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forms when they are speaking to reflect politeness. Women may use more standard forms as a way of retaining their societal value, as “society tends to expect ‘better’
behavior from women” Holmes, 1998, p. 172.
h. Superpolite Forms
Superpolite also reflects social politeness. It is described by Lakoff 1975 as “leaving decisions open, not imposing your mind, or views, or claims, on anyone
else” p. 56. While it may be a polite command, it does not need obedience overtly, but it suggests something to be done as a favor to the speaker. For the example, If
you don’t mind, Please may you…, That really means a lot .
i. Avoidance of Strong Swear Words
Eckert 2003 says that “swearing is kind of interjection that can express extreme statements.” Swearing is considered as an expression of very strong
emotion. In society, women are expected to be good. They are not allowed to speak roughly. Therefore, women tend to avoid using strong wear words. The words such
as my dear, goodness, and my fudge are often found in women’s language as stated by Lakoff 1975.
j. Emphatic Stress
Stress can refer to emphatic stress when it is placed on a particular word in phrase to clarify or emphasis something. Emphatic stress is a feature that is usually
used by women. When women apply this feature, they show a bit emotion through posture and tone of voice. This feature occurs when women want to strengthen an
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assertion Lakoff, 1975. For example, It was a BRILLIANT performance, I had a BEST DAY ever
, among other.
5. Discourse Analysis
Human life and communication are the focus of discourse analysis. Different social context leads to different discourse. Gee 2001 mentions that
discourse analysis is an analysis of spoken and written language as it is used to enact social and cultural perspectives and identities p. 1. According to Brown and
Yule 1983, discourse analysis applied two different functions of language. The first function is transactional function that refers to the function which language
serves in expression of content. The second function is interactional function that refers to the function that involves expressing social relations and personal attitudes
p.1.
B. Theoretical Framework
In this section, the researcher presents the elaboration of how the theories are used to answer the research question. In this research, Lakoff’s theory on
women’s language features is used by the researcher to answer the research question. Lakoff’s theory is used to analyze Kurt Hummel’s utterances in Glee TV
Series Season 1 . The ten features are used in examining the data. The data are
classified into lexical hedges or fillers, tag questions, rising intonation on declaratives, ‘empty’ adjectives, precise color terms, intensifiers, ‘hypercorrect’
grammar, ‘superpolite’ forms, avoidance of strong swear words, and emphatic stress.
