SPEECH FUNCTION IN
TOP 25 MICHAEL JACKSON’S SONGS
A THESIS
Submitted to the English and Literature Department Faculty of Languages and Arts UNIMED as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
By:
FARISNAULI SIALLAGAN
Registration Number. 209520007
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First and foremost, the writer would like to thanks to Almighty GOD for the blessing,
grace, mercy and protection through her whole life, during her study in her university and
especially during the completion of her thesis.
The writer is very thankful to many people who have assisted her in different ways,
although she had found a lot of difficulties, bur with the suggestion and critical comments from
consultant and invaluable advices from people who paid attention to him, especially her family.
Thus the writer finally is able to complete this thesis. This thesis could not be accomplished
without the guidance, suggestion and comments from several people. Thus, the writer would like
to extend her sincere and special thanks to:
Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si. as the Rector of State University of Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum. as the Dean of Faculty of Languages and Arts, State
University of Medan.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd. as the Head of English Department, Rika, S.Pd.,
M.Hum. as the Secretary of English Department, Dra. Meisuri, MA. as the Head of
Non-Educational English Program, and Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed. as the Head
of Educational English Program.
Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum. as the Writer’s Thesis Supervisor and Academic
Counselor.
Dr. Zainuddin, DIP. TEFL, M.Hum. Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd and Dr. Sri
Minda Murni, Ms as The Examiner..
Mam Indri, Mam Endah, and Mam Eius who was helped her providing the academic
administration.
H.Siallagan and M.Ambarita, her parents, who has patiently given moral, spiritual and
financial support including their endless love and pray for the writer.
Ramasinta Siallagan, Dosma Siallagan, Vino Alvaro Pandiangan, Victor
Pandiangan, Billy Siallagan, etc her beloved family, who have given their endless
support and pray for the writer to finishing the thesis.
Her best friends in collage, Hanna Sinaga, Mariati,Marta Manullang, who always
help the writer in finishing her study and thesis. Love you forever and all her friends in
applied linguistics 2009 and 2010.
Finally, huge thanks go to all people that give contribution to this thesis.
Medan, September 2014
The writer
Farisnauli Siallagan 209520007
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ... 7
A. Theoretical Framework ... 7
B. Functional Grammar ... 7
C. Systematical Functional Grammar ... 8
D. Metafuction……… .. 8
E. Idetional Function………... . 9
F. Interfunctional Function………. .. 10
H. Interpersonal Meaning………. . 12
CHAPTER IV.DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS... 31
A. The Data……….. ... 31
C. Findings………... ... 39
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION AND SUGESTION……… 40
A. Conclusion………... ... 40
B. Suggestion………... ... 41
REFERENCES ... 42
LIST OF TABLES
Pages
Table 1.Speech Role and Commodity Exchange ... 14
Table 2.Realization of Speech Function in Mood ... 18
Table 3.Speech Function Pairs ... 19
Table 4.The example between initiation and responding speech function ... 20
Table 5.Types of Mood ... 22
Table 6.The number of Speech Function ... 32
LIST OF APPENDICES
Page
Appendix A. Analysis Speech Function in the Song……….... 44
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study
Language cannot be separated from the human being, language is tool to say anything
and express the ideas, by language, people can interact well, exchanging their ideas and also to
fulfill their needs. Language serves many functions: to give information, to persuade people to
do something, etc. language use in people daily communications. Communication is act giving
and asking information, communication itself divided into two forms: spoken and written
communication, spoken communication means the process of expressing ideas which is done
orally, and written communication is done in written form, usually find in letter, novel,
magazine, etc.
When exchanging and expressing the ideas, the human being perform two roles namely
giving and demanding, the commodity may be information and goods and services. In systematic
functional linguistic, it named speech function, speech function is a way of someone delivers the
ideas communication to make the listeners understand the ideas well. Speech function itself
divided in to four kinds: statement, question, command, and offer (Halliday, 1994:69). In mood
system, the kinds of speech function above realized by declarative, interrogative and imperative,
offer function is coded by anyone of the three moods.
The spoken communication is usually represented by utterances. In every utterances
people used to talk containing grammatical structure and words. In every word, phrase and
sentence is always perform the different function and misunderstanding will occur if the listener
does not notice what kind of function uses by the speaker.
2
Then you keep moving round, I suppose?
Come, let’s hear some of your adventure.
Those examples above the readers or the listeners may be gets a bit confused to notice what kind
of function is. In the first example, it used question mark even though the grammatical structure
does not contain any kinds of question elements such as: interrogative words (5w+h) or finite but
in this sentence the speaker requires the listener’s answer. Then in the second example, it is
command actually although it used full stop. It is not so difficult to notice because the listener or
reader would know the function by its meaning.
Systematic functional grammar (SFL) is a theory of language centered on the nation of
language function. It is concerned with relationship between language and context (Halliday,
1993:15) it is a study of language to focus and text and context as resource for making meaning.
