Dialogue by Gender

You Talking to Me?

By Camille Minichino                       

Now and then I stray from mysteries and plunge into nonfiction. One of the latest books to set me thinking was "The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words say About Us," by J. Pennebaker, a social psychologist and language expert.

The whole book is fascinating—computer programs that yield insights into our personalities by counting and categorizing words from thousands of emails, letters, and personal ads. I was especially interested in a chapter on how men and women "speak" in books and movies. Which writers have both men and women sounding like men? (Shakespeare and Quentin Tarantino.) Both men and women sounding like women? (Gertrude Stein and Woody Allen.) Men sounding like men and women sounding like women? (Sam Shepard and Thornton Wilder.)

I've been wondering where I am on the spectrum. Do my female characters use more personal pronouns, as suggested by Pennebaker's research? Do my male characters shy away from social words, in favor of action words?

My research for dialogue doesn't involve computers, but rather careful listening to men and women of all ages and walks of life. I query my 35-year-old nephew on his language ("Do you call everyone 'Dude'?"); my 50-year-old friends ("How much Net Lingo do you use?"); and my 9-year-old granddaughter ("What do you say when you think something is pretty?")

But numbers appeal to me and I'm thinking about applying Pennebaker's computational methods to the postings of my students in an online course that I teach for a college in San Francisco. That is, the payroll office and the Help Desk are in San Francisco; I'm at home in a suburb thirty miles away and my students are all over the world.

With an international student body working in cyberspace, I often don't know the gender of some of my students. At first this was disconcerting. How could I know how to respond to a posting if I didn't know whether it came from a man or a woman? I've had first names such as Jigme, Myint-San, Widya, Lieu, and many more that are unpronounceable. I longed to have a photo, an audio file, or some indication of the student's gender. Maybe he or she would refer to a wife or husband. Of course in some states, that still wouldn't be a clue.

Even some "American" names are gender-neutral. Was the Sean I had last term a girl, like the actress Sean Young, or a guy, like the actor Sean Penn? How about Jordan? Lee? Alex? Casey?

Now, with the analytic techniques of computer linguistics, I should be able to apply some simple tests and counting procedures to determine which of my students is male, which female.

But, wait. Does it matter?

Did writers of an earlier day fool anyone by using initials only, or pen names of the opposite gender? Or were readers counting the number of personal pronouns and saying, "Aha! Too many I's and we's. I'll bet this is really a woman."

Does it help to know the gender perspective of the person who wrote the posting, or the mystery novel? Or does it hinder our ability to absorb the message objectively?

I'm not sure, but I know I'm going to get out my calculator and examine the dialogue as I write my next manuscript.

****       

Camille Minichino is a retired physicist turned writer.

As Camille Minichino, she's the author of the Periodic Table Mysteries. As Margaret Grace, she writes the Miniature Mysteries, based on her lifelong hobby. As Ada Madison, she writes the academic mysteries featuring Professor Sophie Knowles, college math teacher. "The Probability of Murder" was released March 6.

Soon, every aspect of her life will be a mystery series.

Website: http://www.minichino.com

FB: http://tinyurl.com/minichino

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/minichino

THE HYDROGEN MURDER re-issued on Kindle: http://amzn.to/Af4UO1

THE PROBABILITY OF MURDER (March 6): http://amzn.to/xGvCnP

MIX-UP IN MINIATURE (April 2): http://amzn.to/wpR2m9