Research Instrument and Data Gathering Technique

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CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents the data findings gained from the study undertaken and discusses them to answer the research question formulated in Chapter I . This chapter discusses the language features of Kurt Hummel used in Glee Television Series Season 1.

A. Kurt Hummel’s Language Features

This study focuses on the women’s language features in Kurt Hummel’s utterances, a male character who is feminine in Glee Television Series Season 1. In this research, gender is seen to be different from sex that is more biological. Therefore, gender is not a fixed category but a social construction. In this section, the researcher organizes Kurt’s utterances into a table, classifies them into some features, and uses a checklist for the suitable features . In order to answer the research question, the researcher uses the theory from Lakoff 1975 as the basic reference of analysis. She proposes that there are ten features that are usually used by women including: lexical hedges or fillers, tag questions, raising intonation, ‘empty’ adjectives, precise color terms, intensifiers, ‘hypercorrect’ grammar, ‘superpolite’ form, avoidance of strong swear words, and emphatic stress. To present the findings, the researcher analyzes the women’s language features used by Kurt Hummel in Glee Television Series Season 1 as represented in Table 4.1. 24 Table 4.1 Women’s Language Features in Kurt Hummel’s Utterances in Glee Television Series Season 1 No Features of Womens Language The Frequency of Each Feature The Percentage of Each Feature 1 Lexical HedgesFillers 62 29.808 2 Tag Questions 5 2.404 3 Raising Intonation on Declaratives 12 5.769 4 Empty Adjectives 4 1.923 5 Precise Color Terms 0.000 6 Intensifiers 35 16.827 7 Hypercorrect Grammar 26 12.500 8 Superpolite Forms 30 14.423 9 Avoidance of Strong Swear Words 3 1.442 10 Emphatic Stress 31 14.904 Total Features 208 100 Table 4.1 presents the women’s language features used by Kurt Hummel within nineteen episodes of Glee Television Series Season 1. In the remaining three episodes, episode 14, 19, and 22, the researcher did not find any women’s language features since Kurt does not speak much or does not appear in those episodes. This research finds that nine out of ten features are used, including: lexical hedges or fillers, tag questions, raising intonation on declaratives, ‘empty’ adjective, intensifiers, ‘hypercorrect’ grammar, ‘superpolite’ forms, avoidance of strong swear words, and emphatic stress. From the obtained data, the researcher finds 208 features uttered by Kurt. Table 4.1 shows the frequency and percentage of each feature used by Kurt, they are 62 lexical hedges or fillers 29.808, 35 intensifiers 16.827, 31 features of emphatic stress 14.904, 30 ‘superpolite’ forms 14.423, 26 features of ‘hypercorrect’ grammar 12.500, 12 raising intonation 25 in declaratives 5.769, 5 tag questions 2.404, 4 ‘empty’ adjectives 1.923, and 3 avoidances of strong swear words 1.442. The last is precise color terms feature 0, which does not appear at all in the data classification of Kurt’s utterances in Glee Television Series Season 1. To support the data presentation, the researcher provides and discusses the evidences of women’s language features uttered by Kurt in Glee Television Series Season 1.

1. Lexical Hedges or Fillers

Lakoff 1975 describes lexical hedges or fillers as one of the characteristics of women’s language features. Lakoff 1975 defines hedges as words that convey the sense that the speaker is uncertain about what he or she is saying or cannot vouch for the accuracy statement p. 53. Lexical hedges or fillers that Lakoff 1975 means are the frequent use of words such as well, you know, sort of, kind of, I guess, I think, umm, and oh. The use of hedges by women occurs as a fully legitimation when they are unsure of the fact or statement, and justifiable when they try to mitigate the possible unfriendliness or unkindness of statement. Lakoff as cited in Holmes 1992, p.316 claims that “hedging devices explicitly signal lack of confidence and women’s insecurity”. In Kurt’s utterances, lexical hedges or fillers are the most frequent features he used in all episodes, as many as 62 times. He uses lexical hedges and fillers such as I guess, I think, well, kind of, you know, sort of, oh and um. In the fourth episode of Glee Television Series Season 1 titled Preggers, there are 9 lexical hedges or fillers that are used by Kurt. In the beginning of the episode, Kurt was practicing dancing with his friends in his house. He wore a