Zhang 1 Siyu Zhang Dr. Rhee English 711 19-04-15 Essay 3 (final draft) Sex Difference in Language Can anyone tell as to whom between women and men talks more? This is one of the questions that have not been clearly answered. Different people have different perspective concerning gendered language. It attracts me to find out whether women and men speak similarly or whether one of the two sexes speaks more than the other. Different authors hold different opinions about gendered language. Kornheiser and Tannen both think that women and men use language in different way. For example, Deborah Tannen’s article talks about the different between women and men act in conversations. He argues that women tend to offer their experiences to agree with other people when they listening while men tend to give lecture and challenge other people and women always hide their expertise to offer agreement and men would choose to keep controlling position. They also have different body language and assume different attitude toward the things they do. However, some researchers like Holmes and Macaulay have different attitudes towards it. Janet Holmes in his essay debunks the stereotype of the talkative women; he claims that the amount of a talk depends on many factors, for example, the purposes of conversation, social confidence and social perception. Although many people tend to believe that women speak more than men，this assumption now has been subjected to rigorous analysis and research. There are three social factors influencing men’s and women’s language using: purposes, social perception and social confidence. Before talking about the reasons why women and men actually use the same language, the opposite causes of why there are genders differences also need to be talked about fairly. Mainly, opponents claims from the biological differences, they believe because of the genetic factor and conditioning, women just want to talk more than men. Many people hold on the same point. For example, Deborah Tannen in her essay “’I’ll Explain It to You’: Lecturing and listening” puts forwards that men just like to have factual information, lecturing and like to challenge people with long explanations, they always comments on other people and have few listener responses, they just do not afraid to frustrated people, while women prefer to listen. (Tannen, 323-324). She needs a lot of her personal conversation with different men and women as evidences to support her argument. Meanwhile, Tannen also provides an English professor of Thoman Fox’s analysis paper of his women student and men student’s different behavior in language using. (Tannen, 327-328). Kornheiser in his essay “No Detail is Too Small for Girls Answering a Simple Question” uses his daughter and his son as example to illustrate that girls talk more than boys and just have special genes for cheers, so do the women (Kornheiser, 305-307). From his point, women are just talkative for no reason. “There seems to be .

1. Zhang 1
Siyu Zhang
Dr. Rhee
English 711
19-04-15
Essay 3 (final draft)
Sex Difference in Language
Can anyone tell as to whom between women and men talks
more? This is one of the questions that have not been clearly
answered. Different people have different perspective
concerning gendered language. It attracts me to find out
whether women and men speak similarly or whether one of the
two sexes speaks more than the other. Different authors hold
different opinions about gendered language. Kornheiser and
Tannen both think that women and men use language in
different way. For example, Deborah Tannen’s article talks
about the different between women and men act in
conversations. He argues that women tend to offer their
experiences to agree with other people when they listening
while men tend to give lecture and challenge other people and
women always hide their expertise to offer agreement and men
would choose to keep controlling position. They also have
different body language and assume different attitude toward
the things they do. However, some researchers like Holmes and
Macaulay have different attitudes towards it. Janet Holmes in
his essay debunks the stereotype of the talkative women; he
claims that the amount of a talk depends on many factors, for
example, the purposes of conversation, social confidence and
social perception. Although many people tend to believe that
women speak more than men，this assumption now has been
subjected to rigorous analysis and research. There are three
social factors influencing men’s and women’s language using:
purposes, social perception and social confidence.

