Humans are part of society.

As part of society, humans have a function as social

beings. That is, humans will always connect with other humans to meet their
individual needs. That is because humans have different roles and status in
society. This difference occurs because society can be distinguished according to
religion, social status, occupation, age, and gender. Diverse individuals in society
always form mutually needed relationships. Of course language is the main means
of communication. Finally, language has an important role to convey messages,
ideas, and feelings among humans.

The diverse conditions of society result in the use of different language forms.
The difference in language forms between groups in society is known as language
variations. The language used by groups of adolescents, of course, will be
different from the language used by adulthood. Not only that, language variations
appear related to differences in social status, gender, type of work, and religion.
So, it can be said that language variations arise due to the existence of social
diversity and the diversity of language functions.

BRIEF UNDERSTANDING OF GENDER CHARACTERISTICS

Before discussing the use of gender-based languages, it is necessary to discuss the

concepts of "gender" and "sex". Thomas and Wareing (2007: 106) explain that sex
is a biological category, while gender is a social category. Sex is a biological
category because since before someone was born it was formed. While gender is
certain behavioral patterns carried out by men and women.

The difference that appears in the concept of "sex" is that women experience the
process of pregnancy and childbirth while men do not. Such differences are based
on biological properties. On the other hand, the concept of "gender" leads to more
forms of behavior between men and women that result in both being seen
differently. For example, how to look, how to speak, and the form of work.

Furthermore, Wardhaugh (2006: 326-328) presents claims relating to gender and

language variations. The first claim states that biologically men and women are
different and this difference has serious consequences on gender. Women usually
have a non-competitive character and attach importance to relationships /
relationships with others. On the other hand, men tend to prioritize independence
and their relationship with God (vertical relationship) rather than their relationship
with humans (horizontal relationship).
The second claim is that social organization is assumed to be a power relationship.
Wardhaugh (2006: 327) said that language behavior shows male dominance. Men
use their power to dominate. Men try to take control, interrupt, sort out topics, and
so on. They use this in relation to men and women. As a consequence, women are
more conscientious in using prestigious forms of language to protect themselves
in relation to stronger people because women are relatively weaker than men. In
addition, Wardhaugh (2006: 327) also explained that women tend to have fewer
social networks than networks owned by men. However, women have greater
sensitivity to forms of language, especially in the form of standard language.

The third claim is that men and women are social beings who must learn to act in
certain ways. Wardhaugh (2006: 327) explains that language behavior is learned
from behavior. Men learn to be men and women learn to be women, namely to
speak linguistically. The community shows them about different life experiences
so that they can learn from that experience.

Maltz and Borker (1982) through Wardhaugh (2006: 327-328) provide an

example related to the third claim above, namely in North Americans where men
and women from different sociolinguistic cultures communicate. In the end, it is
possible to occur miscommunication. Maltz and Borker further explained that the
mhmm used by women means "I listen," on the other hand the words spoken by
men mean "I agree." As a consequence, men assume that women always agree
with them and they conclude that it is impossible to tell what women are thinking.
On the other hand, women can get angry because they think men tend to never
listen.

Based on the example of Maltz and Borker above, it can be concluded that men
and women have their own rules in communicating and on inter-gender
communication these rules will usually disagree.

According to Sumarsono (2007: 113) the diversity of languages based on sex

arises because language as a social phenomenon is closely related to social
attitudes. Socially men and women are different because people determine
different social roles for them, and people expect different patterns of behavior.
This social reality is reflected through language. The speech of women is not only
different, but also more "right". According to Sumarsono (2007: 113) this
phenomenon is a reflection of social reality, generally from the women's side it is
expected that social behavior is more correct.
In addition, the characteristics of women in language are women who tend to be
androgynous. According to Elyan (Sumarsono, 2007: 127), women in big cities
tend to be ambiguous; they want to be advanced and strong (mighty) like men, but
do not want to lose femininity. In addition, career women (career women), who
have high status outside the home; they want to work equally with men, but still
want to be the ideal mother and wife.

Do men and women speak differently?

There are assumptions about the general stereotype that women speak more
than men. Therefore, special terms often appear that are used for female
conversations, such as gossip, ngrumpi, etc. However, the term is rarely used to
refer to terms in men's conversations. The term implicitly means that the woman's
conversation is many and abundant but not endless / meaningful. There are
several discoveries in research that reveal the different ways of conversing
between men and women. This research was conducted in the US, UK and New
Zealand. There are findings that are sometimes contrary to the general steretipe
above (Thomas & Wareing, 2004: 86).

Men or women who speak more?

The stereotype of male and female speech styles generally illustrates that women
speak more than men. It turns out the fact says something else. Men speak more in
conversations consisting of groups of different sexes than women (Fishman,
1980), Spender, 1980) and Swann (1989). In the study it was found that men were
twice as long as the time used by women. Then there is also evidence that women
who speak more in a conversation will be more appreciated by other speakers. In
addition, evidence was also found in classes that male students spoke more in
front of the class than female students and this took up the teacher's time.

The author looks at some of the evidence above and argues that the findings do
not reflect the reality that occurred in the present decade. There are conditions that
allow men to speak more than women. And there are possibilities in other
conditions, women are the ones who hold the dominance of the conversation.
There are many factors that influence how much or not someone talks, especially
between men and women.
These factors are the ideology of gender equality, work ideology, education. The
ideology of gender equality has a broad influence on the formation of women's
speech styles. Women no longer want to be positioned like in the old days that
only functioned as wives and mothers. Women want to also be aligned with men
in terms of opportunities and positions in education and employment. As a result,
many women are highly educated and have high positions. This might be a form
of women's struggle to want to be more valued and respected. Thus, at this time
each male and female has the same tendency in terms of quantity, frequency, and
quality of the conversation. That depends on the position / level, level of
education, topic of conversation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sumarsono. 2007. Sociolinguistics. Yogyakarta: Student Words and Library.

Thomas, Linda and Shan Wareing. 2007. Language, Society and Power.
Yogyakarta: Student Library

Wardhaugh, Ronald. 2006. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. New York: Basil

Blackwell Inc.