adjustments to the type of language used; for example, the type of language that an individual uses varies according to whether heshe is speaking to family
members, addressing a public gathering, or discussing science with professional colleagues. Elgin believes that when language behaviour can be systematically
described, and when it is clearly to a specific role of the speaker or writer, it is called a register.
d. Genderlects
The concept of genderlect, a term popularized by linguist Deborah Tannen to represent dialects specific to gender and to demystify traditional
communication struggles between the sexes, helps bridge the linguistic gap between women and men.
Tannen believes that women and men have different speech styles, and defines them as rapport-talk and report-talk. Women in conversations today
use language for intimacy or rapport-talk. Girls are socialized as children to believe that talk is the glue that holds relationships together 1990: 85, so that
as adults conversations for women are negotiations for closeness in which people try to seek and give confirmation and support, and to reach consensus
1990: 25. For men, conversations today are for information or report-talk. Men
negotiate to maintain the upper hand in a conversation and protect themselves from others perceived attempts to put them down. Boys learn in childhood to
maintain relationships primarily through their activities, so conversation for adult
males becomes a contest; a man is an individual in a hierarchical social order in which he is either one-up or one-down Tannen, 1990: 24.
Besides, Griffin 1997: 430 stated that “genderlect is a term suggesting
that masculine and feminine styles of discourse are best viewed as two distinct cultural dialects”. Men and women communication is also a “cross-cultural
communicatio n”. In other words, this theory is to attempt on how people talk or
communicate with their opposite gender. Women are good listeners compared to men. They show either verbal or
non-verbal response. Tannen 1990: 190 explains that when women start to talk or response to the other person before he or she finished talking, it means that the
women support or disagree with it. Therefore, Tannen labels it as a “Cooperative
Overlap ”. This term can be defined as two conversants speaking simultaneously
during their conversation. Some overlaps are considered cooperative because usually they will include just a few words of encouragement or elaboration on the
topic and not a full sentence about a different subject. She defines the two types of people mentioned above as high involvement and high considerateness
speakers 1990: 194. High involvement speakers give priority in a conversation to express
enthusiastic support even if it involves simultaneous speech, while high considerateness speakers are more concerned with being considerate of others.
They prefer not to impose on the conversation as a whole or on specific comments of another conversant. Tannen believes that
“high-involvement speakers do not mind being overlapped because they will yield to an intrusion on