Based on the theory of SFL, language is used by people to fulfill the function of language as
interpersonal meaning. Interpersonal meaning concern’s the speaker’s role in the speech
function. There are realized in mood.
The speaker adopts for himself in speech function and doing assigns to the listener in his
turns. Two people used language to interact with establishing a relationship between them. The
two basic of speech function are: (1) giving, (2) demanding (Halliday, 1994:68). Either the
speakers give something to the listener or he demands and something from him. Therefore, an
act of speaking is something that is called an interaction in speech function.
According to Halliday (1997:67) in the act speaking, the speaker adopts for himself a
particular role, and assign in so doing to the listener a complementary role which he wishes him
to adopt in his turn. So, in this study, the writer will try to describe the form of each utterance by
3
human assumption about each type of speech function that used in song. The writer chooses that
song because she is interested in a touching song has he good meaning for us in our life and
interesting article in this song is a feature story narrating the events that occurred in someone’s
life. This song gives inspiration for us like a story in our life, and the last one is give the positive
messages. Moreover, through speech function that used by an actor in song, people can analyze
the form of utterances and apply to in his words. Based on the explanation above, the writer
would like to do the study on the speech function in top 25 Michael Jackson’s song.
Analyzing the feature stories can reveal much more about the grammatical features of the
composition. It is expected that by applying the concept of speech function, there will be a
deeper understanding of the text as the object of analysis and of the English grammar as used in
composition.
Because of the reason, this thesis want to prove that in classifying speech function also
influence by the context of situation. The statement can be a command in different context, the
question can be a command in different context, as well as others. The genre of the song also
gives influences comparison of the count of types speech function in the song, because different
genre means different way the characters express their idea. And the biggest reasons are songs
lyric in seen as one of study resource and the inspiration of linguistic research and a lot of people
are the fans of “Michael Jackson song”.
Speech function is more oriented to functional interpretation. The speech function of the
statement, question, command, and offer which realized by declarative, interrogative and
imperative. Interpersonal meaning express the speech function: the interactions express attitude
4
A. The Problems of the Study
Based the background of the study, we can find the problems in top 25 Michael Jackson’s
song.
We find the statement, question, command, and offer in that statement. And any meaning
in that testament which we don’t understand, and needs the analyzing.
In the other hand, there are the problems of study
1. What types of speech function are used in top 25 Michael Jackson’s song?
2. What are the most dominant types of speech function are used in song?
3. What is the dominant meaning used in top 25 Michael Jackson’s song?
B. The Scope of the Study
Human beings used language in order to fulfill the function namely ideational, interpersonal,
and textual function. And in this thesis, this scope of this study is focused on the types of speech
function identified in Top 25 Michael Jackson’s song namely taken 10 songs from 25 songs of
Michael Jackson; “Do you remember, bad, smooth criminal, the way you make me feel, beat it,
you are not alone, hold my hand, they don’t care about us, black or white, and earth song”.
C. The Objectives of the Study
The objects of the study are:
1) to find out the types of speech function in top 25 Michael Jackson’s song
2) to describe the types of speech functions is dominantly used in top 25 Michael
5
3) to explain the meaning of the dominantly used in top 25 Michael Jackson’s song
D. The Significance of the Study
It is expected that findings of the study will be useful and relevant theoretically and
practically. Theoretically, the results of this study are relevant to the needs of the students who
want to understand more about the speech function, to enable and enrich their knowledge to
communicate better than before. It can provide some inputs in teaching speech functions and the
finding of this research can be used as a guide to understand the language and gender in a song.
Practically, the result of this study can be used as a model to identify and understands speech
functions for serving commodity in a song. This model helps the next researchers to investigate
moves in song. the finding are also expected to assist those who are really interested in song
including the English Department students to comprehend and become more skillful in
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGESSTION
A. Conclusion
After analyzing the data, conclusion are drawn as follows:
1. There are four types of speech functions: they are statement, questions, offer and
command. All the types are used in top 25 Michael Jackson’s song. The total of
speech function are occurrences 528 (100%) with the deals as follow: statement is
342(64.7%), question is 103 (19.5%), offer 9 (1.7%) and command 74 (14%).
2. The dominant type of speech function which is used in top Michael Jackson’s song is
statement 342(64.7%).
3. Dominant mean the highest proportion. The highest proportion in the use of statement
and giving are due to the fact that song deals with the commodity of giving
information rather than demanding goods and services.
4. From the previous analysis, it can be seen that statement and giving are generally used
in the song. It means that statement forms are uttered when the singer wants to give
the information in an entertaining way to the reader.
B. Suggestion
Referring to the result of this research, the following suggestions are given:
1. The students of English Department are advised to study more about speech function, so
they can get better understanding how speech function are used especially in song.
2. For other researcher, it is suggested that the result of the study will be very useful for
them in conducting a research related to the same study.
3. The readers are suggested to know how speech function use in communication or use in
their daily communication to avoid misunderstanding.
4. Those who are interested to analyzing song are suggested to enlarge their knowledge
what types of speech function in functional grammar.
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