MEN'S SPEECH FEATURES USED BY WOMAN CHARACTER ON GONE GIRL MOVIE.

MEN’S SPEECH FEATURES USED BY AMY ELLIOTT AS THE WOMAN
CHARACTER ON GONE GIRL MOVIE
A THESIS
Submitted as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Sarjana Degree of
English Department Faculty of Arts and Humanities UIN Sunan Ampel
Surabaya

By:
Soraya Marhaeny A83212146

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES
STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF SUNAN AMPEL SURABAYA
2016

ABSTRACT
Marhaeny, Soraya 2016. Men’s Speech Features Used by Amy Elliott as Woman
Character on Gone Girl Movie. English Department, Faculty of Arts and
Humanities, State Islamic University of Sunan Ampel Surabaya.
The Advisor : Prof. Dr. Zuliati Rohmah, M.Pd
Key Terms
: Language and Gender, Men’s speech features, Amy Elliott

This research focuses on men’s speech features used by the woman
character (Amy Elliott) on Gone Girl movie. Men’s speech features are several
types of speech which reflect assertiveness of men’s Speech. Meanwhile, the
woman in the movie of Gone Girl is identified often to use kinds of men’s speech
feature in her daily life. Therefore, this becomes somethings unique for the writer.
The writer tries to analyze kinds of research problems. The first, what are men’s
speech features used by Amy Elliott on Gone Girl movie? The second, how are
the situations in the use of men’s speech features by Amy Elliott?
Through this thesis, the writer used qualitative descriptive to describe
Amy’s character in speech deeply. It describes men’s speech features used by
Amy Elliott as woman character. The data was taken from the utterances of Amy.
Those utterances are classified and analyzed based on aspects of pronunciation,
vocabulary, syntax, and manner in speak.
The result shows 120 words are used by Amy Elliott and classified into
nine linguistic categories. Those are 7 fewer -ing, 4 adjectives, 10 adverbs, 20
swear words, 18 pronouns, 22 declarative sentences, 7 imperative sentences, 9
nonstandard grammars, 23 interruptions, identified as Amy’s utterances in the
movie Gone Girl. The situation that caused men’s speech features most appeared
when she talked to cross-gender. She often used kinds of men’s speech features in
every situation and condition but most of them are coming in informal and anger

situations in every category.
By reading this, researcher hopes the reader will increase their knowledge
about men’s speech features deeply. The next researcher can identify more about
characteristics of men’s speech featured which used by man to compare the other
linguistic features from some experts.

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ABSTRAK
Marhaeny, Soraya 2016. Men’s Speech Features Used by Amy Elliott as Woman
Character on Gone Girl Movie. English Department, Faculty of Arts and
Humanities, State Islamic University of Sunan Ampel Surabaya.
The Advisor : Prof. Dr. Zuliati Rohmah, M.Pd
Key Terms
: Language and Gender, Men’s speech features
Skripsi ini menganalisa tentang Men’s Speech Features yang merupakan
suatu gaya bahasa yang menjadi ciri-ciri Bahasa laki-laki. Disamping itu Bahasa
yang umumnya digunakan oleh para laki-laki, menjadi Bahasa yang digunakan

oleh karakter utama dalam film Gone Girl yakni Amy Elliott yang notabene
seorang wanita. Oleh karena itu, ini menjadi suatu hal yang menarik bagi penulis
dalam menganalisa setiap Bahasa yang digunakan oleh Amy Elliott. Penelitian ini
mencoba untuk menjawab dua rumusan masalah. Pertama, apa saja Bahasa Amy
yang termasuk dalam kategori Men’s speech features. Kedua, bagaimana situasi
yang tergambar ketikan Amy mengucapkan Bahasa-bahasa yang menjadi ciri-ciri
Bahasa laki-laki.
Dalam skripsi ini, penulis menggunakan metode kualitatif deskriptif,
karena bertujuan mendalami secara mendalam penggunaan men’s speech features
yang digunakan Amy Elliot sebagai karakter utama. Data yang dialmil berupa
kata maupun kalimat yang diucapkan oleh Amy sebagai pemeran utama wanita di
film ini. Kalimat tersebut diklasifikasi dan dianalisa berdasarkan dari aspek
pengucapan suatu bahasa, kosakata, pengaturan kata/kalimat, tingkah laku dalam
berbicara.
Hasil analisa menunjukkan bahwa ada 120 kata yang diucapkan oleh Amy
Elliott dan diklasifikasikan ke dalam 9 kategory linguistik. Terdapat 7 fewer -ing,
4 adjectives, 10 adverbs, 20 swear words, 18 pronouns, 22 declarative sentence, 7
imperative sentence, 9 nonstandard grammars, 23 interruptions, yang diucapkan
oleh Amy dalam film Gone Girl. Situasi dalam penggunaan tutur kata laki-laki,
sering terjadi ketika Amy berbicara dengan lawan jenis. Penggunaan men’s speech

