Northern Catandunganon Men and Women Speakers in Focus: Investigating Angry Registers

Abstract

As can be synthesized, the limited available studies carried out regarding spoken angry register shows that this area is not yet fully explored. Several factors might have contributed for this lack of existing studies, one is that this feature is peculiar and unique for these languages and second, spoken angry register is a feature that is absent to other Philippine languages and to other world languages. The researchers, therefore, hoped that looking into this phenomenon would yield up-to-date knowledge and further illuminate existing literature, particularly on its functionality within spoken discourse and how its use varies between men and women. Hence, this study.

Research Objectives
This paper dealt with the use of angry register in Northern Catanduanes Bikol language toward answering the following questions: 1. What angry registers and their characteristics (i.e., corresponding word classification/s, normal register counterparts, and English translation) are usually found in Northern Catanduanes Bikol discourses? 2. What angry registers are utilized in the discourses of Northern Catandunganon male and female speakers? 3. What are the prime functions of spoken angry registers used by the two genders?

Theoretical Framework
The frameworks of speech register/ register analysis served as the basis for the study's conceptualization. As said by Biber (1995), register, also known as speech register, refers to linguistic variants that are determined by a circumstance. Ferguson (1994) added that register variation is the linguistic distinction that corresponds to various contexts of use, that is, registers may be classified according to the specific circumstances in which they are used, such as whether they are generated in writing or speech, whether they are interactive, and what their main communicative goals are.
In addition, Biber and Conrad (2009) contend that when viewed from the perspective of register, linguistic qualities are always useful. To put it another way, linguistic elements frequently appear in a register because they are ideally matched to the goals and situational circumstances of that register. The functional analysis is thus the third element of any register description. The definitions of register given above make it evident that the angry register, which is utilized in Northern Catanduanes discourse, and is determined by the speaker's emotional state, fits within the notion of register.

RESEARCH METHODS
Catanduanes, Philippines was the locale of the study as this is where the 90 randomly selected participants (45 males and 45 females) came from. They have varied educational background (i.e., high school level, college level, and college graduate/professional level), and are residing in any of the following hometowns: Pandan, Caramoran, Viga and Panganiban. The participants' involvement was assured through the aid of the inclusion criteria set by the researchers such as being: a) a resident of any of the municipalities that represent the Northern Catanduanes; and b) a speaker of the Northern Catanduanes Bikol language.
Mixed method was the research design used and speech register/ theory of register provided directions in analyzing the data recorded. On one hand, the quantitative aspect of the study was positioned in determining the most predominant angry registers found in Northern Catanduanes Bikol conversation. The ARs existent in the dialog were listed and tabulated in frequencies according to gender and from these frequencies, percentages were obtained. To establish the accuracy of the angry register listed, its normal register equivalents were provided. Identification of lexical items classified as angry registers were guided by Biber's (1995) definition, andLobel's (2005) description of angry register. The list of angry registers was then analyzed using Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svatvik (1985) open classes' classification of words. The qualitative components, however, were made up of transcriptions of recorded follow-up interviews and observation sheets (Zhu, Li, & Yuan, 2000) to identify the purposes of spoken angry registers. In order to code the data, subsequent themes were shaped through the qualitative data analysis. Lastly, to highlight the disparities in the primary functions between the two genders, frequency count and percentage were used.

Angry Registers and their Characteristics
The list of common spoken angry registers found in Northern Catanduanes Bikol, along with its corresponding classification, normal register counterpart and English translation is presented in Table 1. The table shows that there were 14 angry registers classified as nouns, seven as verbs and there were five angry registers under adjectives. Interestingly, the data reveals that angry registers could also change in word-class through the morphological process called affixation. For example, the angry register (AR) yamyam (talk) can be used as a verb and as an adjective by adding prefixes like magpar-(v.) magparyamyam, yapa-(v.) yapayamyam, gapar-(v.) gaparyamayam, which bear the same meaning that is "to talk incessantly." Meanwhile, adding the suffix -on in the AR yayam forms the word yayamon which means "talkative" which in turn changes its word class from noun to adjective. Another is the AR sihong, which can be used as a noun, verb and adjective like sihungan (adj.) which means "talkative," sihong (n.) meaning "mouth," and gaparsihong and yaparsihong (v.) meaning "to reveal secret or confidential information or to gossip." The same in the case of AR siba (v.) meaning "to eat," which can be used as a noun by adding the prefix par-to form the word parsiba (person who eats too much) or by adding prefix ka-to form an adjective word kasiniba which means "having a selfish desire to have more of something." The following excerpts below illustrate this: (1) Pagparyamyam man daw.
[She told me that you should stop talking.]  Table 2 summarizes the common angry registers found in Northern Catanduanes Bikol gendered discourse. It also reveals the frequency distribution of each angry register used by both genders. In addition, there were 14 angry registers listed under male discourse, 11 of which are nouns and there were only three verbs. Also, findings of the study reveal that angry register classified as an adjective is not present in the male discourse.

