The Violations of Woman's Linguistic Features in 'Sex and The City' Season One and Season Two.

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ABSTRACT

Tujuan dari penulisan tugas akhir ini adalah untuk mencari pelanggaran yang

terjadi pada sebuah film serial yang berjudul Sex and the City. Data yang saya ambil

adalah percakapan pada film tersebut. Analisa ini mengandung pelanggaran terhadap

fitur-fitur Robin Lakoff yaitu Women’s Language.

Dasar teori yang saya gunakan adalah Sosiolinguistik. Sosiolinguistik adalah

ilmu yang mempelajari bagaimana cara berbahasa, sikap linguistik dan faktor-faktor

dalam perbedaan bahasa di dalam kehidupan sosial yang berbeda. Ilmu ini

menekankan bahwa adanya perbedaan antara interaksi wanita dan pria dalam

berbahasa dan penggunaanya dalam sebuah percakapan.

Saya menganalisa penggunaan Women’s Language di dalam setiap

percakapan. Saya juga menganalisa bagaimana pelanggaran yang terjadi terhadap

fitur-fitur Women’s Language. Lalu saya mencari penyebab terjadinya pelanggaran

terhadap penggunaan fitur-fitur Women’s Language.

Saya menemukan bahwa pelanggaran yang terjadi pada percakapan tersebut

karena adanya perbedaan karakteristik pada perempuan di era yang berbeda.

Perbedaan mengenai kurangnya kepercayaan diri pada setiap perempuan juga

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

In the past, it was common knowledge that women had different

responsibilities in domestic affairs or in their homes. It was unusual for women to

have a job outside their homes. Women usually worked at home to take care of

their children, cleaned their houses and did other housework. They had to spend

much time at home and that influenced their language. Yet, now women have

different responsibilities. Many women nowadays have jobs to get a better life.

Men sometimes are also pleased if their wives get a job. It makes women have the

same responsibilities as their husbands or as other men. They have responsibilities

not only at home but also with their work or job. This means that the kind of

language they use is also different. They are influenced by their setting, public

life, friends, surroundings, their personalities and also men.

Generally, women do not have a job like speaking in a small group in a

private place after they have finished working at home. But it is also usual for

working women. Women like having a savings-club in their houses. Yet now,

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night club. So, it makes women different in using register of language. They tend

to use strong swear words, non superpolite forms, incorrect grammar, and also use

language like men do. They could possibly talk about something taboo in a public

place, or somewhere else.

This language phenomenon is interesting to be analyzed. Therefore, I take

an interest in learning something about the phenomenon called women’s

language. It makes me choose to discuss a topic about the violations of women’s

linguistic features. I find many data in a film series, Sex and the City. I take two

seasons of this film series to analyze as the data. Therefore, the title of my thesis

is “The Violations of Women’s Linguistic Features in Sex and the City Season

One and Season Two”. Many theories prove that women should be more polite

and careful in their utterances to indicate her being feminine. Yet, I find that some

women violate these theories. In reality, such an assumption does not seem to be

purely correct. It is often found that women also use rude words or sentences that

do not sound polite, or in fact are rude to be heard.

It is generally known that women’s language is different from that of men.

I take two seasons of Sex and the City for my analysis because there are so many

violations that I can obtain from the series. Also, I can look for the development

of their use of language, to notice if it changes or not. The central characters of the

movie are Carrie Bradshaw, Samantha Jones, Charlotte York and Miranda

Hobbes. Sometimes they use the rude words because they have to deal with

certain situations and make more interruptions than men. This does not match

with their image as metropolitan women. Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte are career

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she writes about Sex and the City. Sex is something taboo to be discussed but she

treats it as something usual to write about to the public in New York. Samantha is

a public relations officer in a café. She relates with the people who come in the

café. Charlotte is also a career woman. She collects art objects. She meets a lot of

clients and other people in doing her job. And the last one is Miranda. She is an

aggressive woman, and she is influenced by her surroundings in using language,

as she is a lawyer. In addition, I discuss not only these central characters but also

people surrounding them.

The significance of my topic is to prove that the theories of women’s

linguistic features are not always applicable in women’s conversation nowadays

because I find out that women often violate these linguistic features in their

conversation. Accordingly, I hope I can find out the reason why these women

violate such women’s linguistic features by doing this analysis.

The approach I use is Sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics studies the relation

between linguistic form and social and psychological context; language and

gender; discourse strategies (e.g. indirectness and politeness); discourse genres. I

choose this approach because, in analyzing my data, I have to know how these

women engage in conversations and build relationships with the speakers.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

1. Which utterances show the violation of women’s language in Sex and the

City?

2. What type of features are violated by the main characters in the Sex and

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3. What are the factors that make the main characters violate the features?

1.3 Purpose of the Study

1. To find the utterances of violation of women’s language in Sex and the

City.

