The Emergence of Tense Atmosphere Due To The Miscalculation of Weightiness of FTA in 'Grey's Anatomy'.

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ABSTRACT

Topik tugas akhir ini adalah the Emergence of a Tense Atmosphere due to the Miscalculation of Weightiness of FTA in Grey’s Anatomy. Tujuan tugas akhir ini adalah untuk membuktikan bahwa kebanyakan orang acapkali salah memperhitungkan strategi kesantunan dalam berkomunikasi dengan orang lain. Dampak dari kesalahan kalkulasi oleh penutur tersebut dapat menimbulkan beragam respon dari mitra tutur. Pengkalkulasian strategi kesantunan ini mengacu pada tiga parameter, yaitu jarak, besarnya beban dan kuasa.

Dalam menyelesaikan tugas akhir ini, data yang diambil berasal dari serial TV berjudul Grey’s Anatomy, yang didalamnya penutur keliru memilih strategi kesantunan yang digunakan dalam berkomunikasi sehingga menimbulkan berbagai macam reaksi yang pada akhirnya menyebabkan ketegangan. Strategi kesantunan ini termasuk dalam kajian pragmatik.

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APPENDIX

Data 1

Dr. Stevens : Hey, you shouldn’t be out here. Dr. Karev : Can you just back off!

Dr. Stevens : Ok

Dr. Karev : What is it?

Dr. Stevens : I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Dr. Burke needs a decision now.

Data 2

Dr. Grey : Push one of epi. Let’s go again. Charge 300 Dr. O’Malley : Seriously?

Olivia : I think that’s what Dr. Grey wants you to do, George. Dr. O’Malley : (hold his breath and raise his eyebrow)

Olivia : Dr. O’Malley

Data 3

Mother : What’s going on?

Peter : You’re not supposed to be here Georgie. You’re gonna get in trouble Georgie.

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Data 4

Dr. O’Malley : Did you check his dig level? Dr. Torres : What are you doing?

Dr. O’Malley : This morning his potassium has a borderline low. Dr. Torres : All right, we’ve got a handle on things here.

Dr. Hahn : (bulges her eyes out and stands with arms in her waist)

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37 Maranatha Christian University because this is my hospital. When it’s your hospital, you can make the damn decision. But until then this is my

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Dr. Karev : What did you say?

Intern : You seem still respect Izzie Stevens and she killed a

patient.

Dr. Karev : (leads to the wall) She was trying to save a man’s life

and you almost killed a friend for fun. It’s different.

Data 10

Dr. Stevens : I’ve prescribed her alprazoram and clonazepam. Psych will be down within an hour, but I thought it’d be good to have something to keep her calm until they get here. Dr. Karev : She doesn’t need any drugs or any psych.

Dr. Stevens : She needs a psych consult to be admitted. Dr. Karev : Look, I’m not admitting her.

Dr. Stevens : You’re not taking her home.

Dr. Karev : I was watching her every minute until you called.

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39 Maranatha Christian University not on today. She was admitted under my name, which means I get to decide the treatment plan. She

needs to be put on a hold so…

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1 Maranatha Christian University

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

In our daily life, communication is important. We communicate with other people by having conversations with them. Through conversations, we can share our ideas and express our feelings. When engaging in a conversation, a speaker expects a hearer to interpret his/her utterances as the speaker intended in order to make the conversation run smoothly.

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2 Maranatha Christian University The way people communicate with others depends on the social relationship between the speaker and the hearer. For instance, a child will use polite utterances when he/she talks to his/her parents. It will be different if he/she talks to his/her friends. The other factors are age and status. These factors can also influence the way people communicate with others. For example, it will be different if someone talks to his/her boss compared to his/her subordinate.

Sometimes people break the rule of level of politeness within their communication. From the example above, we know that the social relationship, age, and status influence the way people communicate. In other cases, unconsciously people violate the rule. For example, a subordinate makes an impolite utterance to his boss to show his/her disappointment. There are different kinds of reactions that the boss will give to his subordinate utterances. The boss could probably be angry, do nothing or fail to understand why the subordinate uses an impolite utterance.

