Topic Development in Talks Among Women

It has been found that language use differs according to age, gender, socioeconomic class, background, region, and ethnicity. Linguists should look at this reality further and more thoroughly. In the context of mainstream, English-speaking, white settings in the US, UK, and Australia, their studies have examined how language usage varies by gender. This qualitative research is conducted to discover the topics and how they develop in the talks among single, middle-class, white women in their 30s, working, and living in New York City, United States of America (USA). The data are taken from 16 conversations considered talks among these women as the main characters in the 12 episodes of the first season of the USA TV series, Sex and the City. The data are then analyzed by referring to the research conducted by Jennifer Coates (Coates and Cameron, 1988). Based on the analysis, it is found that these talks are about women’s opinions, feelings, and experiences and that there are six patterns of topic development in these all-female conversations. These conversations consist of exposition, development, and coda but only differ in how the participants introduce the topics, lead them into the discussion, and end the conversations.