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Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses 9-25-2020 Variation in Female and Male Dialogue in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A Multi-dimensional Analysis Amber Morgan Sanchez Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Part of the Applied Linguistics Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Sanchez, Amber Morgan, "Variation in Female and Male Dialogue in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A Multi- dimensional Analysis" (2020). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 5582. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.7454 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. Variation in Female and Male Dialogue in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A Multi-dimensional Analysis by Amber Morgan Sanchez A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Thesis Committee: Susan Conrad, Chair Kimberley Brown Alissa Hartig Portland State University 2020 i Abstract Media representations of gender often reflect normative societal beliefs about gender and have the ability to both reinforce and subvert those beliefs. The current study examines the linguistic characterization of male and female characters on the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a series with an overt feminist message. Previous studies of gender variation in dramatic dialogue have found that female characters tend to be portrayed as using more linguistic features associated with an interpersonal and emotional focus (involvement), while male characters are portrayed as using more features centered on the transfer of information. Previous research has also found that female writers show a stylistic preference for more interpersonal, involved speech, while male writers show a preference for more informational speech. The goal of this thesis was to determine whether female and male dialogue on Buffy differed in terms of the use of the features of involvement and whether female and male scriptwriters portrayed female and male characters in different ways. A corpus of dialogue from the show was compiled for this study and analyzed using multi-dimensional analysis, a technique within corpus linguistics that allows researchers to examine multiple linguistic features simultaneously. The results of the analysis revealed that female language on the show used significantly more features of involvement than male language and that female and male scriptwriters portrayed the characters highly consistently. Interestingly, the use of features of involvement was often portrayed on the show as a powerful form of self- expression, confidence, and empathy that corresponds with the show’s main theme of female empowerment. Although there were strong patterns, there was also variability ii within the female and male dialogue that corresponded to the context of interactions and the social relationships between characters. The results highlight the need for more studies of gender representation in the media that focus on language use and the importance of curricula that help learners develop the ability to critically evaluate popular media. iii Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the members of my thesis committee, Dr. Susan Conrad, Dr. Alissa Hartig, and Dr. Kimberley Brown, for their insightful feedback and assistance throughout this process. I especially wish to thank my committee chair, Dr. Susan Conrad, without whose guidance and support this research would not have been possible. Your expert knowledge, enthusiasm for this project, and generosity with your time are greatly appreciated. I am also immensely grateful to all of those who have contributed to the James R. Nattinger Scholarship fund. The financial support from this scholarship allowed me the freedom to focus on my academic work and complete this thesis. iv Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................ i Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ iii List of Tables .................................................................................................................. v List of Figures ................................................................................................................ vi Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Literature Review ........................................................................................... 4 Chapter 3: Methods ....................................................................................................... 25 Chapter 4: Results and Discussion ................................................................................. 35 Chapter 5: Conclusion ................................................................................................... 55 References .................................................................................................................... 64 v List of Tables Table 2.1 Linguistic Features of Dimension 1: Involved vs. Informational Production ………………………………………….. 12 Table 3.1 Number of Episodes in the Buffy Corpus by Season and Gender …. 28 Table 3.2 Dimension 1 Factor Loadings ………………………………………32 Table 4.1 Results of the Two-way ANOVA Examining the Effect of Character Gender and Scriptwriter Gender on Buffy Dialogue …… 40 vi List of Figures Figure 2.1 Mean Scores of Registers Along Dimension 1: Involved vs. Informational Production ……………………………………………13 Figure 2.2 Mean Dimension 1 Scores of Overall Female and Male Language in Star Trek ………………………………………………..14 Figure 4.1 Dimension 1 Mean Scores for Female and Male Language in Buffy the Vampire Slayer ………………………………………….36 Figure 4.2 Range of Dimension 1 Scores for Male and Female Language in Buffy the Vampire Slayer ……………………………….49 1 Chapter 1: Introduction I was nine years old when Buffy the Vampire Slayer made its television debut and sixteen years old by the time the finale aired seven seasons later. In a sense then, I grew up with Buffy. Mesmerized by the first episode, I faithfully tuned in every subsequent week for the show’s entire run. As the title implies, Buffy fights vampires, so on one level it is a supernatural adventure story. At its heart though, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a coming of age tale centered on a strong female protagonist. Yes, Buffy kicks ass, but she also struggles with academics, dating, her parents’ divorce, and the social politics of high school. She also faces serious trauma and grief. Her character is allowed to make mistakes and even be unlikable at times, a level of complexity often reserved for male characters. Buffy is a distinctly feminine hero who battles the forces of evil while wearing heels and uses her emotional intelligence and vulnerability to solve problems as often as she uses violence. As a young girl, seeing traits that are typically associated with femininity represented in a positive light in a character who embodies leadership and strength was very influential for me and helped jumpstart my interest in feminism. Re-watching the series years later from the vantage point of someone who has survived young adulthood, I was surprised to find myself even more moved by the triumphs and travails of the “Scooby Gang,” as Buffy and her friends call themselves. As a student of linguistics, I also became more interested in the distinctive, witty dialogue and complicated gender dynamics on the show. 2 Within the social sciences, gender is widely viewed as a social construct rather than an inherent biological characteristic (Lorber, 2011). Women and men learn to perform their gender roles through the process of socialization. As the predominant transmitter of cultural information and social values, language is an important factor in the socialization process and thus in the construction of gender roles (Lorber, 2011). For decades sociolinguists have examined the role of gender in the relationship between language and society. One major area of focus within sociolinguistic research on language and gender has been differences in the way that women and men use language (see Coates, 1993; Holmes, 1995; Lakoff, 1973; Tannen, 1991). Analyses of popular media, such as television, can be a useful way of exploring gender variation in language because media representations of women and men reflect social attitudes on gender. Television dialogue is of course not the same as naturally occurring speech; however, corpus-based studies have shown that it often shares many of the core linguistic features found in conversation (Quaglio, 2009; Al-Surmi, 2012). Beyond its similarities to real speech, television dialogue is also of interest because it represents the way that scriptwriters believe women and men talk. Examinations of dramatic dialogue can therefore reveal perceived differences in the speech of men and women, which can shed light on underlying assumptions about their roles in society. This study uses a corpus linguistics approach to examine the dialogue of male and female characters on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The show’s

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