GENDER DIFFERENCES IN INTERRUPTION WITHIN SPOUSES INTERACTIONS

A CASE STUDY AT JOROK VILLAGE OF SUMBAWA REGENCY

Abstract

Interaction of cross gender occurs in daily life activity. Interruption is one of communication strategies which is often found in any kinds of interaction include in the spouses interaction. For some cultures, a wife is considered to be impolite if she interrupt her husband’s speech. The phenomena dealing with interruption within spouses interaction was found in RT 01 RW 01 Jorok Village of Sumbawa Regency where this research was conducted. A husband or a wife in the village area often interrupt one another in their daily interaction which might make one of them offence especially a husband.

This research aimed to analyze the difference or similarity on the techniques, the reasons, and the frequency of interruption within the spouses’ interaction. Participants of this research were ten couples of spouses. Data for this research was collected from recording of ten spouses’ conversations and interview result of five spouses. Result of this research shows that wives and husbands used four similar techniques of interruption such as interruption in the middle of one sentence, interruption after one or more sentences, interruption in the middle of one word, interruption after a word. The spouses had similar reasons of doing interruption such as showing agreement, showing disagreement, asking clarification, and giving suggestion. Moreover, there also found different frequency of interruption in which wives interrupted more than husbands.

Key words: gender differences, interruption, spouses interaction