男人和女人一樣愛聊天

這是一句年代久遠的陳詞濫調：女人愛聊天，而男人則比較沉默寡言。

It is a stereotype as old as time: women are chatterboxes, while men tend to be more reticent.

但奧斯汀得克薩斯大學(University of Texas)的研究人員進行的一項新研究發現，在閑聊這個問題上，男性和女性幾乎是一樣的，他們每天平均用詞都達1.6萬。

But a new study by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin has found that when it comes to gabbing, men and women are about equal, with each using an average of 16,000 words a day.

在今天出版的《科學》(Science)雜志上，這項研究駁斥了10多年來人們一直認為女性每天用詞量多于男性的說法。人們通常引用的一組數據是，女性每天用詞2萬個，而男性只用7000個。

The study, published today in the journal Science, refutes more than a decade of claims that women use more words each day than men. One set of numbers that is commonly tossed around is that women use 20,000 words a day compared with only 7,000 for men.

研究人員首次開發出了一種方法，利用電子激活錄音器(electronically activated recorder)記錄正常語言。這種數字錄音器能追蹤人們的互動行為，包括對話。

The researchers first developed a method for recording natural language using the electronically activated recorder (EAR). The digital voice recorder tracks people's interactions, including their conversations.