Involvement versus Independence The Factors of Misunderstanding in Alex’s and Gigi’s Conversations

48 a girl and …I felt something.” Here, she also connected Alex‟s previous interaction with her. Example [33c] Alex : What are you talking about? What have I been saying since I met you? If a guy wants to date you he will make it happen. He will ask you out. Did I ask you out? Gigi : No. Alex : Why would you do this? Oh shit. Alex : Why do women do this? Why do they build this stuff up in their minds, take each little thing a guy does and twist it into something else? It‟s insane. The example [33 c] portrays that Alex was deeply disappointed at Gigi‟s explanation see Appendix G, pp. 74-75, items 145-149. He tried to explain that he really did not want to have a closer relationship with Gigi. All he had done to Gigi was only helping her in solving her personal problem “If a guy wants to date you he will make it happen …” Moreover, he expressed his disappointment by complaining Gigi about women‟s attitude “Why do they build this stuff up in…” Example [33] clearly shows the real differences between Alex and Gigi when they interpreted their relationship see Appendix G, pp. 73-75, items 134-149. In this part, they were focusing on two different things, message and metamessage. When focusing on metamessage, Gigi connected Alex‟s previous utterances with Alex‟s previous interaction with her. In this case, she thought that Alex treated her differently from the other girls. She saw that the relation between Alex and her was not in an ordinary relationship any longer. Conversely, Alex, as a male speaker focused on the message only without seeing any signals behind the message. Gigi PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 49 talked about „the sign‟ where Alex did not understand at all. It can be concluded that message and metamessage led Alex and Gigi in getting misunderstanding. It is supported by Tannen 1991, who argues that the different point of views in interpreting the meaning of statements or questions can lead both men and women to get misunderstanding. Mens style is more literally focused on the message level of talk, while the womens is focused on the relationship or metamessage level see Chapter II, p. 18.

3. Cooperative vs Competitive

The researcher did not find any conversations which could be classified as the factor of cooperative versus competitive because when the woman character, Gigi, had a personal problem, Alex as the man character helped her by solving her problem. In other words, there was no indication of cooperative or competitive talk that led Alex and Gigi to get misunderstanding. After discussing the data analysis, the researcher is able to answer the two research questions. The first research problem is about conversational styles used by Alex and Gigi in their conversations. Alex, as a male speaker used qualifiers, controlling the topics, verbal fillers, intensifiers, swear words, compound requests, tag questions, questions, interruptions, overlapping, and talk domination in the cross- sex conversations. Moreover, he controlled the topics 12 times and dominated the conversations 11 times. He also used verbal fillers 13 times, intensifiers 12 times, swear words and interruptions four times, compound request once, tag questions and overlapping three times, questions 22 times. 50 Meanwhile Gigi as a female speaker used qualifiers, controlling the topics, verbal fillers, intensifiers, swear words, tag questions, questions, interruptions, overlapping, talk domination, and silence. The researcher identified that Gigi controlled the topics eight times and dominated the conversations twice. She also used verbal fillers and intensifiers eight times, swear words twice, questions nine times. Moreover, she used one of tag question, interruption, and overlap. The second research problem related to factors affecting misunderstanding between Alex and Gigi in their conversations. The factors are involvement versus independence and message versus metamessage. The researcher identified two cases that represent involvement and independence and also two cases that represent message versus metamessage.