Interlanguage Pragmatics: Gender Influence on Suggestions Performed by Indonesian EFL Learners (Pragmatik Bahasa Antara: Pengaruh Gender pada Ungkapan Saran yang Digunakan oleh Pembelajar Bahasa Asing Indonesia)

Abstract

This study intends to investigate gender influence on the performance of suggestions made by Indonesian EFL learners. The goals of the study are to examine the way male and female students perform suggestions differently in English and investigate the motives resulting the differences. Further, this study expounds suggestion types and mitigation devices employed by male and female students. Thus, the theory of suggestion types proposed by Jiang (2006) and mitigation devices proposed by Farnia et al. (2014) are applied. The data are collected through DCT (Discourse Completion Task) and interview. The findings show that male and female students perform suggestions differently in three kinds of interaction. First, in low to high interaction, females perform performative more frequently than males. In addition, males utilize more awareness as suggestion, whereas females perform awareness to modify suggestion. Second, in high to low interaction, males use more imperative, whereas females employ more modal. Other finding shows that females tend to perform combination to modify suggestion more frequently than males. Third, in equal interaction, females use performative more frequently than males. In addition, females tend to perform more combination to modify suggestion than males. The motives resulting those differences are closely related to the way male and female students perceive suggestions in English.