ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS ON
LIZ GILBERT’S DIALOGUE
IN EAT PRAY LOVE MOVIE
A THESIS
Submitted as the Partial Fullfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
By:
RIANDI
Registration Number 2113220032
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
DECLARATION
I have familiarized myself with The University’s Policy on Academic Integrity.
Except where appropriately acknowledged, this thesis is my own work, has been
expressed in my own words and has not previously been submitted for
assessment.
I understand that this paper maybe screened electronically or otherwise for
plagiarism.
Medan, September 2015
Riandi
ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Praise the almighty God. First of all, the writer would like to thank God for
all His Blessings, mercy, guidance, strength, and help which have been given to
him so he can finish this thesis well.
This thesis was written in order to fulfill one of the requirements to obtain
the S1 degree of Sarjana Sastra at English Department in Faculty of Languages
and Arts, State University of Medan.
In completing this thesis, the writer has received a lot of assistance and
academic support from some people. Therefore, on this occasion the writer would
like to express his sincere gratitude, love and special thanks to:
Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of Medan
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of Faculty of Languages and Arts
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English and LiteratureDepartment
Dra. Meisuri, M.A., the Secretary of English and Literature Department and also as the Reviewer
Syamsul Bahri, S.S., M.Hum., the Head of English Literature Study Program and also as the Reviewer
Dra. Sri Juriati Ownie, M.A., as his Thesis Adviser
Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum., as his Academic Adviser and also as the Reviewer
All Lecturers in English and Literature Department who advised and guided the writer during academic years
His beloved parents, Ariahman and Sri Nilawati to whom this thesis is dedicated for entire patient, pray, love and moral and financial support. Andalso thanks for the love, support and great care all the time from his brother,
iii
His true friends, Ichwan C. Sirait, Khalida Haris, Tina F. Siregar, Ester Tarigan, Cinta Berutu, Lisbet, Marta Lumbanbatu, and NezayanaFebriani who always share their stories, advices, thought, knowledge and
always help and support the writer for everything during the years in Unimed.
And his special thanks also go to all friends in English Literature A and B
2011 that could not be mentioned one by one. Thanks for their support, info,
encouragement and beautiful day spent together.
His beloved brother at once as roommate in a boarding house Bambang Suryo, and the other great people who always motivate him DewanggaTriyoga H and Suri Astuti for all the supports, critics and prayer.
All other whose name cannot mentioned one by one for their help and support. Thanks for everything.Without their deep and sympathetic understanding this thesis could not be
completed. Over all, the writer hopes this thesis can give a bit contribution to
Applied Linguistics. Therefore, comments, critics, suggestions, and advices are
expected from the readers.
Medan, Agustus 2015
The Writer,
Riandi
i
ABSTRACT
Riandi, 2113220032. Illocutionary Acts on Liz Gilbert’s Dialogue in Eat Pray Love Movie. A Thesis. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of
Medan. 2015.
This thesis deals with the type of illocutionary acts on Liz Gilbert’s dialogue in
Eat Pray Love movie. The objectives of the study were to describe the types of illocutionary acts, the dominant type of illocutionary acts and to find out the reason why the dominant type of illocutionary acts occur on Liz Gilbert’s dialogue in Eat Pray Love movie. This research was conducted by using descriptive qualitative method. The data were the transcript of Liz Gilbert’s dialogue. The findings showed that there were 466 utterances which contained five types of illocutionary acts, namely: Representatives 198 utterances (42.49%), Directives 169 utterances (36.27%), Expressives 89 utterances (19.10%), Commisives 9 utterances (1.93%) and Declarations 1 utterance (0.21%). The most dominant type of illocutionary act was Representatives with total number 198 utterances (42.49%) because Liz Gilbert as the main character often described and informed about the situation of her journey and experience when she visited Italy, India and Indonesia where she finally found the balance of life, true love and happiness.
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Pages
vii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Pages
Appendix A.The Analysis of Illocutionary Acts on Liz Gilbert’s
Dialogue in Eat Pray Love Movie ... 43
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study
Illocutionary act is one type of speech acts covered in Pragmatics. It is an
act performed in saying something (Austin 1962:99). By learning illocutionary
acts, the listener can interpret the speaker’s meaning to avoid miscommunication.
In communicating language, miscommunication frequently occurs in daily
conversation. This is a result of many different factors as information is
transmitted through the channel of communication. The one of the most commo n
reason for miscommunication would be becausethe hearer does not understand the
speaker’s utterances in conversation. For example: if someone said “It’s too hot in
this room”. Actually the speaker didn’t only want to inform the hearer that the
room was hot, but the speaker also requested the hearer to do an action to switch
on the fan or air conditioner or maybe open the window. Searle (1976:355) said
that Illocutionary act makes the hearer to do something.
