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2.3 Stress, Booster and Attention-getters
According to Dong (2007:57) and Shan (2006:68-74), women tend to use a wider range of pitch and different intonation than men do. Women are more likely than men to use exaggerated expressiveness, referred to as emphatic stress, by rising their intonation. By doing so, their statements become less declarative. An example of this is an utterance like ‘I wish you would try it!’ Dong states that women generally use emphatic stress because they anticipate not being taken seriously enough. Meng (2012:297) claims that boosters or intensifiers such as “so” can often be seen in female conversations. Using boosters is a way of adding friendly enthusiasm and expressing intense interest. An utterance can contain several meanings if read in different ways by rising the intonation or emphasizing some words in a sentence. Hence, the mood can be judged by different implications. Using words to attract the attention are so-called attention getters, used in the beginning of a sentence. For example, “you know what?”, “hey”, “listen.”
2.4 Swearing and Taboo Language
Swearing occurs in both male and female language. However, there is evidence that men generally use swearwords more than women. Research conducted on the separate groups of men and women shows that both groups tend to swear more in the company of their own sex. (Coates, 1993:128) Nowadays, there is an increasing tendency among women to use swearwords and taboo language. However, in the past, women belonging to lower social classes tended to use more swearwords，which can be proved that women in lower social classes are regarded as indecent and rude if they swear on the lips. In addition, people sometimes use humor for addressing taboos in certain situations. (Crawford, 1995:150-151) When facing to sex, both men and women have equal rights to talk about it. As for women, they sometimes use humor when referring to sex, which can be viewed as a way of mocking and defying the cultural ‘rules’ that tell women not to be too explicit about sexuality. It is believed that people swear or use offensive language so as to relieve one’s strong emotion.
2.5 Minimal Response
Minimal responses are paralinguistic features mainly used to support the speaker and to indicate active participation in the conversation and positive attention. The most frequent minimal responses used in women’s speech are, according to Preisler: yes, yea, no, mm, mhm, as well as non-utterances, such as nods and shakes of the head. This feature is more common in women’s talk than men’s, as women tend to make an effort in keeping the conversation going (Coates, 1993:112, 133). Minimal responses appear frequently in classes. When a teacher is delivering a lecture, he might find the phenomenon that girls nod to show they understand, agree with his points or even just to show they are still with him. In contrast, not even a little sign can be found in boys. Coates also claims that the use of minimal response does not usually represent powerlessness, as her data shows that a great deal of minimal responses is used in interaction between women who are friends and equals. Moreover, minimal responses are significant to some extent, particularly to the opposite sex. Women are inclined to give minimal responses anytime and anywhere, they always ask men if they are still with him for men never give any responses to support the speaker and indicate the listener’s active attention.
3 Linguistic Features in Sex and the City
This chapter contains linguistic analyses, focusing on gender specific traits in the language of the inpidual characters in Sex and the City. The analyses are based on transcriptions of selected scenes from the series. The characters are analyzed in the following order: Charlotte, Carrie, Miranda and Samantha. Each person is briefly introduced before the analysis to give an idea of her personality and background. Finally, the four characters will be compared in a sub-conclusion in order to figure out differences and similarities. (Turning to the appendices is strongly recommended in order to have a full understanding of the analyzed material.)