Male And Female Communication Theory

Male and Female Communication: An Extraterrestrial Encounter Communication between the sexes is an inevitable part of life, and one that can be unpleasant and lead to frustration. People leave these conversations feeling that even though they talked, not much was said, and even less was understood. Why do encounters with the opposite sex feel like alien encounters? What is the reason behind why people are constantly plagued with the question “Why don’t you understand me?” Why does it seem that talking across genders is comparable to talking across cultures, comparable to speaking two different languages? These questions can be answered by looking at a communication theory by linguistic professor, Dr. Deborah Tannen. Her communication theory, …show more content…
The Genderlect Theory states that the main difference between men and women is their goal when communicating. Women often communicate to establish a connection, and men often communicate to establish status. Women communicate in ways that allow them to relate to and make personal connections with others. Men, on the other hand, often communicate to exercise their dominance over others. Tannen also found that women focus more on rapport, while men focus on report. One example of this is that Tannen found that women spend a majority of their time speaking in private conversations. This means that they are having more personal conversations, and are talking just to talk. Tannen found that men spend a majority of their time communicating in public. In these situations, they were talking to accomplish a goal and to give and receive pertinent information. The Genderlect Theory also gives the example of storytelling to support these differences. Men were found to tell more stories than women, and their stories often featured them as the protagonist. Women have a completely different approach to storytelling though. They generally tell stories that either feature other women as the protagonist, and if they do tell stories about themselves, it is generally about times when they made a mistake and use these self-deprecating stories to relate to other women. Men and women also ask questions differently. Tannen found in fact that men will rarely ask any questions unless it is to undermine someone else or to receive specific information. Most men view questions as a weakness, and threat to their status. On the contrary, women ask questions to show interest and to make a connection. Differences between the sexes extend just beyond talking, they also differ in their listening styles. Women are found to be much more active