Illocutionary act can always be found in the human daily conversation.
Language or communication cannot be separated from speech act especially
Illocutionary act. Because, the function of speech act especially Illocutionary act
is to make the conversation be interesting and more effective. Day by day people
do interact with each other employing various kinds of Illocutionary acts
depending on the nature and situation of the interaction. Illocutionary acts can be
found in movie which becomes the reflection of the social life of human. In
2
Dialogue is the lines spoken by a character or characters in a play, movie,
essay, story, or novel, especially a conversation between two characters (Wheeler
2014:4). Through dialogue people can understand what happened in the movie
and the meaning of the speaker. In the movie also many utterances are performed
by particular kinds of action such as stating, promising, and warning which is a
part of illocutionary act.
The reason why the writer chooses illocutionary actsis because the writer’s
experience that found some problems which happened when he studied
Pragmatics in the sixth semester. In that semester, Pragmatics has two semester
credit systems and studied about illocutionary further but in the real life he did not
understand yet. And also he got difficulties to interpret someone’s meaning when
speaks and how to distinguish among warning, informing, suggesting,
commanding, promising and requesting utterances. Those utterances have similar
meaning and purpose which is difficult to be analyzed. Thus, by doing this
research the writer hopes that it will be able to enrich the writer in comprehending
about illocutionary acts that he didn’t really understand in previous semester and
after he finished this research, he will tell to the next students who will studies this
topic and to the next researches who will analyze this topic.
The other reason of choosing illocutionary acts is to explain the
relationship between theory of language especially illocutionary acts theory and
its practice in movie. For example when watching Eat Pray Love movie the writer
found the utterances by main character Liz Gilbert to her hearer and uttered the
3
the existence of Illocutionary act in dialogue of the movie. By using illocutionary
act theory, the writer can conclude that Liz Gilbert as the speaker is not only just
speaking, but she also performed Illocutionary acts (Expressive) by thanking to
the hearer for the day and the meaning of leg room is a free ride of the car.
The reason of choosing Eat Pray Love movie as the media is caused by
some possible answers. First, the movie is very popular for many people
especially Indonesian because most of scenes are taken in Bali, Indonesia. This
movie is based on true story from the author who tries to find the happiness after
she divorced from her husband. This movie is also adapted from the novel Eat
Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. The novel is bestseller, and it has been translated
into many languages. Second, there are a lot of illocutionary that the writer found
in the movie. There are almost of every utterances in this movie contain of
illocutionary acts. Third, this movie is inspiring. In other word, not only has so
many illocutionary acts, but also this movie will inspire someone when they
watch it.
Sketchily, the communicative act or verbal communication is usually
represented by the utterances, in attempting to express themselves, people do not
only produce utterances containing grammatical structures and words, they
perform action via those utterances (Yule 2000:47). In the movie, there is a
conversation that shows Liz Gilbert as the hearer uses Illocutionary acts to avoid
miscommunication and the speaker says“Nice to meet you, Groceries!”.Then Liz
Gilbert responds “Groceries?”. This conversation shows that Liz Gilbert as the
4
as the hearer performs Illocutionary act to avoid miscommunication during
conversation. If she does not asks the speaker, miscommunication will be
occurred in the conversation. In this case, Liz Gilbert performed the type of
Illocutionary acts (Directives) that makes the hearer to do something by asking
and the word “groceries” uttered by speaker to Liz Gilbert (the hearer) is because
the speaker never seen anybody eat so much at one time like Liz Gilbert, so the
speaker attached that name to her.
Therefore, based on the explanations above, the writer would like to
analyze the illocutionary act on Liz Gilbert’s dialogue in Eat Pray Love movie.
The writer interests to analyze illocutionary acts on this movie because it is
important to get the meaning of illocutionary acts utterances found in the
conversation and get a good understanding on the whole story.
B. The Problems of the Study
As related to the background of the study, the problems of the study were
formulated as the following:
1. What types of the illocutionary acts are used by Liz Gilbert in Eat Pray
Love movie?
2. What is the most dominant type of illocutionary acts used by Liz Gilbert
in Eat Pray Love movie?
3. Why does the dominant type of illocutionary acts occur on Liz Gilbert’s
5
C. The Objectives of the Study
In relation the problems, the objectives of the study were:
1. To find out the types of the illocutionary acts used by Liz Gilbert in Eat
Pray Love movie.
