Compliments have so far been studied in the fields of pragmatics, translation studies, comparative linguistics

UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADEFaculty of PhilologyDifferences in Qualities Complimented on between Women and Men in Prime-time TV Series New GirlMentor: prof. Ana Kuzmanovic-Jovanovic

Author: Aleksandra Tomic, 090966Subject: Critical Discourse Analysis

In Belgrade, September 2014

Abstract

In the past several years, we have witnessed the rise of many TV shows starring female characters (Sex & the City, VEEP, Revenge), which might suggest that the era of female underrepresentation in one of the most important socialization agents of today the television has finally ended. Nevertheless, this study aims to show using the example of the TV series New Girl that female characters continue to be stereotyped, sexualized and objectified. The study gauges the instances of the speech act of complimenting to prove the hypothesis that compliments female characters receive continue to focus on one quality physical appearance. The Discussion chapter explores different ways in which the social practice of complimenting can have a limiting effect on women and their social power.Key words: compliment, speech act, earnings, grooming, appearance, gender inequalityTable of Contents:

41.Introduction

51.1. Compliments

61.2. New Girl Series

72.Data Collection

83.Results

83.1. Cs: Men to Women

103.2. Cs: Women to Men

113.3. Other categories

114.Discussion

125.Conclusion

146.References

1. Introduction

Gender identities are closely tied to a particular culture and epoch. Every culture views them differently, which manifests in the discourse a culture produces. Undoubtedly, the discourse of media represents the most powerful and pervasive influence on the ideal image of man and woman (Wood, 1994: 231). Not only does the media discourse reflect the current perception of gender identities, but it perpetuates it as well, as poststructuralists would emphasize. Unfortunately, the media continues to underrepresent women along with using stereotypical images to portray them (Signorielli & Bacue, 1999). The aforementioned conclusion is particularly relevant in the case of television, which is notorious for poorly keeping up with the cultural progress and female emancipation. A study from 1999 (Signorielli & Bacue) analyzing week-long samples of prime-time network dramatic programs broadcast between the fall of 1967 and the spring of 1998 found that women consistently receive less recognition than men on television. These facts are devastating when we take into account televisions education role summarized in the following paragraph:

Televisions role in society is one of common storyteller, it is the mainstream of our popular culture. Its world shows and tells us about life, people, places, striving, power and fate. It lets us know who is good and who is bad, who wins and who loses, what works and what doesnt, and what it means to be a man or a woman. As such, television has joined the ranks of socialization agents in our society and in the world at large. (Signorielli & Bacue, 1999: 528)

The biased and stereotypical representations of women manifest themselves on many linguistic strata in discourse. For the purpose of this research, I have chosen to analyze the pragmatic aspect of a prime-time series named New Girl, namely the speech act of complimenting. The main focus of the research will be on the qualities complimented on, as well as the difference between men and women in terms of both receiving and paying compliments.Compliments have so far been studied in the fields of pragmatics, translation studies, comparative linguistics (Holmes, J. & Brown, D. F. (1987); Holmes (1988)). Yet, it is indisputable that practices of giving and receiving compliments can offer an invaluable insight into the shared subconscious of a culture and deeply embedded cultural principles, which is why a careful observation of these practices manifested in discourse can serve as a powerful tool for critical discourse analysis. Wolfson (1984: 236) emphasizes that it has been demonstrated again and again that beneath the surface structure of the linguistic forms and the social etiquette, lies a gold mine of information on the value systems of speakers. In this paper, I shall investigate the social practice of paying and receiving compliments in the hope of uncovering the qualities in women most appreciated by the Western culture. The primary concern of this analysis will be to ascertain which qualities are most valued in women by men and in men by women. The hypothesis, despite the progress in the portrayal of women in primetime television and the seeming shift of focus to their abilities and actions, will be that the women are still primarily valued in terms of their physical appearance, which will be manifested in a significantly higher number of compliments paid on this quality.1.1. Compliments

A compliment is a speech act (Searle, 1969), defined by Holmes (1986) as one that explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some good (possession, characteristic, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and hearer (1986: 485). As compliments are generally given and accepted as a praise, they are often studied under the pragmatics of politeness (Brown and Levinson, 1987).

