GENDERLECT THEORY

Griffin (2009) defined genderlect as “a term suggesting that masculine and feminine styles of discourse are best viewed as two distinct cultural dialects” (p. 430). Tannen in her book You just don’t understand stated that “male-female conversation is cross-cultural communication” (Griffin, 2009, p.429). She added on that miscommunications occur all the time between men and women without realising that they are in a cross-cultural encounter because the effect is rather insidious.

According to Tannen, she distinguished the women’s need for human connection whilst the men like independence and would rather compete their way up the hierarchy to claim a status, “Girls and women feel that it is crucial that they be liked by their peers, a form of involvement that focuses on symmetrical connection. Boys and men feel it is crucial that they be respected by their peers, a form of involvement that focuses on asymmetrical status” (Griffin, 2009, p. 432).

For example:

The above video shows a short clip taken from A Walk to Remember which supports Tannen statement of how women seek for connection and men rather keep themselves unattached.

According to Tannen, women talk more than men in private conversations and when it comes to telling a story, women tend to express their desire for community by telling stories about others or they are the character in their own narrative, these women rather describe themselves as foolish than smart. Whereas men tend to tell jokes when they tell a story.

When it comes to listening, a woman would hold eye contact, nod heads and react with an uhmm, right or yeah. Whereas for man being concerned with status, such overt style of listening mean I agree with you. Even when it comes to asking questions, women do so to establish connection where it’s their cue of telling that they’re open for a good chat but for men, they’d make the speaker seem wishy-washy. Men are also more comfortable with conflict and would less likely hold themselves back.

Reference:

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed).                               New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.