Study of Language Features Used by Male and Female in #SaveJohnnyDepp on Instagram and Twitter

: This study aims to determine the language features used by male and female in social media, especially Instagram and Twitter. The data used in this study are based on ten characteristics of women's language features which presented by Robin Lakoff in her book entitled Language and Woman's Place . This study also uses an additional theory about the characteristics of men’s language which is presented by Jennifer Coates as a supporter of the main theory. The data collected comes from Instagram and Twitter posts containing hashtag #SaveJohnnyDepp. The results showed that male and female users use the same language characteristics, but the frequency is slightly different. The difference lies in the focus of the topics discussed and the use of language features proposed by Lakoff and Coates. This study also found that the purpose of using #SaveJohnnyDepp on Instagram and Twitter both male and female users is to provide support and ask for the justice that Johnny Depp deserves.


Introduction
Several differences exist between men and women, but the most significant is a biological difference. Chromosomes and hormones are fundamentally different between men and women. It has been claimed that hormonal differences have a great impact on human  (Arliss, 2011). Genetic differences between men and women are not the only factors affecting gender differences. Socialization also has a close relationship with language. Language plays a crucial role in human life, E. Bruce Goldstein (2008) that language is a system of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts and ideas.
Gender is not just about the different sexes, it is more than that. As quoted in Eckert & McConnell-Ginet (2003) ""Gender differences are not only between sexes between men and women, but it carries a broader meaning that affects attitudes or behavior, thoughts, language styles, and the way we dress up. It is a social elaboration of biological sex. Just as language shapes the way we see and think about the world around us, and how we react differently to views in that world, language can also influence our gender and identity, and vice versa (Jennifer Coates, 2004). Collins's dictionary states that gender is the condition of being male or female related to social and cultural roles that are expected to be appropriate for both men and women.
The use of language and the way it is delivered in communication is influenced by a number of factors, including the language used and the way it is delivered. The differences in language between men and women arise from the fact that women and men have different characteristics in terms of their use of language. "Gender is a crucial component of identity", states Ronald Wardaugh in Miriam Meyerhoff (2011). Gender is used to define language differences which eventually gave rise to the terms male language and female language.
Women and men do have different linguistic quirks, according to this term. Robin Lakoff in his book entitled Language and Woman's Place focuses particularly on the 'linguistic discrimination' experienced by women in society (Svendsen, 2019;Bucholtz & Hall, 1995;Freed, 2003 andGu, 2013).
Language variation can be explored in a social context directly or indirectly through the use of language in social media. In this day and age, individuals can interact easily with each other through the internet. Due to the widespread use of the internet, we can easily find some information and search for the right place to communicate according to our interests. The easiest way to connect with people is by joining some social media. People of all backgrounds and all ages love social media, which is a part of mass media. From Facebook, Instagram, Tinder, Youtube, Twitter, etc., it contains various types of content. Using social media today has various functions, such as promoting a product, conveying information, opinions, statements, and judgments in a variety of ways.
There are different language characters for men and women Experts say that women use more words than men. According to Louann Brizendine (2008), a woman can use about 20,000 words per day while a man only uses about 7,000. Furthermore, the topics of conversation between men and women are also quite different. Generally, men talk about sports, politics, and technology, while women tend to talk about their families, food, and lifestyle. The use of everyday language will differ according to places, situations, and cultures.
A few linguists have studied not only how to use social media for their research, but also how to communicate in real life. According to Akhter (2014), female and male students in Dhaka use language differently. The result showed that youth commit a wide range of variations; these differences are manifested in vocabulary use, voice tone, syntactic structure, and language style.
More specifically, the author selects Instagram and Twitter users who voice their opinion on the problem domestic violence of public figures Johnny Depp and Amber Heard the usage of the hashtag #SaveJohnnyDepp. Johnny Depp is an American actor recognized for his role "Jack Sparrow" withinside the Pirates of The Caribbean. In 2020, Johnny Depp become protruding and the hashtag #SaveJohnnyDepp became trending on Twitter due to the fact the case of home violence committed through his ex-wife, Amber Heard. This subject matter may be very exciting due to the fact not like any other instances of violence, Johnny Depp as a husband is the victim. The researcher may be very excited in evaluating how social media customers, each male and girl reply to this case. It went viral on July 2020 while the audio recording of the verbal exchange among them spreads at the internet, it defined that they're on fight.
Thus, based on the description of the background above and the main problem regarding the differences in the characteristics of language used by men and women on social media, the object of this study is the language feature used by male and female users in responding to Johnny Depp's case.

