Analysis of Language Play in 'The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh' Movie.

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ABSTRACT

Dalam tugas akhir ini saya membahas pendekatan linguistik pada

permainan kata yang terdapat dalam film kartun anak-anak berjudul The Many

Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Permainan kata adalah bermain dengan kata-kata dengan melanggar aturan

yang ada dengan tujuan untuk kesenangan baik diri sendiri maupun orang lain.

Permainan kata dapat menyangkut empat area linguistik yaitu morfologi,

fonologi, variasi grafologi dan semantik.

Dalam tugas akhir ini saya menganalisis kata-kata yang mengandung

permainan kata dalam film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Permainan

kata yang paling sering dipakai dalam film ini adalah aspek linguistik fonologi

(asonansi). Asonansi adalah pengulangan bunyi vokal dalam kata-kata. Sedangkan

permainan kata yang paling jarang dipakai dalam film ini adalah aspek liguistik

fonologi, onomatopea. Onomatopea adalah pembentukan kata yang meniru suara.

Film kartun anak-anak The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ini

dibuat hanya untuk kesenangan semata jadi tidak bertujuan untuk pendidikan. Hal

itu dibuktikan dari efek-efek yang dihasilkan oleh penggunaan permainan kata

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Maranatha Christian University

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1Background of the Study

There are many kinds of movies, depending on whom they are for. There

are movies for adults, teenagers, and children. Movies for adults and teenagers are

usually about romance, politics, and daily life. Meanwhile, movies for children are

usually of educational content. This is because children are still in the learning

phase.

There are many ways for children to learn. One of the ways is through

watching cartoon movies. Children are easily bored in doing something, for

example, in learning new words. If they feel bored, they will refuse to learn. That

is why the makers of children’s movies should be able to make the movies as

interesting as possible. As a result, children will not feel bored and still they will

get the moral lesson as well as the educational messages by watching movies.

Many children like to watch cartoon movies because those movies are

funny and interesting. The funny and interesting things are reflected in the

characters, their voices, the music, and the pictures. One of the cartoon movies for

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from Santa Clarita, CA, the United States gives a comment that Winnie the Pooh

is good for small children. The film is also good for pre-readers to early readers.

Small children and pre-readers to early readers will get a chance to follow the

words and the pictures through the characters, voices, and music in the movie.

(http://www.superkids.com/aweb/pages/reviews/1st_look/wtp/kids.shtml)

Besides the characters, their voices, and the music; language play can

make the movie funny and interesting, as David Elkind says:

. . . play provides a best defense against stress because it allows for

the flexibility a child needs while working out of his or her questions

about the perceived world. Play allows children to assimilate and

accommodate at a rate that is personally satisfying. If a child has found

learning to read to be stressful in any way, play is a way to help restore

cognitive flexibility as well as a positive attitude. These characteristics

contribute to complex nature of play and reveal the qualities that makes

language play capable of serving “use of mind”, as well as language and

literacy development.

(http://www.enc.adu/org/theachered/literacy/languageplayactivities.htm)

As Elkind says, language play helps children’s brains to improve in their

language, without their realizing it especially vocabulary or even their ability to

read and write.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is one of the Winnie the Pooh

movies which are very popular among children. This movie contains the three

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and the Blustery Day”, and “Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Too.” By watching it,

children can learn new words. In the movie, Pooh creates songs and ditties about

the situations that he finds himself in and enjoyments in rhyming words. For

example, Pooh says to Christopher Robin, "aim me at the bees please" when he is

hanging from a balloon looking for honey. Similar to Pooh, children can also learn

to be creative by formulating their own words.

(http://www.superkids.com/aweb/pages/reviews/1st_look/wtp/kids.shtml)

I choose The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh as the source of my

data because this is one of the funniest and most interesting cartoon movies. The

funny and interesting things are shown through the characters, voices, music, and

pictures. Moreover, it contains language play.

According to David Crystal, language play is ‘an action of manipulating

the language by blending and breaking the rules’ (Crystal 1). Language play has

hidden purposes through bending and breaking the rules, for instance enjoyment

and relaxation (Cook 227). Crystal also says ‘When people tell each other jokes,

make puns, recite limericks, or put on silly voices, they are doing far more than

communicating ideas. They are enjoying the way in which the rules of language

can be manipulated for humor or entertainment’ (Crystal 464).

