A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Human Sciences in English

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GENDER SPEECH STYLES AMONG MALAYSIANS IN SEMI-FORMAL AND INFORMAL CONTEXTS

BY

NIK NURUL AKMAL BT NIK MAT KAMIL

A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Human Sciences in English

Language Studies

Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences

International Islamic University Malaysia

AUGUST 2016

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ABSTRACT

Men and women are often required to employ a specific style in their speech for effective communication. Direct and assertive statements are associated with men while women are perceived to use an indirect style. However, the ways men and women speak are not always different and their language choices often depend on many factors such as the context, other speakers and setting. Using Holmes‟ (2006) theoretical framework, the study explores how Malaysian men and women engage in mixed-gender and same gender interactions through the use of linguistic features specifically hedges, intensifiers, tag questions, empty adjectives and polite forms in two contexts; semi-formal and informal. Holmes (2006) explains the masculine style which involves imperatives and need statements whereas the feminine style is less direct such as the use of linguistic features mentioned above. The data in the present study were gathered from a talk show, The Breakfast Show which represents the semi- formal context and a total of 13 English short films used in the informal context. The results indicate that men and women use the same interactional style which is feminine in both contexts with more linguistic features appearing in men‟s speech than in women‟s. On the other hand, in the same gender interaction which involves only female speakers, as predicted, women preferred a feminine style but more linguistic features were found here than in the presence of men. Therefore, it can be concluded that masculine or feminine style of interacting is not gender specific but rather the choices of styles depend on the situation and the objective that they want to achieve in that setting.

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ثحبلا صخلم

t in A

قيقتح لجأ نم مهثيدح في ينعم بولسأ مادختسا ءاسنلاو لاجرلا نم بلطتي ام ابلاغ دنج ينح ىلع ،ةمزالحاو ةرشابلدا تارابعلا مادختسا لىإ لاجرلا دمعي ثيح لاعف لصاوت تسيل ءاسنلاو لاجرلا ملاك قرط نأ يرغ ،رشابلدا يرغ بولسلأا مادختسا لىإ نليم ءاسنلا اد ينملكتلداو ،نومضلدا لثم لماوع ةدع ىلع دمتعت ام ابلاغ ةيوغللا متهارايخو ،ةفلتمخ امئ

( زلدولذ يرظنلا راطلإا ىلع ادامتعاو .ةطيلمحا فورظلاو ،نيرخلآا هذى فشتكت ) 6002

فيك ةساردلا نأ

ءاوس ءاسنو لااجر ينيزيلالدا نم اطيلخ اوناك

ينسنلجا

سنلجا سفن نم وأ

ضولخا دنع في

نم لعافتلاو ثيدلحا للاخ

مادختسا صئاصلخا

ةيوغللا ،نوفطلتي منهإف

،ةيليذلا ةلئسلأاو ،تادكؤلدا نومدختسيو ةلمالمجا تارابعو

لكشب بذهم

في ينقايسلا لاك

( زلدوى حضوأ .يسمرلا يرغو ،يسمرلا وبش ،رملأا غيص نمضتي يروكذلا طمنلا نأ ) 6002

لأا طمنلا امنيب ،ةيرورضلا تارابعلاو امك ةيوغللا صئاصلخا مادختسا دنع ةرشابم لقأ يوثن

.كلذ لىإ ةراشلإا تقبس "راطفلإا ضرع" يراولحا جمانبرلا نم ةساردلا هذى تانايب عجم تم

ترفسأ .يسمرلا يرغ قايسلا لثتم ةيرصق ايزيلنجإ امليفرشع ةثلاثو ،يسمر وبش اقايس لثيم وىو دختسي ءاسنلاو لاجرلا نأ نع ةساردلا جئاتن لاك في يوثنأ وى يذلا وسفن لعافتلا طنم نوم

نمو ،ءاسنلا باطخ في ونع لاجرلا باطخ في رثكأ ةيوغل صئاصخ روهظ عم ينقايسلا ءاسنلا نم ينملكتم ىلع لمتشي يذلا وسفن سنلجا ءانبأ ينب لعافتلا نإف رخآ بناج طقف - اعقوتم ناك امك -

