THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TOPIC FAMILIARITY AND CONVERSATIONAL DOMINANCE

This paper reviews much of the recent literature on cross-sex conversa tional dominance. The conversations of ten cross-sex pairs of subjects were studied to find the effects of topic familiarity on conversation al dominance. While there appears to be no positive correlation betwee n gender and conversational dominance (as measured by interruptions in itiated and floor control), there does appear to be a statistically si gnificant relationship between topic familiarity and conversational do minance, in terms of interruptions initiated. Implications for employe rs and teachers who assign group work may be to build group work onto individual work in order to ensure participants are not rhetorically d isadvantaged.