Realizing Complaining Speech Acts of Covid-19 Survivors with a Gender and Education Perspective

Abstract

This study aimed to describe the complaining speech act strategy used by Covid-19 survivors from the gender and education perspective. Data were collected using structured interviews with 36 hospitalized survivors of different genders. The results indicated that female patients with undergraduate education use the modified blame strategy, while those with non-undergraduate education use the annoyance strategy. Undergraduate women complain more politely than non-undergraduate women and use longer and more interrogative sentences to soften the interlocutor. Non-undergraduate women blame using direct sentences showing irritation. Furthermore, men with undergraduate education use the annoyance strategy, while non-undergraduates use the ill consequences strategy. Undergraduate and non-undergraduate men tend to use aggressive complaining strategies and ask for improvement from their speech partners. However, women with undergraduate education sometimes realize their complaints to their interlocutors more rudely in the form of judgment than non-undergraduate women and men, as well as undergraduate men.

Keywords

• complaining speech act
• gender
• education
• covid-19
• patients