features banyak terjadi didalam situasi percakapan yang tidak resmi dan situasi
marah, pada setiap kategori.
Penulis berharap melalui penelitian ini pembaca semakin memahami luas
tentang bahasa yang dapat digunakan manusia laki-laki maupun perempuan serta
mampu mendefinisikan secara mendalam tentang karakter wanita dalam
berbicara. Akan lebih baik jika peneliti selanjutnya dapat membahas mendalam
tentang bahasa yang benar-benar digunakan oleh laki-laki.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Inside Cover Page ................................................................................................... i
Inside Title Page .................................................................................................... ii
Declaration Page................................................................................................... iii
Motto Page ............................................................................................................ iv
Dedication Page ......................................................................................................v
Thesis Advisor’s Approval .................................................................................. vi
Thesis Examiner’s Approval .............................................................................. vii

Acknowledgement .............................................................................................. viii
Table of Contents ................................................................................................. ix
Abstract ................................................................................................................. xi
Abstrak ................................................................................................................. xii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1

Background of Study .................................................................................1

1.2

Statement of the Problem ..........................................................................4

1.3

Objectives of the Study ..............................................................................4

1.4

Significance of the Study ...........................................................................4

1.5

Scope and Limitations................................................................................5

1.6

Definition of Key terms ..............................................................................5

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.1

Gender Studies ..........................................................................................7

2.2

Theories on Sociolinguistic and Gender Differences in Language .......8

2.3

Linguistic Features on Male ...................................................................10

2.3.1 Pronunciation usage ................................................................................10
2.3.2 Vocabulary usage ...................................................................................11
2.3.2.1 Adjectives .....................................................................................11
2.3.2.2 Adverbs ........................................................................................12
2.3.2.3 Swear words ..................................................................................12
2.3.2.4 Pronoun .........................................................................................13
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2.3.3 Syntactical usage .....................................................................................14
2.3.3.1 Declarative Sentence ...................................................................14
2.3.3.2 Imperative Sentence ....................................................................14
2.3.3.3 Nonstandard Grammar ..............................................................15
2.3.1 Interruption ..............................................................................................16
2.4

Previous Study ..........................................................................................17

2.5

Gone Girl Movie ......................................................................................18

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODS
3.1

Research Approach .................................................................................20

3.2

Subject of the Study .................................................................................21

3.3

Instruments ..............................................................................................21

3.4

Data and data source ...............................................................................21

3.4.1 Data collection .........................................................................................21
3.5

Data Analysis ...........................................................................................22

CHAPTER 1V FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1

Findings .....................................................................................................26

4.1.1 Men’s Speech Features in Amy Elliott Speeches ...................................26
4.1.1.1 Pronunciation Usage ..........................................................................29
4.1.1.2 Vocabulary Usage...............................................................................31
4.1.1.3 Syntactical Usage................................................................................38
4.1.1.4 Interruption .......................................................................................44
4.1.2 Situation of Men’s Speech Features in Amy Speeches .........................46
4.2

Discussions ...............................................................................................56

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
5.1

Conclusion .................................................................................................58

5.2

Suggestion .................................................................................................60

REFERENCE ......................................................................................................61
APPENDIXES

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study
This research discusses about men’s speech features in Amy Elliott as woman
character and situations that caused Amy to use masculine traits in her speech on Gone
Girl movie. In sociolinguistics language and gender recognized as interdisciplinary
academic field that investigates variety of speech associated with a particular gender or
social norms for such gendered language use. The first step to study gender is to explore
the difference between men and women (e.g., Jesperson 1949; Lakoof 1973;
Zimmerman & West 1975; Holmes 2001). Aspects that appear in Amy’s speech
features based on men’s speech features can be investigated such as; the use of
pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and manner of her talking.
The study of gender is important to the study of language. When doing
interaction, we need an understanding about what people said. Sometimes between man
and woman have their own style to communicate or it can be said as their own speech
features. Physical appearances and voice qualities are two things of women and men
differences which can be seen clearly. As human being men have their own
characteristics which women do not have. Man and woman have different features
which make them different in several aspects. Academic research has shown that while
women tend to have more expressive, tentative, cooperative, and polite communication
characteristics, men used more agressive, assertive, direct and powerfull
communication traits (Merchand 2012:16).

