Gendered perspective on online communication strategies: A case on English department students

Maulida Nur Aziza

doi:10.15294/elt.v10i2.39398

Abstract

This study aims to investigate whether gender influence on online communication strategies performed by the English Department. This study provides types of communication strategies, the frequency of communication strategies used, and the factors that influence students in differentiating communication strategies used by both male and female students. The researcher used qualitative approach. Online face-to-face conversation and interview were chosen as the data collection technique. For the research instruments that the researcher used were communication strategies sheet, interview, and audio and video recording. The participants of this study were the eight semester students of English Department. The data collected were analyzed used communication strategies taxonomies proposed by Celce-Murcia et al. (1995). The results of this study show that used variety of communication strategies. The most frequent communication strategy used both male and female students is fillers, hesitation devices, and gambits. It was proven by the percentage that was 50%. The least used communication strategy by the students is circumlocution (0,07%). Related to gender, female students almost show higher number of occurrences for all of the communication strategies than male students. This phenomenon happened due to some factors such as the female characteristics that is socially oriented, expressive and avoid making mistakes. Meanwhile, male students showed characteristics such as talk simpler, have a great willingness to manage anxiety and they seem to conceal their inability to others.

Highlights

Having effective communication skill in this industrial modern era is important
Another research conducted by Kaivanpanah et al (2012), in which the results showed that there was no significant gender effect in the use of communication strategies except for strategies that were social in nature such as circumlocution, asking for clarification, omission, comprehension check, use of fillers, and over-explicitness
AND DISCUSSION Communication strategies performed by the students The researcher had already collected the main data through an online face-to-face conversation with the participants

Summary

Introduction

Having effective communication skill in this industrial modern era is important. Research by Faradilla and Rukmini (2019) stated that to reach the goal of communication, English learner needs to have communication skill. The fact that English is still considered as a foreign language in Indonesia makes the students have limited chance to apply and use it outside of school in their daily life. As a result, they rarely speak English as their language for communication. Many learners state that they have spent so many years studying English language, but they cannot speak it appropriately and understandably (Bueono et al, 2006) It seems that many Indonesian students may find it difficult when they have to speak in English.

Objectives

Results

Conclusion