An Analysis of Women’s Language

Features Used By The Female

Character ‘Mia’ In Princess Diaries
Movie

Anggit Meitri
Faculty of Languages and Arts, Yogyakarta State
University
Outline

Introduction Conclusion
Literature Riview

Research Method

Finding and Discussion

Introduction
1. Holmes said (2013: 166) that women use more standard speech
form than men because they are more conscious about their status
rather than men do.
2. In addition, women prefer speak in standard language to
vernacular language because it reflects as feminist language.
3. Lakoff (cited in Putra & Prayudha, 2019, p. 1) provides a list of
ten features of women's language. These ten types of women's
language features are lexical hedges or fillers, tag questions, rising
intonations on declarative, empty adjectives, precise color term,
intensifiers, hypercorrect grammar, super polite forms, avoiding
strong swear words, and emphatic stress.
Research Questions

1. What are women’s language

features used by Mia?

2. What is the most dominant women’s

language features in the movie The
Princess Diaries?
Literature Review
1. Women’s Language: a language that signifies the characteristics of women, such as avoiding
direct and forceful statements.

2. Robin Lakoff expressed her opinion about the relationship between language and gender. In
her research, she suggested that women have specific ways of using language. Lakoff argues
that women tend to use linguistic features, such as:
• Lexical Hedges or Fillers
• Tag Question
• Rising Intonation
• Empty Adjective
• Precise Color Term
• Intensifier
• Hypercorrect Grammar
• Super Polite Form
• Avoiding Strong Swear Words
• Emphatic Stress
Research Method
1. The researcher uses qualitative research. This method attempts to obtain deeper understanding
of a target statement of problems and to make findings more valid (Key, 1997). Mason
(2002) explains that ‘doing a qualitative research will engage us with things that matter in
ways that matter’
2. The data were collected from The Princess Diaries movie and Mia’s dialogues. The
researcher focused on the utterance that were used by Mia along the movie.
3. The instrument of the data is human instrument.
Women’s Language Features of Mia
Women’s Language Features Total Amount
Lexical Hedges / Fillers
Intensifiers
Super polite Forms
Hypercorrect Grammar
Emphatic Stress
Tag Questions
Rising Intonations
Empty Adjectives
Avoidance of Strong Swear
Words
Precise Color Terms
Total Features
Total Percentage
30 34%
25 28,74%
10 11,49% Finding and Discussion
9 10,34% 1. Lexical hedges or fillers
5 5,75%
MIA : What’s my point
again?
4 4,6%
3 3,45% LILLY : You like our uniforms.
1 1,15%
They’re equalizers.
0 0,00% MIA : (giving a speech in front of
the class) Umm… I th-
0 0,00% think… umm.. You see,
87 100% um… I… see, casual---
casual… uhh…
2. Tag Question
MIA: You want a ride, right?
Lily: Yeah, totally
Mia used a tag question in order to gain certainty.
3. Rising Intonation
Officer: School tours are on Saturday, young lady
MIA : I’m here for a meeting with my grandmother/
Officer : Name?
MIA : Clarisse Renaldi/
She used this feature because she is uncertain of her grandmother’s name since
she never meets her grandmother before.
 4. Empty Adjective
MIA : Hey Lana?
Lana : Huh?
MIA : That is such a cute cheerleading outfit. It’s so clean-cut. I bet it goes with anything.
According to Arliss (1991), women seem to have an extended vocabulary to express their
emotions verbally.
5. Intensifier
Lily : No! I don’t want to talk about alliterations!
MIA : Lily, I came up here to tell you that I’m sorry! I’m sorry I missed your cable show…
and I’m just really sorry.
 6. Hyperccorrect Grammar
MIA : …Earlier this evening, I had every intention… of giving up my claim to the throne…
and my mother helped me by telling me that it was okay… and by supporting me like she has for
my entire life.
According to Lakoff (1973), explains that instead of saying goin which men mostly do, women tend to stick
with its original form and they will say going with the g word at the end. Women use standard forms of
English all the time to reflect politeness
7. Superpolite Forms
MIA : Oh.. would you like to slide in first?
Clarisse : No, I never slide.
From the data above, it can be seen that generally, people will say Do you want to slide in first? Rather than
Would you like to slide in first? And Mia was asking her grandmother using a more polite form. Mia uses
superpolite forms because she realizes that she was speaking to her grandmother who has a higher status and
is older than her.
 8. Emphatic Stress
MIA : You were awesome! You are the coolest queen ever!
Clarisse : Ah, all in a day’s work.
According to Lakoff, women tend to use emphatic stress to emphasize utterance or strengthen the
meaning of an utterance.

Only eight of ten features of women’s language proposed by Lakoff wa found in the movie.
Precise Color Terms and Avoidance of Strong Swear words were not found.
Conclusion
1. Based on the findings, the researcher found eight features of women’s language used by Mia
in the movie Princess Diaries. They are; lexical hedges or fillers, tag questions, rising
intonation, empty adjectives, intensifiers, hypercorrect grammar, super polite forms, and
emphatic stress. The researcher doesn’t find Precise Color Terms and Avoidance of Strong
Swear words. The most dominant women’s language features used by Mia is lexical hedges or
fillers. The total number of women’s language features used by Mia is 87 those features are
divided into: 30 lexical hedges or fillers (34%), 25 intensifiers (28,74%), 10 superpolite forms
(11,49%), 9 hypercorrect grammar (10,34%), 5 emphatic stress (5,75%), 4 tag questions
(4,60%), 3 rising intonations (3,45%), and 1 empty adjective (1,15%). However, precise color
terms and avoidance of strong swear words were not found in the movie.
References
1. Aflah, L. (2016). Features and functions of women’s language in Anna’s character of Anna
Karenina movie. Unpublished Thesis. Yogyakarta: UIN Sunan Kalijaga.
2. Rubbyanti, M. A. (2017). Women‟s language in sense and sensibility BBC miniseries: a
sociolinguistic study. Quill: Journal of English Literature, Linguistics, and Translation.
Yogyakarta: Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta.
3. Arliss, L. P. (1991). Gender Communication. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
4. Holmes, J. (1992). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. New York: Longman Group UK
Limited.
5. Lakoff, R. (1973). Language and women’s place. Language in Society, 45-80.
Thank you