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Wood (2011) has explained that men and women grown in different gender
speech communities thus, develop different communication styles. Wood stated, “a
speech community exists when people share understandings about goals of
communication, strategies for enacting those goals, and ways of interpreting
communication” (p. 125). According to Wood’s research (2005) that gender roles are
the source of differential communication between males and females.
Robin Tolmach Lakoff as the professor of linguistics at the University of
California at Berkeley since 1972. She explained about language features on male and
female. In her 1973’s research about Language and Woman’s Place explained about ten
elements of speech features that women use. Those speech features were claimed as
speech that often used by women than men. Lakoff admitted her finding based on her
intuition and observation. They are considered as representation of women expression
of uncertainty and lack of confidence. Those speech features were lexical hedges or
fillers, tag question, rising intonations on declaratives, ‘empty’ adjectives, specialized
vocabularies (precise colorterms), intensifiers, ‘hypercorrect’ grammar, ‘super polite’
forms, avoidance of strong swear words, and emphatic stress. The most widespread
belief about men's speech as compared with women are coarser and more direct. (cited
in Cameron, 1990:223-233).
Lakoff’s ideas have been appraised, discussed, disputed, accepted and/or
rejected. Followed by other linguists Holmes (1992) explained about the characteristic
of men’s languages such as, ungrammatical form, multiple negations, pronounced –in
form, deleted –ed at the end of form in pronunciation, and impolite forms are proving
it. An early observer of style in language, Jesperson (1922/1949), also observed

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women's speech to be generally more conservative than men's in the following ways:
Men are readier to coin and use new terms, pun, utter slang expressions, and employ
profanity and obscenity. Women on the other hand are shy of mentioning certain parts
of the human body and certain natural functions by the direct and often rude
denominations which men and especially young men prefer when among themselves.
Many other researchers have identified about language and gender, because it
looked so interesting when we talked about men and woman language, there are many
differences of it that can be analyzed. Most of them were used woman’s speech features
as the subject of their research like; Aulia (2014), Rosita (2008), Mu’minin (2010),
Ratih (2013). Meanwhile, comparison language between gender as interesting topic to
analyze, proven by many researchers such as; Subon (2013) and Mei (2006).
The present research analyzed in different way, she tried to analyze something
uncommon from the movie Gone Girl which is adapted from bestseller novel by Gillian
Flynn, first published on May 24th 2012. That story reminded about a book said that the
biblical myth of the creation of woman from Adam’s rib largely contributed to female
language being considered as less perfect (secondary), which was reflected among other
things in the belief that all feminine gender forms were derived from masculine forms
(Baron, 1986, p. 78) it is also possibe that women linguistic features are not always
different from men but it could be the same.
The present research intended to analyze from the other side which makes the
men’s speech features as the theory to identify language used by main character Amy
Elliott as the woman character in Gone Girl (2014) movie. The researcher was
interested to analyze it since the main character on the movie has the unique

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characteristics which most of her speech features turned to language feature that is used
by man. On that ground, this research described deeply about the characteristics of Amy
Elliott as woman character and focus on speech features from masculine form. In order
that the researcher will portray a few the masculine traits used by woman
character,‘Amy Elliottt’ of Gone Girl movie.
1.2 Statement of the Problems
Based on the background of study, a statement of the problem in this study are
as follows:
1.2.1

What are men’s speech features used by Amy Elliott on Gone Girl movie?

1.2.2

How are the situations in the use of men’s speech features by Amy Elliott?

1.3 Objectives of the Study
Based on the research problem above, the research object of this study are:
1.3.1

To identify what kind of men’s speech features used by Amy Elliott on Gone
Girl movie.

1.3.2

To find the situation that caused Amy Elliott to use such of men’s speech
features on her language.

1.4 Significance of the Study
The researcher tries to give understanding that woman characteristics are not
fulfilled by feminine utterly only, even the masculine traits also appear in woman. So
the result of this study is expected to help people know what linguistic features that
women used could possibly be similar to men features usage. It is also expected to
enlarge knowledge about language features and participate in developing

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sociolinguistic study. Hopefully, this study becomes a new reference for all students
especially for English department students. The researcher really hopes this study will
give everybody a lot of benefits and give the readers a better understanding about men’s
speech features.

