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taboo expressions. Slang expressions widely used by young people and they employ it as a sign of freedom. In speaking, the young people use slang to
emphasize their utterances. Slang‟s social function is as a sign of membership and
solidarity among people who use it. Spolsky 1998, p. 35 states that “by choosing the form of language associated with a specific group, we are making a claim to
be counted as a memb er of a group.” From the statement, it can be seen that
solidarity and language are closely related. Group solidarity can be seen from the way people use the language, such as accent and word choice.
4. Power Relation
Spolsky 1998, p. 39 states that the power relation happens when “a person
‟s speech carries a claim to be more or less powerful than the others.” The power relation is one of the social factors that affect the way people talk. It is
differentiated into three categories. The categories are H high – L low, L low
– H high, and same or equal or same status. The power relation is determined by some factors, such as age, gender, and position at work. Schmidt 2002, p. 26
emphasizes that the differences in language and gender asymmetries with the power relation.
5. Social Situation
Spolsky 1998, p.34 classifies social situation into three defining features, namely, place, role-relation, and topic. Spolsky believes that those three social
situations affect the way people talk. The dialogue where the conversation takes place can make a difference. In example, if the conversation takes place in the
office, the topic must be work related. It is different if the conversation that
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happens in the house the topic must be related to daily experience, foods, furniture, and family.
B. Theoretical Framework
The differences in women‟s and men‟s speech have been searching all over the years. Many researchers believe that men and women actually do not
speak with the same language that make them cannot understand each other even though they speak with the same language Jong Reik, 1954. The differences
in men‟s and women‟s speech sometimes create problems for women. Women‟s speech is considered powerless that show subordinate position in society Lakoff,
1975. Women have difficulties to find a suitable job for them in society because of the language that is used. Men and women are said to be in the competition to
gain the same power, status as opposed to taking up complementary roles in the society. Although, when women able to adapt the language successfully, they will
be seen as arrogant and unfeminine women Cameron, 1998. In politics field, women‟s speech is considered too passive and too weak for politics, even though
women who adopted the men‟s speech are considered abrasive and asexual Larner, 2009.
The differences in men‟s and women‟s speech have been searched by many researchers over the years. Lakoff 1975 states that there are ten features of
the powerless language that is used by women, namely lexical hedges or fillers, tag questions, rising intonation, empty adjective, intensifiers, hypercorrect
grammar, super polite forms, avoidance of strong swear words, emphatic stress,
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and precise color terms. Wood 1993b also lists six features of women‟s speech,
but different from Lakoff 1975 , who search for the features of the women‟s
language, Wood ‟s theory explains more on the women‟s attitude and women‟s
aim when they talk. The six features of the women‟s speech are equality, showing
support, attention to the relationship level, conversational maintenance work, responsiveness, and tentativeness. Besides
women‟s speech, Wood 1993b also mentions six features
of men‟s speech, namely status and control, instrumentally, conversational dominance, direct and assertive, abstract, and less emotionally
responsive. Henry Tajfel as cited in Coates, 1997b proposes a theory about the
reason why women talk uses the me n‟s language, namely inner-group relationship
and social change. Based on the theory, there are two possible strategies for the inferior social group, which are to accept or to reject the inferior status. This
theory is the theory that has been supported by the two main theory, namely dominance theory Lakoff, 1975, Fishman, 1983 and difference theory Coates,
1986, Tannen, 1994. Both of the theories and Tajfel theory believe that men are the superior one in the society and women are the inferior one, but Tajfel theory
expla ined women‟s status in the society further.
The last part covers the factors of the differences between men‟s and
women‟s speech. There are some causes of the differences in men‟s and women‟s speech. The factors are language styles Spolsky, 1998, register and domains
Spolsky, 1998, slang and solidarity Spolsky, 1998, power relation Spolsky, 1998; Schmidt, 2002, and social situation Spolsky, 1998.
