Emphatic Stress Kurt Hummel’s Language Features
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Television Series Season 1 , Kurt Hummel applies this feature in his speech and it
appears 12 times or in 6.769 of his utterances reflecting women’s language features. The researcher provides some evidence from the selected episode.
The first evidence can be found in the fourth episode titled Preggers. The raising intonation on declarative feature occurs when Kurt was auditioning for the
role of kicker in the football team. The utterance can be seen in excerpt [19].
[19] KURT: That was good, right? FINN:
Aha, yeah.
KURT: [That was good?]
Excerpt [19] shows how Kurt raises his intonation after he kicks the football. The ball that goes all the way through the uprights at a high velocity makes him
asks his friend, Finn, whether it is good or not and Finn says yes. Hearing Finn’s answer, Kurt raises his intonation when he says that was good? since he is still not
sure of what he has done. He applies it in order to ask for confirmation from his addressee whether his kick is satisfactory or not.
[20] KURT: So, [they just kicked her out?] FINN
: Yeah. Gave her half an hour to pack. Father set the timer on microwave.
The second evidence can be seen from the excerpt [20]. It is taken from episode tenth from Glee Television Series Season 1. When Kurt and Finn are talking about
Quinn, Kurt raises his intonation when he says they just kicked her out? to get a confirmation from Finn about Quinn’s condition.
Raising intonation on declaratives is also found in the eighteenth episode. He applies it when Kurt’s father talked to Kurt that it was hard to do things together
because Kurt was a bit different. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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[21] BURT: Maybe I got carried away doing stuff with Finn, but you know,
I told you this thing with you was going to be hard. KURT:
Thing with me. [You mean being gay?] BURT:
Yeah. Being gay. Look, I will fight to the death for your right to love whoever you want.
In that situation, Kurt wants to ask his father confirmation about what he means by saying you mean being gay? as seen in the excerpt [21].
In short, Kurt Hummel applies raising intonation on declaratives in his speech which are usually used by women. Women use them when they are hesitant
and need confirmation from each other. Here, Kurt also use the feature since he is hesitant or not sure with himself. He needs confirmation from his addressee to make
him convinced. Most of this feature’s utterance used by Kurt were in the form of yes-no questions.