Women’s Language in “Bring It On” Movie

The title of this study is Women’s Language in the Movie “Bring It On”. This study aims at identifying and analyzing type of women’s linguistic features and functionsapplied by women characters in the movie. This movie entitled Bring It Ondirected by Peyton Reed and written by Jessica Bendinger was chosen as the data source of this study. The data of this study was obtained by watching and listening to the movie to find the women’s linguistic features used by the women characters in the movie. The collected data were analyzed qualitatively in order to give clear description. There were nine features found in the conversation of women characters of the movie, such as: lexical hedges or filler (e.g. such as well, you know, I think, I mean), tag question, rising intonation on declarative, “empty” adjective, intensifier (e.g. just, so), hypercorrect grammar, “superpolite” forms (e.g. thank you), precise color, and avoidance of strong swear word. In addition, the function found in this study as of: lexical hedges that showed women uncertain about what they are saying or cannot vouch of the accuracy of their statement; using tag question to make small talk or trying to elicit conversation from the addressee because the speaker needs confirmation from the addressee; using rising intonation is to seek for confirmation; using empty adjective is to show the speaker’s approbation or admiration for something; using precise color term is related to women’s specific interest and to show that they are good in their field; using intensifier is to emphasize and strengthen the statement; using hypercorrect grammar is to show politeness to the addressee; using super polite form is to show their gratitude to the addressee; using avoiding strong swear word is to show how strongly women show their feeling about something.


Background Of the Study
Language is a way for humans to communicate and connect with each other. It is used by people to communicate with each other in order to maintain good relationship in social life.People cannot live without language because life needs language to keep their existence.There has developed an approach to linguistic research which focuses on language use within the speechcommunitycalled sociolinguistics.Coates (1986:4) defines that sociolinguistics is the study of language in social context.It covers the knowledge of how people speak differently in different social contexts. The social context can make a stylistic variation, where an individual talks in different ways in different social contexts.
People interact in society through language conversation. The participant can be a man or a woman. Man and womanhave different ways to talk to other people even they speak the same language and share the same culture. Wardhough(1986) states that men focus to talk about sports, politics, and aggression when talking with their friends. However, Women have their own way of speaking. They will talk about parenting, personal relationship and opinions, feelings, and affiliations with their friends.
The phenomenon of women's language is very interesting to be studied as it is related to the variation of gender, which is the main parameter in the language use. However, in this study women's language are analyzed by their linguistic features and their functions as represented by the main character in the moiveBring It On based on the theory of Women's Language proposed by Lakoff (1975).

Problems Of the Study
Based on the background of the study above, there are two problems that can be formulated as follows: a.
What kinds of women language features are used by the women character in the movie Bring It On ? b.
What are the functions of women's language featuresthat are used by the women character in the moiveBring It On ?

Aims Of the Study
The purposes of this study can be divided into two parts as follows: a. To identify kinds of women linguistic features in the movie Bring It On. b. To find out functions of women language in the movie BringIt On.

Research Method
In this study, the research method deals with four parts namely: Data Source, Method and Technique of Collecting Data, Method and Technique of Analyzing Data and Method and Technique of Presenting Data.

Data source
The data source that was used in this study is an English movie entitled Bring It On. It is an American comedy moviedirected by Peyton Reed and written by Jessica Bendinger.

Method and technique of collecting data
The method of collecting data in this study used documentation method.First step was watching and listening to the character's conversation, second step was taking note for the data which was considered as women's linguistic features from the subtitle on the screen of the movie and then taking screenshot of the scene and putting it in chapter III.

Method and technique of analyzing data
The collected data were analyzed qualitatively in order to give a clear description through the theory of Women Language proposed by Lakoff (1975) which is relevant with this study.Analyzing the women's linguistic features spoken by the main women's character that found in the conversation of the movie and then identifying the function of women's linguistic features that found inBring It On movie based on the theory of Women Language proposed by Lakoff (1975).

Method of presenting result of analysis
In the method of presenting data, the descriptive method wasapplied.The result of the analysis in this study was described in the form of description in order to make a clear explanation. The technique of presenting data was by elaborating the women's linguistic features and the function found in the the movie Bring It On'sconversation used by the main women characters of the movie.

Analysis Of Women's Language Features and Functions
The language features found in this movie were lexical hedges, the use of tag question, the use of rising intonation, the use of empty adjective, the use of precise color term, the use of intensifier, the use of hypercorrect grammar, the use of super polite form, and the use of avoidance strong swear words. Missy used tag question "did you" in her utterance. She used tag question to make sure that Torrance really had no idea or not. However, it seemed that she was uncertain about what she said and neededconfirmation. Tag questionwas used when speaker is stating claim but lacks full confidence in the truth of the claim. The function of tag question in the conversation above was to make small talk or try to elicit conversation from the addressee, because the speaker (Messy) needs confirmation from the addressee (Torrance). Women usually exploit tag question in order to keep the conversation going.

Rising Intonation Whitney
: In the movie, Torrance raised her voice because how shocked she was after her boyfriend Aaron had said. The reason why she raised her voice was that she needed confirmation from Aaron stating if he could come to the voting day or not.
The rising or question intonations was used when the speaker was seeking for confirmation. Torrance used the word "best" in her utterance when she tried to convince Missy to join her cheerleader team. Missy knows how to jump perfectly because she is a hard core gymnast and Torrance as the leader needs her to join the squad.

Precise Color Term Isis
: I think we can handle it. Stay in bounds. If any of you step outside that ugly blue carpet, you are dead. Torrance: Yes.
Isis used the precise color term "blue" to describe a specific thing to the addressee in this case a carpet. Lakoff (1975) stated that women make far more precise discrimination in naming colors than men do. Women used precise color term feature related to their specific interest. They use more words for things like colors. The feature found in the conversation above is intensifier "just". It can be seen that there are two intensifiers "just" in the conversation above. The function of intensifier "just" above is to emphasize and strengthen her utterance. Torrance used the modal word "may" to ask for permission in formal way. Hypercorrect grammar feature is related to politeness in utterance. One uses the grammar to show hypercorrect politeness and at the same time creates a distance between the addressees. If the utterance "may I please speak to Aaron?" turned into the non-polite or casual form, so it can be changed into Can I speak to Aaron?

Superpolite Form
Jenelope:Pauletta, you my girl! You look pow, baby! LaFred :Ooh, pauletta, girl, we love you so much! We wanna say you don't have to lose a pound! Girl, we love you just the way you are! Isis:Pauletta, we're gonna make you an honorary clover for life! Thank you so much! There isone women language features used by Isis. The feature called superpolite form and intensifier. In her utterance, she stated "thank you". Women are supposed to be particularly careful to say "thank you" and to uphold the other social conventions. Women know the right things to say to other people. In the case above, Isis says "Thank you so much" in her utterance to show her gratitude to Pauletta who help them to join the national cheerleader competition for the first time.

Avoidance of Strong Swear Words Big Red
:You guys are all great athletes, thanks in large part to me. And I know that your new captain will keep. That tradition alive, leading you to the record Sixth national cheerleading championship you know is yours. So, let's meet your new leader...Torrance shipman.

Torrance
: Oh, my god! In the conversation above it was found that the main women character of the movie named Torrance used one of the features of women's language. She used avoidance of strong swears word feature. "Oh my God" is the example of avoidance of strong swear word that is usually spoken by women and it is categorized as the weak expletive because it is swear word that was softened. In the context of the conversation above, Torrance used Oh My God in her utterance since she was really shocked and surprised to know that she was the new leader of Toros squad.