GENDER LANGUAGE CHARACTERISTICS OF TWITTER
PARTICIPANTS OF DIFFERENT CULTURES
A Thesis
Submitted to English Applied Linguistics Study Program in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora
By:
NURUL INAYAH HUTASUHUT
Registration Number: 8146111047
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
MEDAN
ABSTRAK
Hutasuhut, Nurul Inayah. Karakteristik Bahasa Gender Pada Pengguna Twitter yang Berbeda Budaya. Program Pascasarjana Universitas Negeri Medan. 2016
Penelitian ini berkaitan dengan cara pengguna twitter laki-laki dan perempuan yang berbeda budaya dalam menyampaikan status dan komentar di twitter. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk menjelaskan cara pengguna twitter laki-laki dan perempuan dalam menyampaikan status dan komentar di twitter, untuk mendeskripsikan bagaimana budaya mempengaruhi bahasa para pengguna twitter laki-laki dan perempuan yang berbeda budaya berkomunikasi di twitter dan untuk menjelaskan alasan pengguna twitter laki-laki dan perempuan menggunakan bahasa dengan cara mereka. Penilitian ini dilakukan dengan menerapkan penelitian deskriptif kualitatif. Data dalam penelitian ini adalah 60 status dan komentar dari pengguna twitter laki-laki yang berbudaya Batak dan Sunda dan 44 status dan komentar dari pengguna twitter perempuan berbudaya Batak dan Sunda yang telah diseleksi dalam kurun waktu sekitar satu bulan. Temuan menunjukkan bahwa pengguna twitter laki-laki cenderung menggunakan report talk dalam menyampaikan status dan komentar mereka di twitter, sedangkan pengguna twitter perempuan cenderung menggunakan rapport talk dalam menyampaikan status dan komentar di twitter. Pengguna twitter yang berbudaya Batak cendrung terpengaruh dengan karakter budayanya, yaitu kata-kata fatik dalam Bahasa Batak, kasar atau kurang sopan, mau menang sendiri dan suka membantu. Namun kata-kata fatik Batak tidak ditemukan pada pengguna twitter perempuan yang berbudaya Batak. Sementara pengguna twitter berbudaya Sunda cendrung terpengaruh dengan karakter budaya mereka yang juga menggunakan kata-kata fatik dalam Bahasa Sunda, berpikiran positif, tidak mudah marah,intropeksi diri, dan pikiran yang terbuka. Alasan mengapa pengguna twitter laki-laki menggunakan report talk sedangkan pengguna twitter perempuan menggunakan rapport talk adalah karena laki-laki memperlakukan bahasa sebagai sebuah cara untuk menyampaikan informasi, sedangkan perempuan memperlakukan bahasa sebagai suatu cara untuk membuat kedekatan dan keakraban.
ABSTRACT
Hutasuhut, Nurul Inayah. Gender Language Characteristics of Twitter Participants of Different Cultures. English Applied Linguistics Study Program. Postgraduate School. State University of Medan. 2016
This research deals with the way of male and female participants of different cultures in delivering status and comment on twitter. The objectives of this research were to investigate the language characteristics of male and female on twitter, to describe how the cultures affect the way male and female use language on twitter, to explain why males and females on twitter use language in the way they are. This research was conducted by applying descriptive qualitative research. The data of this study were 60 tweets and comments of Bataknese and Sundanese male participants and 44 tweets and comments of Bataknese and Sundanese female participants which selected from about one month period. The findings show that male participants tend to use report talk in delivering their idea in commenting and updating statuses, while female participants tend to use rapport talk in commenting and updating statuses. Bataknese tend to use phatic expression in Bahasa Batak, rude or not polite, egoistic, and like to help.But, phatic expressions were not found in Bataknese Female statuses or comments. Meanwhile, Sundanese tend to also use phatic expression in Bahasa Sunda, cageur,bageur,singer, and pinter characters. Cultures affect the language by transmitted through traditions, generations, social traits, adaptation, influenced by environment. The reason why male participants use report talk whereas female participants use rapport talk is because males treat the language as a way to give factual information, whereas females use the language as a way to negotiating closeness and intimacy.
