Gendered Language And Lexical Choices In English Talk Shows A Corpus-Based Investigation

Abstract

The title of the thesis is Gendered Language and Lexical Choices in English Talk Shows: A Corpus-Based Investigation. The study aims to identify the prominent linguistic features used by male and female guests in English-language talk shows. Eight episodes were chosen for analysis: five from The Ellen DeGeneres Show and three from other very popular talk shows (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Show with David Letterman). The speech of four women guests—Jennifer Aniston, Adele, Taylor Swift, and Anne Hathaway—was examined based on Lakoff's list of features of women's language, including lexical hedges or fillers, tag questions, rising intonation on statements, 'empty' adjectives, exact colour terms, intensifiers, 'hypercorrect' grammar, 'superpolite' forms, lack of strong swear words, and emphatic stress. Conversely, four male guests—Johnny Depp, Ryan Reynolds, Penn Badgley, and Will Smith—were given a grammatical examination of their speech in terms of features like minimal responses, hedges, tag questions, commands and directives, swearing and taboo words, and compliments, as necessitated by Coates and other gendered language theorists. Data was gathered through observation and transcription analysis. The findings indicate substantial differences in the frequency and kind of language features that the male and female speakers use.