Women's language features and gendered identity construction in the movie Uglies (2024): A sociolinguistic analysis of Tally Youngblood
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66817/3z950w23Keywords:
features, hedges, Uglies movie, women’s languageAbstract
This study examines the women’s language features used by Tally Youngblood, the main character in the movie Uglies (2024). Drawing on Lakoff’s (1975) theory of women’s language, the study employs a qualitative content analysis to identify linguistic features commonly associated with women’s speech, including lexical hedges or fillers, tag questions, empty adjectives, precise color terms, rising intonations on declaratives, intensifiers, hypercorrect grammar, super polite forms, avoidance of strong swear words, and emphatic stress. The data were collected from Tally Youngblood’s utterances throughout the movie and analyzed based on Lakoff’s classification.
The findings reveal that Tally uses nine of the ten women’s language features proposed by Lakoff. A total of 76 utterances were identified, consisting of 30 lexical hedges or fillers, 13 emphatic stresses, 12 intensifiers, 8 super polite forms, 5 instances of avoidance of strong swear words, 3 empty adjectives, 3 rising intonations on declaratives, 1 tag question, and 1 precise color term, while hypercorrect grammar was not found. The most dominant features are lexical hedges or fillers and emphatic stress. The frequent use of lexical hedges reflects Tally’s uncertainty, caution, and efforts to conform to the social expectations imposed by her society, whereas emphatic stress highlights her emotional intensity and internal conflict regarding prevailing beauty standards. These findings suggest that women’s language features function not only as linguistic characteristics but also as a means of expressing identity, emotion, and social positioning within the dystopian world of Uglies.
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