Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres
Memòria del Treball de Fi de Grau
Linguistic Analysis of Friends: The Case of Joey Tribbiani
Anna Baczyk
Grau d’Estudis Anglesos
Any acadèmic 2019-20
DNI de l’alumne: Y4882990N
Treball tutelat per Dra. Cristina Suárez Gómez Departament de Filologia Espanyola, Moderna i Clàssica
S'autoritza la Universitat a incloure aquest treball en el Repositori Autor Tutor Institucional per a la seva consulta en accés obert i difusió en línia, Sí No Sí No amb finalitats exclusivament acadèmiques i d'investigació
Paraules clau del treball: Discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, sexism in language, hegemonic masculinity, femininity performance, childish behaviours
Abstract
The study of gender discourse focuses mainly on language differences between two genders: male and female. However, it is a complex idea which cannot be directly expressed through English language. Therefore, this essay takes a sociolinguistics approach to distinguish gender differences and identities alongside linguistic features of childlike speech. Moreover, gender discrepancies have always been a subject of discussion in cultural products such as television series and films. Therefore, this dissertation will aim at sociolinguistic and linguistic representation of sexist, childish and feminine behaviours through the profound discourse analysis of one of the main characters, Joey Tribbiani, from one of the most popular American sitcoms, Friends (1994-2004). It will also present how the negative hegemonic masculinity discourse is neglected by the audience due to childlike and feminine performances defining him as one of the most attractive and sympathetic characters of the series. Additionally, the paper will give insights for further analysis on the social and cultural impact of such norms of conduct.
Keywords: Discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, sexism in language, hegemonic masculinity, femininity performance, childish behaviours
Table of Contents 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………...... 1 2. Theoretical Background…………………………………………………...... 3 3. Methodology……………………………………………………………...... 6 4. Analysis.…………………………………………………………………...... 7 4.1. Joey as a male chauvinist…………………………………...... 7 4.2. Joey as a child……………………………………………………………10 4.3. Joey’s femininity performance……………………………...... 12 5. Conclusion………………………………………………………………...... 14 6. Works Cited……………………………………………………………….……16
1. Introduction The study of gender in language has always been present in popular cultural products such as television series. Therefore, this paper is going to approach that idea by analysing language in terms of sexist, childish and feminine behaviours of one of the main characters, Joey Tribbiani, of one of the best-known American situation comedies: Friends (1994-2004). Through the language analysis we will see how feminine and childish discourses allow the audience to somehow disregard and even forgive the hegemonic masculinity qualities that transform Joey into a sexist character, becoming, in a way, counter-hegemonic discourses that let him be accepted despite his bad traits, even eventually becoming one of the most likable characters of the sitcom. According to Bednarek, characters are one of the most crucial aspects of language in a television series since the story revolves around them (2011, 185-186). Moreover, the audience also plays a significant role as it is responsible for further alternations of characters in order to fulfill the viewers’ expectations (185-186). Hence, the creators of Friends, David Crane and Marta Kauffman, shaped the character of Joey Tribbiani as a 25-year-old Italian American struggling actor, played by Matt LeBlanc. The fact of being Italian American is strongly related to ethnicity, which is a part of linguistic gender construction (Trechter 2003, 437). Often, Italian Americans carry "non-white status" and therefore perform ethnic stereotypes about them such as being the Romeo and bachelor searching for love (Cavallero and Ruberto 2016, 163). Generally, all stereotypes concerning Italian Americans reflect hegemonic masculinity. What is more, there are stereotypical linguistic features associated with people of Latin origin like “the alveolar [In] instead of [Ing] in words ending in
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gender is through personal pronouns in the third person (2). On the other hand, there are grammatical gender languages such as Spanish or French, in which all nouns are assigned feminine, masculine, or neutral (2). Despite poor linguistic forms that index directly gender identity in the English language, from the sociolinguistics perspective, there are indirect linguistic features that consist of assumptions, expectations, and norms about gender identity, sex, and (hetero)sexuality established by the society (McElhinny 2003, 35-36). Consequently, in order to understand more profoundly how sexism is present in the English language, it is crucial to establish the power of gender. In Western cultures, like in the United States of America, the power relation between sexes benefits the male gender. The reason for this happening