Mean Girls: Fact or Media Fabrication? Constructing Female Adolescent Social Hierarchies Through Language Use

Abstract

Most research regarding language use has led to the conclusion that females are typically more cooperative and males are more aggressive. In the past decade there has been a prevalence of adolescent females being portrayed as more aggressive in the media, such as films like Mean Girls (2004). The problem with much of the research regarding language use as it relates to gender is that it has been centered on male-female interactions and little attention has been given to female-female interaction. This project serves to focus on the interactions between adolescent females in the United States as well as the role that media may play in said interactions.