Male and Female Register in CMC
Marschall Eirence Metekohy
Satya Wacana Christian University
Abstract
The different social values men and women hold lead to the different ways men and women communicate in the society. Studies suggest that female register (Lakoff, 1973) is different from male register (Karlsson, 2007). Halliday (1998) proposes that a register is determined by the Tenor, Field, and Mode of the interactions. Furthermore, human communication has evolved since the era of the internet and Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) has become a new mode in communication. Therefore since language is dynamic, the language used by men and women might evolve as well. This study was aimed at investigating the male and female register in CMC. In the attempt to accomplish the objective of this study, 30 members of online discussion forum participated. The language they used in the discussion in the forum was analyzed. The result indicated that most of the features of the male and female register from previous studies were observed. However, not all the characteristics of male and female register were found in the conversations. Moreover, it was also observed that there were occurrences of cross-gender register. This study suggested that due to the different nature of CMC communication, the features of male and female register might be different from the Lakoff‟s (1973) hypothesis.
