An Analysis of Lakoff's Women's Language Features in Oprah Winfrey's Speech at the University of Southern California = An Analysis of Lakoff's Women's Language Features in Oprah Winfrey's Speech at the University of Southern California

The use of women language has been discussed for a long time. Therefore, this study presents to see how far the use of women language by women in this era. This study discusses the use of women language features by Oprah Winfrey in her speech for the 2018 graduating class at the University of Southern California based on Lakoff’s theory.
This study aims to (1) identify the features of women language contained in the commencement speech delivered by Oprah Winfrey at the University of Southern California; (2) analyze the functions of those women’s language features; (3) identify the most dominant features that appear in Oprah’s speech.
This study used Lakoff’s (1975) theory and applied mixed method to analyze the data. The data were taken from Oprah's utterances in the video and the text of the speech. Furthermore, the writer categorized the data into ten features of women's language based on Lakoff's theory, described their functions, and determined the dominant features.
The results show that there are six out of ten features of women language in Oprah's speech, namely hedges or fillers (3.27%), empty adjectives (6.54%), intensifiers (10.28%), hypercorrect grammar (35.98%), superpolite forms (6.07%), and emphatic stress (37.85%). The function of hedges and fillers is to give a moment to think about the next utterance. Empty adjectives are used to show a feeling of admiration for something. Intensifiers and emphatic stress are used to strengthen the utterance, while hypercorrect grammar and superpolite forms are used to show politeness and respect. Emphatic stress is the most dominant feature in Oprah's speech.

Keywords : women’s language features, Oprah Winfrey, speech, Lakoff’s theory, language and gender