That Was Totally Intense! A Study of Emphatic Adverbial Modifiers in Male and Female Speech
—Shellie Chiavetta
Emphatic adverbial modifiers, or intensifiers, are adverbs that emphasize an adjective or verb in written or oral language. These intensifiers include words such as “really” or “very,” used in such contexts as: “That party was really awesome,” or “I’m very tired today.” This study focused on the influence of age and gender on the frequency of intensifier usage in everyday speech.
I interviewed three groups of eight informants, each group consisting of four males and four females. The groups were divided by age: 11–20 years of age, 21–32 years of age, and 33–50 years of age. The same interview prompts were used with all participants. There were questions pertaining to entertainment and media, a subject that would be easy for each age group to talk about. I also set out to determine whether my own intensifier use would affect the informant’s use by including a set number of intensifiers in my verbal introduction to the interview for half of the informant base. The interviews were recorded; afterwards, I listened to them and transcribed relevant portions. I counted the number of times each individual used intensifiers in his or her speech, and then looked at the total intensifier use for each age and gender group.
My results indicate that for this set of informants, males—specifically males 21–32 years of age—used intensifiers with higher frequency than females. Males of the other age groups, while using fewer intensifiers than those aged 21–32, still used intensifiers in higher frequency than their female counterparts. My own intensifier use had no effect on the informants’ intensifier use. These results were counter to my hypothesis that females would use a greater number of intensifiers, which was based on the stereotype that women talk more and become more excited emotionally about what they want to convey to the listener. Similarly, I hypothesized that those of the youngest age group would use intensifiers more frequently than the older informants, due to their tendency to be excited about their thoughts and opinions. However, this research shows that speakers use emphatic adverbial modifiers to provide the most information about their topic rather than to convey their level of emotion. The informants wish their conversation partners to know as much as they can about the topic at hand, and intensifiers are used to accomplish that goal. This method for imparting information is most common among males, and is not affected by age.
I would like to thank my faculty advisor, Naomi Nagy, for the time and energy she devoted to my project; from helping me to develop the scope of the research to providing insight into the research process, and finally, to editing this brief. I would also like to thank my fellow classmates, Terri Heckman and Jake Leopold, for their help initiating this project.