is deeply rooted in the patriarchal gender ideology, which legitimises that men should dominate over women (Philips 2003, 254). This power relation is linked to the English language, which from the beginning was shaped by men who were "norm-makers, language regulators, and language planners" (Pauwels 2003, 550). They were the people who developed dictionaries and the language normative. Accordingly, the influence men had in shaping the English language is one of the most significant characteristics of discrimination and the presence of sexism in language. Sexism is a complex idea that cannot be identified. It consists of a bountiful number of norms, expectations, and stereotypes about each gender, although women are significantly disfavoured in this matter. Alongside Joey being distinguished from the beginning of the TV series with sexist discourses, he develops counter-discourses that display his childish and feminine behaviours, which are going to be analysed in this paper. The dichotomous performances of Joey’s persona relate to the idea of how sitcom characters change throughout the show, mainly to “sustain audience interest” (O’Meara 2015, 195-197). This explains how Joey’s chauvinist conducts negatively impacted the audience and therefore, they needed to be changed. As it was even emphasised by Matt LeBlanc, who performed the role of Joey, Joey's overly sexist actions should be a problem for the character being accepted by the audience and should be altered (Miller 2018, part 2, chap. 3). Thus, through the development and enrichment of Joey's character with childlike and feminine qualities, he became one of the most loved characters of the series. As stated in Miller’s studies, childish and metrosexual performances in sitcoms are reconstructions of masculinity, which through years became new types of masculinities that are mostly used in TV series as objects of ridicule and comedy (2011, 10-21), instead of just new modern and deconstructed ways of portraying masculinity. Thus, the fact that those characters’ qualities are a source of humour for the audience might be one of the reasons why hegemonic masculinity is disregarded. However, the interesting issue is what social impact those
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behaviours have on the audience, especially women, who are more likely to dislike male chauvinist characters. As a result, taking into account hegemonically feminine manners as well as childish performances in language, this essay will aim at observing how those can trick the audience, specially the feminine, into finding damaging discourses compensated by childish innocence and woman-like attitudes.
2. Theoretical Background There are various studies conducted on the subject of sexism and how it is expressed through language. In order to profoundly comprehend the concept of sexism, McElhinny, in her work, theorises primarily the idea of gender in language (2003). In her study, gender is defined as a social construct that is based on biological differences (23). As a consequence, there are two recognized genders: male and female. The most crucial part of the study is gender differences expressed through the language. It needs to be pointed out that as far as English language is concerned, there are few referential linguistic forms conveying gender. These include third- person pronouns and a few address forms, as well as many more non-referential forms (35). Those forms relate to social assumptions and expectations assigned to a certain gender like, for example, “the use of tag questions means you are a female speaker” (35). This view, therefore, aid the research on how to proceed with the analysis of the television dialogue to examine present sex differences in language, which have a strong relation to cultural and social assumptions about genders. Moreover, to examine the dialogue profoundly, the following paper is going to focus mainly on the discourse analysis of a language which has been determined by Bucholtz in his work, as the way language is used in context (2003, 44). Another study by Menegatti and Rubini investigates sexism in language (2017). Accordingly, language is considered to utter through specific lexical choices gender stereotypes and inequalities (1-2). What is more, as stated in their work, English language is defined as a natural gender language, where there is no grammatical marking of gender as opposed to grammatical gender languages in which all nouns are attributed to a gender (2). On account of this research, the analysis of sexism in language will focus on specific lexical word choices and phrases that carry gender- stereotypical references. Further review on the topic of gender differences in discourse is discussed by Philips, where she establishes that, according to patriarchal ideologies, women are inferior and have less power than men, and that this is reflected in discourse (2003, 255). Although usually assumptions and stereotypes in language are about gender, it is important to underline how ethnicity is also a part of linguistic gender construction. One of the most relevant works on this matter was proposed by Cavallero and Ruberto (2016), and Trechter (2003).
