Contrasting Speech Styles Used By The Main Female Characters in 'Miss Congeniality' and 'G.I.Jane'.

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ABSTRACT

Untuk skripsi ini saya memilih dua buah film yang berjudul G.I. Jane dan Miss Congeniality sebagai sumber data penelitian saya karena kedua film tersebut memiliki persamaan pada tokoh utama wanitanya. Saya membahas bahasa kedua tokoh utama wanita tersebut, khususnya bahasa yang menyimpang dari teori yang dikemukakan oleh Robin Lakoff (1975) mengenai bahasa yang biasanya dipakai oleh kaum wanita.

Bertolak dari hal tersebut, saya menganalisis ujaran-ujaran kedua tokoh utama wanita dalam kedua film tersebut yang menyimpang dari teori Lakoff. Saya juga menjelaskan alasan yang menjadi penyebab adanya penyimpangan tersebut dengan menggunakan pendekatan Sosiolinguistik, khususnya teori faktor sosial yang dikemukakan oleh Janet Holmes.

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melakukan penyimpangan bahasa. Faktor yang paling dominan adalah faktor lawan bicara.

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APPENDICES

Lakoff's theory:

1. Lexical hedges or fillers 2. Tag questions

3. Rising intonation on declaratives 4. ‘Empty’ adjectives

5. Precise colour terms 6. Intensifiers

7. ‘Hypercorrect’ grammar 8. ‘Superpolite’ forms

9. Avoidance of strong swear words 10. Emphatic stress

3 conform ± deviate influenced

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Miss Congeniality

Lakoff's theory Social Factor No. Utterance

10 Yeah, I'm gonna get chip-faced. Wanna

join me? ± ±

11 You might want to call the network and pageant people. Set up a meeting. Because you’ll probably need their cooperation….

17 Dear Jesus, please forgive me...for not praying before I had a bite of my bagel

and schemer. 3

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Participant Setting Topic Function 18 That would be harsher punishment for

parole violators, Stan. (pause) And, world peace.

3

19 And thank you, Stan. 3

20 I have a really strong feeling something

will happen to these girls. 3

21 You need to stay for me, please. 3

22 Well, I would have to say, I used to be one

of them. 3

23 And then I came here...and I realized that...these women are smart, terrific people...who are just trying to make a difference in the world.

3

24 And for me, this experience has been one of the most rewarding...and liberating experiences of my life.

3

25 I would make them suffer so much, they'd

wish they were never born. 3

26 I kind of hoped it wouldn't. 3

27 But now that it has...I just want to say that...I'm very, very honored. And...moved. And...truly touched. And...I really do want world peace.

3 3

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G.I. Jane

6 Permission to speak frankly, Sir? (Salem nods) It's you, Sir. It started the moment I came here.

±

7 The shape doesn’t bother me, Sir. Just

the goddamn sweet stench. ±

8 Just treat me the same. No better, no

worse. ±

9 Listen, you moron. I'm here to stay. If you don't wanna be in my life, you've got two choices, move out or ring out. That's it. End of file.

± ± ±

10 Suck my dick! ±

11 Hooyah, Master Chief. ±

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

People are not always aware that language and gender are related although it is known that language is used by both males and females to communicate. Gender is defined as “the condition of being male and female” (Hornby, 1989: 490).

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Andrea D. Sims explains the connection between gender and language, adding that “Gendered language in industrial societies was not taken as a serious topic of study until the 1960s” (2004: par. 4). The topic, according to Sims, has been known since the publication of Robin Lakoff's Language and Woman's Place in 1975 (2004: par. 4). Later, Lakoff presents her theory of typical feminine speech style, for instance, the use of lexical hedges or fillers, tag question, avoidance of strong swearwords, and so on. (qtd. in Holmes, 1994: 286).

In reality, people's utterances may not always conform to the normal gendered speech styles. Men may speak with feminine style and women may use masculine speech styles in their utterances. These deviations can be caused by social factors, which include participants, setting, function, and topic (Holmes, 1994: 8).

I have paid special attention to some utterances that show deviation from conventional women's language, because, for me, regular utterances are not challenging enough to investigate. Then I compare these deviations with the confirmed conventional women's language. As a result, I analyze the contrasting style of language which is used by the main female characters found in the films Miss Congeniality and G.I. Jane. The analysis includes the reasons for such deviation.

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to get the intonation of the utterances in it and thus makes me understand the story better.

However, in collecting the data, I found some difficulties when making the transcript of the utterances. I could not catch some words in the films, so I tried to find the scripts from the Internet. So, the subtitles and the scripts from the Internet complement each other.

I take the films Miss Congeniality and G.I. Jane because they provide the examples of language that I wish to analyze. In addition, the two films have two similarities regarding the main female characters' professions. They are both governmental officers and they are both surrounded by males in their jobs. I suspect that their jobs and professional environment have some influence on them, including their speech style.

