When Women Are the Bosses: Linguistic Strategies in Managing Problematic Discourses
Abstract
The exercise of power in leadership may involve conflicts, especially in precarious situations. Politeness strategies come into practice to cushion the aftermath of face-threatening acts that presumably trigger tension. This study aims to shed light on female leaders’ linguistic strategies in managing problematic discourses involving older male subordinates in the Indonesian university context. The naturalistic data was obtained from recorded meetings.
The study results depict that the female leader employs both direct and indirect strategies in handling problematic issues, especially when the female leader has to face up to senior subordinates. She adopts direct strategies to convey important messages that have to be obeyed by the employees. On the other hand, she adheres to the cultural norms that oblige younger people to show respect to older people by using indirect strategies. The politeness strategies employed in her utterances show how culture shapes communication approaches. In general, a female leader has to have a range of sophisticated linguistic competence in a high-rank managerial position.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Almutairi, S. (2021). Disagreement strategies and (im)politeness in Saudis’ twitter communication. Journal of Languages, Texts, and Society, 5, pp.1-40.
Anderson, C. A., & Galinsky, A. D. (2006). Power, optimism, and the proclivity for risk. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36, pp. 511–536.
Angouri. J., & Locher, M. (2012). Theorizing disagreement. Journal of Pragmatics, 4, pp. 1549-1553.
Asmuss, B., & Svennevig. J. (2009). Meeting talk: An introduction. Journal of Business Communication, 46, pp. 3–22.
Baxter, J., & Al A’ali, H. (2016). Speaking as women leaders: Meetings in Middle Eastern and Western contexts. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Benstead, L. J. (2021). Conceptualizing and measuring patriarchy: The importance of feminist theory. Mediterranean Politics, 26(2), pp.234-246.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brenneis, D. (1988). Language and disputing. Annual review of Anthropology 17, pp. 221-237.
Burrell, N. A., Buzzanell, P. M., & Mcmillan, J. J. (1992). Feminine tensions in conflict situations as revealed by metaphoric analyses. Management Communication Quarterly, 6(2), pp. 115-149.
Carli, L. (1990). Gender, language and influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 59, pp. 941-51.
Case, S.S., (1993). Wide-verbal-repertoire speech: Gender, language, and managerial influence. Women’s Studies International Forum, 16(3), pp. 271-290.
Case, S. S. (1995). Gender, language and the professions: Recognition of wide-verbal-repertoire speech. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, 25(2), pp. 149-92.
Cépeda, P., Kotek, H., Pabst, K., & Syrett, K. (2021). Gender bias in linguistics textbooks: Has anything changed since Macaulay & Brice 1997? Language, 97(4), pp. 678–702.
Coupland, N., & Coupland, J. (1988). Accommodating the elderly: Invoking and extending a theory. Lang. Soc, 17, pp. 1-41.
Crosby, F., & Nyquist, L. (1977). The female register: An empirical study of Lakoff’s hypotheses. Language in Society, 6, pp. 313-22.
Culpeper, J., Bousfield, D., & Wichmann, A. (2003). Impoliteness revisited: With special reference to dynamic and prosodic aspects. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, pp. 1545-1579.
Daly, N., Holmes, J., Newton, J., & Stubbe, M. (2004). Expletives as solidarity signals in FTAs on the factory floor. Journal of Pragmatics, 36, pp. 945–964.
Dwyer, J. (2020). The business communication handbook 11E. Cengage Learning Australia.
Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109(3), pp. 573-598.
Eckert, P., & McConnell-Ginet, S. (1992). Think practically and look locally: Language and gender as community-based practice. Annu. Rev. Anthropol, 21, pp. 461–490. .
Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. UK: Longman Group.
Félix-Brasdefer, J. C.. (2006). Linguistic politeness in Mexico: Refusal strategies among male speakers of Mexican Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, pp. 2158–2187.
Goldberg, S. B., Shaw, M. L., & Brett, J. M. (2009). What difference does a robe make? Comparing mediators with and without prior judicial experience. Negotiation Journal, 25, pp. 277–305.
Hejase, H., Haddad, Z., Hamdar, B., Massoud, R., & Farha, G. (2013). Female leadership: An exploratory research from Lebanon. American Journal of Scientific Research, 86, pp. 28-52.
Heritage, J. (2002). The limits of questioning: Negative interrogatives and hostile question content. Journal of Pragmatics, 34, pp. 1427–1446.
Holmes, J. (1995). Women, men and politeness. Essex: Addison Wesley Longman Ltd.
Holmes, J. (2000). Women at work: Analysing women’s talk in New Zealand workplaces. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics (ARAL), 22(2), pp. 1-17.
Ide, S. (1992). Gender and function of language use: Quantitative and qualitative evidence from Japanese. Pragmatics and Language Learning, 3, pp. 117–129.
Kotek, H., Dockum, R., Babinski, S., & Geissler, C. (2021). Gender bias and stereotypes in linguistic example sentences. Language, 97(4), pp. 653-677.
Kotthoff, H. (1993). Disagreement and concession in disputes: On the context sensitivity of preference structures. Language in Society, 22, pp.193-216.
Lee, C. W. (2002). Referent role and styles of handing interpersonal conflict: Evidence from a national sample of Korean local government employees. International Journal of Conflict Management, 13(2), pp. 127-141.
Marra, M., Schnurr, S., & Holmes, J. (2006). Effective leadership in New Zealand workplaces: Balancing gender and role. In J. Baxter (ed.), Speaking out: The female voice in public contexts (pp. 240–260). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Muntigl, P., & Turnbull, W. (1998). Conversational structure and facework in arguing. Journal of Pragmatics, 29(3), pp.225–256.
Pearson, E. (1986). Agreement/disagreement an example of results of discourse analysis applied to the oral english classroom. ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 74(1), pp. 47-61.
Rees-Miller, J. (2000). Power, severity, and context in disagreement. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, pp. 1087–1111.
Samransamruajkit, J., & Getkham, K. (2015). Factor analysis of polite refusal strategies in multicultural corporations. NIDA Journal of Language and Communication, 20(25), pp.1-30.
Scollon, R. & Scollon, S. W. (2001). Intercultural communication a discourse approach, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Sifianou, M. (2012). Disagreements, face and politeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, pp.1554–1564.
Sornig, K. (1977). Disagreement and contradiction as communicative Acts. Journal of Pragmatics, 1(4), pp. 347-373.
Steffen, V. J., & Eagly, A. H. (1985). Implicit theories about influence of style: The effects of status and sex. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 11(2), pp. 191-205.
Thimm, C., Koch, S. C., & Schey, S. (2003). Communicating gendered professional identity: Competence, cooperation, and conflict in the workplace. In J. Holmes & M. Meyerhoff (Eds.)., The handbook of language and gender (pp.528-549). UK: Blackweel Publishing.
Wardani, F. L. R., & Uyun, Z. (2017). “Ngajeni wong liyo”: Menghormati orang yang lebih tua pada remaja etnis Jawa. Indigenous: Jurnal Ilmiah Psikologi, 2(2), pp.176-183.
Williams, M. J., & Tiedens, L. Z. (2016). The subtle suspension of backlash: A meta-analysis of penalties for women’s implicit and explicit dominance behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 142(2), pp.165-197.