اصخ تدجو نكلو ،يوثنلأا طمنلا نلضفي ءاسنلا نإف ةيوغل صئ

نأ لىإ ةساردلا صُل ختَ نأ نكيم كلذ ىلع ءانبو .لاجرلا روضح في رفوتت تيلا كلت نم رثكأ

رايتخا لىإ عجري رمأ يى لب سنلجا لىإ عجرت ةيصاخ تسيل يوثنلأاو يروكذلا لعافتلا يطنم

.فقولدا كلذ في اهقيقتح دارلدا فادىلأاو فقولدا هدديح طنم

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APPROVAL PAGE

I certify that I have supervised and read this study and that in my opinion, it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Master of Human Sciences (English Language Studies).

………..

Maimunah Abdul Kadir Supervisor

I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Master of Human Sciences (English Language Studies).

………..

Selvarajah s/o Tharmalingam Examiner

This dissertation was submitted to the Department of English Language and Literature and is accepted as a fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Human Sciences (English Language Studies).

………..

Zahariah Pilus

Head, Department of English Language and Literature

This dissertation was submitted to the Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences and is accepted as a fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Human Sciences (English Language Studies).

………..

Ibrahim Mohamed Zein Dean, Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences

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DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this dissertation is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. I also declare that it has not been previously or concurrently submitted as a whole for any other degrees at IIUM or other institutions.

Nik Nurul Akmal Nik Mat Kamil

Signature ... Date ...

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INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA

DECLARATION OF COPYRIGHT AND AFFIRMATION OF FAIR USE OF UNPUBLISHED RESEARCH

GENDER SPEECH STYLES AMONG MALAYSIANS IN SEMI- FORMAL AND INFORMAL CONTEXTS

I declare that the copyright holders of this dissertation are jointly owned by the student and IIUM.

No part of this unpublished research may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder except as provided below

1. Any material contained in or derived from this unpublished research may be used by others in their writing with due acknowledgement.

2. IIUM or its library will have the right to make and transmit copies (print or electronic) for institutional and academic purposes.

3. The IIUM library will have the right to make, store in a retrieved system and supply copies of this unpublished research if requested by other universities and research libraries.

By signing this form, I acknowledged that I have read and understand the IIUM Intellectual Property Right and Commercialization policy.

Affirmed by Nik Nurul Akmal Nik Mat Kamil

……..……….. ………..

Signature Date

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost I would like to thank Allah almighty for his endless blessings and mercy.

My deepest gratitude is to my supervisor, Dr. Maimunah Abdul Kadir for her excellent guidance, caring, patience and for providing me with an excellent atmosphere for doing research. I am also indebted to Dr. Mohd. Ridwan Abdul Wahid and Dr. Selvarajah Tharmalingam for providing valuable suggestions and guidance for a better research. Not to forget, a warm thanks to Sister Noorsiah from the department for being so helpful during my study years.

Most importantly, none of this would have been possible without the love and patience of my family. My sincere thanks go to my parents, my sisters and my brother for always supporting and encouraging me with their best wishes.

Lastly, my most sincere appreciation goes to all those who have guided and helped me in the course of completing this dissertation.

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LIST OF TABLES

Table No. Page No.

2.1 Features of Masculine and Feminine Styles 16

2.2 Types and Functions of Tag Questions 28

‎3.1 Mixed-gender Conversation in The Breakfast Show 43

3.2 Same Gender Conversation in The Breakfast Show 44

3.3 English Short Films in Mixed-gender Conversation 46

3.4 English Short Films in Same Gender Conversation 46

3.5 Total Number of Words 46

‎3.6 Linguistic Features and Examples 48

3.7 Example of Linguistic Features 48

‎3.8 Transcription Conventions 49

4.1 Talk Show Segments and English Videos 51

‎4.2 Frequency of Linguistic Features Used by Males and Females

in Semi-formal Context 53

4.3 Frequency of Linguistic Features Used by Males and Females

in Informal Context 53

4.4 Frequency of Linguistic Features Used by Males and Females 54

4.5 Frequency of Linguistic Features Used by Females 55

4.6 Frequency of Hedges in Mixed-gender Conversation 56

4.7 Frequency of Intensifiers in Mixed-gender Conversation 60

‎4.8 Frequency of Tag Questions in Mixed-gender Conversation 62

‎

4.9 Frequency of Empty Adjectives in Mixed-gender Conversation 65

‎4.10 Frequency of Polite Forms in Mixed-gender Conversation 67

4.11 Frequency of Hedges in Same Gender Conversation 70

‎

4.12 Frequency of Intensifiers in Same Gender Conversation 72

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‎4.13 Frequency of Tag Questions in Same Gender Conversation 73

