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ANALYSIS OF WOMEN’S LANGUAGE FEATURES OF EILIS LACEY IN THE

BROOKLYN MOVIE SCRIPT

Studies on language and gender in sociolinguistics place a strong emphasis on how

gender affects how language is used. The connection between gender and language is the

connection between gender and the idea of men and women. Women are compelled to develop a

weak, insignificant, and submissive manner as part of their socialization, which is effectively

educating them to be subordinate. Lakoff (1975) provided a list of ten women’s language

features. 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, avoidance of strong swear words, and emphatic

stress. Women's language can be seen in literary works, such as films, which reflect the real state

of society and which include sentences and utterances, as in the film "Brooklyn." Therefore, in

this essay, Nick Hornby's Brooklyn movie's script was examined. It centers on the main

character, Eilis Lacey. To examine the data, I applied Lakoff's (1975) theory on woman’s the

language features.

Data 1: Lexical Hedges

Context: Eilis hesitates and feels unsure when another character asked her about

something.

“No. I mean, I don’t try. I… I just put them on”

“Let me say what I want to say. I think... I think you’ll... I don’t think you’ll mind”
 In these conversations, Eilis uses lexical hedges because she hesitates and feels unsure.

Since she is uncertain, she also tends to reduce the absolute effect of her statement by using the

expression “I mean” in her utterance. Lexical hedges are used to weaken the strength of an

assertion. When someone hedges linguistically, they avoid saying something definite and

keeping their option open (Coates, 1996, p.152). It refers that when someone hedges an

utterance, they are saying the lack of confidence in the truth preposition that showed by the

statement.

Data 2: Super-polite Forms

Context: Eilis is talking to another character which Eilis ask her something out.

Eilis : “Miss Kelly, might I talk to you?” (suddenly)

Miss Kelly : “Not if what you’re going to say will cause trouble for me in some way or

another.”

The utterance Miss Kelly, might I talk to you? reflects women’s language feature as a super

polite form. It is a kind of super polite form as polite request. According to Lakoff (1975),

women enjoy using formal language while requesting a favor from the recipient. Typically, when

asking someone to do something, people employ an imperative. An imperative frequently

expresses the speaker's impolite superiority toward the addressee. Giving an order to the

recipient is not done in exceptionally polite form. The decision to do it or not is still up to the

recipient. Without being coerced, if a person wants to accomplish something, they will do it.

Data 3: Intensifiers

Context: Eilis is talking to a girl who’s asking about her living in America.

“But I think I can say that for the first time since I’ve been in America, I’m really

happy.”
 The inclusion of the word really in Eilis’ utterance served as confirmation that intensifier

is contained in character’s utterances in this movie. According to Lakoff (1975) intensifiers,

namely so, just, really, very and quite seem more characteristic of women’s language than of

men’s language. Words called intensifiers emphasize a certain point of view. Some people use

this strategy to make their speech more meaningful by highlighting their point of view. The word

really has the ability to make an expression more intense.