Female Language Features
Lakoff's hypothesis of female speech is characterized by language features which are described as follows:

a. Lexical Hedges or Fillers
Hedges are linguistic features used to reduce the strength of a statement. Examples of lexical hedges or fillers include you know, sort of, possibly and perhaps. Eckert & McConnell-Ginet (2003) say that hedges can be lexical modifiers such as probably, sorta, kinda, and you know, of course, and like.
b. Tag Questions Lakoff (1975) Claims that women use tag questions more often than men, empirical research supporting this is inconsistent. Lakoff (1975) suggested that the use of question tags is an indication of seeking approval. In different words, it expresses the uncertainty of the speaker.

c. Rising Intonation on Declaratives
Intonation cannot be discovered in online conversations, however this feature is not lost in online conversations. the use of question marks after declarative sentences can be indicated as expressions of declarative sentences with interrogative intonation.

d. 'Empty' Adjectives
There is a group of adjectives that contain a certain meaning and express the speaker's approval or admiration for something. This form of adjective is called an 'empty' adjective (Crosby & Nyquist, 1977).

e. Precise Colour Terms
Color terms used by both men and women have been studied for decades. It has been found that women use color terms more precisely and more broadly than men. This finding has been confirmed by many studies on comparisons between sexes for naming color terms.

f. Intensifiers
An intensifier is a grammatical tool (usually an adverb) that is used to modify an adjective or adverb to maximize or enhance the meaning of the following word in a sentence. An intensifier is usually associated with words such as really, so, or very, which have function to improve quality, eg. absolutely beautiful, very funny, very hot, and so challenging.

g. 'Hypercorrect' Grammar
The literature on language and gender has presented similar findings that women tend to use more standard forms of language than men. In other words, women's speech reflects more standard phonological, lexical, and grammatical patterns than men's.
Various explanations have been given for this difference.

h. 'Superpolite' Forms
Politeness as "the term we use to describe the extent to which actions, including the way things are said, match addressees' perceptions of how they should be performed".
Holmes (1992) details that politeness refers to showing positive concern for others, avoiding intrusion and highlighting connections and appropriations. In some cultures, a polite person is one who tends to respect the feelings of others, give compliments and express appreciation.

i. Avoidance of Strong Swear Words
In general, swearing is regarded as an expression of strong emotion, especially anger or frustration at specific others (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2003). Swearing is used synonymously with terms such as bad, vulgar, obscenity, naughty or rude words.

j. Emphatic Stress
Empathic stress, known as "speaking in italics", is stress placed on certain words of an utterance to put emphasis on the word or to indicate the speaker's strong feelings for someone or something. It is said that women have a wider range of intonation patterns than men, both within sentences and between full sentence patterns. (Holmes, 1992) describes that women are afraid of not being heard or noticed, so they use sound patterns to reinforce their statements.

Male Language Features
The characteristics of male language according to Holmes (1992) are ungrammatical form, multiple negations, pronounced -in form, delete -ed at the end of form in pronunciation, and impolite forms. The theory of differences in the language of women and men's language written by Jennifer Coates (2004). Coates mentions some of these differences, such as verbosity, tag questions, questions, commands and directives, swearing and taboo language.
a. Swearing and Taboo Ljung (2011) defines swearing as the use of utterances containing taboo words. People swear for a number of different reasons. Many people believe that saying swear words is often socially unacceptable, but recent research shows that it helps relieve stress, anger, and tension.

b. Command and Directives
Males tend to have more hierarchically organized groups than females and speech is often used to assert dominance. Goodwin & Cekaite (2013) study found that boys use harsh or explicit directions to get what they want, such as 'get off', 'Gimine', and 'I want'.
This type of command specifies a status difference. in certain speeches such as joking, arguing and telling stories are appreciated in the male group. Men tend to jump from one topic to another topic, competing to tell anecdotes about their accomplishments. They rarely talk about their personal feelings or problems.
c. Nonstandard Grammar The use of nonstandard grammar as the opposite of standard grammar that becomes the characteristic of women's speech features. Men say no regard to correctness of syntax.