When engaging in a conversation, we have to use the appropriate utterance to express ideas and our feelings, because when we use inappropriate utterances, the hearer will get the wrong understanding, this will cause many kinds of reactions from the hearer. The implied meaning can be successfully understood if the awareness of the hearer is high. However, not all the hearers are aware of the implied meaning. As a result, there will be misunderstanding between the speaker and the hearer that might cause a tense atmosphere between to people.

Therefore, I would like to analyze this language phenomenon in linguistics by applying it in the TV series entitledGrey’s Anatomy. The topic of my thesis is the emergence of a tense atmosphere due to the miscalculation of weightiness of FTA in

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3 Maranatha Christian University relationship and status between doctors or between doctors and patients make the speaker miscalculate the weightiness. Thus, the significance of my topic is to make people aware that they must be cautious when choosing or calculating a certain politeness strategy so as not to result in a tense atmosphere. Besides, it can also build the sensitivity of the hearer towards the speaker’s utterances, so that the hearer will be more aware of the speaker’s utterances, in order to minimize the threatening to other’s face. This topic is close to our daily life. That is why I am interested in it. Moreover, this topic is also interesting to analyze because we are engaged in conversations everyday.

In Grey’s Anatomy TV series, the source of my data, the tense atmosphere found in this film makes it interesting to analyze. I take the data from Grey’s Anatomy TV series because I find a number of utterances that contain a miscalculation of Rate of Imposition, Distance and Power in the way the characters communicate with one another. In addition, the effects of the conflict on each character are not the same. In this film, the background status can also influence the way people communicate. In analyzing Grey’s Anatomy TV series, I use politeness and interaction as the approach.

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4 Maranatha Christian University (Word count: 748)

1.2 Statement of the Problem

There are four problems that I am going to discuss: 1. What type of Politeness Strategy does the speaker use?

2. Why does the speaker apply an inappropriate Politeness Strategy?

3. What type of Politeness Strategy does the hearer think it is appropriate for the speaker to use?

4. How does the miscalculation of the Politeness Strategy lead to the tense atmosphere of the story?

1.3 Purpose of the Study

The purpose of doing the analysis is:

1. To know the type of Politeness Strategy the speaker uses.

2. To know the reason why the speaker applies an inappropriate Politeness Strategy.

3. To know the type of Politeness Strategy that the hearer thinks it is appropriate for the speaker to use.

4. To know how the miscalculation of the Politeness Strategy leads to the tense atmosphere of the story.

1.4 Methods of Research

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5 Maranatha Christian University inappropriate use of Politeness Strategy. After that, I analyze and classify them based on the types of Politeness Strategies. At last, I write the research report.

1.5 Organization of the Thesis

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I will write a conclusion related to the three chapters above

that I have written. In this thesis, I discuss Pragmatics, the study of politeness and

interaction. I use this theory to analyze the data, which are taken from the Grey’s

Anatomy TV series. All data that I have analyzed have conflict between the

speaker and the hearer because of the miscalculation of weightiness that causes

tense atmosphere in the story. The conflict between the speakers and the hearer

appears because the speakers miscalculate the weightiness: Rate of Imposition,

Distance and Power, before the speaker chooses the strategy.

When the speaker miscalculates the weightiness automatically the speaker

will choose a wrong politeness strategy. There are five politeness strategies that

the speaker can use: Bald on Record, Positive Politeness, Negative Politeness, Off

Record and Say Nothing. All the strategies are chosen based on the value analysis

that the speaker has done. The use of a particular strategy will cause various

responses from the hearer. The selection of the strategy also depends on the

situation when the speaker and the hearer have the conversation, which could be

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30 Maranatha Christian University After analyzing the data, I found almost all the speakers miscalculate the

parameter of Distance and in some data the speaker miscalculates the parameters

of Power and Rate of Imposition. This happens because of their habit when in an

informal situation. Their habit influences the way they communicates with others.

The miscalculation happens when the speaker and the hearer have a different view

of the weightiness.