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Lastly, Pauwels’ feminist perspective on linguistic sexism explores how language is controlled and dominated by men (2003). Sexism in language, as it has been explored in formerly mentioned researches, is displayed through presumptions and stereotypes about a certain gender. Therefore, those cognitive beliefs about sexes, especially about men, are examined in studies of Snell, Belk, and Hawkins (1990) and Talbot (2003), where different types of stereotypes about each gender are provided. Snell, Belk, and Hawkins in their studies look into stereotypical beliefs about men's sexuality, whereas Talbot focuses more thoroughly on the general idea of gender stereotyping between women and men. As it was stated in the mentioned research by Menegatti and Rubini (2017), some linguistic forms can convey gender stereotypes such as social labels and addresses that are explored in the study by McConnell-Ginet (2003). In her work, she defines and distinguishes social labelling, and links it to gender practices like overly sexual epithets, which are commonly used by men in reference to women (2003, 83). Additionally, the theory proposed by Littlemore (2015) explores the use of metonymy, a type of figure of speech, the function of which is firmly linked to the idea of comedy conveyed in language. A different research by Bednarek (2018) tackles language arrangements such as swear/taboo words and linguistic features representative of people with a diverse ethnic background specifically in TV scripts, which was found to be essential to proceed with the analysis of Friends’ dialogue with connection to gender and ethnic stereotypes. Except for providing numerous studies that approach the idea of sexism in verbal communication, it was also found essential to the paper the aspect of non-verbal communication through which gender-biased behaviours are displayed. Consequently, the survey by Henley explores the power of gender through non-verbal cues such as the occupation of personal space mostly performed by men (1973, 9-11). Additionally, since gender bias in non-spoken communication is mostly conveyed through gestures and space requirements, constructive research by Lutzky and Lawson (2019) has been made on "manspreading" and other gender- discriminatory signs. Thus, those discoveries deliver data about the fact that not only are gender prejudices indicated in spoken languages but also in non-spoken ones. The focal point of this study is gender disparity and how it is projected through language, more specifically the English language, to identify traces of hegemonic masculine and conflicting feminine conducts in one of the character’s discourse. Besides the opposing feminine performances by the character of Joey Tribbiani, he displays another contrary behaviour to that of misogyny: childlike conduct. To explore the way in which childish attitudes are portrayed in a language, some relevant studies have been examined, written by Mcleod
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(1993), Stoll (2009) and Ferguson (1964), which focus more precisely on the phenomenon of “baby talk”, also called “child-directed speech” or “infant-directed talk”. They characterise it in terms of linguistic features such as raised pitch, word repetition (Stoll 2009, 98; Mcleod 1993, 282) and the use of diminutive endings (Balter 2000, 76). Although this type of speech is adult and child-directed according to Ferguson's study, this variety of talk can be used by a child as well, for the purpose of being treated like a baby (1964, 111). This information was found to be crucial for the research on Joey’s discourse as he implements all the linguistic features of “baby talk”. Another research by Clark addresses techniques adults use to help a child with their language acquisition such as question-answer conversational patterns (2009, 288). Besides, Mcleod's research reveals interesting information about the way the use of "infant-directed speech" toward a child portrays them as more attractive (1993, 286). Thus, the use of “baby talk” impacts sociologically on the recipient by disregarding socially less acceptable manners such as sexism. These findings allowed the analysis to reach a probable conclusion in which the use of child language would prove to have an impact in how the audience changes its vision on Joey and even manages to forget and forgive his bad qualities. More specifically, taking into account that most of the audience is female, it may be considered that their usual association with maternity, rooted in the feminine hegemonic discourse, could result into more likeability towards a childish character. Considering that this paper’s central point is the study on male chauvinist, feminine and childish attitudes displayed through the discourse of one of the principal characters from the American sitcom Friends, the study by Miller (2011) on how masculinity is seen in popular sitcoms proved relevantly useful. According to Miller, throughout the years, new types of masculinities have developed: a masculinity "based on a rejection of adulthood and the responsibilities associated with family life" (2011, 10) and "metrosexuality” (12), which are reconstructions of the old masculinity present in previous years. The most significant fact is that those masculinities are used in sitcoms for comedic purposes (21). Therefore, this finding gives emphasis to the idea that those particular behaviours disregard socially controversial hegemonic masculine conducts performed by the character of Joey. Finally, to carry out the study on the discourse of the latter, the analysis was supported by the researches of O’Meara (2015) and Bednarek (2011), where it was depicted how TV show characters are developed and altered under the audience's needs. Additionally, Miller’s book (2018) presents the in-depth process and behind the scenes of building the role of Joey Tribbiani by creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman as well as by the actor playing the role, Matt LeBlanc, who was found to be essential to recognise the origins of some particular attitudes.