Keywords : gender language, twitter participants,cultures
iii
CHAPTER IV: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 4.1. The Data and Data Analysis ... 43
4.2. Findings ... 63
4.3. Discussion ... 64
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1. Conclusions ... 67
5.2. Suggestions ... 68
REFERENCES ……….. vii
iii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Page
Appendix 1 The Analysis of Report Talk Used by Male Participants ... ix
Appendix 2 The Analysis of Report Talk Used by Female Participants ………... x
Appendix 3 The Analysis of Report Talk Used by Female Participants ………….……….. xi
Appendix 4 The Analysis of Rapport Talk Used by Male Participants ……….……… xii
Appendix 5 Interview Transcription of Bataknese Male- I ……… xiii
Appendix 6 Interview Transcription of Bataknese Male-II ……… xiv
Appendix 7 Interview Transcription of Sundanese Male- I ……… xv
Appendix 8 Interview Transcription of Sundanese Male- II ……… xvi
Appendix 9 Interview Transcription of Bataknese female- I ……… xvii
Appendix 10 Interview Transcription of Bataknese female- II ……… xviii
Appendix 11 Interview Transcription of Sundanese female- I ……… xix
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background of Study
Language and gender issues always exist within the society. Society
consist of many cultures. People are constantly coming into contact with these
issues in the course of daily lives, so they are unavoidable. In social life, gender
difference issue or cultures can cause miscommunication between male and
female. Therefore, being familiar with language and gender concepts and
understanding language and gender issues can help people acquire clearer and
deeper understanding of gender differences in society.
In the study of language and gender, there are numerous studies that have
been described and raised many issues on the differences between males and
females in their way take communications. Tannen (1990:85) stated that male and
female have different ways in communication, males tend to use language to gain
the status, while females use the language to negotiate closeness and intimacy.
Females use rapport talk to build and maintain relationships, while men use report
talk to communicate factual information. It can be inferred that male and female
have different objectives in using the language and they differently treated the
language in their communication. Males use the language to gain the status while
females use the language to negotiate closeness and intimacy.
In generalizing about sex differences, all cultures set up social norms for
the sexes, which go beyond the biological differences, although societies differ in
2
the way traits are assigned to men and women. Lury (1995) also emphasis on the
fact that culture is not gender neutral. According to Burman & Parker (1993:1),
Language contains the most basic categories that we use to understand ourselves,
affecting the way we act as women or as men and reproducing the way we define
our cultural identity. "Sex" is a biological category that serves as a fundamental
basis for the differentiation of roles, norms, and expectations in all societies,
whereas "gender" is the term used to describe socially constructed categories
based on sex (Coates, 1986; Eckert, 1989).
In reality, not all women communicate to gain status and not all men
communicate to negotiate closeness and intimacy. Not all people communicate in
accordance with its cultural identity background. Each person has different
character to communicate. It could be gender and culture influence the way people
communicate but may not. For instance, not all of Sundanese people get
communication inclosed way. And not all of the Bataknese people use language
directly and straight to the point.
Electronic communication has blurred the boundaries of spoken and
written languages. The boundaries between the two genres are merging to such an
extent that a new ‘Lingo’ is emerging causing distinction between formal and
informal language is vanishing. Naughton (1999) tells us that this ‘New Lingua’
which is emerging has similar effects on society as print, the railways, the
telegraph, the automobile, electronic power and television. While Raacke and
Bonds-Raacke (2008) did not find gender differences in the most popular uses and
3
do note several differences in the way men and women use online social
networking sites. This phenomena also occur in twitter. Twitter is one of social
media, it is a place of expressioning peoples’ daily life. The latest information and
real time news make teenagers always foremost among his friends. As a social
network, Twitter users come from different cultural , social and gender
background and also different language characteristics.
Twitter is a wide variety of language which is not the language standard
(informal). The usage of language thus has the aim to talk more communicative,
relaxed, and intimate. Wijana and Rohmadi(2006: 169) found “The use of
informal language is usually followed or adapted to the circumstances and the
situation of communication. Communication on twitter i.e: in whom question, to
whom, what issues and for what purposes the communication was made”. The
communications were conducted in Twitter is about the daily life and other small
talk that leads to the another topics or communication. So it will be more
communicative when users choose a wide informal language.
