Culture-Shaped Language of Male and Female Writers: A Comparative Study of English and Bahasa Indonesia

Authors

  • Irmala Sukendra Universitas Islam Syekh Yusuf Tangerang

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21512/lc.v15i1.7077

Keywords:

culture-shaped language, male writer, female writer, swear words

Abstract

The research investigated how the writers of different genders from different cultures (western or American and Asian) reflected the differences in the language they used in their novels. Although gender differences were known to result from cultural differences, less research had been done in terms of contrasting the gender of different cultures, yet to discuss them in terms of gender roles as writers. The research aimed to explore the role of gender in constructing language to examine gender stereotypes from a linguistic perspective and describe gender differences in language use. It applied a qualitative method with library research style, which included several steps of reading the material, collecting and listing the swear words and adjectives used, categorizing the choice of words, and analyzing the choices. The research concludes that culture does contribute to the differences in how swear words are expressed, in which Indonesian writers use fewer swear words and avoid using vulgar words and profanity. In other words, gender differences do not affect adjectives used in bahasa Indonesia.

 

Dimensions

Plum Analytics

References

Adams, A. M., & Simmons, F. R. (2019). Exploring individual and gender differences in early writing performance. Reading and Writing, 32(2), 235-263. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-018-9859-0.

Akabayashi, H., Nozaki, K., Yukawa, S., & Li, W. (2020). Gender differences in educational outcomes and the effect of family background: A comparative perspective from East Asia. Chinese Journal of Sociology, 6(2), 315-335.

Al-Saadi, Z. (2020). Gender differences in writing: The mediating effect of language proficiency and writing fluency in text quality. Cogent Education, 7(1), 1770923. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2020.1770923.

Aspers, P., & Corte, U. (2019). What is qualitative in qualitative research. Qualitative Sociology, 42, 139-160. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-019-9413-7.

Barczewska, S., & Andreasen, A. (2018). Good or marvelous? Pretty, cute, or lovely? Male and female adjective use in MICASE. Suvremena Lingvistika, 44(86), 194-213. http://dx.doi.org/10.22210/suvlin.2018.086.02.

Bonvillain, N. (2019). Language, culture, and communication: The meaning of messages (7th Ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.

Castro, S. L., & Limpo, T. (2018). Examining potential sources of gender differences in writing: The role of handwriting fluency and self-efficacy beliefs. Written Communication, 35(4), 448-473. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088318788843.

Cislaghi, B., & Heise, L. (2019). Gender norms and social norms: Differences, similarities, and why they matter in prevention science. Sociology of Health & Illness, 42(2), 407-422. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13008.

Coats, S. (2019). Language choice and gender in a Nordic social media corpus. Nordic Journal of Linguistics, 42(1), 31-55. https://doi:10.1017/S0332586519000039.

Coats, S. (2021). Bad language in the Nordics: Profanity and gender in a social media corpus. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 53(1), 22-57. https://doi.org/10.1080/03740463.2021.1871218.

DeFrank, M., & Kahlbaugh, P. (2019). Language choice matters: When profanity affects how people are judged. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 38(1), 126-141. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0261927X18758143.

De Smedt, F., Merchie, E., Barendse, M., Rosseel, Y., De Naeghel, J., & Van Keer, H. (2018). Cognitive and motivational challenges in writing: Studying the relation with writing performance across students’ gender and achievement level. Reading Research Quarterly, 53(3), 249-272. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/rrq.193.

Finn, E. (2017). Swearing: The good, the bad, and the ugly. ORTESOL Journal, 34, 17-26.

Green, J. (2019). An abundance of Katherines. New York: Penguin Group.

Gygax, P. M., Elmiger, D., Zufferey, S., Garnham, A., Sczesny, S., von Stockhausen, L., Braun, F., & Oakhill, J. (2019). A language index of grammatical gender dimensions to study the impact of grammatical gender on the way we perceive women and men. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1604. https://dx.doi.org/10.3389%2Ffpsyg.2019.01604.

Knirnschild, J. (2019). The gender differences in perceived obscenity of vulgar, profane and derogatory: Language usage among U.S. university students. The University of Mississippi Undergraduate Research Journal, 3, 28-41.

Li, Z., Chen, M. Y., & Banerjee, J. (2020). Using corpus analyses to help address the DIF interpretation: Gender differences in standardized writing Assessment. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1088. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01088.

Limpo, T., & Alves, R. A. (2017). Written language bursts mediate the relationship between transcription skills and writing performance. Written Communication, 34(3), 306-332. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0741088317714234.

Mamona, Y., Rubab, I., & Akbar, F. A. (2020). Representation of genderlect and social identities in Pakistan: An analysis. Pakistan Social Science Review, 4(1), 121-129. http://dx.doi.org/10.35484/pssr.2020(4-I)10.

Muhanovic, M., Babic, N., & Latic, E. (2018). An analysis of gender differences in the use of swear words on Facebook. Journal of Education and Humanities, 1(2), 89-98. http://dx.doi.org/10.14706/JEH2018125.

Opina, K. G. (2017). Verbal communication behaviors: How male and female university students interact in gendered talks. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 5(5), 135-142. http://dx.doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20170505.13.

Rahmadian, A. (2015). Pacar ketiga. Jakarta: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama.

Reilly, D., Neumann, D. L., & Andrews, G. (2019). Gender differences in reading and writing achievement: Evidence from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). American Psychologist, 74(4), 445-458. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000356.

Rowell, R. (2018). Fangirl. New York: Saint Martin’s Press.

Stoet, G., & Geary, D. C. (2020). Gender differences in the pathways to higher education. PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America), 117(25), 14073-14076. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2002861117.

Tee, S. (2015). Friendklops. Jakarta: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama.

Vogel, C., Lopes, M. R., & Esposito, A. (2017). Gender differences in the language of the map task dialogues. 8th IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications (CogInfoCom). pp 151-156. https://doi.org/10.1109/CogInfoCom.2017.8268233.

Wardhaugh, R., & Fuller, J. M. (2014). An introduction to sociolinguistics (7th Ed.). Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Inc.

Wightman, M. (2020). Gender differences in second language learning: Why they exist and what we can do about it. Tennessee: University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Zhang, M., Bennett, R. E., Deane, P., & Rijn, P. W. (2019). Are there gender differences in how students write their essays? An analysis of writing processes. Educational Measurement Issues and Practice, 38(2), 1-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/emip.12249.

Zhu, Y., & Ruan, H. (2019). On convergence in gender languages: An empirical study. International Journal of Arts and Commerce, 8(2), 1-13.

Downloads

Published

2021-06-02
Abstract 513  .
PDF downloaded 441  .