Holmes (1986: 488) also emphasizes that complimenting is a complex sociolinguistic skill. Further, she adds, speech acts of complimenting have a darker side, as they may be interpreted as offensive, patronizing, sarcastic, ironic or even as put downs (Holmes, 1995: 119). Giving a compliment (C) may be considered a face threatening act because it leads to the complimenters debt (Holmes, 1986: 487), where receivers may feel obliged to return the C. Early studies on Cs and CRs were carried out by in their research on. The pioneering study of Wolfson and Manes on United States English (1980) identified several lexical and syntactical features of Cs and CRs, as well as the functions they serve. They found the structure of Cs to be formulaic, as well as that speakers use a small number of adjectives in constructing a compliment. Nevertheless, Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003) emphasize that, although Cs are formulaic, their positive influence on the recipient must not be overlooked. Wolfson and Manes also found that Cs were mostly paid on two qualities: appearance and ability. Furthermore, they noted that the functions served by this speech act included thanking, starting a conversation, giving approval and reinforcing certain behaviors. Overwhelmingly, Cs served to establish solidarity among same status speakers, while they could also be used as genuine expressions of admiration. In addition, Cs could be used to mitigate a potentially face-threatening act such as criticism. The receiver of a C can opt to accept, agree, reject or disagree. As in previous studies, Holmes (1986) found Cs established or increased solidarity, rapport or intimacy.

A study conducted by Holmes (1995) cast a light on gender differences in relation to the functions of Cs. The data suggested it was more socially acceptable for women to give Cs, while for men it was perceived as a face-threatening act. In addition, she found that the frequency, structure and topics of C differed between men and women. Overall, women were found to give and receive more Cs than men. Moreover, patterns of compliments differed, since men preferred to reduce the force of the C, whereas women preferred a structure that increased its force (Holmes, 1995). Another conclusion which will be of significance for the research at hand is that men compliment more on possessions, whereas women compliment more on appearances.1.2. New Girl Series

The TV Series New Girl was chosen for the analysis primarily due to its contemporaneity and popularity, and, therefore, its presumed increased effect on the viewers. Its popularity can be attested by its 50 nominations for various awards, including Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe, and 7 wins (New Girl, 2014).

New Girl is a primetime TV series which started airing in 2011 on Fox Television. It features an offbeat young woman who moves into an L.A. apartment loft with three men, after a painful break-up (New Girl, 2014). The main character Jessica Day is a primary-school teacher who loves her job, with many peculiar characteristics and habits. The three men have issues getting accustomed to these peculiarities, but they end up liking and caring for her, due to her honesty, charm and warm personality. Her best friend Cece represents her antithesis. Namely, she is a model, and a self-confidence person. Nevertheless, it seems that most of her self-confidence stems from her beauty, which is referenced in some way by the characters nearly every time she appears.

As far as the male characters are concerned, the most prominent ones are definitely Jessicas roommates Nick, Winston and Schmidt. Schmidt represents the exaggerated, stereotypical image of the modern man, obsessed with his looks, career and sexual endeavors, as opposed to the old-fashioned man, technologically impaired, epitomized by Nick. The portrayal of Schmidt shows a dangerous tendency of imposing similar beauty standards women have been exposed to for decades to men as well. Whereas these two characters have consistent personality traits throughout the show, Winston haphazardly displays various characteristics over the course of episodes.

2. Data Collection

The material for the analysis was collected by excerpting compliment sequences (adjacency pairs) from the transcripts of 9 episodes from the first season of the series, starting from the Pilot until the episode titled The 23rd. Compliments were subsequently categorized on the basis of their subject and the gender of characters offering and giving compliments. Two main categories were devised to accommodate the data observed, compliments paid by men to women and compliments paid by women to men. The Cs paid by women to women have been scarce, whereas the Cs paid by men to men have been briefly mentioned, as a separate chart was deemed unnecessary.3. Results3.1. Cs: Men to Women

Chart 1

As the results show, there are 32 direct compliments in total paid to women by men, 39 including the indirect compliments. The categories for which the compliments were paid include appearance, possessions, actions, general positive evaluations, creations and skills. It is evident from the data that the number of compliments paid on the appearance of the female characters (18) overwhelmingly exceeds the number of compliments in other categories. Moreover, the number of compliments in this category nearly equals the number of compliments in the rest of the categories combined (21).