2. Before talking about the reasons why women and men actually
use the same language, the opposite causes of why there are
genders differences also need to be talked about fairly. Mainly,
opponents claims from the biological differences, they believe
because of the genetic factor and conditioning, women just want
to talk more than men. Many people hold on the same point. For
example, Deborah Tannen in her essay “’I’ll Explain It to You’:
Lecturing and listening” puts forwards that men just like to
have factual information, lecturing and like to challenge people
with long explanations, they always comments on other people
and have few listener responses, they just do not afraid to
frustrated people, while women prefer to listen. (Tannen, 323-
324). She needs a lot of her personal conversation with different
men and women as evidences to support her argument.
Meanwhile, Tannen also provides an English professor of
Thoman Fox’s analysis paper of his women student and men
student’s different behavior in language using. (Tannen, 327-
328).
Kornheiser in his essay “No Detail is Too Small for Girls
Answering a Simple Question” uses his daughter and his son as
example to illustrate that girls talk more than boys and just have
special genes for cheers, so do the women (Kornheiser, 305-
307). From his point, women are just talkative for no reason.
“There seems to be deep-seated desire to find essential
differences between the speech of men and women or to genetic
disposition. (Macaulay, 310) However, the assumption that men
and women have genetic differences can be approved that it is
just stereotype. Researchers used electronic recorder to collect
data on about 396 students from 3 different university’s chat.
After the estimated the number of words these students spoke
daily, they found men and women students spoke almost equal
number of words. (Swaminathan) This research can show that in
fact, gender different has slight influence on language using,
and social factors might be the root of the problem.
First, the purpose of the conversation can influence men’s and
women’s language using. Men and women have different

3. purposes when they talking with others and their purposes can
influence their attitude and behavior in the conversation. Men
want to dominate the talk to show their knowledge and enhance
their social status. For them, they want to challenge other
people’s authority and persuade others to make themselves
become the people. However, women do not want to show their
power and when they have conservation with others, they just
want to reinforce relationship with people. Men dominate the
talking time in committee meetings, staff meanings, seminars
and task-oriented decision making groups (Holmes, 300). They
have purposes to control the talk and convince people to listen
to them in the important occasions. Margaret Franken found out
that men took more than half of every occasion in an interview
involving men and women expert. What’s more, Holmes found
out that men dominated a public seminars involving analyzing a
number of questions. Women only featured out in seven of
hundred seminars analyzed (Holmen, 300). Men are obviously
more active at public conversation with their desire on proving
themselves. However, these researchers cannot be the evidence
that women does not talk. Rafelman found out that men only
want to talk about business and do not want to get into personal
stuff. Women dominate in private and relaxed settings. The
study done by Deborah James and Janice Drakich shows that
woman dominates two-third of informal talks (Rafelman 317).
Therefore, women dominate in talks related to personal
relationships; they want to reinforce relationships with people
they talk with. Actually men and women have no genetic
difference on talking; they just want to use talking to achieve
their different goals. “Men's goals in using language tend to be
about getting things done, whereas women's tend to be about
making connections to other people. Men talk more about things
and facts, whereas women talk more about people, relationships
and feelings” (Cameron). With different goals, men usually
talks a lot in the public place and women likes talk in private
place, men tend to dominate in the formal talk and women just
like to talk more about personal stuff. People cannot skimpily

4. draw a conclusion from some situation they have seen, they
need to need that men and women using language in a
difference way just because they have different purposes.
Second, social confidence can be a reason explains “sex
differences in language”. When a woman and a men having
conversation, if the woman does not know the field they are
talking about, it is difficult for her to give her own opinion or
ask question because she does not have the confidence in this
field. So she usually will choose to perceives herself as lesser
and hence tend to avoid much talk when in mixed discussion.
But no matter how much a man exactly know about a topic, he
will still talk a lot. Holmes in his essay explains that the
expertise or topic familiarity influences women’s talk, he uses
several women economists as an example. In a small seminar on
economy, the women economists who are invited to the
discussion talks more than men (Holmes, 303). This evidence
shows that women does not talk less than men by nature, like
these women expertise, the economy is their professional filed,
so they have they own thoughts and ideas basic on their
research, they have confidence on that. But when a woman does
not familiar with the topic she is talking about, she feels less
confidence so she will talk less to avoid making mistakes.
Holmes also talks about feminist. When a woman is a feminist,
she tends to talk more than her husband, no matter what they are
talking about, and this is also because she feels confidence
about herself as a woman. A research shows that women are not
willing to talk about math because when they are girls, they
usually have lower grades than boys in the math, so they began
to lose confidence on math. This attitude towards math has
carried into their adulthood; women tend to talk less when the
conversation topic is about math (Kelley Holland).
Third, social perceptions can be an unaware factor of
influencing gendered language. Because we are living in male-
dominated society, boys and men consequently associated
themselves with high social status and hence dominate
classroom. From kindergarten through primary, secondary and

