SPEECH ACT IN ADELE’S 21 ALBUM
A THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
By
MANNA RIA MUNTHE
Registration Number: 208222041
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
i
ABSTRACT
Munthe, Manna Ria. Reg. No 208222041. Speech Act in Adele’s 21 Album. A Thesis, English Department Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan, 2012.
This study deals with speech act found in Adele’s 21 Album. The objectives of the study are to find out the classification of illocutionary act, the most dominant classification of illocutionary act, and describe the implication of the most dominant classification of illocutionary act used in lyrics of Adele’s 21 Album. The study on this thesis was carried out by using descriptive qualitative method. The data were collected from the eleven singles of Adele in 21 Album which contain of five classification of illocutionary act according to Searle (1969), namely, representatives, directives, declaratives, expressives, and commissives. The findings, found that there are five classification of illocutionary found in the
lyrics of Adele’s 21 Album and they are Representatives 172 utterances (58,50%),
directives 50 utterances (17,01%), declaratives 12 utterances (4,08%), expressives 10 utterances (3,40%), and commissives 50 utterances (17,01%). Representatives is proven to be the the dominant classification which is used in the whole lyrics of
Adele’s 21 Album because representatives conveys what the speaker believes. It
1
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First and foremost, great thankfulness to her Mighty God, who created her, always loving, blessing, and give her opportunity and health to enable her to complete this thesis as a requirements for the degree of Sarjana Sastra at English and Literature Department of Faculty of Language and Arts, State University of Medan.
This thesis could have not been accomplished without guidance, suggestions, comments, and support from several people, or which the writer would like to extend her sincere and special thanks to:
Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si., the Head of State University of
Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of Faculty of Languages and
Arts, State University of Medan.
Prof. Dr.Hj.Sumarsih, M.Pd. as the Head of English Department and Dra. Rahmah, M.Hum. as the Secretary of English Department as well as
her thesis consultant for the invaluable advices, constructive comments and her previous time spent in making corrections to this thesis.
Dra. Meisuri, M.A. the Head of Applied Linguistics for all suggestions
and administrative help during her study and time in conducting this thesis.
Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed. her academic consultant.
For all lecturers of the English Department FBS UNIMED for their instruction and the invaluable knowledge throughout her academic years.
Her beloved parents M.Munthe and B.simare-mare (†) who have patiently giving moral, spiritual, and financial support including their everlasting love, hopeful prayers in her life, especially for her mom.
Her brothers, Pahala, Niko, Joshua, Nanda, and Imam for their supports, cares, laughs, and helps.
Her dearest friends, Ira, Ruth, Etha, Silvia, Meylina, Juli Damanik,
Theresia, Irma, fenty, Helena, Adhy, Rehan, Emil, Ulfian, Gigin, Farisa, BIO and all her classmates in Applied Linguistics A and B 2008
that cannot be mentioned.
NHKBP Sp.Limun (Octavia, Fenny, Sendy, Bangkit, John, Andy,
Julky, Andar, Mawati, Nova) thanx for all support, laugh and pray.
The writer realizes that this thesis is still far from being perfect. Therefore, she would like to invite the readers to give some suggestions for the improvement in the future.
2
ii
iii
b. Classification of Illocutionary Act…...……… 9
1) Declaratives….……….…. 9
CHAPTER IV: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH FINDINGS... 18
iv
B. Data Analysis……… 18
1. Identification of The Dominant of Illocutionary Act………... 19
2. The Analysis of the Occurrences Classification of Illocutionary Act……… 19
C. Research Findings……… 37
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS………. 39
A.Conclusions……… 39
B.Suggestions………. 40
v
LIST OF TABLES
Tables Page
Table 4.1 The Total Number and Percentage of classification of
Illocutionary Act………...…. 19
Table 4.2 Rolling in the Deep……… 20
Table 4.3 Rumour Has it……… 22
Table 4.4 Turning Tables……… 23
Table 4.5 Don’t You Remember……… 25
Table 4.6 Set Fire to the Rain……….... 26
Table 4.7 He Won’t Go………. 28
Table 4.8 Take it All……….. 30
Table 4.9 I’ll be Waiting……….... 31
Table 4.10 One and Only………. 33
Table 4.11 Love Song……….. 34
vi
LIST OF APPENDICES
APPENDIX Page
A The Analysis of Lyrics in Adele’s 21 Album……….. 42
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Language is one of the media which cannot be separated from human life
because it has an important role to connect one to another person and it is used by
people to communicate to others. By using language in our daily life can show
that us are a social creatures and have the highest inteligence than others.
To make a language more meaningful is needed an understanding between
speaker (s) and listener (s) to use that language in a good and a right way. The
speaker must be able to convey a right information to the listener in a good way so
both of them will be successful to use it to communicate. Clark (1977:25) said that
Speaker expect listeners to recognize the function of sentences they speak and to
act accordingly. They expect their listeners to realize that it is a request for
information. If the listeners fail to appreciate this intention, they are judged as
having “missunderstood,” even though they may have taken in everything else
about the utterance. People also have different ways to show their ideas, feelings,
emotion, thought and so on and it sometimes can be expressed by means of speech
act.
Cruse (2000:331) states that to communicate we must express proposition with
particular illocutionary force, and in so doing we perform particular kinds of
action such as stating, promising, warning, and so on, which have come to be
2
but also how they can convey or share what they feel, think and want from the
listener (s) so the listener can get the information from the speaker and do
something that the speaker asks, suggests and wants.