‎4.14 Frequency of Empty Adjectives in Same Gender Conversation 74 4.15 Frequency of Polite Forms in Same Gender Conversation 76

‎4.16 Frequency of Linguistic Features Used by Males and Females 83 4.17 Frequency of Linguistic Features Used by Females Only 84

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure No. Page No.

2.1 Classification of Hedges 21

2.2 Linguistic Features in Mixed-Gender Conversation 41

2.3 Linguistic Features in Same Gender Conversation 41

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CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

There has been an explosion of research on language and gender in recent years (White, 2003; Mills, 2003; Hanafiyeh & Afghari, 2014). These studies mainly focus on the language used by men and women. In addition, there are also extensive studies done on specific features or linguistic choices employed in one‟s speech or writing which specifically relate to gender. For example, Riekkinen (2009), Rufaidah Kamal (2010) and Tang (2013) investigated the use of hedges; Tottie and Hoffmann (2006) and Kim and Ann (2008) explored the use of tag questions and Lee (2014) discovered the different uses of English intensifiers in American TV sitcoms.

In addition, a lot of books have been published that centered on gender linguistics. For example, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus: A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships (1992) by John Gray and Jennifer Coate‟s Women Talk (1996). These books mainly discuss the failure of communication between men and women. An examination of an Internet-based keyword search of „language and gender‟ shows a variety of book titles that focus on this field. Among them are Jennifer Coate‟s (2004) Language and Gender: A Reader, Allyson Jule‟s (2008) A Beginner‟s Guide to Language and Gender and the second edition of Mary Talbot‟s (2010) Language and Gender: An Introduction. There are also a wide range of conferences, symposia and workshops held on language and gender in the African context held in Nigeria in April, 2010 and IGALA6 in Tokyo in September, 2010 (Mills & Mullany, 2011).

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Tannen (1990) believes that men and women do speak differently but they do not always understand each other. They have different ways of talking since they are brought up in different cultures so talk between men and women is a cross-cultural communication. Another author, John Gray (1992: 8) published books saying that men and women have communication problems because they come from “different planets” since men and women differ in all areas of their lives. Many of these works (Lakoff, 1973; Jesperson, 1990) have placed women at a disadvantage. According to them, women‟s speech is generally perceived as inferior compared to men. Similarly, Crawford (1995) believes that most self-help books and magazines portray women‟s speech as unassertive and women are normally seen as passive, passive aggressive, indirect, manipulative and/or silent. This can also be associated with the position of women in society. As Lakoff (1973) says, women in Western societies are expected and taught to be respectful and unassertive. A similar view is held by Japanese society. Saito (2005) says that Japanese women are supposed to speak differently from men; they are expected to soften the insistence and use honorifics frequently.

However, Subon (2013) discovered that Malaysian men and women in Sarawak are direct in their speech since their ethnic groups have no terms for please, may, could etc.; thus, they may sound rude to other interlocutors in their direct speech patterns.

Meanwhile, Michael, Liaw, Mutusamy and Veeravagu (2010) found that Malaysian female presenters in their study are assertive and confident in their conversation than males. They frequently use affirmative words in their speech.

Apart from that, the discussion on language and gender has started to include TV series, radio shows and films apart from naturally occurring speech. Cholifah, Heriyanto and Citraresmana (2013) study the expletives, empty adjectives and tag questions usage in the comedy series Friends. They found that the characters used

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strong expletives words to show their anger, fear, frustration and sometimes curse words are included to elicit humour. Meanwhile, the empty adjectives show speaker‟s expression of joy, interest and also gratitude. The study also discovers that tag questions signal speaker‟s uncertainty, request for information and involve hearers to agree with what speakers have stated before. In short, they believe that men and women express their feelings in different ways as shown in their choice of linguistic features.