5. tertiary education, men or boys dominate classroom talk
because of the social perception. In Holmes’s essay, he talks
about that teachers have used to let the boys talk more in the
class, but teachers do not aware of this problem. Only when
they use tape to record or teachers just like girls more than boys
then boys and girls can talks equal in the class (Holmes, 303).
Therefore, people always think boys tend to contribute more and
they are more active than girls. Growing up in this atmosphere,
girls might have stereotype that boys are always talks more than
girls and they should dominate the talk. When they have become
women, they are unaware of the gender distribution of talk but
they just get used to listen more and agree more when they talk
with men rather than give their own advises. And there also
have popular belief that girls just learn language quicker and
talk more than boys because of their genetic (Macaulay, 310),
this is also a prejudice. People always think women are
talkative and want them to be more silence, but women actually
does not that much than men. The social perceptions make
women to talk less in the public. Furthermore, in many
countries, the social status makes people hold the opinion that
men should dominate the talking and women just need to listen
to women, talk less and agree to men’s opinions. For example,
in China, because of the history influence, people just believe
that men’s status is higher than women and women just need to
agree to the men without doubt. If a woman talks a lot in the
mix conversation, she will be considered to be too talkative and
might be in disgust. Therefore, in China, a woman always does
not talk much in the public and a quiet girl is considered to be a
gentle woman because of the social perception. We cannot deny
that the status differences between men and women are still
existed in the society and there is no absolute gender equity, the
social perception can always influence men and women’s
language using.
In a conclusion, there is no sex difference in language. The
“gendered language” is actually influenced by many social
factors such as purposes, social perception and social

6. confidence. When we talk about the gender pattern in language,
we should avoid stereotype and make gender equality a priority.
For the women, they should put stereotype aside and explain
their opinions more in the public for themselves.
Work Cited
Cameron, Deborah. “What language barrier?” The guardian. The
Myth of Mars and Venus, n.d. Web. 20 April. 2014.
Holland, Kelley. “The 'uncomfortable' subject women don't talk
about.” CNBC. CNBC, 2015. Web. 20 April. 2014.
Kornheiser, Tony. “No Details is Too Small for Girls
Answering a Simple Question.” Exploring Language. Ed. Gary

7. Gosharian. 11thed. New York: Longman, 2007. 365-67. Print.
Macaulay, Ronald. “Sex Differences. “ Exploring Language. Ed.
Gary Gosharian. 11thed. New York: Longman, 2007. 307-13.
Print.
Rafelman, Rachel. “The Party Line.” Exploring Language. Ed.
Gary Gosharian. 11thed. New York: Longman, 2007. 317-21.
Print.
Swaminathan, Nikhil. “Gender Jabber: Do Women Talk More
than Men?” Scientific American. Scientific American, 2007.
Web. 20 April. 2014.
Zhang1
Siyu Zhang
Dr. Rhee
English 711
3-14-15
Essay 2 (final draft)
Comparison and Analysis of Mujica and Fallow’s Essay
It is a common phenomenon in America that people in the street
speaks different language because there are so many immigrants
in the United States. In James Fallows’s and Mauro E. Mujica’s
essay, they both talk about the bilingualism but hold different
point of view. Mujica believes that English should be the
official language of America because bilingualism would cause
the retreat of English and the cost of bilingualism is too high
for the government from education, ballots health and human
cost part. What’s more, bilingualism may cause the disunity of
the whole nation (Mujica, 580-584). However, Fallows has
opposite view on the question. He claims that Bilingualism need
to be support in American. Learning both English and another
language is more like raising two children rather than
polygamy. Besides, now English is at dominating statues in the
world, it should not be regarded as kind of fragile (Fallows,
259-263). Comparing two authors’ essays, Mujica’s essay has