2. To know what features are violated by women.

3. To find out the factors that make the main characters violate the features.

1.4 Methods of Research

There are several steps that I take in gathering data for my methods of

research. First, I consult a number of books related to women’s language. The

primary text used is Janet Holmes, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Secondly,

I apply the theory of women’s language and its violation by means of the film

series Sex and the City. In particular, I watch the television series and find some

conversations that violate women’s language. Then I write down the

conversations and relate them to the theories. After that, I analyze the reasons why

the central characters use language in such a way.

1.5 Organization of the Thesis

This thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter, Introduction,

includes Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the

Study, Methods of Research and Organization of the Thesis. In the second

chapter, I present the Theoretical Framework, which is the explanation about the

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chapter, I discuss the analysis of the data that I obtain. I analyze the reason why

women and men use such language. Then in the fourth chapter, I conclude the

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

Women nowadays are influenced in using language that is usual to be

spoken by men or by their surroundings. It is because women now more often

socialize with others than staying in their homes. As metropolitan women, like the

four characters in Sex and the City, they prefer being outside than being inside

their homes. They spend much time in the mall, café, office, parks, and also on the

road. Therefore, it makes them change their attitudes, so, automatically their

language is changed as well. Each character in Sex and the City uses different

violations, for example: superpolite forms, precise color terms, lexical hedges or

fillers, tag question, empty adjectives, avoidance of strong swear words and

hypercorrect grammar. But sometimes they make the same violations.

According to Lakoff, women tend to use Lexical Hedges, Tag Question,

Rising Intonation, Intensifiers, Emphatic Stress, Empty Adjectives, Precise Color

Terms, Hypercorrect Grammar and Avoidance of Strong Swear Words. In reality,

this is not absolutely true. There are many women now who do not follow

Lakoff’s features. Lakoff also said that women have lack of confidence. This is

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American women, are very confident about themselves. They are confident

because they feel they are not hanging on the men. They can be independent of

men. It is proved because they sometimes do not have a relationship with men.

They can stay in an apartment alone and do the men’s work by themselves. Their

attitudes automatically influence their language. If they act like a man, they will

speak like a man.

Based on my analysis, I prove that a career woman is possible to be

impolite. It is proved when I analyze the four characters in Sex and the City. Sex

and the City gives a description of women in metropolitan city. Many women

nowadays in this film series are career women. Like the each character in Sex and

the City, they have jobs and spend much time outside the house. Therefore, their

language is influenced by their surroundings. This causes them to violate the

women’s linguistic features of Robin Lakoff. Carrie violates the superpolite

forms. Charlotte violates the precise color terms. Miranda violates the superpolite

forms and avoidance of the strong swear words. Samantha violates the avoidance

of strong swear words, lexical hedges or fillers, tag question and the empty

adjectives. Samantha and Miranda like using strong swear words when they feel

anger. They are emotional women who get angry quickly. And if we analyze the

characters of them, we will see that they are more masculine than the other two

friends. And it is also the factor why they use more violations than others.

All the violations discussed above prove that Robin Lakoff’s theories are

not always applicable. Lakoff published her theories in 1975 and the change of era

since then also makes change in the way of using language. It is proved when I

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women has also changed. They can become more confident because they can do

things without men. They sometimes act like a man. They show their

disappointment by using swear words. They also have much of humor when they

speak in public. They say something directly without using superpolite forms.

Usually, women will use more superpolite forms although the time is not in a

polite situation. But based on the analysis, superpolite forms are seldom to be told

by the characters even it is on the polite situation. The activities of men are able to

be done by women. It shows that women can be tough like a man. They also feel

they can do anything like a man. If we relate this with the era, the change of era

sometimes also changes women’s attitudes and increases their level of confidence.

After I analyze the data, I come to the conclusion. I conclude that not all

women use the women’s linguistic features of Robin Lakoff. They sometimes

violate the features. The reasons are: Women nowadays are more confident. They

can go outside alone without men. More of them tend to have jobs now as career

women than taking care of children and doing some house works. It is proved in

the character of Miranda, who feels she has lost her friends when she has a baby.

The attitudes of women have also influenced their language. Women also become

more independent. They can do anything they like without men. Sometimes they

can utter rough words if men have annoyed them. In these ways, women want to

show that they are independent.

I, as the writer of “The Violations of Women’s Linguistic Features in Sex

and the City Season One and Season Two”, want to give some advice for the other

writers who want to write on the same topic or on a topic related to ideas of

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women nowadays. As I said before, the change of era also changes women’s

attitudes. And the attitudes of women also influence their language. Lakoff did the

observations of women’s language in the 1970s. By doing research based on

modern life, you will know the differences between women in the 1970s and

women nowadays. It will make it easy to find the violations of women’s linguistic

features. Automatically, you will get the data for being analyzed. Second, you

must know the character of women who are observed, to make easy for you to

know the reasons why the characteristics violate the women’s linguistic features.

Therefore, the violations of women’s linguistic features are interesting to be

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

References:

Holmes, Janet. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. London: Longman, 1992.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Spain: Longman, 2001.

Internet Website:

Putlearningfirst.com: 23 Sexism. Ed. Susan Githens. 1998. 3 April 2006.

<http://www.putlearningfirst.com//>

Soc.hawaii.edu: Book Review. Leon. 2002. 3 April 2006.