2. To find out the most dominant types of illocutionary acts used by Liz
Gilbert in Eat Pray Love movie.
3. To find out the reason why the dominant type of illocutionary acts occur
on Liz Gilbert’s dialogue in Eat Pray Love movie.
D. The Scopes of the Study
The scope of the study was based on the Pragmatic theory about speech
acts, especially illocutionary acts. The writer will limit the analysis of the five
types of illocutionary acts based on Searle’s theory, they are: Representatives,
Directives, Commissives, Expressives, and Declarations. The writer will focus the
analysis of Liz Gilbert’s dialogue in Eat Pray Love movie.
E. The Significance of the Study
The research findings were expected to be useful in theoretically and
practically. In theoretically, the findings of the research will give useful
information to the speaker or hearer about their problems and difficulties in
understanding Illocutionary acts in daily conversation. Practically, it is hoped that
this research can give a contribution to other researchers who want to conduct the
39
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Conclusions
After analyzing the data, conclusions could be drawn as the following:
1. The five types of Illocutionary acts were found in the movie Eat Pray
Love. They were: Representatives, Directives, Commisives, Expressives
and Declarations.
2. The most dominant type of Illocutionary acts used by Liz Gilbert in the
movie Eat Pray Love was Representatives with 198 utterances (42.49%).
3. The most dominant type of Illocutionary acts used in the movie implies
journey and experience which visited Italy, India and Indonesia where she
finally found the balance of life, true love and happiness.
B. Suggestions
In relation to the conclusions, the following suggestions are stage:
1. The speakers or hearers, it is better for them to understand not only the
theory of Illocutionary acts but also the practice of that theory in daily
40
2. Applied Linguistic students, it is suggested to watch Eat Pray Love movie
because it has a moral lesson from the journey of Liz Gilbert who tries to
find the happiness and teach how to recover all of problems, close to the
God and seeking harmony in life.
3. It is suggested for other researchers to make other research relate to
Illocutionary acts in order to enlarge knowledge. They can do the analysis
to the other subject such as song, news, speeches, and so on. This thesis
would be place as the main references in order to make further research
41
41
REFERENCES
Agbedo, C,U. 2008. Declaratory Illocutionary Acts as Language of Democracy in Nigeria.Nsukka Journal of Humanities.Vol. 17, pg 114-123
Altikitri, SaharFarouq. 2011. Speech Act Analysis to Short Stories. Journal of Language Teaching and Research.Vol. 2, No. 6, pp. 1374-1384
Austin, J, L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
Barsam, R. 2007. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film.New York: W. w. Norton & Company.
Cruse, D. Allan. 2000.Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dairo, Lekan A. 2010. A Speech-Act Analysis of Selected Yoruba Proverbs.Journal of Cultural Studies.Vol. 8 Issue 1, pg 431
Fasold, Ralph W. 2006. An Introduction to Language and Linguistics.London: Cambridge University.
Fransisca.2013. Illocutionary Acts onAlex’s Dialogue in Movie Madagascar 3:
Europe’s Most Wanted.Unpublished Thesis. Faculty of Languages and
Arts.State University of Medan.
Fromkin, Victoria., Robert, Rodman., & Nina, Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language. New York: Cengage Learning.
Hayat, Mazhar.,Akhter, Saira., &Iqbal, Sajida. 2015. Deviations Of Speech Acts
In Beckett’s Waiting For Godot: A Study In Pragmatics. European
Scientific Journal. Vol. 11, p356-373
Hulu, ElniscayaRiasetia. 2014. Illocutionary Acts by the Main Character in the Movie Les Mirable.Unpublished Thesis.Faculty of Languages and Arts.State University of Medan.
Ilyas, Sanaa.,Khushi, Qamar. 2012. Facebook Status Updates: A Speech Act Analysis.Journal of Savav. Vol.3 No.2, p500-507p
42
42
Marpaung, Helli B. 2012. The Illocutionary Acts of Naruto Shipuden Movie 3
“Inherited The Will of Fire.Unpublished Thesis. Faculty of Languages
and Arts. State University of Medan.
Moore, Andrew. 2001. Pragmatics.London: the Association of Teachers' Websites
Peccei, Jean Stilwel. 1999. Pragmatics. London: Routledge.
Searle, John. 1976.A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wheeler, L, Kip. 2014. Literary Terms and Definitions.Tennessee: Carson– Newman University
Wilson, J. 2006. Power and Pragmatics. Ireland: University of Ulster.
Yu, Hui Yen. 2006. Movie Genre. New York: W. w. Norton & Company.