Dewi Ginarti et al. / Study of Language Features Used by Male and Female in #SaveJohnnyDepp on Instagram and Twitter
They would make their utterances by using nonstandard grammar. While women pay more attention to use precise grammar.

d. Declarative Sentence
A declarative sentence (also known as a statement) makes a statement and ends with a period. It's named appropriately because it declares or states something. As the following example. These guys don't ask questions, make commands, or make statements with emotion. They can be very simple or quite complex. In this research men and women also have their own declarative sentence.

e. Interruptions
The following is based on the research of Zimmerman and West on the interruptions men and women made in a conversation. They provide a widely accepted definition of interruption as 'a device for exercising power and control in conversation' and 'violations of speakers' turn at talk.' (Tannen, 1996).

Lexical Hedges or Fillers
Lakoff (1975)  Both male and female use hedges 'would' with subject 'I', but the difference is one of the subject placed at the beginning of the sentence and another in the middle of the sentence. The female expresses her hopes to others followed by some emojis while the male uses 'I would' followed by 'have been asleep' as before if the male expresses something directly while the female does not and full of doubts. According to Lakoff, hedges are words or phrases that make a blur or a little blurry (Robin Tolmach Lakoff, 2004). The use of hedges has become a characteristic of women which implies that they are less committed to the certainty of the information they write.

Data (female)
She's told so many lies and has tries her best to destroy the life and career of Johnny depp, she needs to be held accountable #boycottamberheard #narcissist #justiceforjohnnydepp #savejohnnydepp #psycho #noamber From this data, the female reveals how many lies Amber has made to the public to destroy Johnny Depp's life. The female uses the intensifier 'so' to influence the reader to listen to her opinion, and of course to strengthen her opinion about Amber Heard's lies. Other datum that uses the 'so' and 'very' intensifiers also have the same characteristics, which are also followed by the same word 'many' and 'much' which indicates the quantity of the number of objects they discuss in this topic. The differences were found in the use of 'really' and 'too', the researcher provide the example used by the users:

If people really don't believe men can be in abusive relationships look up the Johnny Depp story with his wife. #savejohnnydepp
The use of 'really' and 'too' here for both male and female, they want to emphasize that men can also be victims of violence. As it to break the stereotype that men are always the perpetrators and women are always the victims, they use intensifiers to convince the readers.
Intensifier used by females more often than male do. In this case, the user uses 'very' and 'so' to underline the meaning of the adjective that she puts after it, which are 'many' and 'much'.
The other intensifiers are 'really' and 'too', they use those intensifiers to increase the power of the sentence.

Super polite Form
The type of super polite form that is most used in this topic is 'please', male and female both use the word 'please' to convey their request in a polite manner. There are those who ask to support Johnny Depp, to retweet their post, and there are also who ask to boycott Amber Heard because she is still starring Aquaman while Johnny Depp was fired from the Fantastic Beasts movie.
Male and female have something in common, they use a 'super polite' form to show politeness and respect. They chose to write the word 'thank you' rather than just 'thanks' and in one tweet 'thank you' followed by 'have a great day'. In the context of the caption the male wrote, it was long enough to be just a caption, in which he explained how devastated Johnny Depp's life and career were after being accused of committing violence, he was also a victim of domestic violence by Amber Heard. Therefore, he started the sentence with the story of Depp which was then followed by a request to 'sign the petition' to other Instagram users for the Johnny Depp case. Ending with "Thank you and have a great day" signifies that he respectfully asks and is very grateful to the people who have signed the petition. In another data, the female also said 'thank you' but not to other Instagram users, but to Johnny Depp who had the courage to speak up about the story of the violence he experienced, even this user tagged Johnny Depp's personal account in her caption indicating that indeed the caption she wrote was addressed to Johnny Depp.