There are four aspects of linguistics which I will use in analyzing language

play. They are Morphology, Phonology, Graphology, and Semantics. Morphology

is ‘the study which focuses on the structure of words and word formations’

(Crane, Yeager, and Whitman 96). Phonology is ‘the study of how the speech

sounds are organized and how they function in language’ (Crane, Yeager, and

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concerning such matters as spelling, capitalization, hyphenation, italicization, and

paragraphing’ (Leech and Short 131). Semantics is ‘the study of

word meaning’ (Crane, Yeager, and Whitman 129).

Language play in this movie helps children to learn new words. ‘It will

encourage them to do like Pooh does, for instance, think up words that rhyme with

one another. Rhymes are the building blocks to poetry and children can have a

great time thinking up simple rhyming words such as 'dog', 'log', 'fog' etc’.

(http://www.femail.com.au/learningthroughdisney.htm)

The significance of this analysis is to find out what kinds of effects are

produced on children as the movie watchers due to the use of language play in

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh movie. As a result, children will be

aware not only of the story in this movie but also of the utterances which are used.

The utterances are an important means through which language play can be found.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

1. Which words in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh movie contain

language play?

2. What kinds of language play are they classified into?

3. What is the effect of the use of language play on children?

1.3 Purpose of the Study

Based on the statement of the problem, the purpose of the study is:

1. To list the words in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh movie which

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2. To identify the kinds of language play.

3. To explain the effect of the use of language play on children.

1.4 Method of Research

For the process in gathering the data, I follow a number of steps. First, I

watch the movie while collecting the data which are appropriate for the analysis.

In addition to taking data from the movie, I take the data from the movie script on

the Internet. Second, I select the data based on the kinds of language play. Third, I

analyze the data which have been classified according to the statement of the

problem. Finally, I write the result of the analysis as a research report.

1.5 Organization of the Thesis

This thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter I, the Introduction, contains

Background of the Study, Statement of Problem, Purpose of the Study, Method of

Research, and Organization of the Thesis. Chapter II, Theoretical Background,

presents the linguistic theories used to analyze the language play in The Many

Adventures of Winnie the Pooh movie. Chapter III contains the analysis. Chapter

IV, the Conclusion, contains my personal opinion and comments on the

discussion. This thesis ends with the Bibliography and Appendices. The

Bibliography presents the list of the references I use in writing this thesis. The

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CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I would like to present some conclusions based on my

findings after analyzing the linguistic aspects and their effects related to the

language play in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh movie. For my

analysis, I use twenty-one data from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

movie. Some data involve more than one linguistic aspect.

In The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh movie there are four

linguistic areas and twelve kinds of language play that are used. First, in

Phonology, there are thirteen (13) data of language play used. They are rhyming

pairs, minimal pairs, rhyming slang, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and assonance.

Second, in Morphology, there are nine (9) data of language play used. They are

suffixation, infixation, and alphabetism. Third, in Graphology, there are two (2)

data of language play used. Fourth, in Semantics, there are two (2) data of

language play used. They are mimes and antonym.

From the explanation above, we can see that the mostly-used linguistic

aspect in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh movie is Phonology. There

are four (4) data of assonance; for example, in data 7, the vowel sound [aʊ] in the

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alliteration; for example, in data 8, the consonant sound [θ] in the word think

[θɪŋk] is repeated in the word things [θɪŋz]. Two (2) data rhyming slang, for

example in data 4, Winnie the Pooh says the word suspect by spelling it

S-U-S-P-E-C-T. Furthermore, three (3) data rhyming pairs; for example, in data 2, the

words hefty [hæftɪ] and happy [hæpɪ] have the same final sound [ɪ]. The last is

one (1) data onomatopoeia; for example, in data 6, the words Dum Da Dum Pa

Rum Pa Rum imitates the sound of a drum.

There are nine kinds of effects on children which are caused by those

twelve kinds of language play as I have mentioned above. The first effect is to

create humor. I can find eight data that give these humorous effects. The second

effect is for enjoyment. There are five data that I find producing enjoyment

effects. To create humor and enjoyment has one main goal that is just for fun, so

that the children do not feel bored in watching this movie. These effects are

mostly felt by using rhyming slang and alliteration.

The third effect is to create a pleasant sound. I can find six data that give

this kind of effect. There are some purposes of this effect, namely to help children

to increase their new vocabulary, help them to memorize the new words easily,

and help them to learn new words. Besides, a pleasant sound can also make

children not feel bored in watching this movie. The pleasant sound is usually

found in the songs sung by the characters. This effect is mostly produced by using

rhyming pairs and assonance.