Speech act are, in sense, what make language work; without speech acts
language describes truth and falsity and such but with speech acts language allow
us to regulate and modify our reality based on the power of words (Bjoorgvinsson,
2011:24). It allows one to look at languge not only as a device for communication
but also as an instrument of action. Sometimes people do not realize that they use
speech acts function in their daily conversation for asking, requesting, offrering,
suggesting and so on because they do not understand about the usage of speech act
itself, that’s why the writer interests to study this subject to assist the reader (s) to
understand its function in different situations.
According to Austin as quoted by Chapman and Routledge (2009:216), when
we say something, we perform three acts simultaneously: a locutionary act, an
illocutionary act, and a perlocutionary act. At the locutionary level, a speaker
produces sounds which are well ordered with respect to the phonological system
and grammar of a particular language and carry some sense with respect to the
semantic and pragmatic rules of that language. At the illocutionary act level, he is
expressing his attention by virtue of conventions shared in his speech community.
At the perlocutionary act level, he performs a third act which includes the
concequences of his speaking and he has only limited control over them.
Related to the explanation above, speech acts have an important role in our
3
they enable us to compliment, apologize, request, complain, etc. Language is not
always spoken but also it can be written such as poem, poetry, lyrics, proverbs and
so on.
This study focuses on analyzing the classification of illocutionary act in the
lyrics of “Adele’s21 Album” and the writer will use the five classification from
Searle’s theory to analyze it, they are : Declaratives, Representatives, Expressives,
Directives, and Commissives. The writer realizes that everyone around this world
like to listen to the music because it can be a media to unite all people from
different background (young, old, men, women, rich, poor and so on) and we can
enjoy it whereever and wheneever as we want without forbidding and limitation.
Music has been a part of our life and it cannot be seperated from us because
every music has different function based on what kinds of music are listened by us
and it can also influence our phsycological condition and health. There are several
benefits that we can get by listening a music: first, for our phsycological
conditions (giving a new spirit, making our condition more comfortable, providing
new inspirations), and second for our health (regulating heartbeat, managing
respiratory and emotions, and affecting inteligence of someone).
Everyone has a right choosing their favorite kinds of music and every music
also have a good benefit for every listeners. So it is up to you what kinds of music
you want to enjoy everyday and hopefully it can make you happy.
The writer chooses to analyze speech act in “Adele’s 21 Album” lyrics
because Adele is one of the talented singer and she writes some of the songs in her
4
Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for 21, Record of the Year, Song
of the Year and Best Short Form Music Video for "Rolling in the Deep", and Best
Pop Solo Performance for "Someone Like You". There are eleven songs in this
album and it has been realesed on January 24th 2011 and some of the songs in this
album become popular in many countries .
B. THE PROBLEM OF THE STUDY
Based on the background of the study some problems are formulated as the
following :
1. What are the classification of illocutionary act used in lyrics of “Adele’s
21 Album”?
2. What is the dominant classification of illocutionary act used in lyrics of
“Adele’s21 Album”?
3. What is the implication of the dominant classification of illocutionary act
to the “Adele’s 21 Album”?
C. THE OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
Related to the problem of the study, the objectives of the study are :
1. To find out the classification of illocutionary act used in lyrics of “Adele’s
21 Album”.
2. To find out the classification of illocutionary act that is dominantly used in
lyrics of “Adele’s 21 Album”.
3. To find out the implication of illocutionary act that is dominantly used in
5
D. THE SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This study is focused on analyzing the speech act that is used in lyrics of
“Adele’s 21 Album”. According to Searle’s theory, there are five classification of
illocutionary act used in this study, such as Declaratives, Representatives,
Expressives, Directives, and Commissives.
E. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The findings of this study are expected to be useful and relevant to :
1. The students of English Department who are learning pragmatics as
guidence to analyze the classification of speech act in texts / lyrics.
2. Readers who want to enrich their knowledge and get more understanding
and information of how speech act used.
3. The other researcher to use the findings as his/her reference in related
39
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. CONCLUSION
After collecting, classifying, and analyzing all data, it can be concluded that:
1. There are five classification of illocutionary act based on searle’s theory
namely; representatives, directives, declaratives, expressives, and
commissives.
2. All classification of illocutionary act were used in the lyrics of Adele’s 21
Album. There are 294 utterances consist of 172 representatives, 50
directives, 12 declaratives, 10 expressives, and 50 commissives.
3. The percentages of each classification of illocutionary act in the lyrics of
Adele’s 21 abum are 58.50% of representatives, 17.01% of directives,
4.08% of declaratives, 3.4% of expressives, and 17.01% of commissives.
4. Representatives mostly used when the singer was going to describes,
informs, asserts, suggests, and informs, directives was mostly used when
she asking, begging, commanding, ordering, declaratives was used when
she declares something, expressives was used when she describes her
various phycologycal such as praising, apologizing, and thanking, and
commissives was used by her to commit herself to some future action like
promising, vowing, and accepting.
5. The classification of speech act which is dominantly used in the lyrics of
Adele’s 21 Album was representatives because it conveys what the
40
of 21 Album based on what she assumes are true and tells about her
feelings, condition and what she is thinking of, so the utterances mostly
used to describe, assert, conclude, claim, complain, inform, report and
suggest.
B. SUGGESTION
Refering to the conclusion above, there are some suggestions which are useful
for :
1. All the fans of Adele, it’s better for them to study and understand
illocutionary act classification that used by Adele in her single, so they
will know what is the purpose of her utterances in her lyrics and for what
someone produces an utterances.
2. Students of English Department especially to the literature students to
learn more about how the iillocutionary classification are used in a text,
book, journal especially in lyrics.
3. Readers to help them using an appropriate words or sentences to
communicate effectively and avoid them from missunderstanding.
4. Other researcher making this research as their reference for the further
research to analyze the classification of speech that is used in a lyrics and
guide them to understand the application of illocutionary act in every
