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6. Tag Question
According to Lakoff and Bucholtz 2004, tag question refers to indications of approval-seeking. Tag question is a
“syntactic device” which expresses uncertainty. According to Holmes 2008, there are four functions of tag questions. They are to
express uncertainty, to show positive politeness devices, to soften a directive or a criticism, and to show confrontational and coercive devices. The researcher
discovered two tag questions in Hart ’s speech.
[18] His victims didnt get a chance to choke on a peanut, did they, sir? Speech [18] indicates that tag question is used to confirm at certain information to the
addressee. Besides, tag question that is used by Hart to express her feeling of uncertainty. After saying uncertain information, she uses tag question to avoid
misunderstanding. Another tag question was used by Hart in order to confirm information that she did not really know.
[19] Hes punishing me, isnt he? Again, the sentence [19] shows how tag question is used in order to make sure
whether she is being punished or not. Moreover, by using tag question she wants to get a confirmation of her claim from the addressee. She indicates her speech with a
tag question which signaled doubt about what she is asserting. Moreover, the implementation of tag question here is also to avoid misunderstanding or to obtain
clearer information.
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B. Factors that Influence the Changes of Hart ’s Speech from Femininity into
Masculinity
As stated in Chapter I, the researcher investigated the factors that influence the changes of Hart speech from femininity into masculinity. There were several
factors that influence the changes of her speech. They are community of practice, women in professions, and psychological approach. The findings are discussed in the
following section.
1. Community of Practice
One of the factors that influence the changes of women’s language from
femininity into masculinity is community of practice. Community of practice is used by group of people to share rules and norms for the use of language. According to
Eckert and Ginet 1992, speakers develop linguistic patterns as they engage in activity in the various communities in which they participate.
Hart worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a special agent. As she
worked in man’s workplace, she did not show her femininity. Moreover, as one of
FBI agents, she was also interacted the most with men. Her experience would be
created by her participation in activities and communities of practice that were
particular to her place in the social order. In these communities of practice, she would develop an identity and the linguistic practices to build her identity. Eckert and Ginet
2003 state that “the importance of the community of practice lies in the recognition
that identity is not fixed, that convention does not pre-exist use, and that language use
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is a continual process of learning ” p.10. The community of practice is a prime locus
of this process of identity and linguistic construction. Women are supposed to be polite by selecting the appropriate words in their
speech. By applying superpolite form, women want to be valued in the society. However, in this point, Hart did not apply this theory. In the movie, she made quite a
lot of impolite expressions that should not be used by women. For instance in [22], youre not killing anyone, you peanut-eating bastard. None of your damn business.
Those sentences are considered as impolite. Lakoff and Bucholtz 2004 states that women tend to use superpolite form to avoid using swear words and extensive use of
euphemism. Here, Hart does not use superpolite form to utter the taboo things in her daily conversation. According to Eckert 2000, the community of practice is a rich
locus for the study of situated language use, of language change, and of the very process of conventionalization that underlies both. It means that community of
practice influences the use of language especially impolite form in Hart’s speech. As
a result, superpolite form did not appear in her speech since she often dealt with some impolite forms through her community of practice.
Moreover, Hart does not apply precise color terms in her speech. Women often use precise color terms but men assume that the use of precise color term such
amusing because they consider such them as trivial and irrelevant to the real world. It is agreed that this lexical disparity reflects a social inequity in the position of women.
However, Hart once mentioned purple color to refer purple Russian. Here, purple means someone who was born as a nobleman. Purple that Hart meant does not refer
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