The Complaining Strategies Used by Males and Females Characters in Friends TV Series

Abstract

This study focuses on contrasting males and females differences to use the complaining strategy in expressing negative feelings towards others in informal conversations. The data are taken from five episodes of Friends  TV Series Session 10 produced by NBC, showing the life and the struggle of six friends to gain self-independence and maturity. Since several studies of gender language proved that males and females speak in a different way, this study investigated how three males and three females characters deliver their complaints. The  theory of Complaining Strategies proposed by Trosborg (1995) was applied to find out the way males and females perform the act of complaints. The methodology used in this study was a qualitative research and the data collection are taken from the English subtitle in five episodes of Friends  TV Series Session 10. The findings revealed that females tend to make complaints more than males. Interestingly, even though all characters are best friends having equal status, both males and females tend to use the most indirect strategy to deliver their complaint in which the speaker gives hint to  express negative feeling The findings also show that females tend to blame behaviour while males tend to blame person in the act of their complaint. Several strategies need to be considered in making complaints based on the specific situation to get the message successfully delivered.