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3. Methodology The data for the following study has been compiled from a total of twenty-three episodes from almost all ten seasons of Friends, excluding season four. The following analysis will be divided into three main sections that will focus on discourse, which, according to Bucholtz, from a linguistic point of view it conveys “the linguistic level in which sentences are combined into larger units” (2003, 44). In other words, this paper will analyse language in context taking into account social situations (44). The study is based on the language used by one of the main protagonists of the sitcom, Joey Tribbiani, whose language form displays his male chauvinist behaviours along with contrasting childish and feminine qualities. In order to proceed with the analysis, firstly I have examined a selection of episodes of all ten seasons of the sitcom and gathered the most reliable linguistic examples that convey the abovementioned conducts. I have selected those specific episodes since they exemplify linguistically the behaviours examined in this essay. Therefore, the first section of the analysis will concentrate on language features that define Joey as a male chauvinist and sexist character. In this section, I have extracted examples from a total of seven seasons (from one up to three episodes per season), excluding season two, four, and seven. The first season of the TV series was the most crucial regarding the shaping of all the characters of the series, including the focus of the study, by the creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman. This season was predominantly loaded with such qualities that define him as a “creep” (Miller 2018, part 2, chap. 3), which refers to his misogynistic and sexist behaviours. For this reason, I have chosen linguistic examples from three episodes: the first, fourth and eleventh. Although season one was full of most of the gender discriminative actions, they are still present throughout the entire series. To prove that, I have found examples from at least one episode from the other six seasons, the third, fifth, sixth, eight, ninth and tenth. To carry on with the first study, I have focused on different aspects that characterise sexist performance through language. The first aspect that is going to be covered through the lexical word choice is the objectification of women with relation to objects and places. The next aspect is going to disclose taboo words that carry sexual and intimate connotations towards women, which portray sexist manners. What is more, except specific vocabulary, the research will focus on specific phrases, which represent gender stereotypes, and labelling connected to the discrimination of the female gender. Finally, as the analysis is going to explore mostly the verbal communication of Joey, it is also going to briefly examine non-verbal communication since gender differences and mostly sexism can also be expressed in this way.
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The next focal point of the analysis is going to examine linguistic features that define the subject of the study with a childlike manner of conducting himself. For the purpose of this section, I have collected examples from five seasons including season one, three, five, nine and ten, ranging from one episode per season to a maximum of three episodes. The examination covers most of the seasons to prove that the childish features of Joey’s persona are developed throughout the entire sitcom. The most valuable examples were found in the middle of the series including season three, five, and nine. To examine Joey’s immature attitude, the study will be focused on “baby talk”, a characteristic way of talking for an adult directed towards a child or specific for a child since it imitates a child’s language. Therefore, the analysis will focus, firstly, on features of the “baby talk” that the subject of the study portrays through his language forms such as high voice pitch, use of diminutive word forms, and reduplication of words. Lastly, apart from Joey’s linguistic features of “infant-directed speech”, I will briefly discuss and provide an example of a specific question/answer conversational pattern significant of adult- child communication and relation. The last section of the research will examine language including lexical word choices and the context they are used in to identify the subject of the study with feminine behavioural traits. Consequently, to carry out the analysis, I have selected one episode per season, again to be able to demonstrate that those character qualities are present throughout the entire TV series. Thus, my study focuses on four seasons including season two, five, seven, and nine. The examples that have been extracted are based mostly on lexical choices, phrases that are strictly assigned to one gender and represent stereotypical women’s practices that are performed by the character of Joey. Firstly, I will examine language in context in which the stereotypical idea of women being an object of desire and being obliged to physically impress the opposite sex is present. To close the analysis, I will provide other lexical examples that define women as the gender that holds a strong relation to physical appearances including conversations about beauty and fashion. Each section of the analysis is going to explore how the language of Joey Tribbiani is defining him as a sexist, childish, and feminine character with the support of fifteen different works.
