Women’s Language by Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey from the Oprah 2020 Vision Tour Interview

Abstract

Since the 17th century it was believed that women’s language lacks certainty (Lakoff, 1973) and cooperative communication styles (Coates, 2004; Coates, 2015). To test the two hypotheses in high-status women's conversation this sociolinguistic study used a descriptive qualitative method to examine the forms and functions of language features. It was used by Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama in the Oprah Winfrey's 2020 Vision Tour's live talk show where Michelle Obama determines the  type of language used  by high social status women such as facilitative, tentative (Holmes, 1984; Lakoff, 1973) and communication styles (Coates, 2004).  This study focused on four elements: lexical hedges, tag questions, interruptions, and back-channeling responses (Coates, 2015; Lakoff, 1973 ).  The study found that both Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama communicated through their usage of collaborative functions of the aforementioned elements and supports Coates's (2004) theory on women’s cooperative communication style. Lastly, the findings suggest that each linguistic element has a particular purpose depending on the situation's context and the speaker's aim. Due to the changes in women's roles and societal circumstances since the 17th century, it appears that additional research is required to enhance the researcher's conclusions.