13 8
Questions Men and women use questions for different goals. Maltz and Borker 1982
assert that in order to maintain the conversation women use the questions more than man. In this case, they use the questions as speech act which needs an answer.
Moreover, they state that the way of using questions by women are “their general
strategy for conversational maintenance”. Men, on the other hand, use more questions as a signal of asking for information. The difference of interpretation in using the
questions can be one of the potential reasons for causing misunderstanding. Pearson 1985 argues that there is a relation between using questions and
self-disclosure. When a speaker shares his or her personal information about themselves, it will trigger the questions from the other speaker. Generally, women
tend to disclose their own personal information than men. Meanwhile, men are more likely respond to
speaker’s self-disclosure with advice. 9
Interruptions Zimmerman and West 1975 conclude that interruptions are considered as
“violation of the turn-taking rules of conversation”. Furthermore, they explain that an interruption will occur when a second speaker begins to speak while a first speaker is
still speaking and has not finished yet his or her last word which can be defined as the last statement. Pearson 1985 also argues that people interrupt because they believe
that the message they want to offer is more important than the first speaker’s message. The following example illustrates how an interruption happens:
14 First speaker
: I’m sorry to bug you, I just … Second speaker : ------interruption------
it’s OK don’t worry. 10
Overlapping Pearson 1985 defines an overlap happens if the second speaker begins to
speak at the ending point of the first speaker’s turn which means the first speaker’s last word. In addition, she describe that overlaps occur for the same reason as
interruption: the second person believes that she or he proposes more important message p. 198. On the other hand, the second speaker is very excited about talking.
The following is an example of an overlapping: First speaker
: I would like to buy a ticket to Coldplay’s live concert Second speaker: -------overlap--------- Me too
First speaker : next week. 11
Talk Domination Basically, conversations are controlled by a speaker who is more powerful
than the other. The powerful speaker means a speaker who is dominant in a conversation. Most of the popular opinions reveal that women are the one who talk
more than men. Indeed, men talk more than women. This fact is asserted by Thorne 1981 where men are treated as “experts” in conversation. They are involved in more
interactions than women as cited in Pearson, 1985. In other words, Thorne’s theory
breaks the common opinion that actually men are the most powerful speaker in cross- sex conversation and they powerfully dominate the conversations.
15 Pellegrini 1980 also suggests that male and female speakers who are well-
informed use different principles in interactional styles. Male speakers use a style of interaction based on power while female speakers use it based on solidarity and
support as cited in Coates, 1993, p. 113. First Speaker : Okay. But what if Im the exception?
Second Speaker : No, youre not. Youre not at a ll. In fact, you’re the rule.
And the rule is this: if a guy doesnt call you, he doesnt wanna call you.
The example above shows that the second speaker dominates the conversation
when talking about the fact of guy rules. The second speaker acts like an expert by explaining more about the topic see Appendix A, pp. 52-53.
12 Silence
Pearson 1985 states that women speakers tend to silence where they are not sure of the other speaker’s reaction to their comment. More often, they explain that
women speakers were silent more than men speakers in crossed-sex conversations p. 198.
3. Misunderstanding in Cross-Sex Conversations
In this section, there are two main parts which explain deeper about the misunderstanding in cross-sex conversations. They are the definition of the
misunderstanding itself and the factors that cause the misunderstanding. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
16 a.
The Definition In a cross-sex conversation, men and women tend to use their own rules to say
what they mean. Conveying utterances in natural styles give something different to those whose styles differ. Tannen 1995 reveals that when styles differ,
misunderstanding is likely to occur. She explains that men and women have different
ways of going about talking things out, and different assumptions about the
significance of going about it. Men and women in a conversation belong to cross- cultural communication. Here, gender is the main factor which affects the goal of
communication itself. Men and women are different because they are facing a different process in their life. Tannen 1986 mentions that the environment treats
them to have a different habit of life. They have different world since they were born. It takes them to have a different social background in dealing with society p. 133.
b. Factors of Misunderstanding in Cross-Sex Conversations
The different ways of using conversational styles lead men and women to have different perceptions in understanding the meaning of communication. Here,
conflicts can be created when they communicate to each other. In her theory, Tannen 1986 promotes some women and men differences in conversational styles. There
are three factors namely involvement versus independence, message versus metamessage, and cooperative versus competitive.
