AN ANALYSIS ON CASUAL STYLES USED BY MARY BENNETT IN JILL CONNER BROWNE’S NOVEL “THE SWEET POTATO QUEENS”
THESIS
By:
VIVI NOVITA SARI (08360046)
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG
AN ANALYSIS ON CASUAL STYLES USED BY MARY BENNETT IN JILL CONNER BROWNE’S NOVEL “THE SWEET POTATO QUEENS”
THESIS
This thesis is submitted to meet one of the requirements to achieve Sarjana Degree in English Education
By:
VIVI NOVITA SARI (08360046)
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG
This thesis was defended in front of the examiners of Faculty of Teacher
Training and Education of University of Muhammadiyah Malang
and accepted as one of requirements to achieve
Sarjana Degree in English Education
on October 31, 2013
Approved by:
Faculty of Teacher Training and Education
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Alhamdulillah, all praise is to Allah, the Merciful and Charitable. Because of
the guidance, blessing, and affection, the writer can finish this thesis finally. The
writer would like to thanks to our propped Muhammad SAW who has brought us
from the darkness to the lightness that ISLAM.
The writer would like to express her deepest appreciation to many persons
who had been involved in finishing this thesis. The writer thanks her first advisor,
Dra. Thathit Manon Andini, M.Hum, and her second advisor, Drs. Estu Widodo,
M.Hum for their guidance, suggestion, correction and comment on this thesis,
without real understanding and strong motivation, this thesis would have never found
its completion.
The writer grateful thanks are expressed to her beloved father and mother who
always give their praying and love. Then, for her brother and sister who always give
attention and support. Her special thank also goes to Jill Conner Brown who wrote
“The Sweet Potato Queens” novel. Finally, her sincere gratitude goes to her beloved
friends in English Department who always help and support the writer in finishing
this thesis.
Hopefully, this thesis can be useful for the readers.
Malang, October 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2.4.2 Character ... 14
CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Research Findings ... 22
4.1.1 The casual styles used by Mary Bennett in Jill Conner Browne’s novel “The Sweet Potato Queens” ... 22
4.1.1.1 Ellipsis ... 22
4.1.1.2 Slang ... 32
4.1.2 The context where Mary Bennett used the casual styles in Jill Conner Browne’s novel “The Sweet Potato Queens” ... 37
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
5.1 Conclusion ... 51 5.2 Suggestions ... 52
REFERENCES
Ary D, Jacobs L.C, Sorensen C. 2010. Introduction to Research in Education (8th Edition). United State: ThomsonWadsworth
Coupland, Nikolas. 2007. Style: Language Variation and Identity, Key Topics in Sociolinguistics. New York: Cambridge University Press
Edwards, John. 2009. Language and Identity, Key Topics in Sociolinguistics. New York: Cambridge University Press
Fennell, Francis L. 2002. Collegiate English Handbook. United State: Collegiate Press
Fromkin V, Rodman R, Hyams N. 2003. An Introduction to Language (seventh edition). United State: Thomson Wardsworth
Jendra, Made Iwan Indrawan. 2010. Sociolinguistics, The Study of Societies’ Languages (1st Edition). Yogyakarta: Graha Ilmu.
Johnson, Greg and Arp, Thomas R. 2006. Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. United State: Thomson Wardsworth
Kennedy, XJ. 1983. An Introduction to fiction, poetry, and drama. Boston: Little Brown and Company
Koesnosubroto, Sunaryo Basuki. 1988. The Anatomy of Prose Fiction. Jakarta: Departemen Penddikan dan Kebudayaan.
Kovecses, Zoltan. 2000. American English: An introduction. Canada: Broadview Press
Macmillan. 1987. Understanding Literature. Glencoe: California
Mesthrie R, Swann Joan, Deumert Ana, Leap WL. 2004. Introducing Sociolinguistics (Second Edition). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
Meyer, Michael. 1990. The Bedford: Introduction to Literature (2nd Edition). United State: Bedford
Meyerhoff, Miriam. 2006. Introducing Sociolinguistics. New York: Routledge
Nadia. 2011. Language Style Used By The Main Characters of The Sisterhood of The Travelling Pants 2 movie, An Analysis on its casual types. UMM: Unpublished Thesis
Putra. 2008. An Analysis of Language Styles Found on the Novel “The Old Man and The Sea. Petra Christian University Library. Library @petra.ac.id.
Rahardi, Kunjana. 2006. Dimensi-Dimensi Kebahasaan: Aneka Masalah Bahasa Indonesia Terkini. Yogyakarta: Erlangga
Swan, Michael. 1995. Practical English Usage (2nd Edition). Oxford University Press
Tagliamonte A, Sali. 2006. Analysing Sociolinguistic Variation, Key Topics in Sociolinguistics. New York: Cambridge University Press
Wardaugh, Ronald. 2006. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (Fifth Edition). United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing Ltd
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/context
www.simonspeaker.com/JillConnerBrowne
1 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents such topics as: background of study, statements of
problem, purposes of study, significances of study, scope and limitation, and
definition of key terms. Each section is presented as follow.
1.1 Background of Study
People spend times to communicate with others. While having communication,
they are talking, clarifying their thoughts, sharing opinion, giving suggestion, and
getting information from others. It assists them in building and sustaining personal
relationship and participating in social and activities. As a tool of communication,
language has an important role for humans’ daily life in society.
