSIS

ARE WOMEN REALLY MORE LIKELY TO BE BIGGER TALKERS THAN MEN

PREPARED BY:

NURUL FARHANA BINTI ABDUL HADI 2016559107

SITI HADHILA BINTI HAMZAH 2016338613

 PREPARED FOR:

MADAM AEIMI RUZANNA BINTI ABU HASSIM

 ARTICLE : ARE WOMEN REALLY MORE LIKELY TO BE BIGGER TALKERS THAN
MEN

By Claudia Hammond
12 November 2013

Women use an average of 20,000 words a day, compared to the mere 7,000 that
men utter. At least thats the assertion of a number of self-help and popular science
books. Quoted by apparently authoritative experts and widely reported, its a statement
that bolsters the stereotype of the fairer sex spending their days gossiping, while the
stoic men folk get on with it, whatever it is, without the need to chatter. But is it actually
true?

Talkativeness can be measured in various ways. You can get people into a lab, give
them a topic to discuss and then record their conversations. Or you can try getting them
to record their everyday conversations at home. You can count up the total number of
words spoken, the time each person spends talking, the number of turns an individual
gets in a conversation, or the average number of words spoken in a single turn.

By combining the results of 73 studies of children, US researchers found girls did

speak more words than boys, but only by a negligible amount. Even this small difference
was only apparent when they talked to a parent, and was not seen when they were
chatting with their friends. Perhaps most significantly it was only seen until the age of
two-and-a-half, meaning it might simply reflect the different speeds at which boys and
girls develop language skills.

So not much difference among kids, but what about adults? When Campbell Leaper
from the University of California, Santa Cruz, the psychologist who found the very small
difference in young children, carried out a meta-analysis on the subject, it was men who
talked the most. But once again the difference was small. It was also striking that lab-
based studies in which pairs or groups were given specific topics to discuss found
greater differences than those carried out in more real-life settings. This suggests that
perhaps men were more comfortable in unusual, novel laboratory settings.

Leapers findings supported a review of 56 studies conducted by linguistics

researcher Deborah James and social psychologist Janice Drakich published in a 1993

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book on male and female conversational styles. Only two of the studies found women
talked more than men, while 34 of them found men talked more than women, at least in
some circumstances, although inconsistencies in the way the studies were done made
them hard to compare.

Real life conversations have traditionally been the hardest to study because of the
need to get participants to record all of their conversations. But then the psychologist
James Pennebaker, of the University of Texas, Austin, developed a device that records
30-second snippets of sound every 12.5 minutes. People cant turn Pennebakers EAR,
or Electronically Activated Recorder, off, so its gives a more reliable sample of whats
really happening. In research published in the journal Science in 2007, Pennebaker
found that in their 17 waking hours the women they tested in the US and Mexico uttered
an average of 16,215 words while the men spoke 15,669. Again, a negligible difference.

Not all types of conversations are the same of course. Perhaps what matters is who
else is listening. An analysis of a hundred public meetings carried out by Janet Holmes
of the Victoria University of Wellington , New Zealand, showed that men asked, on
average, three quarters of the questions, while making up only two thirds of the
audience. Even when the audiences were equally split gender-wise, men still asked
almost two thirds of the questions.

But despite all the evidence to the contrary, we seem wedded to the idea that
women talk more. In fact its just one of many areas of life in which we expect significant
differences between the sexes, but when the research base as a whole is taken into
account, men and women are often far more similar than popularly believed.

When researchers reported earlier this year that four-year-old girls had 30% more of
a protein thought to be important to language and speech acquisition in a particular
region of the brain, some sections of the popular media were quick to interpret this as
proof that women cant stop talking. In fact the study tells us nothing about women, or
men for that matter. The chief participants were rat pups, but ten little boys and girls
were also tested. Even the authors themselves caution against reading too much into
the study, saying that whether human differences in the quantities of this protein can
explain differences in language skills is a question for future research.

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 So where does the idea that men utter 7,000 words a day versus womens 20,000
come from? They appeared on the dust jacket of The Female Brain, a 2006 book by
Louann Brizendine, a neuropsychiatrist at the University of California San Francisco, and
were widely quoted in reviews. When Mark Liebermann, professor of linguistics at the
University of Pennsylvania, questioned use of the figures, which appeared to be loosely
based on related numbers in a self help book, Brizendine agreed with him and promised
to remove them from future editions. Liebermann tried to trace the origin of the statistics
further, he had little luck except for a similar claim in a 1993 marriage guidance
pamphlet. Not quite the gold standard of scientific evidence.