Phuong (n.d) investigates the conversation in a Vietnamese talk show among four women and two men. He found that the women often used words showing politeness such as xin (please) and dạ and vâng (yes). The finding confirms previous research done by Holmes (1995) who states that women are more polite than men because women frequently use mitigating devices to avoid or minimise threatening their interlocutors‟ face. The study done by Phuong (n.d) also reveals that the men used brief speech and were more direct and prompt in replying or responding. They hardly used hedges or non-verbal language but drew upon backchannels. On the other hand, the women used more hedges and tag questions as a sign of uncertainty. Voegeli (2005) believes that these differences are due to the ways boys and girl are brought up and trained to behave. Most societies in the West and Asia such as Japan put women in a lower social status than men; that they are deficient and subordinate. Feminists believe that women‟s use of language has created and exposed them to their inferiority.

Ersoy (2008) investigates the communication styles in mixed-gender conversation in an American TV show, Dr. Phil. The results suggest that American women tend to use collaborative communication style which means all participants occupy the floor simultaneously. She also found that women use more minimal

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responses, interrupt less than men and use overlapping speech. Men use more competitive communication style, interrupt women much more and use fewer minimal responses. Such talk shows could represent women‟s position in society. Through conversation between speakers of different genders, a conclusion could be drawn to see if women still have subordinate positions to men through the way they talk and interact with men. Besides, Phuong (n.d) believes that talk show is a reflection of women‟s position in Vietnamese society in which women are subordinate to men.

Vietnamese women have been seen as the weaker gender, both domestically and socially, due to the strong influence of Confucianism which reinforces male authority over women‟s for over thousands of years.

Another researcher, Sung (2013) investigates leadership discourse in single gender interactions in a US reality TV show The Apprentice. Two male and two female project managers were chosen to see how they “do leadership” in single gender interactions (p. 25). The results show that the managers‟ way of displaying leadership largely followed the gendered norms and expectations. It was discovered that men who employed the masculine speech styles of demonstrating leadership received both negative and positive comments while women who largely used feminine speech styles were perceived negatively. He argues that interactions on TV shows, especially in single gender contexts, have decided that men are required to use masculine styles while women need to use feminine styles to suit the gender-stereotypical speech styles of “doing leadership” (p. 25).

Holmes (2006) found that men and women use different strategies to negotiate their gender identity in everyday communication. Both men and women adopt masculine and feminine styles in their speech. Masculine styles involve imperatives and need statements whereas feminine ways are less direct discourse strategies such as

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the use of modal verbs, hedges and paralinguistic features. Thus, the present study aims to investigate the gender speech styles among Malaysian men and women. The study is carried out to see how men and women maintain their gender identity in same gender and mixed-gender conversations in semi-formal and informal contexts.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Talbot (2010) says that there is a relationship between gender and language. Language reflects society in which social division between men and women is reflected in patterns of language use. In a work environment, Talbot (2010) also finds that women are subordinate to men which can be seen in their use of politeness strategies. They often include hedges, boosters, compliments and apologise a lot. Meanwhile, Labotka (2009) believes that the features of language used by women such as hedges, tag questions, adjectives, intensifiers and polite forms are the results of lack of power.

Women are required to adapt to the linguistic variables that reflect their position in society. This situation makes women seem inferior, leading them to be viewed as second-class to men. Gender differences in communication style also affect women‟s leadership. Women are thus seen as incapable of leading others or unable to lead through the use of language.

The scarcity of studies focusing on the uniqueness of language used by men and women has often left women at a disadvantage. In fact, when women speak like men, they are often being condemned, laughed at or even being harassed by the society. There is always an urge for women to adapt to the linguistic norms of the public domain. Nevertheless, language choice is one of the distinctive features of human communication and they way both genders utilise the language into their speech has no relation to the superiority or inferiority of one‟s gender. Some studies

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(Michael et al., 2010 & Hill, 2009) explore the language choices used by both genders and ignore the other factors that lead to the use of that language in the specific context. Many linguists were triggered to respond to Lakoff‟s (1973) study by conducting research to find out who uses the most features of language patterns indicating hesitancy (Hill, 2009 & Ersoy, 2008). Not only that their studies serve as a means to reflect that hesitation belongs to only men or only women, they also fail to recognise that both genders employ hesitation as part of their communicative strategies.

