Women's language features in Alaa Murabit's speeches

As much as our choice of means of communication is guided by the concepts we wish to communicate, the way we feel about things in the actual world determines how we express ourselves about these things. It means that although two individuals may be considered talking about the same thing, the true meaning they are trying to convey may be unrelated. These differences could lead to sexism and other discriminatory behavior. Women are not always used as informants in linguistic studies. In order to understand why women talk the way they do, it must first be known and understood the distinguishing features and why such features exist. This research analyzed women’s language features found in Alaa Murabit’s speeches. This research discusses two main topics: women’s language found in Alaa Murabit’s speeches and the conformity of language functions to women’s language features. The main theory used in this research is women’s language features theory, which Robin Tolmach Lakoff proposed in her paper “Language and Woman’s Place” (1973). Furthermore, the theory by Judy Pearson (1985) about women’s language functions is also used as a supporting theory to determine the conformity of language functions to women’s language features found in Alaa Murabit’s speeches. Qualitative method with descriptive analysis approach is used in conducting this research. The research objects are four videos containing Alaa Murabit’s speeches uploaded on four different Youtube channels, discussing the topics of women and women’s role in society. The result shows eight out of ten women’s language features found in Alaa Murabit’s speeches: Lexical hedges or fillers, Tag questions, rising intonation on declaratives, empty adjectives, intensifiers, hypercorrect grammar, super-polite forms, and emphatic stress. Based on the analysis, the conformity of language functions to women’s language features is that Alaa Murabit used most features, particularly emphatic stress, to show feelings and opinions. However, she also used lexical hedges or fillers to express uncertainty in her utterances