Gender Differences in the Use of Personal Pronouns in Television Advertisements

This research aimed to analyze the use of personal pronouns in male and female shampoo television advertisements. This research was conducted qualitatively through three steps of data analysis, namely: data reduction, data display, and conclusion or verification. The data of this research were the utterances transcribed from four male shampoo television advertisements and four female shampoo television advertisements downloaded from YouTube. Based on the data analysis conducted, 50 personal pronouns were found in both male and female shampoo television advertisements. There were 12 (24%) personal pronouns found in the male shampoo television advertisements while there were 38 (76%) personal pronouns found in the female shampoo television advertisements. Based on the results of this research, it can be concluded that personal pronouns are more frequently used in female television advertisements than in male television advertisements. This is in line with Lakoff’s theory stating that men and women are different in communicating. This is also consistent with previous studies that have found that women tend to use more pronouns than men. Keywords: gender, personal pronouns, television advertisements