From the explanation above, it can be suggested that language and society are
closely related. It is impossible to understand one without another. A study on some
aspects related to the language and society is called sociolinguistics. It studies on
some aspects includes language use in society, the function of language use in
society, and variation of it. It is a kind of an important thing that people need to
discuss. According to Mesthrie (2002:6), “Language is accordingly said to be
indexical of one’s social class, status, region of origin, gender, age group, and so on.
In the sociolinguistics sense, this indexical aspect of language refers to certain
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region has own ways in using language to indicate their society which causes the
development of language varieties in this social life.
Language style is one of varieties of language usage in communication.
Wardaugh (2006: 51) stated that speakers can adopt different styles of speaking. They
can speak formally or informally. Their choice is based on the situation. The level of
formality is determined by some factors such as; the kind of occasion; the various
social, age, and other differences that existed by participants; the particular task that
is involved, e.g. writing or speaking; the emotional involvement of one or more of
participants; and so on.
According to Joos (in Mesthrie, 2000) there are five levels of formality in using
language. It is also called as language style. The five styles from least to most formal
are intimate, casual, consultative, formal, and frozen style. All of the styles have its
own function and all are used based on the situation.
In this thesis, the language style that is being analyzed is casual style. Joos (in
Mesthrie, 2000) stated that casual style is used for communication among friends in
relax or normal situations. This style is signed by ellipsis or omission of certain
grammatical element and the use of slang.
Casual style is commonly used by people in their social life. However, people
are lacking the sufficient understanding on casual style. At school, students only
studied formal style, and they were also given a better understanding through some of
the activities there. For example, teacher’s speech/talk during teaching, the textbooks
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study of the language in discussing the casual style. Casual styles usually appear
while playing, watching television/ movies, and reading novels. Through this case,
the researcher believes that casual style is important to be learnt. Therefore, the
researcher expected that this research will give clear information about the casual
styles commonly appear in social life.
To support this research, the researcher found two previous researches with the
same topic as the references. First, Nadia (2011) studied language style used by the
main characters of “The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants 2” movie. It was an
analysis on its casual types. She found the casual language styles from the dialogue
used by the main characters and she identified the characteristics of each casual
language style. Second, Putra (2008) studied all language styles found on the novel
“The Old Man and The Sea”. He investigated about the dominant language styles
used by the characters of the novel, the function of each language styles, and the
situation where language styles found.
Different from Nadia who analyze the casual styles and its characteristics and
Putra who analyze the dominant language styles used, this research is emphasized on
the casual styles and the context where it is used. The result of this research will give
more specific information about the use of casual styles and clear description about
the context where the casual styles are used.
1.2 Statements of Problem
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1.2.1 What are the casual styles used by Mary Bennett in Jill Conner
Browne’s novel “The Sweet Potato Queens”?
1.2.2 What is the context where Mary Bennett used the casual styles in Jill
Conner Browne’s novel “The Sweet Potato Queens”?
1.3 Purpose of Study
1.3.1 To identify the casual styles used by Mary Bennett in Jill Conner
Browne’s novel “The Sweet Potato Queens”.
1.3.2 To describe the context where Mary Bennett uses the casual styles in Jill
Conner Browne’s novel “The Sweet Potato Queens”.
1.4 Significance of Study
In analyzing the casual styles in “The Sweet Potato Queens” novel, the
researcher hopes that the result could enrich the readers’ knowledge about the casual
style itself and the context where it should be used. This is important because English
is considered as foreign language in Indonesia in which the people are not really
accustomed to the language. People need more information to recognize the passage
written. Novel shows more informal situation, while at school people learn mostly
about the formal ones. That is why the analysis of casual styles in this novel needs to
be conducted.
By reading and understanding this research, people could learn about how to
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where the casual style should be used, and learn many new vocabularies through the
slang words used by Mary Bennett found in “The Sweet Potato Queens”. The result
of this study also could be used as the reference for the next who intend to do another
research about language style or another language style that could be found in the
novel or any other possible textual forms.
1.5 Scope and Limitation
This study has scope and limitation. The scope of this study is casual styles
used in Jill Conner Brown’s novel “The Sweet Potato Queens” and the limitation of
this research is casual styles used by Mary Bennett in Jill Conner Browne’s novel
“The Sweet Potato Queens”.
1.6 Definition of Key Term
The following definitions of the key terms are intended to avoid ambiguity or
misinterpretation. These terms are:
a. Language Style is a various kind of written and spoken language that most
people in the world produced and used it to communicate and express it with
others. Language style is a variation in speech from more formal to informal
one (Yule 2010:208).
b. Casual Style is an informal style that usually spoken with a group community
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2000), defined casual style is typical of informal speech between peers,
includes ellipsis and slang between peers.
c. Mary Bennett is one of the main characters in “The Sweet Potato Queens”
novel who uses many casual styles in the conversation.
d. Jill Conner Browne is the author of novel “The Sweet Potato Queens” which
was released in January 2009. She is a New York Times bestselling author
and also an America’s #1 Humor Writer
(www.simonspeaker.com/JillConnerBrowne).
e. Context is the situation in which something happens