SPEECH FUNCTIONS IN JUST ALVIN
TALK SHOW PROGRAM
A Thesis
submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora
By:
DELNIS HANDAYANI GULO Registration Number: 8136111011
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
MEDAN
ABSTRACT
Gulo, Delnis Handayani. Registration Number: 836111011. Speech Functions in Just Alvin Talk Show Program. English Applied Linguistics Study Program, Postgraduate School, State University of Medan. 2015
ABSTRAK
Gulo, Delnis Handayani. NIM: 836111011. Speech Functions in Just Alvin Talk Show Program. Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris, Sekolah Pascasarjana, Universitas Negeri Medan. 2015
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In writing this thesis many parties have been involved. The writer would like to acknowledge her deep gratitude for all generous guidance, assistance, suggestion, and advice which have been rendered to her.
First and foremost, she thanks to the Almighty God for all the blessings and grace poured upon her in all her life.
The writer also wishes to express her sincere gratitude to her first adviser Prof. Amrin Saragih, M. A., Ph.. D., and her second adviser, Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M. Hum., who have kindly assisted her in correcting, revising and directing the idea of this thesis.
The writer also would like to express her gratitude to the head of English Applied Linguistics, Prof. Busmin Gurning, M. Pd., and his secretary Dr. Sri Minda Murni, Ms., who are also her board examiners, for their generous encouragement for her in completing her study. She also thanks Prof. Dr. Berlin Sibarani, M. Pd., who is also her board examiner for his generous suggestion and advice to improve my thesis.
The writer also would like to thank all lecturers for their valuable instructions, tuition and knowledge they have imparted to her during her study.
their supports and understandings. Special thanks are also dedicated to Bimawijaya Laia for his prayers, supports, helps, and love to her.
Last but not least, special thanks are dedicated to all her beloved friends in LTBI UNIMED for their advice, support, and encouragement to the writer in completing this thesis.
Finally, the writer realizes that this thesis is far from being perfect. Therefore, she highly appreciates all constructive critics for its improvement.
Medan, 06 Juli 2015
Table of Contents
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.1 Systemic Functional Grammar ... 10
2.2 Interpersonal Functions ... 11
2.2.1 Speech Function ... 12
2.2.2 Realization of Speech ... 14
2.3 Interpersonal Methaphor ... 18
2.4 Interaction and Negotiation ... 21
2.5 Factors that Influence the Choice of Speech Functions ... 24
2.6 Talk Show ... 28
2.6.1 Just Alvin Talk Show ... 30
2.7 Relevant Studies ... 31
2.8 Conceptual Framework ... 33
CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHOD 3.1 The Research Design ... 36
3.2 Data and Source of Data ... 36
3.3 The Instruments of Data Collection ... 37
3.4 The Technique of Data Collection ... 37
3.5 Technique of Data Analysis ... 38
3.6 The Trustworthiness of the Study ... 40
CHAPTER IV. DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS, AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1 Data Analysis ... 42
4.1.1 Speech Functions Types Occuring in Just Alvin Talk Show with Different Topics ... 42
4.1.1.1 Speech Functions Types Occuring in Sensitive Topics ... 44
4.1.1.2 Speech Functions Types Occuring in Non-Sensitive Topics ... 53
4.1.2 The Way the Speech Functions are Realized in the Mood ... 59
4.1.2.1 Mood Realization by the Host in the Sensitive Topics ... 59
4.1.2.2 Mood Realization by the Guests in the Sensitive Topics ... 62
4.1.2.3 Mood Realization by the Host in the Non-Sensitive Topics ... 65
4.1.3 The Reasons of the Use of Speech Functions
in Just Alvin Talk Show ... 70
4.2 Findings ... 76
4.3 Discussion ... 78
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1 Conclusions ... 81
5.2 Suggestions ... 82
References ... 84
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Types of Meanings in the Systemic Model ... 11 Table 2.2 Giving or Demanding, goods-&-services or information ... 13 Table 2.3 Speech Functions and the Responding Move ... 14 Table 4.1 The Types of Speech Functions Used by the Host and the Guests
in Conversation about Sensitive ... 44 Table 4.2 The Types of Speech Functions Used by the Host and the Guests
in Conversation about Non-Sensitive Topics ... 53 Table 4.3 The Proportion of Speech Functions by the Host
In Sensitive and Non-Sensitive Topics ... 71 Table 4.4 The Proportion of Speech Functions by the Guests
List of Figures
Figure 2.1 Realization of Speech Functions in Mood... 15
Lists of Appendices
Appendix 1. Conversations Transcriptions ... 88 Appendix 2. Data Analysis ... 119
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Background of the Study
As socialized individuals, we spend much of our lives talking, or
interacting, with other people. Interacting is not just a mechanical process of
taking turns at producing sounds and words. Interacting is a semantic activity, a
process of making meanings. As we take turns in any interaction we negotiate
meanings about what we think is going on in the world, how we feel about it, and
how we feel about the people we interact with. As stated by Eggins and Slade
(1997:7), “we treat conversation as an exchange of meanings, as text, and
recognize its privileged role in the construction of social identities and
interpersonal relations.” Further they added that conversation is the means
language gives us for expressing interpersonal meaning about roles and attitudes.
