“Do you know where X is?”: Direction-giving and male/female direction-givers

This study investigates a typical speech event significantly under-explored in linguistic research, that of direction-giving. The present data analysis, drawn from naturally-occurring exchanges with 60 direction-givers in a gas station, expands current research by confirming and refining the conventionalized nature of the direction-giving exchange and its related phases as well as further exploring the potential existence of sex-related differences in direction-givers’ route-descriptions.Reconfirming Grice's (1975) well-known Cooperative Principle, an analysis of these data strongly suggest that an indirect request for driving directions is an effective communicative strategy for speakers approaching potential direction-givers. Furthermore, this analysis emphasizes the interrelatedness of the cognitive, linguistic and interactional tasks involved in direction-giving. A large body of important research has documented significant differences between the communicative styles of men and women. However, in this study, male and female participants’ use of directional indicators and their inclusion of landmarks, stoplight and time estimates, road names and highway numbers were very similar. Males included significantly more mileage estimates than did females, but their estimates contained more errors. These findings both confirm and contradict those of previous studies and have implications for future research, language teaching as well as the development of pedagogical materials.