Emphatic Stress
There are 32 emphatic stresses used by male and females during this observation. Nine data of emphatic stress are capitalized words or sentences. Six of them are produced by males while the rest of them are produced by females. We can also find twelve tweets that use punctuation marks as an emphasis. Three of them are produced by males and nine of them produced by females.

Even though we can not see the raised intonation as emphatic stress in spoken language
shown, in stressing the opinion in written text, the users may use capital letters, repeat, or typing with longer letters to give more emphasis or strengthen of those words. In this study, emphatic stress in men and women posts was found in the form of capital letters, the repetition of words, and exclamation mark, but women use it more often than men.

THERE WILL BE ONLY 1 GRINDLEWALD BRING BACK JOHNNY DEPP.
Data ( The second category is punctuation marks. Exclamation marks are used in the whole of 12 punctuation marks. Females users punctuation marks three times more than males, 9 of them used by females while the 3 are used by males. Exclamation marks used for emphasis and to make sentences/phrases/words more dramatic. It expresses more emotion. It can make someone seem more passionate, excited, upset, or angry. The male and female user, both of them used exclamation marks after the sentences. The female used four exclamation mark to make her seem more angry, and to citing the "abuse too" word that she really strongly believe that Amber Heard is really an abuser, and Johnny Depp as a man can be a victim of domestic violence.
We can also find repetition in #SaveJohnnyDepp hashtag, which is represented in the form of repeated alphabet, punctuation, or similar words. Punctuation can be used to communicate various expressions. The repetitive alphabet seems to function as an aggravation and giving an emphasis on excitement in the communication. The use of multiple similar words expressed on the datum above indicates that it functions as an over statement.
The data found also shows that emphatic stress does not always occur in adjective form as Lakoff examples of emphatic stress. It depends on the intentions of the producer of language which word should be stressed to boost in her/his statements. Lakoff (1975) explains that emphatic stress is used by someone to emphasize the speech so that someone who is the interlocutor is more confident and the speaker gets the attention of the interlocutor. Also, in this study provide that both genders used emphatic stress as a way to grab readers' attention to what he/she really cares about in Johnny Depp case.

Empty Adjective
Lakoff ( It is only one empty adjective found used by Instagram and Twitter users in #SaveJohnnyDepp, namely great. This adjective can be used by male or female as Lakoff said before, but it is used by female users to express her admiration to Johnny Depp. Somehow an empty adjective is hard to describe because it is abstract and closely associated with emotions and feelings. Basically, an empty adjective indicates that the one who used it tries to become as friendly as possible. Therefore, not many empty adjectives were found related to this case, let alone knowing that Amber Heard is an abuser.

Rising Intonation
When a question mark used after a declarative sentence is considered as the expression of a declarative sentence with interrogative intonations that indicates hesitancy and the desire for confirmation from the other. Since this study was conducted in written language, we can not hear any rising intonation produced by the users as we can find in verbal communication.
Instead of using this feature, we can use question mark as a sign of rising intonation in online conversation.
There are 12 Instagram and Twitter posts containing question marks in #SaveJohnnyDepp, 8 of them used by female users and the rest by male users. Although we can't hear intonation considering that this study uses written language, the presence of question marks can indicate that there will be rising intonation in the sentences. Overall, the datum found used the question mark to express their strangeness about what was happening around Johnny Depp's life.

Swear and Taboo Words
There are 12 Instagram and Twitter posts containing swear words in #SaveJohnnyDepp used by male and female users. Seven of them are produced by male and five of them by female users. Swear words that are used are almost in one type, such fuck, fucking, fucked and the other is shit and bitch. Here the male uses swear words more often than female.
The word 'fuck' can actually shows multiple meanings depending on the context of the sentence. As stated, the fuck word means to have sex with somebody. Also is used perpetually to convey someone is a moron, a trife, a backstabber, and some kinds of other totally boastful or inaccurate talk. Correspondingly, these two females use the word 'shit' to express anger and irritation at such nonsense. Even though it is written in a different form, one female writes it with the word 'bull-' which makes it 'bullshit', these two forms have the same meaning.
An utterance that uses 'bitch' usually refers to someone who is considered annoying, and it is usually directed at women. There is an utterance that female user uses the word 'bitch' to strengthen her sentence because she does not mention anyone's name but the reader understands what she means.
Jennifer Coates (2004) states that the folk linguistic belief that men swear more than women and use more taboo words is widespread. In this study, the swear words used by men are not as much as what usually happens in everyday life using spoken language. However, when compared to women, men used more swear words. It is possible for women to use swear words, such as in Instagram and Twitter posts in #SaveJohnnyDepp related to cases of violence. Male and female use swear words to strengthen their statement, as well as to express their anger.

