Maltz and Borker argue that because men and women grow up in different sociolinguistic cultures, they learn to interpret conversational features differently—including backchannels (“uh-huh,”“yeah”) and questions (“What's next?”). If true, this might help explain conversational miscommunication that occurs across gender boundaries. This study tests this theory by assessing the effects of observer sex, observer gender schematicity, speaker sex, and partner sex on interpretation. Two hundred and sixty-eight observers rated 96 naturally occurring conversational excerpts, 48 containing backchannels and 48 including questions, in terms of: (a) apparent meaning of the utterance (control, other-focus, and uncertainty) and (b) speaker traits (dominance and sensitivity). Four-way MANOVAs indicated: (a) male and female observers interpret backchannels and questions differently, and (b) several interaction effects. However, no interactions were found to demonstrate female bilingualism, proposed by male dominance theorists. The results are discussed in terms of their support for two-cultures theory and their lack of support for dominance theory.
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