Acknowledgements A thesis is never successfully completed in isolation. I received help, encouragement, critique and consolation from many people who deserve acknowledgement.
First and foremost, my deepest gratitude goes to my supervisor, Ms. Chen Zhihong, for her continuing encouragement, valuable suggestions and feedback, and patient guidance throughout my study. I do appreciate that she has devoted much of her time to reading my draft and making suggestions for further revisions. Without her support and help, the completion of the present thesis is impossible.10171
In addition, I would like to thank my friend June, my roommate, for recommending the wonderful show Sex and the City to me, which triggered my curiosity to dig deeper and learn more about the show. Also, I wish to express my profound gratitude to my friends and my fellow classmates who have given me many instructive suggestions and ideas throughout my writing.
Finally, I owe my deep appreciation to my family, my parents and my sisters. They have always been so supportive and encouraging. Without their support, I could never have succeeded. It is their love and tolerance that made me strong to face any difficulties. I would like to share with all my joy at completing this thesis with them.
Abstract The paper aims to make a clear distinction between male and female language features that have been employed in the four protagonists in Sex and the City. The analysis will provide a bigger picture and better understanding of the influence that gender has brought to language, which turns out to improve interpersonal relations, especially the relations between men and women.
The paper is mainly structured around the empirical data, which is made up of the transcriptions of six selected scenes from Sex and the City. Consequently, the transcriptions of the scenes from Sex and the City set the premise for the paper. The most salient characteristics of the data have been a decisive factor in selecting our theories and methods. All theories used in this are based on the research by sociolinguistics, Jenifer Coates and Bent Preisler, with the field of language and gender studies. Each linguistic feature is explained in relation to gender in the form of subheadings. The process of selecting these features involved a first attempt at analyzing our data and then picked out the most applicable and relevant features.
The paper falls into five chapters. The first chapter serves as an introduction. A number of linguistic features applied to identify male and female speech with the discussion relevant to gender differences are presented in the second chapter, which aims to clarify the sociolinguistic context of the paper. The third chapter consists of four linguistic analyses, with different features employed in a character-based analysis of the show. The fourth chapter further explores the language in the show in a feminist perspective and how the show it has inspired similar other shows. The last part functions as a conclusion.
Key Words:  language and gender, Sex and the City, linguistic strategies
摘要本文旨在明确区分在美剧《欲望都市》中四个女主角的男性和女性的语言特点。本文的分析将让我们更充分、更全面地理解性别对语言的影响，以此来增进人际关系，尤其是男女之间的相处之道。
本文主要围绕经验数据展开，它是由751个从欲望都市中选定的文本组成，成为本篇论文的前提。在这些数据中，那些最有特点的女性语言特征决定了我们所使用的论据和研究方法。所有理论以社会语言学家詹妮弗•科茨与本特•普莱斯勒的与语言和性别研究作为基础。每个语言特征都会从男性和女性的角度讨论，并且以小标题的形式呈现。
本文分为五个章节。第一章为介绍。第二章阐述了男性和女性的语言特征。第三章分别分析了四位女主角的语言特点。第四章进一步从女权主义者的观点探讨欲望都市，以及它对类似节目的启发。第五章为结尾部分。 《欲望都市》中的女性语言分析:http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_9143.html