1.5 Scope and Limitation
This case study is limited to identify and classify Amy Elliott’s speech features
as the woman character in the movie of Gone Girl (2014). It is because her unique
speech features have some similarities to men’s speech features. Analyzing the movie,
the writer will use Robin Lakoff’s theory as basic theory supported by others theories
to analyze the speech features.
To avoid broadening the discussion, the researcher limits this research and
focuses on dominant features used by Amy Elliottt that usually men have, such as the
style of men’s speech that Amy do.
1.6 Definition of the key terms
In order to make some key term clearly to avoid missunderstanding of the
readers. It is importans to interpret and to define the meaning of keys theory dealing
with this reaserch :
1. Language and gender :
An interdisciplinary field of research that studies varieties of
speech in terms of gender, gender relations, gendered practice and sexuality.
2. Men’s speech features:

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The characteristic of men’s speech that is used by men. Like the used
of vernacular language as the one of men’s speech features.
3. Amy Elliott: is the woman character of Gone Girl movie who has
uniqueness. The way she speaks like characteristic of men’s speech.

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CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 Gender Studies
When performing a linguistic study from a gender perspective, different aspects
are included. This study will mainly concentrate upon comparing specific linguistic
traits in the language of the man and the woman, traits that within linguistic theory and
research are labelled as typically male and female, or masculine and feminine. There
are certain aspects, linguistic features and specific insertionsn that are identified as
being characteristic of women’s speech and men’s speech respectively. The use of tag
questions added to the end of a statement, hedges such as ‘sort of’ and ‘kind of’ that
mitigate the statement, and indirect speech acts, are all features that have been identified
as feminine, whereas ‘strong’ language and assertive forms are identified as masculine.
Coates (1986) has identified certain aspects that separate women’s and men’s
conversational strategies: “…minimal responses, hedges, tag questions, questions,
commands and directives, swearing and taboo language, and compliments.” It
would be appropriate for the purposes of this study not only to examine the
number of, or variations in speech, typically masculine or feminine speech utterances,
but also to possibly comment on how these may be used.
Linguist Robin Lakoff has performed research on the language of men and
women, and has identified features that are more frequent in women’s language. In
Language, Society and Power, Pilcher and Preece also discuss linguistic features that
are seen to be typically feminine. Hedges, minimal responses, turn-taking in

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conversation, and verbosity are features that are discussed, with the comment that
they may serve a wider function than the mitigation of messages that is traditionally
discussed:
“There is a widespread belief that women use more hedges […] and
epistemic modal forms […] All these forms are said to function as
mitigation, either by reducing the force of an utterance or by expressing
the speaker’s attitude (lack of certainty) towards their utterance. […]
Several empirical studies have found a gender difference with respect to
hedges […] but the findings of most empirical studies are rather more
complex, pointing to the multifunctionality of these forms.”
(Annabelle Mooney et al; Pia Pilcher and Sian Preece 107).
2.2 Theories on Sociolinguistic and Gender Differences In Language
Gender in sociolinguistics can cause different communicative competence,
gender has brought differences in language features. It happens in both males and
females. Research shows if men had power over language to define meaning and they
showed their power in the language they used during interactions (Weatherall, Ann,
2002:5). It means gender has taken big role to show power. In the same way, gender
has connection with language. Then language is imbued with power (Weatherall,
Ann, 2002:6).
Power in language usage is very important part of gender differences in
speech features. For example, men often do interruption than women. Commonly
interruption will appear in interaction not only in same gender but also in crossgender interaction. In fact, almost all the interruption comes from males (Holmes,
Janet, 2001:294). So they use interruption as the way to show their power over women
in conversation. Another way power may be expressed in language by the way people
address each other. It will be more respectful to using real name rather than nick name.

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In fact, men on the whole, are more likely to challenge norms of language and
communication because they are generally in more powerful positions than women
(Weatherall, Ann, 2002:4).
Men and women differ psychologically from the way in which they
communicate to the way they attempt to influence other. Academic research has shown
that while women tend to have more expressive, tentative, cooperative, and polite
communication characteristics, men use more agressive, assertive, direct and powerfull
communication traits (Mason, 1994, Wood, 1996, Malts & Borker, 1982, Basow &
Rubenfield, 2003). The dominance approach to sex differences in speech is concerned
with the imbalance of power between the sexes. Powerless speech features used by
women help contribute to maintaining a subordinate position in society; while
conversely, men’s dominance is preserved through their linguistic behavior. Early
research that regards imbalance of power as a main factor toward gender speech
differences can be attributed to Robin Lakoff, and her influential work ‘Language and
Woman’s Place’ (1973). Lakoff provides a list of ten linguistic features which
characterize women’s speech, as follows:
1. Lexical hedges or fillers, e.g. you know, sort of, well, you see.
2. Tag questions, e.g. she’s very nice, isn’t she?
3. Rising intonation on declaratives, e.g. it’s really good?
4. ‘Empty’ adjectives, e.g. divine, charming, cute.
5. Precise color terms, e.g. magenta, aquamarine.
6. Intensifiers such as just and so, e.g. I like him so much.
7. ‘Hypercorrect’ grammar, e.g. consistent use of standard verb forms.
8. ‘Superpolite’ forms, e.g. indirect requests, euphemisms.
9. Avoidance of strong swear words, e.g. fudge, my goodness.
10. Emphatic stress, e.g. it was a BRILLIANT performance.
(cited in Holmes 2001:286)

