Men Talk Stories in the Making of Masculinities

What is men's talk like? If the stereotypes are to be believed, either men are the strong and silent type or they talk compulsively and competitively about sport, cars and drinking exploits. Are these stereotypes accurate? Do men talk differently when they are with other men rather than in mixed company? And does all-male talk differ from all-female talk? Men Talk draws on rich conversational material from a wide range of contexts to answer these questions and illuminate our understanding of men and masculinities at the turn of the millennium. Coates examines spontaneous conversations involving all-male groups ranging from garage mechanics on a break, to carpenters at the pub after work, to university academics chatting at work after hours, as well as a variety of mixed groups. The focus of the book is the stories that occur within these conversations. Men Talk makes a distinctive contribution to our understanding of the intersection of language and masculinity.

Jennifer Coates is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Surrey Roehampton. She is author of Women Talk (Blackwell, 1996) and editor of Language and Gender: A Reader (Blackwell, 1997).