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 We have chosen the article titled are women really more likely to be bigger talkers
than men written by Claudia Hammond. In this article the authors itself deals with the
issue whether women talks more than men? She argues that talkativeness is measures
in many ways and it is hard to identify which gender talk more whether male or female
while there are several research that claim men and women are often far more similar.
This explain that most of the evidence show only negligible and small amount of
difference between the gaps of the genders.

She begins her argument by the question of the fact which indicates that women use
and average of words a day higher compared to men. She then argued that
talkativeness can be measured in various ways and comes up with the research results
of 73 studies of children by US researchers and the research by the Pennebaker which
developed a device records stated that girls and women uttered more compared to boys
and men. However, several research conduct otherwise which it was men who talked the
most compared to the women based on the Campbell Leaper and Santa Cruz
psychologist that carried out a meta-analysis instead of Leapers findings on male and
female conversational styles. In addition is analysis of a hundred public meetings carried
out by Janet Holmes that support the statement.

The issue is which gender more likely to talks more whether men or women. The
argument is based on the evidence submitted by the authors and the research
conducted exhibit that men and women are often more similar than the believed which
construed neither women is chatter than men nor the men talks more than women. Even
though most of the survey conducted only adhere to one party only whether men or
women but it show only slight differences between them. This article is obviously not
bias as the authors had given lots of submission of fact, evidence and research
conducted by experts regardless of gender in which gender that tend to talk more. She
also indicates that different types of alternative on the measurement of talkativeness
brings difference outcomes and results.

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 Two types of supporting details in this article is research finding and expert opinion.
Research finding is one of the type of supporting detail that can be find in this articles is,
In research published in the journal Science in 2007, Pennebaker found that in their 17
waking hours the women they tested in the US and Mexico uttered an average of 16,215
words while the men spoke 15,669. Second type of supporting detail are expert opinion.
For instances, Leapers findings supported a review of 56 studies conducted by
linguistics researcher Deborah James and social psychologist Janice Drakich published
in a 1993 book on male and female conversational styles. Only two of the studies found
women talked more than men, while 34 of them found men talked more than women, at
least in some circumstances, although inconsistencies in the way the studies were done
made them hard to compare.

Research finding and expert opinions is relevant and consistent in this article as it
appears more than one time in pointing out the idea thats either men or women is
consider as big talker. These two types of supporting details strongly consistent as the
authors put both of the supporting details from beginning till the end of the article. Next,
the objective of supporting details in this article is related with the articles issue as the
talkativeness of the people depend on the gender. Subsequently, the entire sentence for
both supporting details is complete in which can be understood by the readers and
viewers. Moreover, the research finding s and the expert opinions might be valid and
credible as the author has indicates from where it was taken. This supporting detail has
high level of validity and credibility as from the research findings it stated the published
journal while expert opinions stated the published book which can be trusted as the
sources.

We had make inference from one statement which is quoted by apparently

authoritative experts and widely reported, its a statement that bolsters the stereotype of
the fairer sex spending their days gossiping, while the stoic men folk get on with it,
whatever it is, without the need to chatter. We refer this statement as it is exposed by
experts that women are the most likely to be bigger talkers than men which run with the
flow without the necessity to talk.

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 The authors purpose is clear in this article. The purpose is to justify the similarity
between men and women in their talkativeness in a various alternative despite of the
believed created by the people as we seem wedded to the idea that women are often
likely to talk more than a man. The author want people to differentiate and understand
that the level of talkativeness is not depending on the gender itself but it depend on the
situation in the first place. Moreover, the authors tones are more straightforward and
direct. She is straightforward to the point of her argument as she directly expressed
despite all the evidence that contrary, we trust that women talk more. In fact its just one
of many areas of life in which we expect significant differences between the sexes, but
when the research base as a whole is taken into account, men and women is similar with
each other.

The intended audiences in this article are children specifically girls, boys and adult
which is women and men indicates as the male and female. Both are gender which
subsists in the community as a whole. There might be a large number of female
population compared to male population. The author wants this gender to know the fact
behind this argument that always serve as an issue and crises between both gender in
general society. Thus, this statement tend to justified based on the research conducted
by experts and the data and analysis collected to avoid any debate or critism between
male and female as they are supposed to support and complement each other.

As conclusion, this article exhibit good article as for the neutrality and reliability in its
judgement of the author itself in overall statement. Every individuals should be
considerable in this matter and take it more seriously as it involves different gender and
sexes between male and female. However, we think that this article still can be improved
by expressing more towards the authors opinion rather than taken research findings and
expert opinions solely. The questioned that women are likely to be big talker than men
should be translated as women and men should similarly classified in their talkativeness
based on the situations cope.