The Research Focus INTRODUCTION

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CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

This chapter is concerned with the literature review and conceptual framework used to conduct the research of gossip among female characters in the TV Series entitled Gossip Girl Season 1. This chapter is divided into four parts. The first section is the theoretical background that consists of some theories used as guidance in conducting this research. The second section is the previous research findings that are used as references of approach and method. The third section is conceptual framework. It shows the concepts which are used to conduct this study. Finally, the last section presents the analytical construct. It is represented in a diagram.

A. The Theoretical Background

This section consists of some theories which are related and support the research. Those theories are about sociolinguistics, language and society, language variety , women’s language, gossip, women condition in 21 st century in American society, and also a brief description about Gossip Girl Season 1.

1. Sociolinguistics

There are many experts proposing definitions of sociolinguistics. Chaika 1982: 2 states that sociolinguistics is the study of the way people use language in social interaction. It is concerned with apparently trivial matters, the things that people do when they want to talk and the ways they signal that they are listening. Hymes 1962: 25 asserts that sociolinguists study verbal behavior in terms of the relations between the settings, the participants, the topic, the functions of the interaction, the form, and the values held by the participants about each of these. Sociolinguistics has also been defined as the study of language in its social context. It analyses speech in order to show that linguistic variation does not occur randomly but is structured: the aim of sociolinguistics is to expose the orderly heterogeneity of the normal speech community Coates, 1993: 4. In addition, the sociolinguists ’ aim is to move towards a theory which provides a motivated account of the way language is used in a community, and of the choices people make when they use language Holmes, 1992: 16. For example, when people observe how varied language use is, they must search for the causes. According to Van Dijk 1985: 6, sociolinguists concentrate on the specific language variant or code associated with a social group or category talk of women, children or blacks or with specific town or region. Moreover, what is essential for sociolinguistic research is not only to recognize the plurality and problematic status of functions, but also to take functional questions, questions of social meaning and role, as starting point. Efforts toward a general theory of language as part of social life will remain truncated; otherwise, an assortment of disjointed parts or whatever other metaphor of a body and spirit left dismembered and headless one may wish. Meanwhile, Chambers in Wardhaugh, 2006: 11 states that sociolinguistics is the study of the social uses of language, and the most productive studies in the four decades of sociolinguistic research have emanated from determining the social evaluation of linguistic variants.