1. Rhetorical Analysis Women Talk Too Much Instructor: Class Janet Holmes
Student Name

2. Introduction
For this analysis, I will refer to the essay “Women Talk Too Much,” by Janet Holmes to convey the differences of female and male styles of communication. Is it really true, that “women speak more than men?” is the big question. Janet Holmes is an expert on social linguistic topics and is currently a professor at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
In her essay, she uses a variety of studies to demonstrate that the term “women talk too much” is biased because in most of the situations, men are the ones who control most of the talking. Her purpose to writing this essay was to let her audience, people who are influenced by stereotypes of women, that not all stereotypes are true. The misconception of sayings and proverbs, put women in a category of just being big talkers, which Holmes suggests is not true most of the time.

3. Summary
Janet Holmes writes about how there is a stereotype that many people assume that women talk more than men. A woman’s voice is considered more annoying than respected.
According to “The Evidence” Holmes uses two researchers, Deborah James and Janice Drakich whom uses 63 studies that showed who of the men or women did most of the talking. Two of these studies were dominated by women.
Margaret Franken’s studies showed that in 100 public seminars, 93 of them, men dominated the questions in the discussion.
This pattern begins at an early age in a classroom setting. Boys dominate the talking while girls find it hard to contribute.

4. Summary What is the purpose of the talk?
Public talk is a way to get information across with the purpose of persuading
Effective talk can increase social status
People want to get and hold the floor to establish power; therefore, competition arises
In activities like meetings and seminars, research shows that men dominate the talking in public situations because they are worried about social status and power.
In the other hand, women are more open to talk in a private setting with the purpose of building personal relationships. The talk that women use is more of being a moral support instead of just giving out information. Men tend to lean back when it comes to a meaningful and encouraging response.

5. Summary Social Confidence
When a person is familiarized with a topic, Holmes mentions how they feel more confident to participate in a discussion. In a particular study, the researcher gave extra information to people so that they will go into the discussion with more knowledge. Men with the extra information information did do most of the talking than women with the extra information.
In different studies :
women talked more than their husbands when they are part of a feminist organization
Women also feel confident when they are surrounded by close relationships
Boost Confidence
Being experts in a topic, encourages women to ask questions

6. Summary Perceptions and Implications
In school, girls don’t participate as much as the boys because they don’t want to be perceived as “show offs.”This helps them avoid negative attention. When both genders try to find a balance with equal talking time in classrooms or seminars, men or boys complain how the opposite sex is talking more.
The men’s expectation for women is to be silent because the moment they begin to talk, they consider it too much.

7. Author’s Claims
When women and men are together, men dominates the talking
Stereotypes of woman speaking too much reflects sexist prejudice rather than reality
Women talk more when they feel comfortable and wanting to build personal relationships
Men talk more when they present information to enhance social status
Both men and women are more open to discussions when they are familiarized with a subject
Depending on the place, the topic, and confidence with the topic women or men can be in control of the talking

8. Pattern of Organization
Holmes begins with the use of proverbs to attain the reader’s attention. Then she follows her essay with the compare and contrast pattern to develop her argument. This pattern is perfect to arrange two main sections, in this case men and women, one that shows the similarities and the other one that shows differences. This is done with the ultimate purpose of showing the reader which side we rely on in terms of which gender talks the most.

9. Pattern of Organization
Evidence
Women (work setting or classroom setting)
Men
Purpose of Talking
Women
Confidence
Perception and Implication

10. Ethos: appeals to ethics or authority shown in the introduction part of the essay
Ethos, Pathos
& Logos
Holmes used all three argumentative appeals in her essay.
“Janet Holmes is a professor of sociolinguistics at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand... She has published many articles on numerous sociolinguistic topics, including New Zealand English, sexist language, humor and workplace discourse” (261).
In this quote, Holmes uses this appeal to show the audience her credibility. She demonstrates that she is well informed about the subject and therefore, she is able to understand what her argument is all about.

11. Pathos: appeals to emotion shown in the end of paragraph 11
Ethos, Pathos
& Logos
“Women, it seems, are willing to talk more in relaxed social contexts, especially where the talk functions to develop and maintain social relationships” (264).
Holmes uses this appeal to engage the audience emotionally when she refers to women. Women contribute to conversations when they feel relaxed and not with the purpose of establishing power. When Holmes refers to men, there is no emotion because they are thinking of their reputation externally(social status) and not the reputation internally(personal relationships).

12. Ethos, Pathos & Logos Logos: appeals to logic shown in paragraph 2
“Two Canadian researchers, Deborah James and Janice Drakich, reviewed sixty-three studies which examined the amount of talk used by American women and men in different contexts. Women talked more than men in only two studies” (262).
Holmes uses this appeal to show evidence to support her argument. The evidence/statistics provided in the quote are not questionable because they are facts.

13. Supporting Details Do women really talk more than men?
The author uses a variety of evidence to get her point across. Although in the end she didn’t give a yes or no answer for the question above, the evidence provided was enough to favor women. The statistics she provided such as the study from the two canadian researchers, study in the seminars where men used up to ⅔ of the time to ask question, studies in classrooms where boys talked for about ⅔ of the time, and much more evidence, are not invented. In the end, Holmes made it clear that women don’t fall into the stereotype of talking too much or talking more than men.

14. Toulmin Analysis
Claim: “In this essay, linguist Janet Holmes sets out to debunk the “language myth” that women talk too much. In fact, explains Holmes, women speak less than men do in situations where their talk is most “valued” (261).

15. Toulmin Analysis
Data: “I had a meeting with a (female) sales manager and three of my (male) directors once… It took about two hours. She only spoke once and one of my fellow directors cut across her and said ‘What Anne is trying to say Roger is…’ and I think that about sums it up. He knew better than Anne what she was trying to say, and she never got anything said”(262).
“Many studies have shown that teachers tend to talk for about two-thirds of the available time. But the boys dominate the relatively small share of the talking time that remains for the pupils”(263).

16. Toulmin Analysis
Warrant: “Even when they hold influential positions, women sometimes find it hard to contribute as much as men to a discussion”(262).
“In this context, where talk is clearly valued, it appears that the person with most status has the right to talk most”(263).
Backing:
“The managing director commented that the men often patronized the women and tended to dominate meetings” (262).
“The boys may therefore be asserting a claim to a higher status than the girls by appropriating the majority of the time left for pupil talk”(263).

17. Toulmin Analysis Rebuttals: Qualifiers:
“Finally, and most radically , we might question the assumption that more talk is always a good thing. ‘Silence is golden’”(266).
Qualifiers:
“Sometimes it is the silent participants who are the powerful players”(266).

18. Response
There are many people who assume that women talk more than men. I am glad I encountered myself with this essay because the evidence shows just the opposite. Women do talk a lot, but when we feel comfortable. It is not in our mind what social status we can attain through a conversation. Our priority is not to establish authority in a room, so we do tend to be timid in a public setting. It’s not a bad thing for men to feel so confident and boisterous in public. The fact that girls’ confidence is slowly shutting down at a young age and is affecting our communication as we grow older, should change. To challenge Holmes's argument, I would like to ask, what can be done to change the gender communication style in classrooms? What has lead this division of communication between children? Since both genders communicate in different ways, which way is better?

19. Citations
Holmes, Janet. Exploring Language. “Women Talk Too Much.” Ed. Gary Goshgarian. 14th ed. Boston: Pearson Education, Print