The aim of investigating language and gender is to find out the varieties of
speech associated with a particular gender, or social norms for such gendered
language use. Tannen (1990:17) claimed that it is necessary to identify them in
order to avoid needlessly blaming. Learning the others’ way of talking is a leap
across the communication gap between men and women, and a giant step towards
genuine understanding. This statement implies that learning gender differences is
4
prevent miscommunication. This study also aims to find out how the cultures
affect the way male and female use language, especially in twitter.
Indeed, the phenomenon above is available in Media social habit. It can be in
many forms of media social including in twitter. In terms of twitter, there are
many status and comments of their participants. For instance, tweets and
comments from Sundanese male to Bataknese male:
The tweets written by Atep Muhammad Al-Ishaque, he is a Sundanese male. In
his twitter account @atepalisaque and then retweeted by Raja Sinaga, a Bataknese
male uses his account @rajasinaga_. Both of males are active in offering opinions
about Farhat Abbas. But the Bataknese male uses the offensive language while
Sundanese uses polite language and he mixing the language with his vernacular
language.
Tweets and comments from Sundanese male to Bataknese female.
The tweets written by Atep Muhammad Al-Ishaque, he is a Sundanese male. In
his twitter account @atepalishaque and then retweeted by Rosita Tarigan, a
Bataknese female uses her account @tarigan_rose. In the status Sundanese male @atepalisaque: moal kang RT”@rajasinaga_: Mau kupecahkan aja kepalanya kalo ku dengar cakapnya RT @ atepalisaque: : Farhat Abbas ini mah,lieur eta.
5
uses language inclosed way but the Bataknese female comment the tweet with
laugh and used some symbols and emoticon to retweet the status. It shows that
there are different ways and characters when they do the communication.
From the communication above, it can be known that twitter participants
have own different character to get communication. In relation to the study, there
are some previous researches. Basirah Nazir (2012) in her study Gender Pattern
on Facebook: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. This paper is summarized of tracing
differences and similarities among the way sexes use internet particularly social
networking site, Facebook. The differences exist on multiple levels and research
shows that even on internet one is not a human being rather a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’.
All these have been exhibited through language and the choices they make. The
findings show that women are into facebook for maintaining existing relationships
by being polite while men are more likely to go for new relations and all.
Based on the previous researches and the phenomenon, however male and
female use the language in the way they are, the researcher interested to be studied
the gender language characteristics of twitter participants of different cultures.
1.2 The Problems of the Study
Based on the background of the study above, the problems were
formulated in questions as the following:
1. What are the language characteristics of male and female on Twitter?
2. How do the cultures affect the way male and female communicate on
6
3. Why do males and females on Twitter use the language in the way they
are?
1.3 The Objectives of the Study
Based on the problem of the study, the objectives of the research are to find
out:
1. to investigate the language characteristics of male and female on
2. to describe how the cultures affect the way male and female use
language on Twitter.
3. to explain why males and females on twitter use language in the way
they are.
1.4. The Scope of the Study
This study is talking about language and gender; the way of males and females
communicate in social media. In this study, the researcher focuses on the different
ways of males and females use the language on Twitter. The researcher observed
the different gendered language characteristics of male and female of different
cultures on twitter through their status and comments.
1.5 The Significance of the Study
Findings of the study were expected theoretically and practically to give
7
1. Theoretically, this study became the basic of the further research for
researcher who also interested in investigating the same area with
different focus and object.
2. Practically, findings of this study became some sort of information for
the social media users about gender language characteristics of social
media.
3. Linguistically, findings of the study are expected to be an additional
66
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions
This study was conducted on gender differences on the way of
communication of male and female Twitter participants of different cultures. It
was aimed at describing how male and female participants updated and
commented the stutuses on Twitter and describing the different characteristics of
male and female participants in the way they updated and commented the
stutuses. After analyzing the data, some conclusions can be stated as the
following:
1. Both male and female Twitter participants of different cultures used rapport
and report talk in their way of communication, but male participants used
report talk more in delivering their statuses and comments. Meanwhile,
female participants tended to use rapport talk more in delivering their
comments and statuses.