Previous studies conducted on this issue have generalized their findings to include all societies in all contexts. For example, Litosseliti (2006 as cited in Hill, 2009) says that men‟s and women‟s speech differ in all areas including intonation, pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax and conversational strategies. Miettinen and Watson (2013) say that women prefer long and personal discussions whereas men only talk about impersonal matters and avoid self-disclosure. These differences, however, cannot be generalized to all societies. As Shibamoto (2001) suggests, the differences in men‟s and women‟s speech are probably universal. However, the claim of that universality is unclear and hence, fails to be an interesting source of explanation for linguistic fact.

Furthermore, most of the works on gendered-link differences in speech styles have focused on white women (Holmes, 2006; Ersoy, 2008; Sung, 2013). Other variations have not been studied, for example, across races, ethnicities, classes, ages or generations. One of the earliest works in this field is by Lakoff (1973) who investigates women‟s language and comes up with various conclusions on educated, white, middle class group in Western society. In support of Lakoff‟s work, Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003) have said that “the good woman is a white, middle-class,

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feminine ideal” which implies that these groups are the only ones worth studying (as cited in Sharma, 2007: 321). However, the findings from their works are not universal, thus they cannot represent other races or women, particularly in the Asian region.

In view of this, there is a need to include the speech of men and women in the Malaysian context as there are differences in cultures, traditions and beliefs that would probably lead to different findings. To investigate this, a Malaysian talk show, The Breakfast Show on Channel Ntv7 was chosen and a total of 13 English short films were selected from the Internet site Youtube.

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The rationale of the study is to attain answers to the following research questions:

1. How frequent are linguistic features specifically hedges, tag questions, empty adjectives, intensifiers and polite forms used by male and female speakers in semi-formal and informal contexts?

2. How do male and female speakers control and lead conversations in semi- formal and informal contexts through the use of these linguistic features?

3. How do female speakers present their gender identity to dominate the conversation in same gender conversations?

1.4 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The specific purposes and aims of the study are as follows:

1. To explore the usage of five linguistic features specifically hedges, tag questions, empty adjectives, intensifiers and polite forms by male and female speakers in semi-formal and informal contexts.

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2. To find out how male and female speakers control and lead conversations in semi-formal and informal contexts through the use of linguistic features.

3. To investigate how female speakers present their gender identity to dominate the conversation in same gender conversations.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Much of the work on gender linguistics show that men and women are using different speech styles (Holmes, 1993, 2008; Voegeli, 2005; Hill, 2009). In Malaysia, however, very few studies have been conducted on gender language. Kamisah Ariffin, Misyana Susanti Husin and Roselina Musahar (2004) investigated gender speech styles in literary texts, looking at the characteristics of female speech style – the use of special vocabulary, imprecise intensifiers, super polite forms, weak forms of expletives, hedges, tag questions and direct quotations. On the other hand, Subon (2013) explored the differences in the speech of men and women in Sarawak, Malaysia in terms of questions, hedges, adjectives, intensifiers, verbosity and politeness and other features such as the usage of the form of address, humour and topics of conversation. It is believed that there is a need to pursue research in this area because findings from other research may not portray linguistic differences according to gender in Malaysia, especially in semi-formal and informal contexts. Previous studies have also highlighted some overlap on language used by men and women; most studies suggest that women outnumber men in the use of linguistic features (Lakoff, 1973; Phuong, n.d; Ersoy, 2008). Thus, the present study aims to examine if gender speech styles in the Malaysian context may yield different results. By analyzing their speech in mixed and non-mixed gender conversations, an analysis of the linguistic features such as the

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use of tags, hedges, empty adjectives, intensifiers and polite forms can be drawn to compare the speech styles of Malaysians, especially between men and women.

It is also important to study the speech of men and women in the Malaysian context because it will give ideas on how they communicate. Knowing about the differences in men‟s and women‟s speech would then contribute to the development of effective communication among them. It also helps people to understand and recognize the differences and adjust and learn from each other. The findings of this study would also give rise to the development of future research, especially in the areas of sociolinguistics in the Malaysian setting. At the same time, it would shed light on the differences between men and women speech in a complex societal background such as Malaysia which consists of a multi-racial population.