Being able to take part in dialogue then means being able to negotiate the
exchange of interpersonal meanings, and being able to realize social relationships
with other language users.
The use of language to interact, establish and maintain relationship is
called interpersonal function. Interpersonal function of language as defined by
Halliday (2000) is a strand of meaning running throughout the text that expresses
the writer’s role relationship with the readers or the relationship between speakers,
and the writer’s attitude towards the subject matters (Halliday, 2000). Halliday in
Eggins (2004: 144) also mentioned that dialog exchanges are turns and taking a
turn in a conversation is about who speak at the moment and who would speak
and delivered among the speakers. This organization of message is carried out in
the act of speaking conducted by the participants in the conversation. Messages in
conversation, explained by Halliday (1994: 68) can be recognized as speech
functions or speech role. The messages are conveyed in two terms; giving and
demanding something. The speaker may give something to the listener or he may
demand something from him. Giving means inviting to receive, and demanding
means inviting to give. What they are exchanging are actually goods& services
and information. These four basic move types of statement, question, offer and
command are what Halliday refers to as speech functions. So we can say that
every starting move in dialogue must be one or other of these speech functions
and each speech function involves both a speech role and a commodity choice.
For example, if we are demanding information we will question, or if we are
demanding something we will command.
However, dialogue is inherently interactive: typically it does not involve
simply one move from one speaker. We need also to recognize that after on
speaker has initiated an exchange; another speaker is very likely to respond. Thus
we need also to see that there is a choice between initiating and responding
moves. Our choice of responding moves is constrained by the initiating move that
has just been made. Every time we take on a role assign to our addressee a role as
well. Every time we initiate an interaction we put our addressee into a role of
responding if he/she wants to interact with us. Eggins (2004: 145) states that the
alternatives we face in responding can be broadly differentiated into two types: a
Talk show is one of the situations where conversation or dialog takes
place. As defined by Illie (2006) talk show exhibit specific features with regard to
the discursive organization of talk, the sequence of adjacency pairs and turns, and
the participants’ question-asking and question-answering roles. These features
pertain with conversational discourse. In addition to that, Timberg (2002: 5)
defines talk show as a program where one person (or group of people) will discuss
various topics which are leaded by a talk show host. In talk show, the participants
is usually stimulated, guided and facilitated by the host to present particular
information exchange, related to personal experience, judgment or common sense.
By this explanation it is obvious that in talk show language serve two of its
interpersonal functions.
One of the most important things for a talk show to succeed is the ability
of the host to built interpersonal meanings with her guest as the interlocutors in
order to dig more information. Illie (2006) stated that the show host is monitoring
most of the discussion by stimulating, guiding, and facilitating the participants’
roles and contributions to the program for information exchange, confrontation,
and entertainment. This implies that a host must be able to make the participants
speak about things which are intended to be spoken out to the audience (public).
To do this, the host, as we often see, takes a role as questioner; he/she asks some
leading questions to the participants so they will answer the questions, and these
answers are the information required by the talk show program to tell to the
audience. This is in line with what Munson (1993) explains that questions are
central to the structure of talk shows and are quite effective in exploring guests’
his study about talk show that more questions are asked in talk shows than in
discussions.
In his research about interpersonal function in Oprah Winfrey’s talk show,
Arifin and Samanhudi (2013) found out that most of utterances used by Oprah are
actually questionings interesting facts based on the discussed topics. This is much
influenced by her role in the program as the Host whose main job is mediating the
audiences and guests as the source of information. Wijayanti (2007) who did
study in the same field also found out that a hosts use more questions to gain the
information and takes role as initiator to start and guide the topic.
Here are some utterances of the well-known host Oprah Winfrey in Oprah
Winfrey Talk Show which are mostly questioning when Hosting Queen Rania of
Jordan (Arifin, 2010).
1. You were recently here in New York, and as I understand it, you went to
Ground Zero with Mayor Giuliani. What was that like?
