Examining the Linguistic Characteristics of Female Main Characters in the Movie "Doctor Strange in Multiverse of Madness"

Abstract

This study focuses on the analysis of women’s language features of the main characters in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” movie. The study aims at identifying the types of women’s language features and the functions in the movie. A descriptive qualitative method was used to analyse the data. The data were analysed following the types of women’s language features theory proposed by Lakoff (2004). It was found that 77 utterances in nine out of ten of women’slanguage features proposed by Lakoff (2004) appeared in the movie. Hypercorrect grammar is the most occurred in the movie with percentage 30% or 23 utterances. Tag questions, empty adjectives, avoidance of swear words and emphatic stress are less appeared in the movie with percentage 4% or 3 utterances each. The second most appeared feature is rising intonation with 27% or 21 utterances, followed by lexical hedges with 14% or 11 utterances, intensifier feature with 8% or 6 utterances, and super polite form feature with 5% or 4 utterances. Regarding the function of the features used in the movie, the women's language features serve several functions, including expressing politeness, building relationships and relationships, and conveying empathy and emotional investment in conversation. Moreover, women's language features can serve important social and communicative functions in conversation, and create a sense of relationship and understanding between speakers.