As far as the Cs paid to absent females are concerned, only two categories were observed: appearance and general positive evaluation. The number of Cs paid on appearance exceeds the number of Cs in the other category, albeit by 1 example. A particular example of a compliment from this category is interesting to note:Paul: Check it out. Here she is. Here's the lady.

Winston: Oh, she's beautiful!

Paul: Yeah. We used to get in the funniest arm-wrestling matches.

This particular compliment appears in a conversation between two male acquaintances. The absent female is Pauls grandmother whose picture he shows to Winston. It could be argued that this compliment represents merely a common phrase, yet it is interesting that even a female who cannot be sexualized, such as a grandmother, would receive a compliment on her appearance, rather than saying, for example: ,,She seems like a really nice lady. This might suggest the strength of the instilled assumption that females should primarily be valued for their appearance.

Nevertheless, although the percentage of the compliments paid to women by men on physical appearance is devastatingly high, it has to be pointed out that these are mostly paid to characters other than the lead character Jessica, which are often one-sidedly represented solely as beautiful women. The attitude of men and even women toward most of the female characters on the show can conveniently be summarized by a remark Schmidt directed to Cece: You have a really beautiful body, Cece. I really appreciate that about you. Admittedly, the compliments paid to Jessica, the main character, are mostly paid on her actions (8) as opposed to her appearance (4). The compliments on her actions function as support and encouragement for Jessica to overcome certain, usually emotional, issues, but also to mitigate criticism or even conceal disapproval. Whereas other women tend to be objectified and sexualized, Jessica is in most cases represented as a complete person, along with her quirks, fears, dreams and desires.

As far as the structure of the compliments is concerned, the Cs from this category, as from the others as well, may vary. In certain cases, the context is necessary for recognizing a certain utterance as a C. In order to illustrate the Cs from the corpus, several examples will be offered bellow.Appearance:

You look fantastic.

Possessions:

I like your glasses.

General positive evaluation:

We care about you. We like you.

Actions:

I think she was jealous. You did so good. That was remarkable.3.2. Cs: Women to MenChart 2

The overall number of direct compliments paid by women to men is 36, 45 including the number of indirect compliments. What can be concluded at the first sight is that the number of qualities on which the men were complimented by women is significantly higher, which can suggest that men are viewed as more multifaceted individuals, as opposed to women. It is evident that the qualities men have mostly been valued include appearance (8), actions (8) and general positive evaluations (10).

Another conclusion which can be drawn is that, even though there is roughly the same number of compliments paid on action in both the category Men to women and Women to men, a great number of the compliments paid by men on female actions actually have an underlying patronizing tone, and serve to mitigate criticism or even conceal disapproval. On the other hand, the compliments paid to men by women on their actions are in most cases the ones of true admiration.3.3. Other categories

As far as the Cs paid by men to men, and by women to women, the data proves inconclusive. In the former category there are 13 Cs, 2 of which were paid to an absent male person, whereas in the latter category only 2 Cs were paid to an absent female person. These results are most likely due to the lack of contact between women in the data collected. Namely, most of the communication is conducted between members of the opposite sexes, or among the male characters.

However, it is worth noting that only 1 C out of 13 was given to a male by a male on his appearance, which might suggest an unequal focus and value attributed to physical appearance in men and women.

4. Discussion

Apart from representing social etiquette, complimenting is another way of encouraging a behavior or a quality. Similar to the conclusion of Wolfson and Manes (1980) that Cs can serve to reinforce a behavior, positive evaluations of a quality, such as physical appearance, subsequently entice women to value certain qualities in themselves over others. This, in turn, prevents them from developing other aspects of their personalities and abilities, for which they subconsciously conclude they will not be overtly appreciated. Another danger which overwhelming compliments on appearance paid to women can have on their social power will be explored in the following paragraphs.

