GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE USE OF
LINGUISTIC FORMS IN
LEAP YAR MOVIE
A THESIS
Submitted as in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree Of Sarjana Sastra
By:
NEZAYANA FEBRIANI Registration Number : 2113220029\
ENGLISH AND LITERAURE DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
ABSTRACT
Febriani, Nezayana, 2113220029. Gender Differences in the Use of Linguistic Forms in Leap Year Movie. A Thesis, English, Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan, 2016.
The study deals with the use of linguistic forms in Leap Year movie script. The researcher analyzes nine linguistic forms based on Robin Lakoff’s theory. There are lexical hedges/fillers, emphatic stress, tag question, empty adjective, intensifier, vernacular forms, superpolite forms, precise color terms, hypercorrect grammar. The data of the research were the conversations which have been categoried to two parts. First, the conversations of the main characters only, and second, the conversations of the main characters and other characters. The data that support this study were obtained by applying descriptive qualitative method by selecting and analyzing the movie script. The findings showed that only 7 out of 9 linguistic form that existed in Leap Year movie, andman used linguistic forms more than woman with 56.66% and woman only 43.33% in main characters conversations, and man with 31.57% linguistic forms and woman 68.42% linguistic forms in main characters with other characters conversations.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Great thanks and praise to the Almighty Allah SWT and The Prophet Muhammad SAW who had blessed and given the ability to the write to complete her thesis as the partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Sarjana Sastra at the English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance and the help of several individuals who always contributed and extended their valuable assistances in the preparation and completion of this thesis. The writer’s special appreciation goes to:
Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean Faculty of Language and Arts, State University of Medan.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English and Literature Department, Dra. Meisuri, M.A., the Secretary of English Department, Nora Ronita Dewi, S.Pd., S.S., M.Hum., the Head of English Education Program and Syamsul Bahri, S.S., M.Hum., the Head of English Non-Educational Program, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed., her Academic Advisor for helping, guiding the writer in preparing and finishing this thesis.
Dr. Hj. Siti Aisyah Ginting,M.Pd., her Thesis Supervisor for helping, guiding and giving his time in preparing and finishing this thesis.
Dr. I.W. Dirgeyasa, M.Hum., and Dr. Anni H. Pulungan, M.Hum., as her Thesis Examiners.
All her beloved friends in English Literature A & B 2011 & 2012, her besties Riska, Rizka, Rina, Nita, Buna and Mawa for every memories shared together. Her strive and struggle friends, Ucha, Oonk, Eka, Kak Ai and Icha for helping her through the process and her kostmates, Riska, Kak Lisa, Kak Icut and Kak Rosi. Also thanks for someone for the support and pray, even he is far from her. All people who direct and indirectly contributed and could not be written here due to limited pages, all her prayers go to you.
Medan, September 2016 The Writer,
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f. Hypercorrect Grammar... 17
CHAPTER IV THE DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ... 30
A. The Data ... 30
B. Data Analysis ... 30
1. Types of Linguistic Forms ... 31
2. The Implication of Linguistic Forms ... 38
C. Research Findings ... 42
D. Discussion ... 43
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ... 45
A. Conclusion ... 45
B. Suggestion ... 46
REFERENCES ... 48
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LIST OF TABLES
Pages Table 3.1 Type of Linguistic Forms ... 29 Table 4.1 Linguistic forms in main characters only conversations ... 31 Table 4.2 Linguistic forms in main characters with other characters
conversations ... 31 Table 4.3 Linguistic forms by comparison in main characters only
conversations ... 39 Table 4.4 Linguistic forms by comparison in main character
with other charactersconversations ... 39 Table 4.5 The comparison of linguistic forms frequency used by main
characters in their only conversations ... 40 Table 4.6 The comparison of linguistic forms frequency used by main
LIST OF APPENDICES
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study
It is undisputed that as living creature, human needs to socialize. Human
needs to communicate with others in order to fulfill their needs. That is why
communication becomes a very important factor in human’s life daily basis. The
ability to communicate or the general right of communication make it possible to
exchange opinions, thoughts and meanings. It enables people to express
themselves and show their own points of view.
There are many factors that influence the way people communicate or use
language, such as geography location, age, social status, gender, etc. This causes
vice versa influence towards the language and the society. People can influence
the language itself, and upside down, language can influence the speaker itself.
The linguistic choices in any social interaction are influenced by the following
social factors. First, the participants i.e. who is talking or how the relationship
between the speakers. Second, the social context of the conversation or the setting
i.e. the place of the interaction will influence the kind of linguistic repertoire used.
Third, the topic of the interaction which affects the linguistic choices. Finally, the
function of the interaction determines the type of linguistic repertoires used in an
interaction, is the function of the conversation referential i.e. to give information
One of many factors which creates language variation is gender. It is
because male and female are different physically and psychologically. It affects
on how they will create different way of saying and interpreting anything. Male
tend to use their logic while female will use their feeling. Contrast divergence
between male and female affects to their different language style and topic of
conversations. Subon (2013 : 3) states that men talk more about things related to
jobs, while women tend to accentuate on family, home, feelings and emotions. He
also states that women’s speech is very much influenced by their choice of
linguistic forms. They prefer to use a lot of questions to enquire about information
which indirectly helps to develop quite a fair participation especially in terms of
turn taking by all the interlocutors. Further explanation, Subon (2013) addsthat,
the women’s speech is shorter in forms than the men’s and they switch from one
topic to another in a shorter time than men. It is found that women use more polite
forms of address than men, ask more questions and use more humours than men.