Angry Registers in Northern Catanduanes Bikol Male and Female Discourse
In terms of common angry registers employed by male speakers, the table shows that the six most common ARs used as ranked from highest to lowest are: first, sihong (mouth) with 19 frequency counts; second is yamyam (talk) with 18 counts; third, siba (eat) and gamadya (dog) with 5 frequency counts; fourth, samail (feet) and babaknit (girl/female) with 4 counts. The following instances are demonstrated below: On the other hand, the word class of the common spoken angry registers employed by females in their spoken discourse as shown in the table presents that there were 19 angry registers listed and out of the 19 ARs, there are seven nouns and seven verbs found. Meanwhile, five ARs were classified as adjectives. The following excerpts from the observation sheets are given below: (13) Ang sihong mo baga sagmaw.
[  Table 3 discloses the frequency distribution and percentile of each function identified across genders. With respect to the different functions of spoken angry registers to speakers, it is observed from the table that there were ten functions identified. Further analysis of data revealed that in terms of functions of spoken angry registers according to males, it appears that the overall results for functions of spoken angry registers reflect those of males. However, the function "to sound feminine or girly" was not provided by male AR speakers. Thus, there were only nine functions of angry registers and a total of 83 responses reported by male angry register speakers.

Functions of Angry Registers among Male and Female Speakers
To support the results are the actual written responses of the participants in the observation sheet such as: (1)  In the interview transcript, one respondent expressed his idea of using angry register to assert his masculinity, whereas another male AR speaker explicitly stated that angry registers for him is a way to show his disappointment to something related to his listener.
In contrast, the different functions of spoken angry registers reported by female speakers are presented also in the above table. As shown, all the functions listed in the male counterpart are present in female AR speakers' functions, with the exception of the function, "to sound feminine/girly," which was not included in the list of functions of spoken ARs for males.
To provide basis for the above results, the following excerpts lifted from the written observation sheets are enumerated as follows: (1) To express my anger without hurting others [I show them that I am already angry and that they should stop.]

Angry Registers and their Characteristics
In the pursuit of determining and describing the angry registers of Northern Catanduanes Bikol conversations, 26 ARs emerged from the analysis which justifies the richness of ARs in this culture. Fourteen angry registers were classified as nouns, seven as verbs and there were five angry registers under adjectives. As discovered, angry registers can change word class via a morphological process known as affixation. The findings in this study correlate to the claim of Lobel (2005) that words in the normal register and angry register share morphological commonalities. According to Lobel's (2005) assertion, angry words adopt the same affixes for verbal focus and aspect as do words in the standard register words. However, it should be noted that the findings revealed that affixation of the root angry register not only results in the conjugations of verb angry registers, but it also led to wordclass change.
In addition, out of the 14 noun ARs listed and identified, there were six ARs which refer to parts of the body. Meanwhile, there were two ARs which refer to person and for animals. Also, three angry registers found to pertain to inanimate objects. With regard to angry registers classified as verbs, the list shows three ARs which refer to the act of satisfying the basic physiological needs of humans. Conversely, angry registers classified as verbs either express an action or movement from one point to another or imply a threat that suggests intense emotion. Lastly, adjectival angry registers are all words that negatively describe a person, two of which are associated to female attributes.
The study's findings are consistent with Lakoff and Kövecses' (1987) contention that conceptual metaphors and metonymies are crucial to understanding rage. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) suggested that the notions we live by in the most basic way originate as a result of our contact with the physical environment. Further, Dobrovolskij and Piirainen's (2005) claim that the essential similarity of people and their physiological functioning across cultures results in body-based conceptual metaphor that can be regarded as ubiquitous in all cultures, if not "universal," supports the study's findings on the various angry registers referring to body parts. Also, angry registers denoting animals like dog and cat, for instance, indicates that the aggressive behavior that is typical of a wild animal metaphorically equates to angry behavior, which in turn metonymically stands for anger.
Thus, it can be deduced that the common angry registers identified above are greatly influenced by the context by which Northern Catandunganons live by. The angry register does not only reflect the conceptualization of anger but it also suggests how Northern Catanduanganons talk about anger and at least in part, suggests what they feel.

