Tag Questions as Women Speech Feature in Gossiping

Lembar Pengesahan tidak disertai tanda tangan dosen pembimbingThe way of speaking between men and women are different. There were some features usually appeared in women speech proposed by Lakoff (1975). As well as in gossip, women speech features are also located. Then, it leads to a question, what women speech feature appeared mostly in gossip. For that reason, the study was carried out. Next, the result would answer the research questions: what women speech feature appeared mostly in gossip by female students of English Department of Satya Wacana Christian University? In this study, content analysis was used as the method. Theory from Lakoff (1975) would be a base theory in the investigation of women speech features. The participants involved were 24 female students of English Department of Satya Wacana Christian University. Eight gossips were recorded. When the transcriptions were done, the ten of women speech features were analyzed. In eight gossips, not all women speech features appeared. Rising intonation, empty adjectives, precise color terms, and superpolite forms were not appeared. Tag questions followed by intensifiers appeared mostly in gossips where the participants got involved. It was because the participant sought for agreement, opinion, or even information and addressed intensifiers to make the story more vividly, show the strong emotion, and make strong assertions. However, hypercorrect grammar rarely appeared because gossip had informal situation