What was That like?
Wh/complemet Finite Subject Complement
MOOD RESIDUE
Mood : Finite ^ Subject = Interrogative Speech Function : Question
Markedness : Unmarked
2. When this first happened on September 11, I think it came as a shock to so
many of us that other people in the world hated us so much. Can you help
explain that to us?
Can you help explain That to us
Finite Subject Predicate Complement
MOOD COMPLEMENT
Mood : Finite ^ Subject = Interrogative Speech Function : Question
Markedness : Unmarked
The interpersonal analysis on Oprah’s utterances above shows that Oprah uses
Yet, recently, in a talk show named Just Alvin talk show, the host built
interpersonal function in various ways to maintain the conversation, and even very
often uses speech functions of statement in his utterances to dig information from
his guests as interlocutors. Here is the example of the dialog transcript:
- Conversation with Puput Melati in Just Alvin Talk Show episode of in God’s
hand
Subject Finite Predicate Adjunct Subject Finite predicator
MOOD RESIDUE MOOD RESIDUE
6. P : Yah alhamdullilah dititipin lagi sm Allah ini rejeki anak, amanah. Uda tiga bulan, inyaallah kurang lebih tiga bulan.
7. A : Put, lebih sehat, sudah bisa lebih nerima kelihatannya ya.
(Kamu) sudah bisa lebih nerima Kelihatannya ya
Subject Finite Predicator Adjunct Adjunct
MOOD RESIDUE
Mood : Subject ^ Finite = Declarative Speech Function : Statement
8. P : Yah insyaallah mudah-mudahan harus..harus kak. (supporting response)
9. A : Karna kan gini ya, apa yang puput alami kan, banyak ya put.
Yang pertama sudah ingin mengajukan cerai ya, kemudain bener-bener cerai, kemudian balik kembali, so many things happened ya. Banyak yang terjadi. (statement)
10. P : Yah, itulah perjalanan hidup ya kak. Makdsudnya gk ada yg ke...gk ada keinginan untuk sesuatu hal yang buruk pasti dalam setiap hidup manusia. Tapi ketika kita harus dihadapkan hal yang seperti itu ya jalan satu-satunya hmm berpasrah aja terus berdoa mudah-mudahan semua ini bisa menjadi diri aku lebih baik lagi. (supporting response)
In digging information, Alvin does not always questions as he did in
utterance 1 by initiating the conversation by commenting on Puput’s appearance
using statement that she looks skinner, and then he emphasized in utterance 3 that
she does looking skinner than the last time they met. This result in Puput
supporting responses by giving information that now she has a lot of things to do
dealt with taking care of three of her children and that she is now pregnant. In
utterance 7 Alvin as the host again gives comment in statement about her
appearance that now she is looks healthier and then using statement he confirms
that she is now can deal with the reality which then it is justified by Puput. Then
in utterance 9, again Alvin use speech function of statement where he states his
knowledge about things that Puput has been gone through, and his statement is
responded by Puput with some more information that she sees every problem in
her life is to make her a better one and that all she can do to face them is praying.
The way Alvin constructs meanings interpersonally in the progress of his
conversations with his guests creates interest of the writer to do a research on his
utterances. The writer argues that Alvin’s use of statement in his utterances where
polite and friendly, so the guests can feel comfortable to speak even about their
very personal matters, as Brown and Levinson (1987) argue that declaratives and
interrogatives could also be polite requests for goods-and-services since basic
commands might be considered Face Threatening Acts thus highly impolite, and
modals are also often used to disguise demanding proposals or soften propositions
as explained by Bloor and Bloor (2004). The writer also believes that there are
other kinds of interpersonal function in Just Alvin talk show to maintain the
conversation between the host and his guests and to dig information from his
guests. Thus, in this research the writer would like to analyze interpersonal
function in Just Alvin talk show by employing Halliday’s theory of metafunctions
in Systemic Functional Grammar.
Just Alvin Talk Show is one of the famous talk show programs in
Indonesia. It comes with a talk show format to review about the lives of
celebrities. The program is capable to place the second top ranks for rating under
Kick Andy in 2009 (Akbar, 2010). The high rating proves that this program
achieved appreciation from audiences. This program has invited guests which are
mostly celebrities. Just Alvin gives what is supposed to be presented by an event
"talk". Because it uses the title ‘talk’, the emphasis is on interaction program that
exists between host and guests. Alvin Adam (41) is a fairly well-known presenter
of success thanks to the guide talk show. He is very able to make a deep
conversation when hosting Just Alvin talk show.