4. Analysis 4.1. Joey as a male chauvinist To proceed with the following analysis, this section will focus on the first season of the sitcom Friends, where most of the linguistic examples are found. Nonetheless, there are a few more
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examples present throughout the whole TV series. Objectification in general and sexual objectivization of women is one of the most characteristic behaviours of sexism performed by men. This behaviour is usually expressed by specific lexical word choices which carry sexual related connotations towards women. Throughout the first season Joey conveys sexual references to women through lexical choices, such as: “Strip joint!” (Crane and Kauffman 1994a, 03:10) which refers to a place where striptease is performed usually by women and their bodies are sexually objectified, or when he uses “ice cream” (11:20) in the situation when he compares women to different flavours of ice creams:
Joey: What are you talking about? 'One woman'? That's like saying there's only one flavour of ice cream for you. Lemme tell you something, Ross. There's lots of flavours out there. There's Rocky Road, and Cookie Dough, and Bing! Cherry Vanilla. You could get'em with Jimmies, or nuts, or whipped cream! This is the best thing that ever happened to you! You got married, you were, like, what, eight? Welcome back to the world! Grab a spoon! (Crane and Kauffman 1994a, 11:20)1
Thus, the character is objectifying a woman. What is more, he expresses sexual connotations towards females through the use of taboo words, which are usually sex related and inappropriate in certain contexts (Bednarek 2018, 245), like: “ass” (Crane and Kauffman 1994b, 07:20) while describing a woman, “thongs“ and “spandex” (Crane and Kauffman 1998a, 00:05), usually related to female intimate clothing, or “pillow fight”, “G string” and “doggy” (Crane and Kauffman 1999, 21:00), which implicate an intercourse and yet again intimate women’s wear during the interview with a woman. Furthermore, phrases such as “big boobs” (Crane and Kauffman 2003a, 02:05) are also used in reference to a woman's body. Thus, the abovementioned words used by the character of Joey, in unsuitable situations in reference to women, exemplifies his male chauvinist qualities by sexually objectifying women through overly sexual and gender assigned lexical choices. It all relates to the stereotype about the male gender and sexuality, which states that men are more willing to talk about sex and that they are the ones that are supposed to initiate an intercourse (Snell, Belk, and Hawkins 1990, 8). As much as hegemonic masculinity is based on stereotypes about men, it is inevitable to say that it is also heavily influenced by stereotypes regarding females. Additionally, another significant characteristic of hegemonic masculinity is women’s stereotyping and labelling, which appear throughout the series as well. Some of the main sex
1 From this block citation onwards, all the words in bold in other block citations have been edited this way to place the focus on the terms that have proved useful for the analysis of the linguistic features.
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stereotypes used by Joey are phrases such as: “women just have a lower threshold of pain than men” (Crane and Kauffman 1996c, 11:15), and during a conversation concerning a man performing a job as a nanny, with his female friend Monica, when he uses a sentence commonly used by men:
Ross: Hey...! Rachel and I hired a male nanny. Joey: (looks surprised) Really...? Guys do that...? That's... weird... Ross: Thank you! Joey: That's like a woman wanting to be a... Ross: ...a what? A what? What's the end of that sentence? Monica: Yes... What is the end of that sentence? (Crane and Kauffman 2002b, 19:30)
These expressions carry a connotation that certain male-dominated jobs are stereotypically improper for women to perform, while female-dominated jobs, as in this example, being a nanny, are hegemonically unsuitable for a man (Menegatti and Rubini 2017, 7). Labelling, on the other hand, is used by Joey through the use of epithets/insults such as “knockout” (Crane and Kauffman 1994c, 15:20) and “chick” (Crane and Kauffman 1998a, 00:05). Moreover, he characterises and addresses a woman with adjectives that have pejorative and sexual connotations such as “hot girl”, “slutty nurse” and “sexy cheerleader” (Crane and Kauffman 2001, 00:04). Hence, all the aforementioned labels carry degrading connotations towards women (McConnell-Ginet 2003, 82-83). Finally, being provided with the following analysis, it can be proven that Joey’s behaviour and language variation demonstrate male gender dominance, which defines hegemonic masculinity. This is strictly related to the cognitive belief that men tend to seek sexual dominance and conquest over the other sex (Snell, Belk, and Hawkins 1990, 3). Such a tendency is well portrayed in the life of the subject of study, who is incapable of leading a steady romantic as well as financial life. Thus, through the whole series we