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Lakoff considers the above features as evidences showing that women tend to
be more personal and emotional, but less confident than men when speaking. Also, she
believed that women’s conformation to grammar rules and politeness standards reveals
their subordinate status in the society. Theorists have suggested that these gender
differences in communication styles put women at a disadvantage when interacting with
others because they speak more tentatively than men, who are known to speak more
assertively, thus leaving the impression that men are more confident and capable as
leaders (Lakoff, 1973).
2.3 Linguistic Features on Male
It was explained above that gender has brought differences in linguistic features
on males and females. According to Hudson (In Nur: 20015:18) calls ‘linguistic item’,
such entities of sound, words, grammatical structure and so on. She concluded that
linguistic feature is a linguistic item which is used to analyze sentence or utterance by
its lexical, grammatical, phonological, syntactical or morphological features. Those
some linguistics features also used by Amy Elliot on Gone Girl movie.
Here in this part, the researcher wants to give specific explanation about what
linguistics features on males are. The researcher knows not only sorts of speech features
which belongs to woman but also man. By observing kinds of linguistic features. The
researcher tries to categories into four, mentioned in the following aspects:
2.3.1 Pronunciation usage
Phonological differences between the speech of men and women have been
noted in a variety of languages. Shuy (1969) made a study in this field, and he found

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that 62.2% of men pronounced “-ing” in a wrong way, but only 28.9% of women didn’t
pronounce right. Men often use fewer-in pronunciations than women do. For example,
when a man wants to say “leaving”, he tends to mention “leavin”. There is no –ing in
the end of word. Another example, in the words “killing” and “standing”, men prefer
pronunciation “killin” and “standin”. Those words are called vernacular form as
Holmes said (2001:153) “women tend to use more of the standard forms than men do,
while men use more of the vernacular forms fewer -in’ [in] than women do like words
swimming and typing”.
Vernacular forms as characteristic of men in using language, like Holmes said
in her book. Why men prefer to use of vernacular forms because they carry macho
connotations of masculinity and toughness. So that is why women might not want to
use such forms. Vernacular itself refers to a language which has not been standardized
and which does not have official status. (Holmes: 2001:74)
2.3.2 Vocabulary usage
We can notice that men and women tend to choose different words to show their
feelings. For example, when a woman is frightened, she usually shouts out, “I am
frightened to death”! If you hear a man says this, you will think he is a coward and
womanish. So that is why sometimes man have their own vocabulary when expressing
something like woman do. The vocabulary usage can be shown in the following aspects:
2.3.2.1 Adjectives
In our everyday life, we can notice that women like to use many adjectives, such
as adorable, charming, lovely, fantastic, heavenly, but men seldom use them. When a

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woman leaves a restaurant, she will say “It’s a gorgeous meal”. If a man wants to
express the same idea, he may only say, “It’s a good meal.” Using more adjectives to
describe things and their feelings can show that women are more sensitive to the
environment and more likely to express their emotions with words, which makes
women’s language more interesting than men prefer to use simple adjective.
2.3.2.2 Adverbs
An adverb is the part of speech (or word class) that's primarily used to modify
a verb, adjective, or other adverb. Adverbs can also modify prepositional phrases,
subordinate clauses, and complete sentences. Nordquist (2016) stated that an adverb
that modifies an adjective ("quite sad") or another adverb ("very carelessly") appears
immediately in front of the word it modifies. An adverb that modifies a verb is generally
more flexible: it may appear before or after the verb it modifies ("softly sang" or "sang
softly"), or it may appear at the beginning of the sentence ("Softly she sang to the baby").
The position of the adverb may have an effect on the meaning of the sentence.
Those relate to topic of the research, the used of adverbs in gender language are
different. The differences in the use of adverbs between men and women are; women
tend to use such adverbs like awfully, pretty, terribly, vastly, quiet, so; men like to use
very, utterly, really. In 1992, Jespersen found that women use more so than men do,
such as, “It was so interesting” is often uttered by a woman.
2.3.2.3 Swear words
Reik in 1954 affirmed that “we all know that there is a ‘man talk’ and a ‘woman
talk’” (p. 14). He observed that “men . . . will not hesitate to say ‘Hell’ or ‘Damned.’ .

