Male and Female Youth’s Language Choice and Its Implication to the Minangkabau Language Maintenance: A quantitative study in Padang and Payakumbuh Cities
Abstract
It has been noted that sex type is one social component that affects one’s choice of language in communicating to others. A quantitative study have been conducted in two cities with different socio-cultural characteristics, Padang and Payakumbuh, to investigate the language choice by 560 students of 2 Senior High Schools in each city. The result of the statistical tests reveals that language use among students in both cities has a very significant relationship with the sex of the speakers (male Chi-Square value = 15.235, df = 65, and p < .05; female Chi-Square value = 38.792, df = 12, p < .01). Male students in Payakumbuh prefer to communicate in Minangkabau with other male students. About 68% of them speak in general Minangkabau while 7% in Minangkabau dialect. In contrast, only 45% of male students in Padang communicate in Minangkabau among themselves, indicating that more students in this city communicate in Indonesian or Indonesian-Minangkabau switching. None of the students in Padang speaks in Minangkabau dialect. In contrast, only 42% of female students in Padang converse in Minangkabau when speaking with their male friends. The rest Indonesian (25%) communicate either in or Indonesian-Minangkabau switching (29%). Like male students, female students in Payakumbuh also tend to converse in Minangkabau with their male friends. About 41% of the female students in this city use general Minangkabau while 19% use Minangkabau dialect. The finding implies that male might give a greater contribution to the maintenance of the Miangkabau language in the future.