can see how he struggles to be in one relationship and opts instead for open relationships with many women. Joey’s misogynistic behaviours not only are displayed in the TV series through verbal communication, but also through nonverbal one. As Henley states in her paper, the assumption about nonverbal communication being “natural” is false; it is like verbal communication fabricated to express sex differences (1973, 2). As gender imbalances and differences can be expressed through verbal communication, they can also be presented through body language. In the first episode in season one, Joey has a conversation with his friends in the coffee shop and he sits in a wide leg spread position (Crane and Kauffman 1994a, 17:30). This particular seated position is characteristic of men, in fact named “manspreading”. Manspreading is a
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lexical blend of two words (man + spreading) that is widely used in online media platforms in the form of hashtags to stress on “men’s (socially problematic) behaviour” (Lutzky and Lawson 2019, 1). This neologism is used to define the non-verbal behaviour of leg-spreading performed by men, occupying public space in different forms of transportation such as subway trains and buses, which is found offensive and exploits gendered cultural discrepancy (3). Further, analysing this body posture from nonverbal communication, it refers to the distribution of personal space by both sexes (Henley 1973, 10). This particular example suggests dominance over the space since wide-leg spread occupies more physical space than a closed-leg position and, furthermore, the intimate area is exposed implying sexuality and gender power. Another example relating to the matter of space and how it displays power relations between genders is when the group of friends, including Joey, play a game called “Twister”. Joey stands behind a female character, Phoebe, in an ambiguous sexual position with a smirk on his face (Crane and Kauffman 1994b, 21:46). Thus, based on Henley’s paper, there have been studies and theories about how women have had their personal space invaded more often than men have (1973, 10). Not only is this behaviour present in the examples mentioned above, but also throughout the entire sitcom, where women suffer space oppression performed by Joey as well as other male characters from the TV show. As a consequence, as much as verbal communication can express gender bias and hegemonic masculinity, nonverbal cues can likewise.
4.2. Joey as a child As opposed to the discourse analysis of Joey’s character defining his hegemonic masculine behaviours, this section is going to focus on the language forms that portray Joey as a child- like character. Firstly, to be able to further study Joey’s childish performance, it is crucial to designate the type of speech called “baby talk” or “infant-directed talk”. In the paper written by Mcleod, “infant-directed talk” is briefly described as the type of speech which is directed by an adult to a child or infant (1993, 282). As in Mcleod’s work, in Stoll’s, “baby talk” is characterised by raised pitch and repetitions of sounds as well as larger units, like words (2009, 98). Balter’s study also suggests the use of “diminutive word forms” (2000, 76) in this type of speech. Although “baby talk” is defined as a type of adult speech directed towards a child to ease their language acquisition, it can also be used by a child to receive attention (Ferguson 1964, 111). What is more, by doing it, as stated in Mcleod’s study, a child exposed to “infant directed talk” is found to be more attractive to others (1993, 286). Therefore, based on the characteristics of baby talk, we can observe them whilst analysing Joey’s language. Most of the examples of Joey’s child-like behaviour are reflected by changing the voice pitch. The first
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feature of “baby talk” that Joey displays is high voice pitch which appears in the first episode of season one while talking about the love towards babies (Crane and Kauffman 1994d, 04:20). Furthermore, in season three, episode four, he expresses his excitement about playing with toys with a characteristically childish high voice note (Crane and Kauffman 1996b, 14:35). Finally, in season nine, in one of the late episodes, Joey expresses his enthusiasm through the use of high pitch in how he pronounces “Wooooooooow” (Crane and Kauffman 2002d, 9:50). Those are a few of many more examples of the use of high pitch voice by Joey which gives him childlike qualities. High pitched voice, apart from being one the most particular features of child-directed speech, is frequently accompanied by another feature that conveys same qualities of attractiveness and intimacy. This “baby talk” feature used by him encompasses diminutives like “little”, added to a noun in season one: “little baby shoes, and their little baby toes, and their little baby hands” (Crane and Kauffman 1994d, 04:20); in season three, “little spoon” (Crane and Kauffman 1996a, 08:20); and finally, in the