8. more effective evidence and more formal tone than Fallow’s
essay, but Fallow does better in the organization.
Mujica’s essay has more persuasive evidence to support his
argument in his essay compared to Fallows’s. Mujica uses
factual reference, quotes and statistics in his essay, which are
very effective. For example, to support his first claim that
bilingualism can cause the retreat of English，he cities census
statistics in his essay. The statistics show that in the city
Hartford, more than 20 percentage of the population do not
speak English because of the bilingualism. Furthermore, Mujica
provides an example to show that at Miami Senior High school,
most students fails the test which given in English because they
use English as their second language (Mujica, 582). These
examples are all come from accurate research and all the facts,
so they are convincing for the readers. Moreover, Mujica uses
evidence in the U.S. In Los Angeles, San Francisco and
Washington, D.C., the governments need to spend a large
percentage of election budgets on translation because there are
many different language users in the country (Mujica, 583).
This evidence can prove that bilingualism can cause government
to bear the heavy financial burden. As Mujica’s essay is talking
about the bilingualism in the U.S. area; this can be relevant to
topic. His evidences can strongly support his claims,.
Comparing to Mujica’s essay, in Fallows’s essay, most of the
evidence is not that persuasive. To illustrate that English is not
fragile blossom, he talks about what he has seen in Japan. He
says that Japanese can see English signs everywhere; they have
their own English newspaper, magazines and TV programs, and
students have to pass tests in English in order to study in
university. The whole society has created an atmosphere that
everybody is eager to learn English in order to win a place
(Fallows, 260). Fallows also use the example of Spanish
immigrants. He says these immigrants are dying to learn English
well because for them, that’s the necessary part to fit in the
U.S. society (Fallows, 261). However, almost every country has
different foreign language TV or magazine, we can also see

9. French magazine in Japan. And we also cannot say that the
immigrants in the U.S. can improve the status just by learning
English. What’s more, these examples do not have any statistics
supporting, they are only author’s personal observation, and his
audience might able question about the evidence. Moreover, he
says during the journey with his family, people in South China,
Malaysia are active in practicing English (Fallows, 262). But
this evidence cannot be considered as an effective one because
the author gets in touch with some people in the countries he
has been to; his experience is not representative. Furthermore,
although Fallows’s essay is to object to American’s contempt
for bilingual education, his evidence does talk about people’s
attitude or the conditions in American; and thus, some of the
evidence might not be relevant to the topic. . Fallows ignores
the facts that there are many students from English-speaking
countries like America choose to go to other countries like
China and Japan for their further study and work, only focus the
statistic that Malaysia sends thousands of people to the English
speaking countries for studies every year. As bilingualism is a
common phenomenon around the world, if he wants to show the
readers that bilingualism should be support in the U.S, he
should use examples in the U.S. area and try to see things from
U.S. citizens’ point of view; otherwise, he can never persuade
his readers.
Mujica shows his audience that English should be American’s
official language in a formal tone. He uses formal words in the
essay and he organizes his essay logically, using statistics and
facts to supports his claims, then explains it objectively. His
tone is likely to be an expert who dedicated to preserving the
unify role of the English language. For example, when he talks
about his second claim that the cost of multilingualism can be
high, he does not express it using his personal feeling or with
his personal emotion. Instead, he just shows the audiences the
fact that different countries have spent huge amount of money
for translation health-care industry and have a human cost.
Because of the different language people using, the hospital and