From the data collected, it is evident that, out of 4 compliments the main character was paid on her appearance, 3 were paid after extensive grooming and an effort on her part to appear more attractive. A startling example of the effect which paying too much attention on ones appearance and grooming can have on earnings and the social power was explored in a memorable TEDxSouthBankWomen speech dubbed The Lady Stripped Bare given by a respected Australian journalist and feminist Tracey Spicer in 2014. Her speech was primarily based on a paper (Das & De Loach, 2011) which used the American Time Use Survey report from 2009 comprising the data on time spending from 2003 to 2007 to analyze the effects of time spent grooming on earnings. The study started from a position that grooming is a non market activity and found that non-minority women spend on average more than 15 min more than men for grooming every day. Most importantly, the difference in grooming habits has also been shown to have negative effect on the wages of women, as opposed to men.5. Conclusion

Eckert and McConnell-Ginet note that compliments are important in constructing and regulating gender order (2003: 150). An example was mentioned where boys are very early on complimented on their bravery, while girls are complimented on their beauty and niceness. These patterns continue on into the adulthood, when women are mostly complimented on their appearance, even in professional environment (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2003).

This study unfortunately confirms the aforementioned assumptions and the gender inequality summarized by the phrase: Women are, men do (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2003: 150). According to this study, women are appreciated for their physical appearance, whereas men are valued for their skills, knowledge, actions and personality. Despite the progress in women representation observed in the mere fact that this show stars a female character, the gender inequality is evident both in blatant examples of stereotyping dispersed throughout the show designed to produce a humorous effect, as well as in the subtle ways of manipulating our self-perception contained in the majority of the compliments paid to females on the show, which pose the greatest danger as we are not consciously aware of their working.

The fact that only 4 out of 18 compliments on physical appearance were paid to the main character suggests progress and the tendency to portray women as more rounded characters. Another female who grossed on the appearance compliments is Cece, whose character admittedly gains more layers and undertones as the show progresses. On the other hand, it is worrisome that the rest of the compliments are given to female characters who only briefly appear on the show. They are readily labeled as sexual objects, defined merely in terms of their appearance, denied the chance to show off their personalities, talents, desires.

By pointing out the ways in which stereotypes and biases toward women are manifested in discourse and raising awareness of their workings, we can diminish their strength and influence on the value systems of both men and women. This kind of research can provide us with the power to objectively perceive information and filter out the biases toward women which the television discourse still inconspicuously incorporates, as we gradually move toward a higher degree of gender equality in Western society. 6. References:Brown, P. & Levinson S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Social Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Das, J. & De Loach, S. B. (2011). Mirror, mirror on the wall: The effect of time spent grooming on earnings. The Journal of Socio-Economics Volume 40, Issue I, 26-34.Eckert, P. & McConnell-Ginet, S. (2003). Language and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Holmes, J. (1986). Compliments and Compliment Responses in New Zealand English. Anthropological Linguistics 28.4, 485-508.

Holmes, J. & Brown, D. F. (1987). Teachers and Students Learning about Compliments. TESOL Quarterly, 21 (3), 523-546.

Holmes, J. (1988). Paying Compliments: A Sex-Preferential Politeness Strategy. Journal of Pragmatics 12, 445-465.

Holmes, J. (1995). Women, men and politeness. London: Longman.New Girl TV Series (2014). Retrieved August 15th, 2014 from IMDB. Site address: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1826940/

Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Signorielli, N. & Bacue, A. (1999). Recognition and Respect: A Content Analysis of Prime-Time Television Characters Across Three Decades. Sex Roles, Vol. 40, No. 7/8, 527-544.Spicer, T. (2014). The Lady Stripped Bare (TEDxSouthBankWomen Talks, Australia). [Video file] Video posted to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PENkzh0tWJsWolfson, N. (1984). Pretty Is As Pretty Does: A Speech Act View of Sex Roles. Applied Linguistics 5 (3), 236-244.

Wolfson, N., & Manes, J. (1980). The compliment as a social strategy. Papers in Linguistics: International Journal of Human Communication, 13(3), 410-451.Wood, Julia T. (1994). Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. It is important to note that this category borders with appearance, since both of the compliments which belong to it refer to a piece of clothing/accessory worn by a female and contributing to her looks, i.e. ,, I like your glasses.

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