How does “to what gender and status one talks” govern the speaker’s strategy in keeping on their conversation?

Abstract

“To what gender and status one talks” governs more the speaker, in deciding their culturally and socially accepted strategy in conversation, than “who talks”; as the airport runway dictates the pilot’s landing strategy. This paper, employing conversational analysis, tries to explore how the gender and social status of the audience dictate the speaker’s speech acts and moves in Muslim formal conversation in three functional topical units composed of 107 acts of directive, assertive, commisive, expressive, rogative, and 103 moves of initiations, responses, and follow ups. The finding shows that, to all female students, a male initiates and controls the conversation for materializing his social power by having more directive acts and initiation moves. To the high female, Low male uses assertive and response. While the female, regardless the social status and gender of the audience, uses assertive acts and response moves to support the interaction and social togetherness. The findings imply that the object to whom one talks is more crucial in describing the conversation strategy.

Keywords

• to what gender and status; control; conversation; strategy; materialize; power

References

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