Angry Registers in Northern Catanduanes Bikol Male and Female Discourse
The fact that male speakers of Northern Catanduanes Bikol use angry registers is in line with Kövecses's (2000) claim that the concept of anger is motivated by human physiology and produced by a particular social and cultural environment. This is supported by Wierzbicka's (1999) argument that the emotion terms that commonly appear in the discourse cannot be considered as universal, rather they are culture-specific. Following Kovecses (2000) and Wierzbicka (1999) claims, it can be said that the common angry registers found in male discourse of Northern Catanduanes Bikol represent the males' emotional concepts of anger that have a basis in their bodily/physical, societal and cultural experiences. Likewise, the use of angry registers referring to parts of the body like mouth and feet is in line with the result of the research done by Aksan (2006) on Turkish metaphors of anger. Aksan (2006) study revealed that Turkish aggressive behavior expressions are more often associated with parts of body like the tongue and the eyes. Also, with Yu's (1995) findings that Chinese conceptual metaphors of anger tend to utilize more body parts, especially internal organs when depicting anger.
Moreover, the absence of adjective angry registers in male discourse supports Lakoff's (1973) observation of men's and women's language. According to Lakoff (1973), women tend to use 'empty' adjectives which are strongly marked as feminine. Thus, the absence of adjectives angry registers implies that male speakers tend to delimit their expressions of anger to concrete or more direct words like the use of nouns and verbs, rather than to describe their emotional state or feelings.
On the other side of the coin, results of the study suggest that female speakers tend to use more spoken angry registers than males. These findings are similar to Vainik's (2006) study which discusses the notion that women have better competence in emotion, thus are regarded as having higher productivity of emotional words. Also, the findings support O' Kearney's (2004) claims that "females more frequently report or express emotion terms referring to inner-directed emotions and to more intense positive and negative feelings" (p.916). Similarly, the occurrence of more varied word class of angry registers in female discourse in this study corroborates with the study made by Wang and Hsieh (2007) where it was found that women tend to use adjectives and verbs while males tend to use nouns. In addition,  Tsai's (2007) findings that women list more emotion words about 1.5 times than men support the results of this study.

Chentsova-Dutton and
Meanwhile, the proliferation of angry registers specifically among female college graduate/professional level can be explained by the age gap between the speakers. Results of the interview conducted revealed that angry registers are mostly learned from old female speakers of Northern Catanduanes Bikol. It was also revealed that women are associated with the use of angry registers than males because the respondents perceived females to be more expressive than males. However, the findings also show that young speakers of Northern Catanduanes Bikol are often reprimanded by their parents whenever they use angry registers, partly due to the negative connotations associated with it. Given this background, it is not surprising that angry registers are commonly found among older generations than among the young ones. To illustrate this claim, the following interview excerpts are provided: Surprisingly, combination of spoken angry registers is also being employed by the speakers of Northern Catanduanes Bikol. As exposed, some speakers of angry registers do not only use one AR in their utterance, rather there were instances when two registers are combined by the speaker. The most common angry register combinations identified in the discourse are the following: The results of the analysis suggest that angry registers sihong and yamyam are often used interchangeably by speakers of Northern Catanduanes Bikol. This is not surprising given the fact that the mouth is often associated with talking and vice-versa. The same interpretation applies to ARs sihong and siba which are interrelated and linked with eating. Interestingly, the combinations of angry registers also imply attributes that are frequently associated with females. Take for example the case of the AR babaknit which co-occurs with the ARs yamyam or talking, sihong or mouth which also connotes speaking, and gatlon/durat or flirt. This only shows that angry registers are influenced by the societal and cultural constructs of the speakers.
Thus, the importance of cultural factors, along with physiological reasons (Kövecses, 2000), in the analysis of gendered spoken angry registers cannot be ignored. The culture of a society determines the patterns of environments in which these angry registers can occur. It only suggests that there is indeed a strong correlation between linguistic and situational factors and that the use of men and women's spoken angry registers is intertwined with the norms of the society.

