Expanding on something in comments, did a quick Google on Deborah Tannen -- that link goes to her page at Georgetown University, by the bye -- and ran across Online NewsHour: Opposing Views-- December 15, 1998:
A few weeks ago we presented a series of one-on-one conversations on the issues raised by the conduct and the investigation of President Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky matter. This week we're bringing some of the participants back, this time to debate one another. Margaret Warner is joined by Deborah Tannen and Shelby Steele. [. . .] Deborah Tannen [is a] Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. She's best known as the author of "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation." Her latest book is "The Argument Culture." And Shelby Steele [is a] senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His 1990 book - "The Content of our Character" - won the National Book Critics Circle Award. His latest book is "A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America."
Steele actually interrupts or talks over her several times. Which, all things considered, probably isn't nearly as funny as I seem to think it is at first glance.
More appropriate is an interview at tompeters.com:
DT: My field is sociolinguistics. I've always been trying to figure out how ways of talking affect people's relationships. Before I wrote You Just Don't Understand, I didn't focus on the male/female aspect, although I was aware of it. I focused on cross-cultural differences, differences that result from people being of different ethnic background, coming from different parts of the country, different class backgrounds. And I always included gender as one influence on people's conversational style. But my life work had always been understanding conversational style, and the effect on conversation and on relationships.My first book, trying to bring this to a wider audience was called That's Not What I Meant! I wanted to take this insight beyond academia into the real world, because I knew how helpful it was to people to think about their relationships in terms of differences in conversational style.
In that book I had one chapter on gender, and that chapter got such disproportionate interest that it really made me think about the need to focus more on that aspect of conversational style.
If you feel a knee-jerk reaction building up about how this doesn't describe you, your conversational style, about how men aren't from Mars any more than women are from Venus. . . have you read the book? Did you even read the linked interview? Do you, in fact, have anything worthwhile to contribute, other than anecdotes?
If not, consider this a pre-emptive "Shut the fuck up."
Bonus Round: GENDER DIFFERENCES IN COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION: BRINGING FAMILIAR BAGGAGE TO THE NEW FRONTIER:
My basic claim has two parts: first, that women and men have recognizably different styles in posting to the Internet, contrary to the claim that CMC neutralizes distinctions of gender; and second, that women and men have different communicative ethics -- that is, they value different kinds of online interactions as appropriate and desirable. I illustrate these differences -- and some of the problems that arise because of them -- with specific reference to the phenomenon of "flaming".
This was written in 1994, by the way.
Plus �a change. . .
Update: Heh.
The conclusion of an experiment at the University of New York/Stony Brook in 1974 stated that people, especially men, are more likely to swear when conversing in single-sex groups than when the conversation participants are of both sexes. Interestingly, men were found to weaken their obscenities when in the company of women, while women tended to strengthen theirs in the company of men.
Have to have a look for that, or see if anyone's done a more recent study. . .
Update 2: Changed the c to �, because I'm pedantic that way.