last season, “little girl” (Crane and Kauffman 2003b, 18:20). In addition, diminutive words and names can be created through the addition of suffixes/endings such as -ie/-y to convey affectionate meanings (Balter 2000, 76). Hence, in the TV series, Joey names his stuffed penguin “Hugsy” (Crane and Kauffman 1998c, 4:30), which contains the suffix -y. Moreover, he is repeatedly called by his female friend by the pet name “honey” (Crane and Kauffman 1996a, 21:40; 1998b, 21:20) and, what is more evident, he is always called by the diminutive form of his name, Joey, not Joseph. Finally, reduplication or, in other words, repetition of the same words, can be found in Joey’s language. For instance, in season three, expressing his excitement again, Joey repeats words: “Open it! Open it!” (Crane and Kauffman 1996d, 05:20). Also, he reiterates the word “little” three times in one sentence in the previously mentioned example from the first season (Crane and Kauffman 1994d, 04:20). All those language features defining “baby talk” are used by Joey, who is an adult himself; however, he usually directs his speech towards other adults, which suggests that he adopts childlike behaviours to become more attractive to the audience. Except being provided with the language characteristics of Joey’s “baby talking”, one can notice some features regarding the form of conversation between Joey and other characters from the sitcom that are peculiar in adult and child communication. The most significant conversational aspect that can be found is the question/answer sequence, in which an adult provides a child with a question and an answer or expects a child to provide an answer (Clark 2009, 288). This conversational sequence appears in episode six, in season nine, between Sandy and Joey:
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Sandy: Who's up for puppets? Joey: Me! I'm up for puppets! Sandy: Well, please welcome... The Snufflebumps...Who wants to be Mr. Wigglemunch and who's gonna be the Grumpus? Ross: Okay, okay... How exactly is a two-month-old supposed to appreciate puppets? Sandy: Actually, studies have shown that the movement and colours help their cerebral development... The whimsical characters are just for us. (He winks to Joey and Rachel. Ross's face says he disapproves. Joey sees that and kind of angrily says...) Joey: I wanna be Mr. Wigglemunch. (and makes a "there" nod to Ross). (Crane and Kauffman 2002a, 25:10)
Thus, as seen in the dialogue, Sandy, who plays the role of an adult, asks Joey a question which he is expected to provide an answer to, and he does so through the use of repetition of words provided by Sandy’s questions. It is a typical strategy used by adults in conversation with a child to enforce and ease their language comprehension (Clark 2009, 287-288). In brief, the language forms mentioned above, performed by Joey, define him as a childlike persona.
4.3. Joey’s femininity performance Alongside Joey’s hegemonic masculine behaviours expressed through his language, he also shows features that are stereotypically assigned to the female gender. Once again, this analysis will focus on Joey’s language use and lexical choices that reflect women’s behavioural stereotypes that reinforce the belief that the character of Joey performs femininity. The following are instances that illustrate this behaviour. The first example of the analysis is an episode where Joey has a conversation with his friend Chandler about the type of eggs that Chandler prefers to have for breakfast, and he has to choose between Joey’s or his new roommate’s Eddie:
Joey: Eggs. Whose eggs do you like better, his or mine, huh? Chandler: Well I like both eggs equally. Joey: Oh, come on. Nobody likes two different kinds of eggs equally. You like one better than the other and I wanna know which. Chandler: Well what's the difference? Your eggs aren't here anymore, are they? You took your eggs and you left. You really expect me to never find new eggs? (Crane and Kauffman 1995, 14:36)
Thus, in this conversation we can see how Joey as well as Chandler ironically use the word “eggs” as carrying the literal meaning of eggs and at the same time conveying another hidden meaning: testicles. This type of figure of speech is called “metonymy”. As stated by Littlemore, “metonymy is a cognitive and linguistic process through which we use one thing to refer to another” (2015, 1). As in the abovementioned example, “eggs” relate to nourishment as well as
