Gender Differences in Pre-school Children’s Communication

“Dječaci i djevojčice odrastaju u različitim svjetovima, premda mislimo kako smo u istome svijetu, stoga prosuđujemo ponašanje drugih po vlastitim standardima.“ (Tannen, 1990) Prema Tannen, ključna razlika između dvije zajednice, muške i ženske, je u moći s muške i solidarnosti sa ženske strane. Cilj je rada povezati njezinu teoriju s komunkacijskim strategijama djece predškolske dobi (od tri do šest godina starosti) iz nekoliko mostarskih vrtića. Istraživanje provedeno u tu svrhu pokušava pojasniti jezično ponašanje djevojčica i dječaka promatranjem dječje interakcije u istospolnim kao i u mješovitim skupinama, te analizirati prirodu dviju različitih rodnih kultura i njihova podrijetla, odnosno pokazati kako rodne kulturne norme utječu na jezik. Djeca se u toj dobi tek počinju integrirati u svoje subkulture u okviru muške i ženske kulture. Oni su, što se tiče rodnih obilježja, još uvijek tabula rasa i tek trebaju biti popunjeni pravilima svake subkulture.“Boys and girls grow up in different worlds, but we think we’re in the same one, so we judge each other’s behavior by the standards of our own.“ (Tannen, 1990) According to Tannen, the key difference between these two communities, i.e. male and female, is power on the male side and solidarity on the female side. The paper aims at relating Tannen’s theory to the communication strategies of pre-school children (three to six years old) from several Mostar kindergartens. The research carried out for this purpose tries to explain language behavior of girls and boys during children’s interaction in the same-sex groups as well as in the mixed-sex groups and to elaborate on the nature of two different gender cultures, their origins, and examples on how gender-related cultural norms affect language. Children of this age have just begun integration into their own subculture within a culture – men’s or women’s. They are, as far as their gender is concerned, still a, so called, tabula rasa which is yet to be filled with the rules of each subculture