Abstract

Speakers interrupt each other in a conversation to show their excitement and support, or to simply disagree and hog the floor. Interruption has always been viewed as a disruptive action that could ruin the conversation flow and always regarded as something that carries negative meaning. Many studies were conducted on interruptions in TV programs, casual conversation, and interviews. There were less study done on interruption involving mixed-gender in a podcast conversation, especially in Malaysia’s context. Hence, this study investigated the interruptions that occurred in a mixed-gender conversation. It also focused on the types and functions of interruptions that were used by both men and women in Malaysia's podcast conversation. This paper adopted a content analysis method, combining both quantitative and qualitative approach. A 48-minute episode of Mamak Session’s podcast were chosen to be analyzed. Two male and two females were chosen as the samples. The data was collected and analyzed by using Chera’s (2014) List of Types and Functions of Interruption. Overall, the data showed that there was no mutually exclusive relationship between the use of types and functions of interruptions. The data also revealed that men did more interruptions than women. However, women did more disruptive interruptions than men. This was considered as a significant finding as previous studies suggested that women were more nurturing and less competitive. Due to this, the women in this particular study exhibited competitive speech style rather than cooperative. In conclusion, men had proven that they interrupted more than women but women did more disruptive interruptions than men.