Functions of Angry Registers among Male and Female Speakers
The interview with the participants clearly depicts the use of angry register to emphasize degree of seriousness and to let the recipient know that the speaker is already angry. Conversely, some participants illustrate the use of angry register to lessen the anger of the speaker and to convey a message to the listener. Unexpectedly, in one of the interviews, the female respondent expressed her view of using angry register to show masculinity or to sound boyish. The respondent explained that she uses AR to show that she could also talk like a man, despite being a woman. It only suggests that in the case of this particular respondent, AR is associated to men's talk and using it enables her to show some degree of masculinity.
Based on the findings, the functions "to release the feelings of anger and frustrations" and "to emphasize emotional reactions to others" are both considered as the top two functions for both male and female AR speakers. Angry registers which are primarily used by male and female speakers to release anger and frustrations can be explained by the interrelationship of anger and frustrations, that is, the use of angry registers is seen by both male and female speakers as a channel to vent out universal emotion like frustration which results in the feeling of anger.
Moreover, the use of angry registers as a tool to emphasize emotional reactions to others is found to be the means for both male and female AR speakers to stress his emotional state to the AR recipient. Both male and female AR speakers take advantage of the use of ARs to express and to regulate their emotional reactions to others. By emphasizing his emotional reaction, AR speakers are able to use angry registers to assume their feelings, that is, by putting their feeling of anger into the emotion words.
Similarly, the function "to express intense emotion without offending others" plays a rather peculiar aspect dictated by social and cultural norm. The objective of the AR speaker to not to offend others is somehow contradictory to the expected reaction from someone who is at the height of anger. Interestingly, AR speakers still take into consideration the perception of the AR recipient, that is, not to offend him/her in any way despite the fact that the listener is the object of the speaker's anger. It only shows that angry registers are perceived to be an expression of anger, rather than as means to inflict insult, sarcasm or threat to the listener. In other words, angry registers are form of expressions to show anger, rather than as a tool to impose emotional and psychological pain to its recipient. Thus, it could be argued that ARs are used to inform other of the emotional state of its user.

CONCLUSION
The findings of the study fundamentally spring the impression that both men and women in Northern Catanduanes Bicol tend to use angry registers, though it was found that females used more of these words compared to men. In addition, a record on combination of spoken registers among participants was also presented and mixture of two registers such as sihong+ yamyam, sihong + babaknit, and yamyam + bakaknit topped the list. These are a manifestation that instances are possible where Northern Catandunganon speakers can use two angry registers at the same time. Hence, there is a strong correlation between linguistic and situational factors, and that the use of both genders' spoken angry registers is entangled with the norms of the society. It is also imperative to mention that the main functions of using angry registers among the two genders recapitulated that they tend to speak angry registers because of their desire to release the feelings of anger and frustrations, to emphasize emotional reactions to others and to express intense emotion without offending others. Thus, it is very obvious that the participants are basically triggered to utter these registers due to the peak of their anger. Besides, their emotions greatly affect their utilization.
In this lens, the practice of employing these angry registers in different conversations is by and large believed to be more of Northern Catandunganon women characteristic. Having said this, men are less inclined to speaking these words than women do. This language feature also serves as an indicator in tracing the differences between sexes or genders. That is, differences between men and women can be seen depending on how they are regarded and the motivations behind their use of certain lexis, particularly when they are upset. Results of the present study offer innovative, ground-breaking and new pieces of information to add-on the dearth of available literature about this topic.
While the findings disclosed that ARs are commonly found among older generations, the researchers greatly recommend that elementary level participants may be included also in future studies to determine whether or not at the very young age they are already using angry registers. Moreover, the degree of utilization of these words among the participants may also be investigated. As a final point, a further exploration may be made on how Northern and Souther Bicolano speakers vary or parallel with regard to this phenomenon.