6. Empty Adjectives
According to Lakoff 1973, “There is a group of adjectives which have, beside their specific and literal meanings, another use that of indicating the
speaker’s approbation or admiration for something”. It focuses on how someone selects the diction in order to deliver his or her admiration for something. The
researcher found 10 statements in the Hillary’s utterances that appeared in the videos.
[17] “He and his wonderful wife Joyce were great friends and supporters
and good sounding boards about ideas….”
[18] “And the advice and the life story and the extraordinary
commitment she displayed.”
[19] “I want to thank Alison for that warm welcome and for her and all
of the sponsors, the board, and leadership of the Massachusetts Conference for Women. It’s a great crowd, I love the energy, and I
want to congratulate Deborah Imani ph. and Andrea for their awards and all of their terrific work.”
Some of the evidences are mentioned in statement [17] that was found in the first video and statement [18] that was found in the fourth video. From those
statements, the researcher believed that Hillary used that feature to give her admiration for something. Like in statement [17], she approbated David’s wife,
Joyce. Perhaps, Hillary thought that David’s wife was really kind person so that she said like that to admire her kindness. Again, in the statement [18], Hillary
admired Lupita’s remarks. Lupita is one of designers that Hillary knows her well. At that time, Hillary approbated Lupita’s commitment in her life. Then, in the
statement [19], Hillary praised the warm welcome for her and the great crowd in that conference. So, the researcher concluded that empty adjective were used in
order to strengthen what a woman was trying to say. In addition, Hillary did use empty adjectives to express her admiration or approbation for something within
her speeches in the selected videos.
7. Emphatic Stress
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