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. . Women will rarely say ‘It stinks’ preferring to state that it has a bad smell”. (cited in
Haas 1979:617)
More recently, Lakoff (1973) observed that men use stronger expletives such as
shit and damn, whereas women use weaker or softer profanity such as oh dear,
goodness, or judge. Women always pay more attention to the grace of themselves and
their use of language. We rarely hear that women utter such words like “damn, fuck
you, hell,” instead they use “oh, dear, my god” to express their feelings. Let us examine
the following examples:
Woman: Dear me! Do you always get up so late? It’s one o’clock!
Man: Shit! The train is late again!
We can often here similar ways of expressing shock in everyday life. Men tend
to use more swear words than women. Women pay more attention to their manners and
politeness of using language.
2.3.2.4 Pronouns
Women prefer to use first person plural pronouns when they suggest something,
even when she suggests the other person, while men tend to use first person singular
pronoun, and when he is suggesting the other person, he will directly use the second
person pronoun.
Example: Women: We need to be in a hurry.
Men: You need to be quick.

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2.3.3 Syntactical usage
Though there are no specific rules that govern different gender to use different
grammar, we can observe these differences in almost every language.
2.3.3.1 Declarative Sentence
A declarative sentence (also known as a statement) makes a statement and ends
with a period. It's named appropriately because it declares or states something. As the
following example. These guys don't ask questions, make commands, or make
statements with emotion. They can be very simple or quite complex.
In this research man and woman also have their own declarative sentence. When
they want to get help from others, men and women express in different ways as the
following:
Women: I was wondering if you can help me.
Men: please give me a hand.
From the above example, we can see men tend to ask something directly, while women
tend to be politer. It related to the academic research that stated men are more aggressive
assertive, direct and powerful in communication traits. Besides, Coates (1998) stated
that men tend to speak directly because language seems like power for man so they can
show their masculinity through the language.
2.3.3.2 Imperative Sentence
Lakoff (1973) pointed out that compared with men, women are more likely to
use an interrogative sentence to express their idea, and they like to use tag questions,
because tag questions can make the tone less tense. Means that men are more assertive

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15

in their speech. Just as Lakoff (1973) said that women might answer a question with
rising tone, while men like to use falling tone to make a firm statement. According to
Lakoff (1973), women tent to do this because they are less sure about themselves and
their opinions than men. The different use of language also shows that women are more
likely to be short of confidence. From another aspect, we can say that women are politer
and considerate than men. Xia (2013) observed a group of boys and girls on one street
in Philadelphia, and the study found that the imperative sentences that the boys and
girls use were different. The boys used a lot of imperative sentences but the girls used
more “let’s patterns”.
Example: Boy: Give me an apple!
Girl: Would you give me an apple?
Boy: It’s time to go.
Girl: Let’s go.
2.3.3.3 Nonstandard Grammar
The use of nonstandard grammar as the opposite of standard grammar that
becomes the characteristic of women’s speech features. Men say no regard to use
correctness of syntax. He would make his utterance by using nonstandard grammar.
While women pay more attention to use precise grammar. See the following example
Woman: We are going to go to the park today.
Men: We are gonna to the park today.
Nonstandard grammar also called as vernacular language which become some
of characteristic of men’s speech. According to Holmes (2001:74) there are three
components of the meaning of term vernacular, the most basic refers to the fact that a

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16

vernacular is an uncodified or unstandardized variety. So it also relates to the research
in analyzing kind of men’s speech in the woman character on this movie.
2.3.5 Interruption
The following is based on the research of Zimmerman and West on the
interruptions men and women made in a conversation. West and Zimmerman (1983)
provide a widely accepted definition of interruption as ‘a device for exercising power
and control in conversation’ and ‘violations of speakers’ turn at talk.’ (cited in Tannen
1994: 56).
Other researchers provide more detailed definitions based on location and
function, such as Schegloff (1972), Bennet (1981), and Murray (1985). Rather than
mistaking the first speaker’s intention to relinquish a turn, for example, or
enthusiastically overlapping in agreement with the first speaker, an interruption is an
intended infringement on a person’s right to speak. In mixed-sex pairs, West and
Zimmerman found that interruptions were much more likely to come from men. In one
study, 96 percent of interruptions were made by the man; in another, 75 percent.
(Tannen, p.55-56).
Generally speaking, in a conversation involving both sexes, women often play
the role of patient listeners. They do not interrupt others often, but encourage others to
talk. However, men are eager to be heard, which pushes them to catch as many
opportunities as possible. Men do not like to be silent. This makes them appear to be
more active than women. In other words, in a conversation involving both sexes,
women tend to be silent.

