Gender differences in minimal responses

In this paper, I analyse data gathered by myself in an attempt to ascertain whether or not there are gender differences in the communicative competence of speakers with respect to their use of minimal responses. Although I found that there were indeed some differences, not all my findings concur with earlier studies. In some instances, such as the high usage of minimal responses in female pairs, my findings support those of earlier researchers but in other areas, like the use of minimal responses in mixed pairs, they are contrary to previous claims. Minimal responses were analysed in terms of both intra- and inter-group interactions. While my findings indicate that there are some gender differences in speech at discourse level between same sex pairs, the analysis of mixed pairs indicates that this is neutralized by linguistic convergence, a concept of the Interpersonal Accommodation Theory of Giles & Powesland (1975)