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they humorously convey an intimate male body part. Frequently, metonymy is used for humorous, ironic and other creative language purposes (2). What is more, interestingly, the conversation happens to be a stereotypically heterosexual couple argument where, in this case, the role of the man is taken by Chandler, while Joey acts like the woman, comparing himself and his “eggs”, to Eddie’s. This is a stereotypical behaviour usually performed by females since patriarchal discourses have established that women have to compete with each other. This cultural discourse embedded in women’s minds conveys that they constantly compare their bodies to those of other women, whether it is to feel better about their own or to find flaws. It is implanted by the cognitive belief that women are the object of desire to a man and must compete and compare with each other. Often enough, women stereotyping is used for laughter purposes in situation comedies (Talbot 2003, 469), as it is in Friends. By performing this type of feminine conducts even if they are an object of laughter, Joey is more likely to be accepted by the audience, especially women, and avoid being judged for his male chauvinism due to conflicting ideas. His performance of femininity is also portrayed in his choice of words. Hence, another example of female stereotypes performed by the character of Joey is through the emphasis of the gendered noun “women” with connotation to the word “bag” (Crane and Kauffman 1998b, 04:35). In the episode, he repeats twice “women’s purse” and once “women, carrying the bag”. However, he decides to carry the bag and, through that, he performs femininity, according to his own view of how this item belongs to women. Additionally, in different seasons in a conversation with his female friend Phoebe, he tries on and speaks with excitement about different types of women’s underwear and fabrics: “Bikini, French cut, thong! And-and the fabrics! You’ve got cotton, silk, lace!” (Crane and Kauffman 2000v, 16:18). This points out the typical belief that women have a strong attachment to physical appearances whether it is clothing and talking about it or wearing makeup like in one of the episodes of season nine, when Joey defines eyebrow shaping through the use of the gender denominal adjective “girly” and after asks Chandler to “curl his eyelashes” (Crane and Kauffman 2002c, 24:15). Therefore, Joey’s emphasis on gender references such as “women’s” or “girly” with connection to particular gender-stereotypical behaviours defy his hegemonic masculinity since he performs hegemonically feminine attitudes according to his own stereotypes.
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5. Conclusion This sociolinguistic study provides an elaborate idea of the way gender is projected in language and more precisely in the English language. Through the discourse analysis of one of the most iconic characters, Joey Tribbiani, from the television series Friends, the inquiry provides linguistic pieces of evidence that characterise him with sexist conducts such as specific word choices which carry sexual connotations mostly towards women, including objectivization of women, taboo words, labels and gender-stereotypical phrases. As well as verbal language displays chauvinist attitudes, body language also conveys such qualities through the occupation of personal space including "manspreading", which gives evidence to determine Joey as a male chauvinist. Additionally, this research-based on the discourse analysis of Joey Tribbiani delivers linguistic features that identify him with counter-hegemonic standards of conduct like childishness and femininity. The latter is expressed through the use of certain words connected to stereotypes about women, and the former mainly through the linguistic features of the type of speech called "baby talk". This study provides us with the idea that this linguistically demonstrated norm of conduct like hegemonic masculinity is not challenged by counter behaviours of childishness and femininity, since they are used for comical purposes in the sitcoms, but rather only dismissed by the audience, which allows the character to become accepted and likable. Therefore, it is rather interesting to observe how it is possible that language has the power of proving both harmful and redeeming at the same time. Women are usually judged and prejudiced against; however, acting and speaking feminine can compensate sexist conducts, which places femininity as something to consider weak but also at the same time strong enough to defy hegemonic damaging conducts. Nevertheless, why does femininity allow the redemption of sexist discourses when women can also legitimise discourses of sexism, both verbally and non-verbally? Additionally, it is curious how childish manners are usually either sexualised or criticised as lack of intelligence in women or minorities but allow the development of a white male character from being disliked because of his misogyny to being liked and even favoured by the public. All those questions allow to conclude how language can carry such strong and powerful counter-discourses that they have the ability to impact the audience socially and culturally. Indeed, the observation of the influence of language in sociocultural matters and the questions that it arises give the opportunity for future insights to
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be made from sociolinguistics as well as a cultural perspective on how certain behaviours affect the audience’s decision concerning characters in television series and films.
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