A case study on the use of women's language features by female and male witnesses at court

This thesis is a sociolinguistic study. Sociolinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and society, since language is a tool for communicating to enter social life; we cannot separate language from society. What is most interesting about sociolinguistics is that the study about the backgrounds why each individual uses different way in speaking. Of course, the differences also happen between male and female speakers. Therefore, the writer is interested in this field and decided to conduct this study. The study is intended to analyze the using of powerless language by women and men witnesses. The writer tries to find out the factors that correlate with the using of powerless language devices besides the speaker's gender and to find our whether it is true or not that women use more Women's Language devices in the way they speak than men. The subjects of the study are two male and two female witnesses who give testimony at Pengadilan Negeri Surabaya. The witnesses come from different social backgrounds. This sociolinguistic study based on the five theories, namely (1) the nature of sociolinguistics, (2) social factors and social dimensions, (3) gender and conversational style, (4} women's language and (5) previous studies. The data is collected through the tape recordings that recorded the trials. Then the tapes are analyzed, based on the frequency distribution of powerless language features in the speech of the witnesses. After analyzing the data, the writer discusses the findings of the research. From the analyses and the findings, the writer finds out that the subjects under the study, the male and female witnesses, in using powerless language may be related more the social status than to the sex of the speaker. So it will be possible that in certain situation, male and female use the same number of powerless language features. It is suggested that the following researchers, who deal with sociolinguistics especially with language, and power differences between male and female, include wider scope that covers the subjects or the analyses