Chapter 4 Data Analysis (1): Constructions of Agreement
2. Impacts of Hearer’s Gender on HA vs
4.3.5.3. SM vs. HA+SM by Degrees
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2. Impacts of Hearer’s Gender on HA vs. HA+SM by Degrees
(1) No matter in the data of HA or HA+SM by degrees, hearer’s gender has no impact on people’s use of either WOC or WC. In other words, male hearers and female hearers receive similar frequencies on the data of HA’s WOC, of HA’s WC, of HA+SM’s WOC, and of HA+SM’s WOC.
(2) Statistic results of hearer’s gender are similar to those of speaker’s gender.
However, there is an exception. That is, male hearers have significant difference between WOC and WC of HA+SM (P=.038). It means that when people make agreement by HA+SM, they rarely make it downgrading.
(3) For female hearers’ pattern, repeating female speaker’s results, no matter HA with SM behind or not, WOC is significantly different from WC. In other words, women rarely provide and receive downgrading HA+SM and HA. Like what have been mentioned above, people may think that female hearers do not like weakened agreements which may cause conflict or even communication broken-down.
4.3.5.3. SM vs. HA+SM by Degrees
This section shows the comparisons between SM and HA+SM by degrees. After the comparisons between SM and HA+SM by degrees with subjects as a whole, how gender influence the comparisons is investigated.
4.3.5.3.1. SM vs. HA+SM by Degrees with Subjects as a Whole
Table 37 presents the comparison between SM and HA+SM with subjects as a whole by degrees. After the presentation of Table 37, related analyses are shown.
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Table 37. Supportive moves with head act vs. supportive moves alone with degrees (WOC= Without Contingency; WC= With Contingency; HA= Head Act;
SM= Supportive Moves; Numbers in parentheses are frequencies.) Categories
(1) No matter in the use of SM or HA+SM, WOCs are significantly different from WCs (for SM, P=.000; and for HA+SM, P=.002). Furthermore, in the subtypes of WOC, SM and HA+SM are both significantly more upgrading than preserving (for SM, P=.030; and for HA+SM, P=.008). It means that whether SM is with HA in front or not, it does not influence people’s preference on using upgrading degrees.
(2) When SM and HA+SM are compared, significant differences are only found in preserving degree (P=.036). To be specific, preserving SM is used significantly more than preserving HA+SM. Like what have been mentioned above, HA, in HA+SM, has SM behind which may modify the degrees of agreement. Thus, the degrees of agreement in HA+SM is unstable and easy to change. By contrast, the structure of SM is simpler than the structure of HA+SM. Therefore, preserving SM occurs much more frequently than preserving HA+SM.
4.3.5.3.2. Impacts of Gender on SM vs. HA+SM by Degrees
In this section, the comparisons between HA+SM and SM with degree by gender are made. Table 38 presents data by speaker’s gender and by hearer’s gender. The
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influence of both speaker’s and hearer’s genders will not be examined below because of little significance found.
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Table 38.Supportive moves with head act versus supportive moves alone with degrees by speaker’s gender and by hearer’s gender (Con= Contingency; SM= Supportive Moves; HA= Head Act; Numbers in parentheses are frequencies.)
Categories
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1. Impacts of Speaker’s Gender on SM vs. HA+SM by Degrees
(1) No matter in the use of SM or HA+SM, speaker’s gender has no impact on the use of either WOC or WC.
(2) When WOC and WC are compared, male speakers have significant difference only in the comparison between WOC and WC of SM (P=.003). For HA+SM by male speakers, no significant difference is found between WOC and WC. Perhaps it is because that HA+SM, with the core of agreement in front, expresses
agreement clearly enough. Therefore, men may think that it is not necessary to try hard to maximize degrees of HA+SM. By contrast, they may think that SM, which is more indirect than HA+SM, needs to be strengthened to show agreement
clearly.
(3) In women’s data, no matter SM with HA in front or not, WOCs are performed significantly more frequently than WCs (for SM, P=.003; and for HA+SM, P=.033). Although HA+SM should be clear enough on expressing agreement, women still make it forceful. It seems that women flout the Quantity Maxim in CP (Grice, 1975) in order to show politeness and establish solidarity.
2. Impacts of Hearer’s Gender on SM vs. HA+SM by Degrees
(1) No matter in the data of SM or HA+SM, hearer’s gender has no impact on the people’s use of either WOC or WC.
(2) No matter the data of SM or HA+SM, both male hearers and female hearers receive WOC significantly more than WC. In other words, male hearers and female hearers share similar patterns on the comparisons between SM and HA+SM by degrees. This result is reasonable because hearers, of either gender, may prefer to be agreed by upgrading or preserving agreements. In this way,
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according to face theory by Brown and Levinson (1978), hearers’ want of positive face can be fulfilled.
There should be sections called “comparisons among different subcategories of SM with degrees” and “comparisons among different subcategories of HA+SM with degrees.” However, after data are divided into those subcategories, data with
downgrading and mixing degrees are in low frequency. Thus, they are not analyzed further.