AN ANALYSIS OF WOMEN'S LANGUAGE FEATURES USED BY AN AMERICAN TRANSGENDER WOMAN ACTRESS NICOLE MAINES IN YOUTUBE PODCASTS

AYU RATNASARI FIRMANSYAH (321418082)
Skripsi
Pembimbing
Muziatun, S.Pd, M. App. Ling, Ph.D (0004028201)
Muzdalifah Mahmud, S.Pd., M.Pd (0009107804)
Tanggal Upload
22-12-2023
Abstract

Ayu Ratnasari Firmansyah (Student’s ID: 321418082). 2023. An Analysis of Women’s Language Features Used by An American Transgender Woman Actress Nicole Maines in YouTube Podcasts. An Undergraduate Thesis. Principle Advisor: Muziatun, S.Pd., M.App. Ling., Ph.D. Co-advisor: Muzdalifah Mahmud, S.Pd., M.Pd. English Language Education Study Program, Faculty of Letters and Culture, Universitas Negeri Gorontalo. Huge numbers of studies regarding women’s language feartures has been conducted. Lakoff (1975) suggests that women have their own charactertistics to convey their language. Transgender woman is a person who changed the gender from male to female. From the stand point of language study, the researcher found that it is interesting to see women’s language features used by a transgender woman who was previously born as a man. This research analyzed women’s language features used by an american transgender woman actress Nicole Maines in YouTube Podcasts using the theory of Lakoff (1975). This study was conducted by using the descriptive qualitative method. Based on the analysis, the data showed Nicole used all the ten features of women’s language despite she is a transgender woman. It includes lexical hedges or fillers (1.153 data), intensifiers (195 data), emphatic stress (78 data), empty adjectives (20 data), avoidance of strong swear words (9 data), super polite forms (5 data), hypercorrect grammar (4 data), tag question (2 data), rising intonation (2 data), and precise color terms (1 data). Derived from the findings, the dominant feature employed by Nicole was lexical hedges or fillers with the frequency of data use 1.153 from the total 1.472 data because in the podcasts Nicole was answering the questions about her TV series and Comic given by the host, thus by answering she used hedges and fillers a lot to fill empty spaces when she was thinking and was referring to the past statements and events. The next dominant features is intensifiers with 195 frequency of data use and the least is precise color terms which only appeared once. The findings revealed that Nicole used all the features of women’s language despite that she is a transgender woman. Lastly, this research is expected to inlarge the insight of EFL learners about women’s language features. Furthermore, this can be a source for further researchers who interested in the same fields. Keywords: Women’s Language Features, Transgender Woman, Nicole Maines’s utterences, YouTube podcasts, Sociolinguistics