1 Involvement versus Independence
Men and women are the two different characters who also have different point of views when they talk about something. They stand to their own assumptions in
17 solving the problem of communication. Tannen 1986 argues that involvement and
independence are two different things which always arise in a conflict of communication itself.
What is more, she explains that women tend to stay for involvement where they can get a kind of intimacy in order to reach the goal of communication. For
them, intimacy is about getting a connection where being understood without saying what they mean is the result on how they can get the involvement successfully. Alice
Walker 1989 remarks on her novel titled The Temple of My Familiar that women are looking for someone who is able to hear them as cited in Tannen, 1991. It is
supported by Maltz and Borker 1982 where they reveal that women tend to see that conversations can be a kind of “therapeutic” for them. This means that they see an
opportunity to share something like problems, experience, support, or even reassurance when they do the conversation.
According to Tannen 1986, men tend to stay for independence where they do not have to explain all of the things to their partner in communication, especially
women. They think that get involved means no freedom at all in deciding something. Maltz and Borker 1982 also add that for men, sharing their personal problem is
considered as not a normal conversation. The problem appears when women are often unhappy with the reactions they
get from men when they try to share their problem. On the other hand, men are often unhappy because they are accused of responding in the wrong way when they are
18 trying to be helpful Tannen, 1991, p. 28. In other words, when men and women talk
to each other, the real problem is that each expects a different kind of response. 2
Message versus Metamessage Both men and women have different perceptions in catching the meaning of
what the speaker are talking about. It is also the same when they convey the meaning of what they want to talk about. Tannen 1986 states that women are more listening
to metamessage where it is about getting the understanding of what they have said explicitly in words. “Metamessages can be seen in what is not said as well as what is
said” p. 137. Here, metamessage lets the women speaker tend to interpret what someone is saying by identifying the activity that is going on. At the same time,
metamessage lets the speakers know what position the speaker is assuming in the activity and what position we are being assigned Tannen, 1991, p. 15. In other
words, womens style is focused on the relationship or metamessage level. In contrast, mens style is more literally focused on the message level of talk.
Men are more interested in utterances which sound to the point. In addition, they do not really catch the real meaning behind the message and the attitude from who they
are talking to, especially to women. As a result, men and women have different point of views on almost any comment when they are interpreting the meaning of their
conversations. It will also cause a problem between men and women. 3
Cooperative versus Competitive All of the men and women have experienced their childhood. In this case, they
had faced the process where they learn to make communication. In general, all of the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
19 children in different gender have the chance on learning how to communicate with
others in their surroundings. Tannen 1986 examines that “between the age of five
and fifteen when children are learning to have conversations, they play mostly with friends of their own sex” p. 142.
Their surroundings especially the same sex playmates contribute big influence on the ways of talking when they grow up. Furthermore, Tannen 1991 identifies
that “girls like to play cooperatively” where they will establish and maintain the relation they have built by involving their friends to know their secret. This means
that the way of talking the secret is more important than the secret itself. That best friend is all about. Conversely, boys like to play competitively where they will
“maintain their own story and status” to be accepted as an equal for the others. Mostly they are talking about who is the best at what and it belongs to competitive
talk p. 143.
4. Discourse Analysis
Johnstone 2008 mentions that discourse analysis is not centrally focused on language as an abstract system. It is more about analyzing what happens when people
apply the knowledge they have about language through their memories of things they have said, heard, seen or written. It can be said that when people exchange
information, express feelings or make things happen, they have applied the knowledge which can be stated as rules, about what words generally mean and what
goes where in a sentence p. 3. Concerning on how speakers indicate their semantic PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