Bald on Record strategy cannot be used by a speaker who has a lower

status than the hearer. On record strategy is more straight to the point. When

someone who is in a lower position of status uses this strategy to his boss, it will

cause a conflict, and it can even happen when the speaker and the hearer have the

same level. This is shown in Data 1, when the speaker, Dr. Stevens, who has the

same level as the hearer, Dr. Karev, uses this strategy. It causes conflict between

her and him.

Positive Politeness strategy cannot be used when the speaker does not

have a close relationship with the hearer. When someone has a close relationship

with others, the speaker will address the hearer by his nickname or first name, to

show empathy or interest. Otherwise, when the speaker and the hearer have

distance, the hearer wants to be respected by the speaker, it also depends on the

situation where the speaker, for example Olivia, and the hearer, Dr. O’Malley has

the conversation. This for speaker interest case in Data 2, when Olivia ignores the

situation; she miscalculates the weightiness, even though Olivia and Malley have

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31 Maranatha Christian University Negative Politeness can be used when the imposition is high, in a situation

when the speaker has to use hedges to minimize the imposition. Without using

hedges the possibility causes the tense atmosphere to be high. It is show in Data 4;

from this data I found that the speaker, Dr. Yang, uses the word think as a hedge

to minimize the imposition.

Off Record strategy cannot be successfully used to the hearer, when the

hearer’s sensitivity is low. In this strategy the speaker, usually uses an implied

meaning in his/her utterance. For example, in Data 4, we know that the hearer, Dr.

O’Malley, does not get the implied meaning from Dr. Yang, the speaker’s

utterance because Dr. O’Malley sensitivity is low.

Say Nothing strategy can be used when the imposition is too high. It

means that the speaker will not say anything to explain his/her desires to the

hearer. This strategy will not cause a conflict between the speaker and the hearer.

The conflict happens because of the inequality of strategy between the

speaker and the hearer. For instance, in Data 1, 5 and 6 there are conflicts between

the speaker and the hearer. They happen when the speaker thinks that they have a

close relationship. On the other hand, the hearer wants to keep a distance because

they are in the hospital and there are patients. The hearer wants to be respected by

the speaker. In Data 2, 3 and 8 the hearer expects Negative Politeness from the

speaker, but the speaker uses Positive Politeness. The speaker uses this kind of

strategy because she has a close relationship; on the other hand, the hearer wants

to keep the distance because there is an intern present, and he wants to be

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32 Maranatha Christian University expect Say Nothing strategy. In Data 9 the speaker uses Bald on Record strategy,

but the hearer expects Say Nothing strategy. In Data 10 the hearer expects Say

Nothing strategy from the speaker, but the speaker uses Off Record strategy. In

the last data, Data 11, the speaker uses Off Record and Bald on Record. This

happens because when the speaker uses the first strategy, the hearer does not get

the implied meaning from the speaker, and when the speaker uses Bald on

Record, the hearer feels that the speaker does not have respect. That is why the

hearer expects Politeness Strategy in order to have empathy from the speaker.

According to my analysis, all data have at least two parameters before the

speaker decides to choose the best politeness strategy to use in the speaker’s

utterance. The conflict happens between the speaker and the hearer caused by the

difference of calculation of weightiness. The calculation also depends on the

situation where they have the conversation. The hearer’s response in each data is

different. Sometimes the hearer is angry. We can know this from his/her

utterance, facial expression of the hearer, the intonation that the hearer uses and

his/her action. The entire hearer’s response causes a tense atmosphere in the story.

Finally, I suggest that the analysis of the politeness strategy can be applied

in any drama movie where the characters have different status. The setting of the

movie can be in the office, hospital, or school. In these settings, we can see clearly

the difference between each character. For the future thesis writers, I hope this

analysis can be elaborated more. The writers can apply this kind of research to

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33 Maranatha Christian University only tense; hopefully the future writer will find other effects from the conflict,

such as humor.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

References:

Yule, George. Pragmatics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Yule, George. The Study of Language. Cambridge: University Press, 1996.

Source of Data:

DVD Grey’s Anatomy season 1