GENDER DIFFERENCES IN INDIRECTNESS OF CONVERSATION:A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MALE AND FEMALE COMMUNICATION STYLES

Abstract

Being human, we all communicate through language to express our feelings and emotions. It is an observable general phenomenon that most of the time we communicate more than what we express through means of language. Speakers do not usually say what they want to say in exact words, but most of the time they communicate in an indirect way. Indirectness is a way to communicate the motive without explicitly stating it. It is a vital part of communication in every context whether formal or informal and used to save other person’s face which can be positive or negative. The purpose of the study is to find out the indirectness of acts in male versus female conversation. It comes under the umbrella of the speech act, which is an action performed by utterance. One of the indirect ways in conversation is the form of an interrogative structure of an utterance. Others are declarative, used to make requests, and interrogative, used to make requests. The current study is quantitative in nature and deals with whether women use more indirectness than men or vice versa. Participants of the study are male and female in the context of an academic institution, with a sample size of 15 male and 15 female students. Data is gathered by administering a questionnaire having 15 statements with direct and indirect options of request, command, and interrogative in formal and informal contexts. This study has highlighted the context that influenced the use of indirectness.