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2.4 Previous Study
Ratih (2013) has investigated about Woman and Man’s Speech Syle Used
by the Main Characters in LOL (Laughing Out Loud) Movie. She used Adelaide
Haas theory that found women and men language are mostly different. It happened
because women like to maintain the relationship between each other while men like to
say what they want to say. A study more focused on woman linguistic features in the
movie is also done by Aulya (2014) Woman Linguistic Feature Ferformed By Margaret
Thatcher In the Fim Iron Lady. She examined the woman speech style in the film Iron
Lady. The result of her study conclude that there were 114 utterances spoken by woman
character which can be classified into 8 (eight) woman’s linguistic features. but in
different research method and object of the each study. Dian Rosita (2008) analyzed
the dialogue of Sex and the City drama TV series with the title An Analysis of Sexand
the City TV Series’s Dialogue Based on Ten Types of Women's Linguistic Features. It
found what types and which types of women’s linguistic features occur most frequently.
Those previous studies have some result about the linguistic features that already
shown in every object of the research.
Subon (2013), provided some insight and understanding about the differences
in men and women’s linguistics features in the Malaysian context which is made up
of multi-racial society and rich in its varied cultures, customs, traditions, beliefs and
religions. Many other studies that compare men and women speech features have been
conducted by some researchers. Mei (2006) The Gender Differences in Linguistic
Features of Dyadic Synchronous Computer-mediated Communication identified that 5
linguist features were used in the data analysis which include the choice of subject of

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the directive sentences, the use of modal clusters in directives, the use of swears, the
use of Cantonese final particles to show emotions and the use of minimal responses. It
is found that 4 of the linguistic features show significant gender difference in the CMC
data, while there is insufficient data to support or reject the remaining one. It is argued
that the linguistic features of male and female users in the dyadic synchronous CMC is
similar to that in face-to-face conversations, while some of the features may be affected
by the communication mode.
2.5 Gone Girl Movie

Gone Girl movie is a 2014 American psychological thriller film directed by
David Fincher. This movie talks about a famous writer Amy Elliott (Rosamund Pike)
lives in complicated life with her husband Nick. Nick (Ben Affleck) has another love,

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19

he has affair with his student, a beautiful young student, Andy. But Amy knew it all.
By that condition therefore, makes the main character “Amy” in the movie changed.
There is a mega-huge problem with Amy though, one that ends up seriously corrupting
her marriage. According to Amy, Nick “didn't love me, me. Nick loved a girl who
doesn't exist” (30.22). When she fell for Nick, Amy was masquerading as the girl she
thought he wanted to be with, a figment of men’s imaginations known as Cool Girl.
She doesn’t want to be weak-minded woman.

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CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHOD

This part discusses the method of the research. It consists of research approach,
subject of the study, research instrument, data and data source, data colection, and data
analysis.
3.1 Research Approach
In this research, the researcher used a qualitative descriptive method. Nazir
(1988) has suggested that descriptive research aims at describing facts, characteristics,
and the relationship among the phenomena being observed systematically, factually,
and accurately (p.63). Meanwhile, based on Mack et.al (2001:1) qualitative methods
are also effective in identifying intangible factors, such as social norms, socioeconomic
status, gender roles, ethnicity, and religion, whose role in the research issue may not be
readily apparent.
Therefore, the writer analyzed conversation in Gone Girl movie by the main
character (Amy) not only in single-sex conversation but in cross-sex conversation as
well. The researcher used this method because she wanted to gain a deep understanding
by giving rich description based on the theory of men’s speech features proposed by
Lakoff as a basic theory and also supported by other’s theory.

20

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3.2 Subject of the Study
The subject of this study was Amy Elliot as the woman character. Therefore,
the researcher analyzed Amy’s speech features while having conversation with other
characters or self-talk. On that ground, Amy’s character as the only one character that
researcher analyzed because she often used men’s speech features in her utterances
during the movie showed.
3.3 Instrument
The main instrument of this research is the resercher herself, because she was
the only instrument that important to analyze the data. The data were collected by
watching the movie Gone Girl and using the transcript to make it clear. It was from the
utterance of the main character ‘Amy’. In addition, in doing the research the writer also
added some electronic devices such as computer and office software to collect and
analyze the data.
3.4 Data and Data Source
The data source of the research was the movie of Gone Girl directed by David
Fincher in 2014, which has duration 149 minutes. The data were uterances implied in
men’s speech features used by Amy in the Gone Girl movie such as the use of venacular
form, interruption, many other styles .
3.4.1

Data Collection
To collect the relevant data, the researcher had done these stepts:
1. First watching the movie from DVD player till the end of the movie
to know all of the utterances from the character Amy.