Command and Directives
In this study there are 10 commands and directives found in Instagram and Twitter posts in #SaveJohnnyDepp. 7 of them produced by male and 3 of them produced by female users. Mulac et al., (2006) note that men tend to use language that reflects a more dominant and certain position. The commands and directives in the datum presented above show that men use it to reflect a dominant position even though it is done unconsciously.
Male and female users talk about the same topic regarding Johnny Depp. They did not accept Warner Bros' decision to replace Grindelwald role in Fantastic Beasts 3 due to the case that happened to Depp at that time. Male uses capitalization and exclamation mark (!) at the end of the sentence which shows the command sentence, short, solid, and clear. While female uses capital letters but ends with a period (.). Although different in structure, these two sentences are included in commands and directives because they indicate a command that was conveyed by the author.
In states about four male character uses, one of that is commands. Giving commands indicated as man character because when we looked back to Lakoff statement that women are less sure so that is why they prefer to use kind of question tag and hedges.

The Similarities and Differences
Male and female users both use the language characteristics proposed by Lakoff (1975) and Jennifer Coates (2004), but the frequency of use is quite different. Based on the results of the observations and analysis above, male users are more likely to write posts that are in line  (Coates, 1986) theory, in this context covering commands and directives and "swearing and taboo language". Meanwhile, female users are more likely to upload statuses which are in line with (Lakoff, 1975) theory about female language features.
Both male and female have their expertise in speaking, especially the topics they master.
Topic is the subject that is discussed in the conversation. Johnny Depp who is a victim of domestic violence has resulted in many female users who feel equal to Amber Heard. They are tend to more flexible and more appropriate to use swear words than soft language, which indicates avoidance of strong swear words feature.
In addition, the difference that can be clearly seen in this study is the fact that men often use sentences that contain commands and directives. As in the data that has been presented, men more often use command sentences directly, because men feel that they are more dominant and they have to maintain their status. Another difference is that women are characterized by rising intonation, but because this study uses a written language, rising intonation is marked by a 'question mark' which usually indicates rising intonation in spoken language. In addition, according to Lakoff, if a woman feels less sure about a problem, she will question herself and have no confidence in herselves. Therefore, many problems that arise end in question marks (Lakoff, 1975) (Esther Kuntjara, 2004.

Conclusion
This study uses language features in Instagram and Twitter posts containing #SaveJohnnyDepp as the object of research. This study describes the use of language features by male and female users. Based on the research that has been carried out and described in the previous chapter, this study concludes that male and female users both use the linguistic characteristics proposed by Lakoff (1975) and Jennifer Coates (2004), but the frequency of use is quite different. Male users tend to upload posts that are in line with Coates' theory, namely command and directive, declarative sentence and "swearing and taboo language". Meanwhile, female users tend to upload posts using language features that are in line with Lakoff's theory of women's language including empty adjectives, hedges, intensifiers, super polite forms, rising intonation of declarative, and emphatic stress. However, the use of question tags, hypercorrect grammar, avoidance of strong swear words, and precise color terms was not found in the written speech of male and female users. In terms of the topics discussed, male and female users have different discussions in responding to the Johnny Depp case. Male users tend to respond to the hashtag #SaveJohnnyDepp with its connection to the role of Jack Sparrow in Pirates of The Caribbean and Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts. In line with the theory that men tend to discuss topics related to the world they like such as sports, hobbies, movies, and others.
Meanwhile, women respond more to this case with Johnny Depp's personal life. From the aspect of user activity or the number of uploaded posts, there is a difference in the total of number between men and women in using Instagram and Twitter. That is, women tend to upload more posts than men.