This qualitative-conversational analysis study
aimed to analyze the conversational styles based on
gender through the responses of the participants on a
given specific topic. It also aimed to examine the
significant difference of the students’ way of answering
when analyzed according to gender. Further, it aimed to
elucidate why gender affects how they deliver their
thoughts through a conversation. This study is anchored
to the theory of “Genderlect” popularized by Deborah
Tannen (1984), who proposes that there is a difference in
language based on gender. She emphasized the existence
of two major types of conversational styles. That shapes
the communicative behavior of individual speakers: a
high-involvement style and the opposing highconsiderateness style. These styles can reflect the general
linguistic behavior of women and men in conversation.
She also added that there are linguistic features which
were developed by men and women during conversation.
Following the suggestive range of entries from Clark and
Braun (2013) which is 10-100 participants, this study was
solely focused in gathering data from forty (40) students,
comprising twenty (20) male and twenty (20) female,
specifically from the Senior High School, Grade 11. As to
the participants’ responses there were six (6)
communicative behavior observed during the talk show
production namely: speed; preference on topic/
argument; turn takings; directness; emotion/intimacy;
establishment of authority and strategy. With regards to
the six (6) linguistic features formed into themes
emerged that women ask more questions than men;
women use more fillers than men; both men and women
use intensifiers for emphasis; women use more rebuttals
compared to affirmatives than men, women use more
adjectives than men. The results are believed to be
significant for the language teachers, for it is important
to know the different conversational styles of our
students most especially that gender is one of the factors
to be considered in the speech delivery of our students.
Keywords :
Education, genderlect, qualitativeconversational analysis, Tagum City, Philippines.