The fourth effect of the use of language play in this movie is to give a

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language play that gives this effect is mimes. Meanwhile, the fifth effect is to help

children to spell the words. There are two data which produce this effect by means

of rhyming slang.

The sixth effect of language play in The Many Adventures of Winnie the

Pooh movie is to help children to pronounce words. Two data create this kind of

effect. Graphological variation is a kind of language play that produces this effect.

Then, the seventh effect is to help children be more confident in writing. I can

find two data that give this effect. The kind of language play that gives this effect

is graphological variation.

The last effect is to encourage children to learn pronunciation by showing

them that they are not the only ones who have difficulty in saying words which

consist of more than two syllables. Two data give this kind of effect by using

infixation.

After analyzing the twenty-one data I use to analyze the language play in

The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh movie, which involves twelve kinds

of language play, I can conclude that children between the ages of three and eight

who are in the process of learning new words through reading, listening, speaking,

and writing. Therefore, in my opinion, this Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

movie gives the positive and negative effects.

This movie gives positive effects because through the songs which involve

kinds of language play such as; alliteration, assonance, and rhyming pairs,

children can learn new words and increase their vocabulary. This movie also helps

them become more confident in writing. At their age, children usually make a lot

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Besides positives effects, this movie gives the negative effects. I think it is

acceptable that children can learn about new words and increase their vocabulary

through the kinds of language play. However, the most significant effect of the

use of language play in this movie is to create humor. That is why, many words in

this movie are incorrectly spelled. In my opinion, The Many Adventure of Winnie

the Pooh movie is not classified into an educative movie. This movie is only made

for enjoyment.

There are still many kinds of language play that can be found in this

movie. I believe cartoon movies have a function not only for enjoyment but also

for education. Through cartoon movies, children will not feel bored in learning

because they do it while enjoying it. Therefore, do not underestimate cartoon

movies. Third, in my opinion, analyzing kinds of language play is very

interesting. The reason is that through language play I can apply the knowledge

that I have got from the previous semesters to analyze it. As a result, I can

understand better about the functions of the knowledge in language play which

have significant effects on children.

To end my thesis, I intend to give suggestion to other students who wish to

write about the same topic. Cartoon movies are usually dedicated to children. That

is why, we can find many language plays in them. In other words, it is easier for

those students to write about the same topic analyzing language play in cartoon

movies.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

References:

Bauer, Laurie. English Word-Formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1987.

Cook, G. Language Play, Language Learning. ELT Journal, 227, 1997.

Crane, L. Ben, Edward Yeager, and Randal L. Whitman. An Introduction to

Linguistics. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Inc., 1981.

Crystal, David. How Language Works. England: Penguin Books, 2005.

---, Language Play. London: Penguin Group, 1998.

---, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Australia: Cambridge University

Press, 1987.

Hornby, A.S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. United Kingdom: Oxford

University Press, 2000.

Huck, Charlotte S., et al. Children’s Literature in the Elementary School. Florida:

Harcourt Brace Javanovich, Inc., 1989.

Leech, Geoffrey N., and Michael H. Short. Style in Fiction. London and New

York: Longman Group, Inc., 1994.

Longman Essential Activator. England: Addison Wesley Longman Limited, 1999.

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O’Grady, William, Michael Dobrovolsky, and Francis Katamba. Contemporary

Linguistics An Introduction. United Kingdom: Copp. Clark Pitman Ltd.,

1996.

O’Grady, William, et al. Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. New York:

St. Martin’s Press, 1993

Perrine, Laurence. Literature Structure, Sound, and Sense. New York: Harcourt

Brace Javanovich, Inc.,1978.

Widdowson, H.G. Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Website:

http://Topher’sCastle.org/movie-transcipt/ManyAdvofWinnieThePooh.html

http://www.superkids.com/aweb/pages/reviews/1st_look/wtp/kids.shtml

http://www.enc.adu/org/theachered/literacy/languageplayactivities.htm

http://www.femail.com.au/learningthroughdisney.htm

http://www.nobleworld.biz/images/Ogunsiji.pdf

http://www.newi.ac.uk/englishresources/workunits/alevel/lang/langatplay.html

http://ecrp.uiuc.adu/v5n2/johnson.html

http://education.umn.edu/ceed/publications/earlyreport/fall90.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/linguafranca/stories/2007/1813887.htm

http://iteslj.org/Articles/McGlothlin-ChildLearn.html

http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/literacy/ReferenceMaterials/GlossaryOfLiteracyTer

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Primary source:

DVD The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Secondary source: