EXPRESSION OF LANGUAGE IN CONSTRUCTING PHYSICAL FEMININITY WRITTEN IN INDONESIAN TEEN LIT

Abstract

Physical femininity is a feminine imagery pictured through the corporeal aspects. Physical femininity in Indonesian teen lit is quite dominant along with the opposition statement stated that beauty is diverse. Teenlit, to be known, is a novel that depicts the lives of adolescence around the middle to secondary school age and typically uses women characters point of view. This paper aims to describe the expression of language in constructing a physical femininity written in teen lit using critical discourse analysis. The data are in the form of linguistic units used to express the conception of physical femininity obtained from five popular Indonesian teen lit.The result of data analysis shows that there are six expressions of language for constructing physical femininity, such as the use of synonyms of beautiful, denial of the negative judgment, affirmation of the stigma, the use of diction about hair, analogy of women’s beauty using popular figure, and giving a negative connotation to the dandy. Beauty is always closely attached to the female figure. However, this concept of beauty is dynamic along with the times. The use of the word sweet, charming, quirky, and cute as the pronoun of the word pretty clearly shows that beauty is diverse. Through these various expressions, women wanted to be appreciated as she is. Therefore, women need to have a high self-confidence and need to respect themselves as well as others.