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2. Then collecting data from the movie by gaining the transcript of the
conversation occurred in the movie for making easy.
3. Third, identifying Amy Elliot’s utterances by highlighting the script
which included in men’s speech features.
After finishing the script, the writer observed the utterance in the script to see
the main focus of Amy’s utterance which included in men’s speech features by making
a highlight in the script to mark in which part she spoken like a man in the movie.
3.5 Data Analysis
The process of analyzing data was the method used for analyzing the collected
data. The collected data were analyzed by conducting the following steps:
1. Developing Codes
To be able to identify men’s speech features, such as; pronunciation
usage, vocabulary usage, syntactical usage, and interruption. The researcher
developed coding. The data coding in this research is as follows:
No

Men’s Speech Features

Coding

1

Pronunciation usage

Fewer -ing

F-ing

2

Vocabulary usage

Adjectives

Adj

Adverbs

Adv

Swear Words

SW

Pronouns

Pro

Declarative

DC

3

Syntactical usage

Sentence

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23

Imperative

IS

Sentence
Nonstandard

NG

Grammar
4

Interruption

Int

2. Identifying the Data
After getting all of the data by highlight the transcript while watching
the movie, every men’s speech features from the woman character on Gone Girl
movie (Amy) would be identified. The writer identified each of word/sentence
by giving the code for making easy to classify each category. For example, there
are two data in one page, it becomes (page + point + data) / (159.1), (159.2) as
the picture below: the highlighted data were coded by (Pro) as pronoun and one
page there were two data Pronoun.

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3. Classifying Kinds of Men’s Speech Features
To make it easy, the writer made a table to classify each category of
men’s speech as apparent in the table below:
Table 1. Analysis of Men’s Speech Features Used by Amy Elliott
No.
1.
2.

Type

Code

Men’s Speech
Features

Datum

Frequency

Pronunciation F-in
usage
Vocabulary
Adj
usage

Adv
SW
Pro

3

Syntactical

DS

usage

IS
NG

4.

Interruption

Int

The result of this classification is shown in appendix 1.
4. Analyzing the Situation in Each Elements of Men’s Speech Features.
In analyzing the situation, the writer used Hymes (2010) method to
know the details of the situation based on SPEAKING method (Setting,
Participant, Ends, Act Sequence, Key, Instrument, Norm, and Genre). It is
simplified as apparent in appendix 2.

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No.

Code

1

F-ing

2

Adj

3

Adv

4

SW

5

Pro

6

DS

7

IS

8

NG

9

Int

Men’s Speech
Features

Partner

Topic

Setting/
scene

Purpose

Act

key

Genre

5. Drawing conclusions.
This chapter presents the analysis of the data to answer the research
problem in chapter one. The first is to answer kinds of men’s speech features
which are used by main character “Amy Elliot” and which feature is mostly
occurred on the movie Gone Girl. The second is to find the situation that caused
Amy to use such of men’s speech features on her language.

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CHAPTER IV
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1. Findings
After analyzing the movie transcripts of Amy Elliott’s speech, the researcher
analyzes and discovers that Amy exhibit some distinct linguistic features of men in her
speech. The writer found nine elements in four aspects; of pronunciation usage,
vocabulary usage, syntactical usage and manners as apparent in the following bar chart:
4.1.1 Men’s speech features in Amy Elliot’s Speeches
Chart 4.1.1 Men’s Speech Features

Men's Speech Features
25

20
18

20
15
10

23

22

10
7

7

9

4

5
0
Pronunciation usage

Vocabulary usage

Syntactical usage

Interruption

Fewer-Ing

Adjective

Adverb

Swear Word

Pronoun

Declarative Sentence

Imperative Sentence

Nonstandard Grammar

Interruption

In the first category, there is only one element of men’s linguistic features, that
is, pronunciation usage (fewer -ing). The use of fewer -ing is commonly pronounced
by Amy. She uses fewer -ing for about 7 times, the words that are usually ending in
[ing] are pronounced as [n] such as; throwing becomes ‘throwin’, thinking becomes
[thinkin], cheating becomes [cheatin] and many other things. Those are including in
men’s speech features based on pronunciation usage and focus on fewer -ing.
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27

The second category, there are four elements of men’s linguistic features from
vocabulary usage, these are; adjective, adverb, swear word, and pronoun usage. From
adjective, there are four utterances that Amy Elliot produce when we look back to the
category of adjective that women use as mentioned Lakoff (1973) that women tend to
use many adjectives in their conversation or known as empty adjective such as
adorable