10. the doctor need to spend a lot of money to hire translators to
understand what their patient mean. Sometimes because of the
translator’s mistake, patients and paramedics might not be able
to communicate and it can influence the treat and care (Mujica,
583).. These examples are shows the shortage of bilingualism
and demonstrate the importance of an official language in the
U.S. Mujica logically lists the evidence which seriously shows
his attitudes to the audience and can be persuasive and
convincing for them. On the contrast, Fallows’s tone is informal
in the essay. He uses the words like “yes, yes” to response to
the point that English is America’s “official” language
(Fallows, 260) and “come on!” to reject the point that English is
a kind of fragile blossom(Fallows, 261). When answering the
question “Does all of this reduce the incentive to learn
Japanese, or the feeling of being left out if you don’t”, he uses
“Hah” (Fallows, 262). These words are informal for an essay
and have his personal emotion and may cause the readers to
think that the author does not consider the bilingualism question
seriously or he does not have sufficient evidence for his claims.
In Mujica’s essay, he first raises the counterargument about
why the U.S. needs an official language; he talks about a survey
on global trends by a research center. Almost all the nations
have a large percentage of people acknowledge the importance
of English, almost all the people across the planet including the
immigrants in the U.S all agree on the importance to learn
English for them to achieve success and he talks about the
opponents’ points that force immigrants to learn can be
regarded as “racist”. Then Mujica states his point from three
parts: the retreat of English, the cost of multilingualism, the
dis-united states, using examples to support each claim.(Mujica,
580-584) Using this structure, he skip the step of interpret
claims and explaining the connection between thesis and claims,
which makes his essay seems to be discussed less detailed.
Comparing to Mujica’s essay, Fallows organized his article
effectively and his essay has clear structure. When he takes
about bilingualism, first, he raises his counterargument, the first

11. one is the view that biligalism is a kind of polygamy, the second
one is English is a kind of fragile blossom (Fallows, 260-261),
and then interprets the counterargument. For example, for the
first counterargument, he explains the definition of polygamy
and shows that actually bilingualism is not similar with
polygamy, which shows the counterargument is not right,
finally, providing evidences. In his second claim, at the
beginning, he comes up with an opposite view that English is
kind of fragile blossom. Then he explains that actually English
is still the dominant language in the world and is not as fragile
as people think and he uses his personal experience when he
travels around, the English learning fact in Malaysia, his
personal observation in Japan that the English sign can be seen
everywhere and the fact that immigrant children in American
who urge to learn English well to prove English is still the most
popular and important language in American (Fallows, 259-263)
.
In conclusion, Mujica use more relevant and effective
evidences, and his tone is formal and serious in his essay, these
are all important issues to persuade his audiences. But
Fallows’s essay has a clearer structure than Mujica’s, he
organize the article follow the step of raising the
counterargument, interpreting it, explaining why it is not right
then providing evidence, so the audience can understand his
essay easily. As their points of bilingualism are opposite, they
both explain their points clearly to their audiences. For me, I
agree with Fallow’s point more and I think with the
development technology and economic, bilingualism can a
tendency all over the world.

12. Work Cited
Fallows, James. “Viva Bilingualism.” Exploring Language. Ed.
Gary Goshgarian. 8th ed. New
York: Longman, 1998. 259-65. Print.
Mujica, Mauro E. “Why the U.S. Needs an Official Language.”
Ed. Gary Goshgarian. 8th ed. New
York: Longman, 1998. 581-84. Print
Zhang 1
Siyu Zhang
Dr. Rhee
English 711

13. 06-03-15
Essay 1 (final draft)
Evaluation of Fallow’s essay
Nowadays, more and more people from different countries come
to American to study and work; these people all speak their
native language. Therefore, bilingualism is very common in the
United Stated, but many American people would have the same
view that in the USA, we should consider English as the official
language instead of bilingualism. James Fallows, the
Washington editor of the Atlantic, illustrates his opinions in his
article “Viva Bilingualism” that it is not necessary to declare
English as the American’s official language. He thinks that
bilingualism learning should not be regarded as a kind of
polygamy but more likely to be having two children; people
have the ability to master a second language. What’s more,
English is not a fragile blossom language as some people think
(259-63). However, this essay is not persuasive due to the
ineffective evidence and week claims, but it has clear target
audience.
To present his points proficiently, Fallows uses sufficient
evidence to support his view. However, most of his evidence is
not convincing enough to persuade his audiences. Yet, to
support his argument, he uses a fact and a statistic as sell as his
personal observation. For example, Fallows supported his
second point that English is not fragile blossom; he relies on his
personal experiences about Japanese English learning. He said
that in Japan, Japanese can see English signs everywhere; they
can read four English-language daily newspapers everywhere,
and they are eager to learn English and get caught a lot of
attention to English learning (262). However, this example only
shows author’s observation, which might make his audience
doubtful about the truth about what he said. He says that when
he and his families traveling around in Malaysia and South
China, almost all the local people want to practice English with
them (262). But this evidence is not efficient enough because he
only traveled some countries and met some people; his

