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Language in Society
Lecturer:
Sir. Irwandi Nasir, S.S, M.Pd
Sex, Politeness, and Stereotypes

GROUP 11
1. YESA FITRI (2317044)
2. Afika Usman (2317046)
3. RISE ELVINDA (2317048)

English Education Department

Love Nature, then nature will gives you breath to live

Sex, Politeness, and
Stereotypes
Woman’s Language and Confidence

Interaction

Gossip

Sexist Language
 Woman’s Language and
Confidence
Based on Lakoff (1975 cited in Labotka 2009), she
purposed the existence of the style as woman’s
language. In her theory believes that they are some
linguistic features that differentiate woman from man.
She argued that woman have insecurity when they are
talking. It shows that woman a lack of confidence, a
desire to avoid giving offence and need to seek approval
from other people.
 Woman’s language and
Confidence
According to such research, ‘women’s language’ has the
following features:
 Female speakers interrupt less than males in mixed-sex
conversations
 Female speakers use more indirect speech than male
 Female speakers use more conversational support such
as ‘minimal responses’ than males
 Female speakers use features which indicate
tentativeness, such as ‘tag questions’, ‘hedges’ and
other expressions that make them sound hesitant or
uncertain
 Woman’s language and
Confidence
A woman may speak differently when
talking to her mother about clothes than
when discussing a problem with classmates
in a university seminar. Moreover, women
and men are not homogenised groups as
there are variations within the sexes such as
the middle class, working class, aged,
young, white, coloured etc.
 Woman’s Language and
Confidence
In fact, the stereotype ‘women use more tag
questions’ has been empirically proven to be true
by researchers such as Fishman (1980) and
Preisler (1986).
Holmes (1984) argues that tags can express
either ‘modal’ or ‘affective’ meanings depending on
the situation. According to her classification, the
role of ‘modal’ tags is to confirm information of
which a speaker is uncertain; e.g.
“You were missing yesterday, weren’t you?”
 Interaction
Women are believed to interrupt less than men
1.Interrup do, because men are thought to dominate the
conversation whereas women are considered
tion as cooperative speakers. This stereotype has
been supported by such researchers as
Zimmerman & West (1975).
Based on Janet Holmes said that One New
the part of 2. Zealand study which examined the distribution of
Interaction positive feedback (noises such as mm and mhm)
Feedback in casual relaxed interaction between young people
found that women gave over four times as much of
this type of supportive feedback as men

The differences between women and men in

3. ways of interacting may be the result of
Explainati different socialisation and acculturation
patterns. If we learn ways of talking mainly in
on single-gender peer groups, then the patterns
we learn are likely to be gender-specific.
 Gossip
Gossip describes the kind of relaxed in-group talk
that goes on between people in informal context.
Women’s gossip focuses predominantly on personal
experiences and personal relationships, on personal
problems and feelings. It may include criticism of the
behaviour of others, but women tend to avoid criticizing
people directly because this would cause discomfort.
The male equivalent of women’s gossip is difficult to
identify. In parallel situations, the topics men discuss
tend to focus on things and activities, rather than
personal experiences and feelings. Topics like sport,
cars and possessions turn up regularly. The focus is on
information and facts rather than on feelings and
reactions
 Sexist Language
Common forms of sexism in English include the
use of 'man' and 'he / him / his' as generics—that
is, nouns and pronouns referring to both men and
women—the use of suffixes -man, -ette, -ess, -trix
in occupational nouns and job titles, asymmetrical
naming practices, and stereotyped images of
women and men as well as descriptions of
(mainly) women which trivialize or denigrate them
and their status
 Sexism in Language
Sexism in language is also showed in that the noun of feminine
gender can only be obtained by adding a certain bound morpheme
to the noun.
Male Female

Man Woman

Manager Manageress

Prince Princess

Shepherd Shepherdess

Usher Usherette

Sailor Sailorette

Hero Heroine
 Sexist Language
You can see the following table of feminine and masculine
interactional style :
Feminine masculine

Indirect Direct

Facilitative Competitive

Collaborative Autonomous

Supportive Feedback Aggressive Interruption

Affectively oriented Referentially oriented

 Qur’anic moral values about
Politeness
“And say to the women who believe, that they keep their
eyes, and keep their genitals, and do not show their beauty
(their nakedness), except the (ordinary) thing seen. and let
them cover the veil to her chest, and do not reveal her
jewels (their nakedness), except to their husbands, or their
fathers, or their husbands' fathers, or their sons, or the
sons of their husbands, or their brothers , or sons of their
brothers, or sons of their sisters, or women (fellow
Muslims), or male servants (old) who have no desire
(towards women), or children who not yet understood about
women's genitals, and don't stamp their feet so they know
the jewelry they are hiding, and repent all of you to God, O
believers that you will be lucky.” QS. 24:31
Qur’anic moral values about
Politeness

“Be humble you shall when you walk and

soften your voice. actually as bad as the
sound is the sound of a donkey”.
QS. Luqman: 19
 Qur’anic moral values about
Gossip
“O believers! stay away from a lot of
prejudice, in fact some prejudices are sins,
and don't look for faults of others, and don't
let any of you gossip some others. Is there
anyone among you who likes to eat the flesh
of a dead brother? Of course you feel
disgusted. And fear to Allah, truly Allah is the
recipient of repentance, merciful mercy”.
Q.S. 49:12
 Conclusion
Woman and man have different way when they
speak. When woman refuse to speak feminine,
they would call as masculine. Same goes to the
man, when the man do not want speak masculine,
they would call feminine.
Woman and man have different way and thing
when they gossiping, both man and woman do
gossiping. Women are talking about their
experience or feeling, but men are talking about
the sport or champion that they like.
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Love the nature, then the nature will give you breath to live