STRONG EXPLETIVES, EMPTY ADJECTIVES AND TAG QUESTIONS USAGE AS A GENDER MARKER IN A SERIAL FILM “F.R.I.E.N.D.S”

This article examines the phenomenon of men and women’s language. This article focuses on three linguistic features of men and women’s language. They are expletives, empty adjectives, and tag questions usage. These three linguistic features used by speakers in their utterances are believed to convey speakers’ feelings as well as their social meanings. This qualitative descriptive research socio-linguistically provides the insight of how men and women speak differently through these three linguistic features by Lakoff (1975) and Holmes (2001). The data are taken from a serial film Friends. Apparently, the present writer has found out that strong expletives words found in Friends characters’ utterances are used to show speaker’s expression of anger, frightening, start, until frustration and also sometimes to be the curse words to elicit humor. The founding empty adjectives words are to show speaker’s expression of joy, interest and also gratitude and speaker’s agreement of something. The tag questions are used by speakers not only to show speakers’ uncertainty but also to get information more detail, and to involve hearers to agree what speakers have stated before. Another founding mentions that men and women don’t speak differently but they just express their feelings in different way through different linguistic features depending on their hearers.