That is so Feminine! An investigation of intensifiers as characteristics of female speech through the use of so and really in modern television programming

This paper investigates the use of intensifiers by males and females in recent episodes of the television show Gossip Girl. Data was collected from ten recent episodes of the show, aired from February to May 2012. The use of the intensifiers so and really was recorded with the gender of both the speaker and the listener noted. The results showed th at the female characters used significantly more intensifiers in total than did the males. They also showed that one male in particular used almost as many intensifiers as the female who used the most overall. The results of the data collection s upport the early findings given by authors such as Lakoff, Jespersen and Key, as well as the findings of the 1998 study by Aries on language features and their use by male and females. This study proves that the intensifiers so and really are more commonly used by females than males and the refore that they are quite possibly a characteristic of female speech in modern television programming, although a larger data sample may be helpful in confirming this finding. There are many conflicting views on what does and does not characterise female language. This paper focuses on the frequency of the use of intensifiers by males and females and investigates whether it is a language feature specific to females or whether gender makes no significant difference to intensifier use. To avoid confusion it is important to first clarify the defini tion of ‘intensifier’ used in this paper. An intensifier is a grammatical tool (usually an adverb) used to indicate and often increase the emphasis given to the word it is modifying (Dictionary.reference.com 2012). Oxforddictionaries.com (2012) has the following entry for intensifi er: “an adverb that is used to modify an adjective. Intensifiers show how much of a quality something has; Intensifiers can also modify other adverbs”, for example: That is really pretty; thank‐you so much. The aim of this paper is to look at intensifier use as a language feature an d to investigate the frequency of intensifier use in relation to gender. It does this with language data collected from the television program, Gossip Girl, in which the use of the intensifiers so and really, plus the gender of the character uttering these items, were recorded to identify differences and/or similarities. Initial research into female speech an d its common characteristics has produced varied results. There is of course Lakoff’s frequently cited claim in Language and Woman’s Place (2004) that the intensifier so occurrs much more frequently in women’s speech than in men’s. Prior to Lakoff’s work there was Otto Jespersen’s statement in Language: its Natur e, Development and Origin (1922) that the intensive adverb was a favourite among women and was commonly used in such expressions as “He is so charming! ” and “It is so lovely”. Key’s study, published in 1975, also supports the view that intensifiers are more likely to be found in female speech than in the male equivalent. Sh e writes that “Females make much more use of intensifiers, the often‐emphasized words such as: ‘so, such, quite, vastly’” (Key 1975: 75).