For educators and teachers, the study will be able to improve classroom talk.

Educationists, such as Marland (1977), have said that the talk itself is an important vehicle for learning (as cited in Coates, 2004). Therefore, it is important to encourage participation from both genders in classroom talk without one gender dominating the whole conversation. With the knowledge of gender speech styles, educators and teachers can create an atmosphere in which boys and girls feel motivated to contribute more or less equally to classroom discussion. At the same time, teachers will be aware that there is a need to offer equal amount of attention to girls and/or boys to encourage equal participation from all students. Inequality in talk between boys and girls would probably be seen as normal if educators and teachers do not give them equal chance in talking and when they grow up, this situation would be hard to change.

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The present study focuses on the speech styles of Malaysian males and females in a semi-formal context and an informal context. Holmes (2006) says that men and women use different discursive features depending on the contexts to establish their dominance and leadership. The current study focuses on five linguistic features namely tag questions, hedges, empty adjectives, intensifiers and the polite forms in the speech of men and women. These features are studied as part of their discursive strategies in two contexts; semi-formal and informal in same gender and mixed- gender interactions. Four segments from a talk show, The Breakfast Show were chosen to represent the speech of men and women in a semi-formal context. For informal context, there were 13 English short films chosen. For both contexts, the conversations involving male-female and female-female were analysed to see how men and women display their dominance through the use of discursive strategies mentioned above.

1.7 CONCEPTUAL DEFINITON OF THE TERMS

This section provides conceptual definitions of a few important terms used in the study:

Hedges

Kamisah Ariffin et al. (2004: 50) explain that hedging refers to the use of modal verbs and other lexical items indicating uncertainty such as sort of, kind of, more or less and it seems like. In this study, hedges also include adverbials that indicate uncertainty such as maybe, probably, generally and actually, phrase type such as I

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think/assume/guess or I mean and generalized adjuncts such as kind of, you know and or something.

Intensifiers

Intensifiers are adverbs that boost the meaning of the words they modify. They are used to strengthen the meaning of other expressions and show emphasis. The basic intensifier is very but other variants such as extremely, completely, so, too, totally and exactly are also intensifiers.

Tag Questions

Tag question consists of a statement and is turned into a question by adding an interrogative fragment at the end. They are formed with the auxiliary or modal verb from the statement. For example:

Jack is from Spain, isn’t he?

Open the window, will you?

These tag questions are used to confirm statements and seek agreement since the speakers lack certainty.

Empty Adjectives

Empty adjectives refer to the meaningless adjectives that have affective meaning.

Hanafiyeh and Afghari (2014) believe that an empty adjective is used to express speaker‟s or writer‟s emotional reaction. Words like charming, sweet and gorgeous are examples of empty adjectives.

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Polite form is an expression that the speakers use to soften the utterance and to show politeness. In this study, it is considered as polite forms if the speakers use honorifics, indirect forms such as „Would you mind...‟ or „I wonder if you could ...‟or if they put special emphasis on the word please.

1.8 ORGANIZATION OF THESIS

This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter One (Introduction) deals with gender-related issues in the speech patterns of both men and women. It also includes background of the study, statement of the problem, research questions and research objectives, significance of the study and definition of terms. Chapter Two (Literature Review) discusses the literature relevant to gendered-link differences in speech styles, especially on the use of hedges, intensifiers, tag questions, empty adjectives and the polite forms in the speech of men and women. It also includes a description of the theoretical framework based on the work of Holmes (2006). Chapter Three (Research Methodology) includes a description of the research approach followed by the data collection and the data analysis procedure. It involves an analysis of male-female and female-female conversations in semi-formal and informal contexts from a talk show and short films. Chapter Four (Analysis of Findings) describes in detailed the use of linguistic features in men‟s and women‟s speech in semi-formal and informal contexts. The way men and women maintain their gender identity in same gender and mixed-gender conversations is explained too. Chapter Five (Conclusion) presents the conclusion and limitations of the study as well as recommendations for further studies.