forwarded inquiry: men's talk

[Mary Bucholtz]

(With apologies for cross-posting)

I received the following inquiry via the Language and Gender Page and am
passing it along at the journalist's request. If you have anything you'd
like to contribute to his article, please contact him directly.

Mary
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I'm a London-based journalist working on a
small feature on 'Men Talk'  for a UK national daily - partly because our
media are constantly telling us that women talk relationships, health,
serious personal stuff while men talk football, sex, boasts and that the
former are psychologically saner - as proven, they claim, by Sex & The City
etc.

All well and good but I want to open the debate a bit and see HOW men talk -
I'd love your comments on

1) How healthy talking about non-personal topics might be -  as an escape
from self, intensity

and

2) the dangers of the culture of inter-personal confessionalism ('Let's talk
till we drop', talk ourselves out of words' attitudes) and amateur
psychology in the bedroom

I'm no revisionist  - I was brought up in a house full of women and if
anything err towards being too open -  and while I accept we men, socially,
are often little more than simian grunters, I'd like to redress the media
imbalance a bit.

Thanks for your help. Please circulate this to colleagues  - I contact 3/4
but don't know which are specialists in 'men talk'! - who are expert on the
theme. I'm a linguist of sorts but very open to ideas on pyschology,
language, culture. Tell me a bit about yourself if you comment so I can
introduce you.

Yours
Chris Moss
cp.moss at virgin.net
cpmoss at hotmail.com