14. experience cannot represent a common situation. Fallows also
use the example of Spanish immigrant to support his second
point that English is not a fragile blossom. In the article, he
says these immigrants are dying to learn English well because
for them, that’s the necessary part to fit in the U.S. society
(262-63). But actually there are still many immigrants choose to
use their own language, this is also the author’s own thought
and does not come out on any basis of the date analysis, so it
cannot be a very strong evidence for his claim.
What’s more, although Fallows’s article is to object to
American’s contempt for bilingual education, his evidence is
mostly about the situations in the foreign countries instead of
talking about the condition in American; the focus is not clear
and some of the evidence might not be reliable to the topic.
Fallows says that Malaysia had sent thousands of people to
the English speaking countries for studies, which shows that
English has huge impact and is in the dominate statues all over
the world (261), but he ignores that facts that there are also
many students from English-speaking countries go to other
countries like China and Japan for their further study and work.
As bilingualism is a common phenomenon around the world, if
he wants to show the readers that bilingualism should be
support in the U.S, he should use examples in the U.S. area and
try to see things from U.S. citizens’ point of view; otherwise, he
can never persuade his readers.
Fallow’s tone is informal in the article. When he talks about
the counterargument that some people support English to be
declared as America’s “official” language, he use the words
“yes, yes”, and “come on!” to answer the question that whether
English is a kind of fragile blossom(260-263). These words are
informal for an essay and have his personal emotion and may
cause the readers to think that the author does not consider the
bilingualism question seriously. Fallows also use many
rhetoricalquestions like “Why don’t we count that as a good
thing?” in his essay (Fallows, 262), that might make his
audience doubt whether the author really understand the topic

15. he is talking about and has deep understanding on it.
The target audience is clear for the author,
as Fallows's audience are general audience, he does not use
many advanced language and complex statistic to support his
point, on the contrary, mostly he just used his personal
experience, observation and fact as evidence. For example,
when he was talking about his second point, he talks about what
he has seen in American, the immigrants’ children are all
consider learning English as necessity because they believe
English is an important factor for them to fit in the America
society and get better life (262-63). This evidence is Fallows’s
personal experience, for America audience, it is common
phenomenon in America and they can observe it by themselves,
so they can easily understand this evidence and understand
author’s point, He also talked about Malaysia, Chinese and
Indians in Singapore; each of the groups can speak more than
one language (260-262), which is the fact to show that people
have ability to accept another language besides English. This
evidence is easy for the general audience to understand and has
shown them the success example of bilingualism education in
other country. Fallows essay and his claims can be easily
understand by normal people and do not require them to have
much knowledge on this topic.
In conclusion, the article “Viva Bilingualism” by the author
James Fallows does not have sufficient
evidence that cannot prove his opinions clearly and his tone is
kind of biased. But his specific group of audiences is clear as he
uses simple evidence that these audiences can easily understand,
therefore, he can deliver his message directly to his audiences.
To persuade his audiences, I think Fallows can use more facts
and statistics in his essay. Personally, I agree with Fallows’s
point that bilingualism should be support in the U.S. because
people actually have ability to accept more than one language
and immigrants have ability to speak their native language.

16. Work Cited
Fallows, James. “Viva Bilingualism.” Exploring Language. Ed.
Gary Goshgarian. 8th ed. New York: Longman, 1998. 259-265
Print.