Multifunction of Hedges Used by English Department Students: Gender Role Perspective

Abstract

Hedges are linguistic features that commonly used to lessen the impact of an utterance due to restriction between speakers and interlocutors. Yet, this function might be different depends on the content of conversation and who the speaker is. Some linguists claim that hedges are associated with women's language. However, as a matter of fact, these features also appear in men's speech with different functions, similar to women's one. This study is conducted to examine the presence of possible different functions of hedges and the impact of them toward the interlocutors' responds in the speech of male and female English Department students. To do so, two discussion sessions and a casual interview are done. The finding reveals that there are different types and functions of hedges employed by male and female. Male tends to employ hedges to express uncertainty, selfdisclosure, and politeness while female tends to employ hedges to convey certainty and sustain interpersonal relationship. Moreover, the overuse of hedges creates a bad face of the speaker. The findings suggest that men and women may utilize hedges when communication to represents the state of their mind. However, wise use of these expressions should be considered to avoid negative labels for the speakers.

“Well; I think…”, the Dominant Hedges Uttered by Males in Daily Communication: A Sociolinguistic Study

“…Hedges are linguistics features that appear as previously believed as commonly used in conversation by females. Hedges can represent speakers' ideas mainly to support the speakers' utterances to conceal the deficiency of knowledge (Kholisoh and Setiawan, 2018), lessen the effect of the expressed arguments, to show certainty (Lakoff, 1975 as cited in Kholisoh andSetiawan, 2018) or uncertainty (Coates, 2004 as cited in Mohadjer and Jan, 2015). Hedges cannot be separated from gender (Wray et al, 1998) since gender becomes a significant to be observed (Kholisoh and Setiawan, 2018).…”

“…Hedges can represent speakers' ideas mainly to support the speakers' utterances to conceal the deficiency of knowledge (Kholisoh and Setiawan, 2018), lessen the effect of the expressed arguments, to show certainty (Lakoff, 1975 as cited in Kholisoh andSetiawan, 2018) or uncertainty (Coates, 2004 as cited in Mohadjer and Jan, 2015). Hedges cannot be separated from gender (Wray et al, 1998) since gender becomes a significant to be observed (Kholisoh and Setiawan, 2018). However, according to Lakoff (1975) as quoted from Holmes (2013) hedges are believed to characterize women's speech, since hedges used by women show the hesitations and uncertainty which always related to women (Lakoff, 1975 as cited in Mohajer and Jan, 2015).…”

“…Furthermore, the use of hedges by the speaker can soften the impact of the utterances toward interlocutors (Kholisoh and Setiawan, 2018), also in Holmes (1984) as cited by Mohadjer and Jan (2015) hedges have modal meaning intendedly to deliver uncertainty statements and effective meaning to deal with the intention by speaker toward the interlocutors, and according to Hübler (1983) as quoted from Kholisoh and Setiawan (2018) the use of hedges can bring the conversation to become more interesting and acceptable, also the politeness to respect the interlocutor's name can be delivered well through hedges (Mohajer and Jan, 2015). On the contrary, hedges are likely used more by the males in casual conversation to show politeness to the interlocutors of the same gender since the tentativeness and uncertainty through the use of hedges cannot be correlated to a particular gender (Kholisoh and Setiawan, 2018), and the use of hedges by males according to Kholisoh and Setiawan have more purposes than females' hedges that lead to the differences of the effects and perceptions of the interlocutors. Thus, this study can lead to interesting findings on the hedges used by males in their daily casual conversation which show other purposes of hedges than uncertainty and tentativeness in talking about some particular topics, with various intentions they will deliver.…”

“…The previous studies on the use of hedges have been done by Mohajer and Jan (2015); Kholisoh and Setiawan, (2018); Vlasyan (2019) among males has various functions regarding the sensitiveness of the topics. Thus, the use of hedges can show the speaker's regret, save the speaker's name, save the interlocutor's name by reducing the sensitiveness of the topics through the hedged opinion, create Syani Dwi Fitriana, Slamet Setiawan The Application of Turn-Taking Strategies on THE BOYZ Podcast Highlight Episode: Conversation Analysis Reflection solidarity between the speaker and the interlocutor, and hedging his opinion with adjusted his tone just in case his argument is false toward the topics given (Mohajer and Jan, 2015;Kholisoh and Setiawan, 2018;Vlasyan, 2019). The findings automatically reject Coates' (1987) findings that the use of hedges in daily conversation is most likely used not only to save the speaker's name but also the interlocutor's name.…”

Hedges Function in Masculine and Feminine Feature’s Language: A Pragmatics Analysis

“…Besides, Mirzapour (2016) in Gender Differences in the Use of Hedges and First Person Pronouns in Research Articles of Applied Linguistics and Chemistry illustrate the way male and female use hedges and first person pronoun in study of discourse of research article in Applied Linguistics and Chemistry. Also, Multifunction of Hedges Used by English Department Students:Gender Role Perspective byKholisoh and Setiawan (2018) construct that men and women used hedges as a politeness strategy to express uncertainty and sustain interpersonal relationships and Based on the preliminary studies, regarding language features according to gender, namely, this research intends to find the functions of hedges in both men and women features language. The objectives of this research are utterances that conveyed in two videos of actors and actresses interviewing about career and personal life.…”