Notably, men used slightly more of fillers, hedges and affirmatives than women.
Analyzing the linguistic forms used, women appear more polite than men as they
prefer using their ethnic group terms of address when addressing and referring to
one another. However, both genders are direct in their speech.
Here is the example of linguistic forms that were taken from the
conversations of the movie in 20th minute.
Declan : What the hell you doing?
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Declan : Give me that. It's personal.
Anna : You fried my BlackBerry.
Declan :You fried the whole village! Idiot!
Anna :Jackass.
From the conversation above, there were some linguistic forms that found :
a. First, the question from the male character (Declan), he used the
vernacular form, namely the use of grammar in informal situation
language. “What the hell you doing?” was used in spite of “What are you
doing?”
b. Second, there was an emphatic stress used in the word “village” as form of
emphasizing.
c. The last, in the other hand, the female character (Anna) used the
vernacular form in vocabulary too, ”Jackass” as form of responding.
The researcherwas interested in analyzing this case because many unique
opinions in the society have been existed for years about the use of man and
woman’s language. Al-Harahsheh (2014 : 3) states that studying how men and
women use language in interaction has been the obsession of many sociolinguists
all over the world such as in the USA, the UK, etc. One of the most differences
that can be found in women and man’s conversation is linguistic form. The writer
takes a movie as the element of research because it is found more real since the
characters are talking in a way people usually do. Beside that, the writer also
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been contributed in the use of language in the terms of gender. After her theory
was emerged, there were also many researches conducted to prove the similar
field. Many researchers said that Lakoff’s theory depended too much on her own
opinion and the myth which came from the society regarding the gender
assumption(Subon, Frankie. 2013.Nemati, A. & Bayer, J.M. 2007.Cholifah, Y.
W., Heriyanto., & Citraresmana, E. 2013). There were many oppositions against
her theory, especially concerning about the use of linguistic form itself. When she
tried to emphasize that women are the only one gender who use the linguistic
form, many researches said that even men are not less to use it in conversation.
Indeed, this study provided some insight and understanding about the differences
in men and women’s linguistics form in Leap Year movie.
B. The Problems of the Study
Based on the background above, the problems of the study were
formulated as the following:
1. What were the linguistic forms found in the conversation of female and
male characters in Leap Year movie?
2. How was the implication of linguistic form used in the language of female
and male characters in Leap Year movie?
C. The Objectives of the Study
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1. To know the linguistic forms in the conversation of female and male
characters in Leap Year movie.
2. To describe the implication of the linguistic form used in the language of
female and male characters inLeap Year movie.
D. The Scope of the Study
The researcher limitedthe scope of this study only the analysis of
conversations of the main charactersin Leap Year movie. The conversations were
divided into two parts, the main characters only conversations (Anna and Declan)
and main characters with other characters conversations.
E. The Significances of the Study
The findings of this study are expected to be useful theoretically and
practically. Theoretically, it is expected to be relevant and useful to provide more
horizons to theories of Sociolinguistics, particularly the use of linguistic forms
and gender.
Practically, the findings can also be guidance for the researcher who wants
to do further studies which related to the terms of language variation based on
gender. It is also aimed to increase the students’ and reader understanding and
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion
The goal of this study was to examine the use of linguistic forms based on
the gender of the speakers. It can be concluded that the findings of this research
included two big points as the answer of the research questions.
1. The linguistic forms that used in Leap Year movie were 7 only out of 9.
They were lexical hedge, emphatic stress, tag question, empty adjective,
intensifier, vernacular forms, and superpolite forms.The dominant
linguistic form that used by both gender in their only conversations was
lexical hedges and dominant linguistic form in their conversations with
other characters was superpolite forms. The dominant linguistic form used
by male in the main characters only conversations was lexical hedges and
the dominant linguistic form used by female was vernacular form. The
dominant linguistic forms used by male in the main characters with other
characters conversations were lexical hedges and emphatic stress and the
dominant linguistic form used by female was superpolite forms.
2. Man tended to use lexical hedges or fillers in both parts of conversations,
the main characters only conversations and the main characters with other
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use were dominantly taken by man instead of woman. While woman
mostly use emphatic stress and superpolite forms in male and female
conversations and also both gender with others conversations. Male even
tended to use more linguistic forms rather than female. It certainly showed
that man could also use linguistic forms in their conversations and even
take a part dominantly over female. But in the other hand, as could be seen
in the second table, their conversations with other characters, female
tended to use linguistic forms more than male. It seemed that female still
showed their features in bigger social context conversations.In main
characters with other characters conversations analysis, it is found that the
male character mostly use lexical hedge and the female character use
superpolite forms.Man in this case tended to use lexical hedge consistenly.
It showed that even man can also talk with woman feature which signals
the uncertainty and politeness. And man, believed to talk the way they
want because they have more power in society or higher class in any social
status. Besides, woman chose to talk more politely.
B. Suggestion
In relation to the conclusion, suggestions were staged as the following.
1. This study expected the reader to understand the types of linguistic form
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2. It was suggested to other researchers and the students of Applied
Linguistics who wanted to do further studies particularly Sociolinguistics
in terms of gender to start analysing based on many researches in order to
get deeper understanding of different language use based on linguistic
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