Considering that women's language deviation has been influenced by some social factors, the linguistic area to which the study belongs is Sociolinguistics, which is defined as “…the study of language in its social context” (Coates, 1993: 4). Another author, Holmes also states that “Sociolinguistics is concerned with the relationship between language and the context in which it is used” (1994: 1). This sociolinguistic study will use an approach that is related to the characteristics of women's language, which will be presented in detail in Chapter Two.

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Statement of the Problem

In this thesis, the problems are formulated in the following questions: 1. What utterances of the main female characters in Miss Congeniality and

G.I. Jane show deviation from conventional women's language? 2. What are the reasons for such deviation?

Purpose of the Study

The purposes of this thesis are:

1. To find the utterances of the main female characters in Miss Congeniality and G.I. Jane that show deviation from conventional women's language. 2. To explain the reasons for such deviation.

Methods of Research

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Organization of the Thesis

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I will draw some conclusion based on my findings in the previous chapter. By using sociolinguistic approach, I realize that observing the way people use language in different contexts can give information about how language works, the relationship between the speaker and the listener, and how they indicate their social identity through their language, including their gender, profession, and educational status.

From the two films, I find that men and women obviously have different ways of talking. What is more, the major female characters in both films show some deviations from the conventional women's language. They use some masculine speech styles in their speech.

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female characters deviate from feminine speech styles more frequently than conforming them.

Both characters, Gracie Hart and Jordan O'Neil, do not often use 'empty' adjectives but prefer to use ordinary adjectives which they use in daily conversation. Although the 'empty' adjectives may have the same meaning as the ordinary ones, sometimes they have a slightly different meaning and may yield different connotation. Moreover, they hardly use the emphatic stress, and especially not on the adjectives. They mainly stress the nouns or the verbs, not the adjectives. Due to the fact that they rarely stress any words, they also rarely use intensifiers which are used to strengthen the meaning of the word; thus, I do not find any deviation of the use of intensifiers. In addition, I find that O'Neil even does not use emphatic stress and intensifier in her utterances.

In both of the main female characters' utterances, I find that they seldom use 'superpolite' forms which appear in the form of indirect requests or euphemisms. On the contrary, they mostly prefer using direct requests and never use any euphemisms. As a consequence, I conclude that the nature of their professions requires them to speak briefly, clearly, effectively, and straight to the point. What is more, their speech is also influenced by their professional environment which is dominated by male colleagues who are used to using slang or colloquial expressions. The use of slang can be seen from chip-faced or hooyah.

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to use the tag questions to request for confirmation of their statements and seldom use lexical hedges. Their self-confidence is also expressed in their use of falling intonation.

In my discussion, I deliberately avoid to discuss the use of 'hypercorrect' grammar, because there is no clear information about what it actually is. I have tried to search in many sources, but they have different interpretations and examples. Therefore, I decide not to discuss 'hypercorrect' grammar.

I also find that the main female characters cannot avoid the use of swearwords when they get annoyed, angry, or surprised. However, the choice of swearwords can be different, depending on the situation. This can be seen from Hart's swearwords. When she is still a female FBI agent, she uses bastards or asshole, but when, when she becomes a beauty pageant contestant, she changes

her swearword into Jesus Christ, an expression which she uses when she is surprised.

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Different from Miss Congeniality, at the beginning of G.I. Jane the main female character, Jordan O'Neil, a topographic analyst, has speech style that conform to Lakoff's feminine speech styles and conventional women's language. She uses the deviated style of women's language after she becomes the first female soldier to counter the male soldiers' prejudice that women are both physically and mentally weaker than men. She even uses very strong swearwords, such as suck my dick, and gains new respect from the male soldiers by using such language.

In analyzing the reason for the two female characters' use of certain speech styles, I use Holmes' four social factors, which consist of participants, setting, topic, and function. These social factors normally play important roles in a person's language choice. After analyzing the films, I find that there are two most dominant social factors in the female leading characters' language choice. They are participant and function.

In these two films, the participant factor affects most of the speaker's speech style. Hart and O'Neil use different speech styles when they talk to their superior than when they talk to their friends. Yet, they change their speech style when they talk to everybody by time their relationship getting closer. Function, in addition, is also the most influential factor in the characters' language choice. I believe that both women want to show something through their utterances.

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the beauty pageant. O'Neil also speaks with the 'superpolite' form when she talks to Harper, her boyfriend, at the office.

However, topic does not affect too much why the female main characters choose the certain speech styles.

In my opinion, Lakoff's theory about the special features in 'women's language' can express women's speech style in general. However, on the grounds that their professions are commonly done by men and that they are surrounded by men, the speech styles of the main female characters in both films are strongly influenced.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

References

Coates, Jennifer. 1993. Women, Men and Language. Essex: Longman Group UK Limited.

Holmes, Janet. 1994. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Essex: Longman Group UK Limited.

Hornby, A.S. 1989. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press.

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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection>. Language Defines Gender. 2006. Planet Papers. 23 Mar 2006

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<http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/language_gender.html>. Sociolinguistics. 1 Apr 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociolinguistics>. Thibault, Linda, Ouellet, Marise. Tonal Distinctions between and Pretonic

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CD-ROM

Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2004. CD-ROM. 2004 ed. U.S.: 2004