e-ISSN 2549-7715 | Volume 6 | Nomor 2 | April 2022 | Hal: 286-291

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GENDER LANGUAGE USED BY MAIN CHARACTERS IN HIDDEN

FIGURES FILM

Siti Seliyanti Aneira Husain, M. Bahri Arifin, Indah Sari Lubis

Fakultas Ilmu Budaya, Universitas Mulawarman
Jalan Flores No. 1 Samarinda
Email: seliyantianeira@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Language is a primary need in society and makes it really could not apart from
every people and has become a part of our life. The study that is having a
relationship between language and society is sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics is a
branch of linguistics that focuses on the study of language in society.
Sociolinguistics covers many topics such as language and gender. Gender can be
seen with how men and women play a role and act in society depends on their
social and cultural provision and how they are raised to use language will affect
how they behave. Gender language appears in many literary works, and one of
them is Hidden Figures film. Hidden Figures film contains men and women’s language
features and there are also the evidences that gender language exists in that film.
This research focused on analyzing the features of gender language and the
characteristics in gender language through descriptive qualitative research. The
result of this research showed that there were eight women’s language features
found and six men’s language features found by the researcher in Hidden Figures
film. The researcher found women’s language features in Katherine’s utterance,
those features are lexical hedges, tag question, rising intonation on declaratives, empty
adjectives, intensifiers, superpolite forms, avoidance of strong swear words and emphatic
stress. Then for men’s language features, it is found that there were six men’s
language features in Al Harrison’s utterance, those features are minimal responses,
hedges, question, command and directives, swearing and taboo language and compliments.
In addition, the researcher also performed best characterizing in gender language in
Hidden Figures film based on how many features appeared in two characters.
Keywords: language and gender, men’s language, women’s language

ABSTRAK

Bahasa merupakan kebutuhan primer dalam masyarakat dan benar-benar tidak bisa lepas
dari setiap orang karena telah menjadi bagian dari kehidupan kita. Kajian yang ada
hubungannya antara bahasa dan masyarakat adalah sosiolinguistik. Sosiolinguistik adalah
salah satu cabang ilmu linguistik yang berfokus pada kajian bahasa dalam masyarakat.
Sosiolinguistik mencakup banyak topik seperti bahasa dan gender. Gender dapat dilihat dari
bagaimana laki-laki dan perempuan berperan dan bertindak dalam masyarakat sesuai
dengan ketetapan sosial dan budaya mereka, dan bagaimana mereka dibesarkan untuk
berbahasa akan mempengaruhi bagaimana mereka berperilaku. Bahasa gender muncul

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dalam banyak karya sastra, salah satunya adalah film Hidden Figures. Film Hidden Figures
memuat fitur-fitur bahasa laki-laki dan perempuan dan juga terdapat bukti bahwa bahasa
gender ada dalam film tersebut. Penelitian ini fokus pada analisis fitur bahasa gender dan
karakteristik bahasa gender melalui penelitian kualitatif deskriptif. Hasil penelitian
menunjukkan bahwa terdapat delapan fitur bahasa wanita dan enam fitur bahasa laki-laki
yang ditemukan oleh peneliti dalam film Hidden Figures. Peneliti menemukan fitur bahasa
wanita dalam ucapan Katherine, fitur-fitur tersebut adalah hedge (terkungkung / terbatasi),
menggunakan tag question, menaikkan intonasi dalam pernyataan, menggunakan empty
adjectives, menggunakan intensifiers, menggunakan ragam bahasa yang (sangat) sopan,
menghindari kata-kata makian, menggunakan penekanan empatik. Kemudian untuk fitur-
fitur bahasa laki-laki, ditemukan enam fitur bahasa laki-laki dalam ucapan Al Harrison,
fitur-fitur tersebut adalah respon minimal, hedge (terkungkung/ terbatasi), pertanyaan,
perintah dan arahan, bahasa makian dan tabu dan pujian. Sebagai tambahan, peneliti juga
menampilkan karakterisasi mana yang paling cocok dalam bahasa gender difilm bahasa
gender berdasarkan banyaknya fitur yang muncul pada dua karakter
Kata kunci: Bahasa dan Gender, Bahasa Perempuan, Bahasa Laki-laki.