When interviewed by Citizen Magazine (2013) he state that
Communication is first impression. For him, the heart can only be touched by
reveal the story. Creating closeness to the speaker is important. When the speakers
already feel comfortable, then there is no gap between the speakers and hosts.
Resource persons came to relax and talk to your like friends. In this atmosphere, it
will appear a deep conversation even interesting stories that may not be disclosed
by the speakers in the other talk shows.
Therefore, from this study the writer would like to know how
interpersonal functions is built and maintained in Just Alvin talk show through the
speech functions chosen by the host and the guests.
1.2The Problems of the Study
The problems are formulated as the following.
1. What kinds of speech functions are found in the conversation between
the host and the guests in Just Alvin talk show?
2. How are the speech functions realized in the mood?
3. Why are the speech functions used in the way they are?
1.3The Objectives of the Study
In line with the problems of the study above, the objectives of this study are
1. to describe speech functions in the conversation between the host and the
guests in Just Alvin talk show.
2. to analyze how the speech functions are realized in the conversation
between the host and the guests in Just Alvin talk show.
3. to elaborate the reasons for the occurrence of speech functions in the
1.4 The Scope of the Study
This study will be focused on the conversation between the host and the
guests in Just Alvin talk show program. The analysis of the utterances will be
based on Halliday’s theory of Interpersonal Functions and Eggin’s theory about
mood analysis. The investigation will be focused on the types of speech functions
and the realization in the mood which occurred on the utterances. Interpersonal
function of language is meaning about roles and relationship, this involves
looking at what kinds of role relations are established through talk, what attitudes
interactants express to and about each other, and how they negotiate to take turns,
etc.
1.5The Significances of the Study
Findings of the study offer theoretical and practical significances.
Theoretically, it is expected that the findings of the study can give much
contribution and insight to applied linguistics particularly functional grammar
which can be used as a reference for the similar studies in the future, especially
the studies which discuss about Speech function in Just Alvin Talk Show
program. Specifically, the findings can add up more horizons to linguistics
theories.
Practically, it is expected that the findings will be useful for the readers
especially whose jobs are related to constructing meaning interpersonally to dig
information from interlocutors. In addition, the findings can highlight the use of
language in public situations. In other words, the findings can be of some use to
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1 Conclusions
After analyzing all the speech functions occur in Just Alvin Talk Show
Program with different topics, the researcher draws conclusions as follows:
1. The speech functions occur in the host’s utterances in Just Alvin Talk
Show are statement, question, acknowledgement, command, answer, and
contradiction. The occurrence of speech functions of statements
dominantly in the host’s utterances in all topics indicates that the host has
already known the fact and the information about the guests he is going to
interview. The speech functions occur in the guests’ utterances in Just
Alvin talk Show are statement, acknowledgement, answer, question,
command, compliance, disclaimer, and contradiction. The speech
functions of statements are dominantly found in the guests’ utterances and
it indicates that the guests attempts to give information and explanation.
2. There are several way the speech functions are realized byt the host and
the guests in Just Alvin Talk show, such as statements are realized mostly
in tagged declarative mood, which indicates that the host attempts to invite
the guests to be involved into the conversation by giving agreement or
confirmation to the host’s statements; questions are realized mostly in
interrogative mood which indicates that the host asks the questions in
mood which indicates that when acknowledging statements the shorter
sentences that involve ellipsis are commonly used; commands are realized
mostly in declarative mood which shows that the host attempts to make the
requests in more polite way, answers are realized mostly in elliptical
declarative mood which shows that in answering question the shorter
sentences that involve ellipsis are commonly used; and contradictions are
realized in elliptical declarative mood.
3. The topics being talked about and the role taken by the speakers in Just
Alvin Talk Show affects the use of speech functions. When talking about
sensitive topics speech functions of statement is mostly used to ask the
question in indirect way. The speech functions of questions are more
dominantly occur in the host’s utterances than in the guests’ because the
the host take the role as the leader and the interviewer in the talk show
while the guests as the informants.
5.2 Suggestions
Having seen the result of the study, the researcher would like to offer the
suggestion as follows:
1. It is advisable for the host and the guests (either speaker or listener) to
understand the interpersonal function in the conversation, the speech
functions and the mood realization to establish and maintain
2. It is suggested that interpersonal functions especially the speech
function and mood realization are taught to the students in the
Language Course and even to the students in the University to make
them able to take part in dialogue then means being able to negotiate
the exchange of interpersonal meanings, and being able to realize
social relationships with other language users.
3. It is worthy to suggest to other researchers to do further studies about
interpersonal functions from the other perspective or theories such as
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