2. Each culture affect male and female communicating on twitter. Bataknese
tended to used phatic words in Bahasa Batak, rude or not polite, egoistic,
and like to help.But, phatic words were not found in Bataknese Female
statuses or comments. Meanwhile, Sundanese tended to also used phatic
words in Bahasa Sunda and showed expression of cageur,bageur,singer,
and pinter. Culture affect the language by transmitted through traditions,
generations, social traits, adaptation, influenced by environment.
67
3. The reason why male participants on Twitter used report talk whereas female
participants used rapport talk was because male treated the language as a way
to give factual information, whereas females did it as a way to negotiate
closeness and intimacy.
5.2 Suggestions
Due to the above conclusions, it is necessary to give suggestions as the
following:
1. It is suggested to social media users, even though male take for granted are
created to be more powerful- that’s why they talked reportly- but they should
consider person’s status to whom they talked to. For instance when they talk
to older people, they should not use report talk. Since it will irritate the older
person’s feeling.
2. It is suggested to other researchers especially the researchers majoring in
English Applied Linguistics to conduct further research in other field of
making communications, such as in daily conversation, debate, speech and so
on to develop the theory of gender differences in communication and also to
enrich the researchers and the readers’ knowledge on gender differences
theories.
3. It is suggested to the lecturers of language to introduce the theory of gender
differences in communication to their students so that it can be an additional
REFERENCES
Azhar, S. and Mohindra, V. 2012. Gender Communication: A Comparative Analysis of Communicational Approaches of Men and Women at Workplaces. IQSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science (JHSS). Volume 2, Issue 1 (Sep-Oct, 2012), PP 18-27
Bamman, D. 2011. Gender in Twitter: Styles, Stances, And Social Networks. Journal of Carnegie Mellon University.Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Climate, C. 1997. Men and Women Talking: The Differential Use of Speech and Language by Gender.
Eckert. P and Sally. MG. 2003. Language and Gender. NewYork: Cambridge University Press.
Haas, A. 1979. Male and Female Spoken Language Differences: Stereotypes and Evidence. Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 86, No. 3, 615-626
Holmes, J. 1992. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. New York: Longman.
Holmes, J. 2001. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 2nd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
Keith, G and Shuttleworth, J. 2000. Living Language. London: Hodder & Stoughton Educational.
Lakoff.R . 1975. Language and Woman’s Place. Language and society, 2, 45-79.
Lincoln. Y & Guba .E G. 1985. Naturalistic inquiry, London: Sage Publication.
Lotan,G.2012. Conversational Aspects of Retweeting on Twitter.HICSS Journal of
Sociolinguistics.43. IEEE: Kauai, HI, January 6.
Merriam, S.B. 1998. Qualitative Research and Case Studies Applications in Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publications.
Miles, M.B., M.A Huberman., & J. Saldana. 2014. Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods
Sourcebook. USA: Sage.
Maltz, D. and Borker, R. 1982. A Cultural Approach to Male-Female Miscommunication. In Marry 2003, pp.122
Nazir, B. 2012. Gender Pattern on Facebook: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. Macrothink International Journal of Linguistics. Volume 4(Sep-01-2012)
Parkin, R. 2012. Gender and Emotional Expressiveness: An Analysis of Prosodic Features in Emotional Expression. Griffith Working Papers in Pragmatics and Intercultural Communication 5, 1 (2012), 46‐54
Patton, M. Q. 2002. Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods. London: Sage
Tannen, D. 1990. You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New York: William Morrow.
_______. 1991. How to Close the Communication Gap between Men and Women. Article from McCall’s May, v.118, n.8
Trudgill, P 2000. Sociolinguistics. An Introduction to Language and Society. London: Penguin.
Uchida, A. 1992. When difference is dominance: A Critique of the Anti-Power-Based Culture Approach to Gender Difference. Language in Society, 21, 547-568.
West, C and Zimmerman, D. 1987. Doing Gender. Gender and Society 1(2): 125-151