A. INTRODUCTION
Communication is an important thing to make a good social
relationship. People use a language as what they need to communicate with
other people differently as women and men use a different language.
Language is a primary need in a society and makes it really could not be
apart from every people so that language and society are correlated. Thus,
the study that is having a relationship between language and society as a
language user is sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics is concerned with
investigating the relationships between language and society with the goal
being a better understanding of the structure of language and of how
languages function in communication. In sociolinguistics, there is a
language and gender. According to Wardaugh (2010), gender is something
we cannot avoid, it is part of the way in which societies are ordered around
us, with each society doing that ordering differently.
In the study, the researcher wanted to use film as an object of the
research. The film was adapted from non-fiction book by Margot Lee
Shetterly. This film tells about the incredible untold story of African-
American women mathematicians, Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson)
and her two friends, Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary
Jackson (Janelle Monae) who worked as a human computer in the West
Area Computers division of the Langley Research Center in Hampton,
Virginia. The researcher was interested in analyzing this film because the
researcher preferred to use the film than the book because it made the
process of analyzing this research become easier. It needs the sounds
(intonation and stressing) clearly of the main character’s utterances when
conducting this research.
In conclusion, the researcher used language and gender theory by Robin

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Tolmach Lakoff (1975). The researcher chose the Hidden Figures film as the
object of this study. The researcher focused on the analyzing the utterance of
Katherine and Al Harrison characters. So thereby, the title of this research
was “Gender Language Used by Main Characters in Hidden Figures film”.

B. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
1. Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is concerned with investigating the relationships between
language and society with the goal being a better understanding of the
structure of language and of how languages function in communication; the
equivalent goal in the sociology of language is trying to discover how social
structure can be better understood through the study of language, e.g., how
certain linguistic features serve to characterize particular social
arrangements. (Wardaugh p. book for linguistics)
2. Language and Gender
In general, gender can be defined as the physical and social condition of
being male/female. Gender is system in which there are only two
possibilities, a person must be a man or woman. Gender is one of the major
topics in sociolinguistics that discusses about the connection between
structures, vocabularies and ways of using particular language and the social
roles of the men and women who speak these languages (Eckert, 2003).
According to (Coates; 1986), language and gender is a language that signifies
the differences in men and women’s behavior and roles that are a result of
social expectations.
Lakoff has stated in her book (Language and Woman’s Place) that there
are many things that underlie the appearance of differences between women
and men's language. There are six language features in men language
according to Coates are minimal responses, hedges, question, command and
directives, swearing and taboo language, and compliments. Then in women
language there are ten language features, lexical hedges, tag question, rising
intonation on declaratives, empty adjectives, precise color terms, intensifiers,
hypercorrect grammar, superpolite forms, avoidance of strong swear words,
and emphatic stress.

C. RESEARCH METHOD
1. Research Design
Qualitative is one of research methods used to analyze in the form of the
text data. Denzin and Lincoln (1998) asserted that qualitative research
emphasizes the process of discovering how the social meaning is constructed
and underlines the relationship between the investigator and the topic
studied. Then, according to Borg & Gall (1989) descriptive studies primarily
concerned with finding out “what is” that might be applied to investigate the
research question.
In this research, researcher used descriptive qualitative method of
research as the research design to collect the data. The researcher wanted to

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describe all of the facts objectively that related with gender language features
which is exist in Katherine and Al Harrison utterances in Hidden Figures
film. This research aimed to obtain deep understanding about gender
language features in the movie script.
2. Data and Data Source
The data that researcher used in this study were in the form of words,
phrases, clauses, and sentences which are conducted from the whole
utterances related to Al Harrison and Katherine characters as the object in
this research. The data source is from Hidden Figures (2016) film (the movie
script) directed by Theodore Melfi from an adapted non-fiction book by
Margot Lee.
3. Research Instrument
The researcher herself was the key instrument. As the instrument, the
researcher used Hidden Figures film and several related journals to help the
researcher in this research at collecting and analyzing the data focusing on
Katherine and Al Harrison’s utterances.
4. Data Collection
There are several steps that the researcher uses in this research:
1. The researcher watched Hidden Figures film several times as much as
it needs.
2. The researcher read the play script of the movie a couple of times
carefuly.
3. The researcher focused on Katherine and Al Harrison’s utterances
and collecting the word, phrases, clauses, or even sentences that belong
to data of the research related to gender language features.
5. Data Analysis
The researcher analyzes the data after collecting the data from the form
of words and sentences in Katherine and Al Harrison’s utterances.
Qualitative data analysis is working with data, organizing them into
manageable units, synthesizing them, searching for patterns, discovering
what is important and what is to be learned, and deciding what is going to be
explained (Bogdan and Biklen, 1982). There are some steps or techniques to
analyze the data, they are:
1. Classifying all the utterances appeared in the play script;
2. Differentiate the utterances which are contained Katherine and Al
Harrison’s;
3. Observing the occurrence of the gender language features in
Katherine and Al Harrison’s utterances;
4. Describing and discussing in detail the gender language features
Katherine and Al Harrison’s utterances;
6. Triangulation
Denzin (1970) stated that triangulation is not a strategy of validation,
but it is an alternative to validation. Further, triangulation defined as the
combination of two or more theories, data sources, methods, or investigators
in a research. These are four basic types of triangulation according to

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Denzin.
1. Data triangulation is the use of variety of data sources in a research.
2. Investigator triangulation the use of more than one investigator or
researcher in a research.
3. Theory triangulation is the use of multiple theories or hypotheses to
interpret a single set of data.
4. Methods triangulation is the use of multiple methods to study a
situation or phenomenon.
Based on four types of triangulation that has mentioned above, the
researcher would apply data triangulation to establish and verify the validity
of data.

D. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

1. Women’s Language Features on Katherine’s character
In this research, the researcher has found 16 data in Katherine’s
utterance of women’s language features in Hidden Figures film. The
following women’s language features on Lakoff’s (1975) theory that found
are lexical hedges, tag questions, rising intonation on declaratives, empty
adjectives, intensifiers, super polite forms, avoidance of strong swear words
and emphatic stress.
2. Men’s Language Features on Al Harrison’s character
Coates (2004) gave language feature that used by men. There are six
language features in men language according to Coates; minimal responses,
hedges, question, command and directives, swearing and taboo language,
compliments as the following. In this research, the researcher has found 23
data in Al Harrison’s utterance of men’s language features in Hidden Figures
film..
3. The Most Frequent Used Gender Language in Hidden Figures film
After the researcher categorizes gender language features, then it
continues to analyze language features best characterizing gender language.
As mentioned above that the researcher has found 36 data of women and
men’s language features in Katherine and Al Harrison’s utterance in Hidden
Figures film. The total from women’s language features are 16 data.
Woman’s language feature that she used the most is superpolite forms which
appeared 4 times in this film. Superpolite forms indeed always say by
women rather than by men.
Second, there is Al Harrison’s utterance that the researcher wanted to
analyze in language features best characterizing. Based on data in findings,
Al Harrison used all of six men’s language. The total of men’s language
features are 20 data. Men’s language feature that he used the most is
swearing and taboo language which appeared 9 times in this film. Swearing
and taboo language is a feature which one is always used by men.

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E. CONCLUSION
The research was conducted in order to find out about what gender
language features used by main characters in Hidden Figures film. This
research focused on analyzing the utterance of main characters. To find out
the gender language features used by Katherine and Al Harrison, the
researcher uses Lakoff and Coates theory. According to Lakoff and Coates
gender language features, there are six men’s language features and ten
women’s language features.
The researcher has concluded that the majority feature of men’s
language that appears in Hidden Figures film is swearing and taboo
language. Then, the majority of feature of women’s language that appears in
Hidden Figures film is superpolite forms.

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