SPEECH AND THOUGHT PRESENTATION
OF THE MAIN MALE CHARACTER IN
ÅSNE SEIERSTAD’S
THE BOOKSELLER OF KABUL: STYLISTIC ANALYSIS
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
ALOYSIUS FEVRIERY BAGAS ADWIANDY PURYADI Student Number: 154214054
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS
UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA YOGYAKARTA
ii
SPEECH AND THOUGHT PRESENTATION
OF THE MAIN MALE CHARACTER IN
ÅSNE SEIERSTAD’
S
THE BOOKSELLER OF KABUL: STYLISTIC ANALYSIS
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
ALOYSIUS FEVRIERY BAGAS ADWIANDY PURYADI Student Number: 154214054
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS
UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA YOGYAKARTA
vii
For those who
never give up on me
viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis was completed with supports from many people. Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to God for His blessings in my life so that I can get through all obstacles and gain strength during the process of writing this thesis.
I would like to express my gratitude also to my thesis advisor, Arina
Isti’anah S.Pd., M.Hum. who had entrusted me with many responsibilities and
encouraged me to finish this thesis in time. I would also express my gratitude to my thesis co-advisor, Anna Fitriati S.Pd., M.Hum. for her guidance in the process of making this thesis. I would like to extend my gratitude to my academic advisor Adventina Putranti, S.S, M.Hum. for her trust and support since the beginning of my college life.
My gratitude also goes to my family for their support. I would like to thank especially to Mama and Papa for their faith in me even though I countlessly fail to
exceed their expectations. In addition, I would like to express my gratitude also to
dek Bayu and mbah uti for their willingness to listen to problems I have been
through in my life. Without their support, I would never finish my study in time. Finally, I would like to convey my special thanks to all of my friends in English Letters Department, Universitas Sanata Dharma for their support.
ix
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ... xi
LIST OF TABLES ... xii
ABSTRACT ... xiii
ABSTRAK ... xiv
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ... 1
A. Background of the Study ... 1
B. Problem Formulation ... 4
C. Objectives of the Study ... 4
D. Definition of Terms ... 5
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ... 7
A. Review of Related Studies ... 7
B. Review of Related Theories ... 10
1. Stylistics ... 10
2. Speech and Though Presentation ... 12
a. Direct Speech and Direct Thought ... 13
b. Indirect Speech and Indirect Thought ... 13
c. Free Direct Speech and Free Direct Thought ... 14
d. Free Indirect Speech and Free Indirect Thought ... 15
e. Narrative Report of Speech Acts and Narrative Report of Thought Acts ... 16
3. Character and Characterization ... 16
C. Theoretical Framework ... 18
x
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ... 23
A. Speech and Thought Presentation Techniques by Åsne Seierstad of Sultan Khan ... 23
1. Speech Presentation ... 25
a. Direct Speech (DS) ... 25
b. Free Direct Speech (FDS) ... 29
c. Indirect Speech (IS)... 32
d. Narrative Report of Speech Acts (NRSA) ... 35
2. Thought Presentation ... 35
a. Indirect Thought (DT) ... 36
b. Direct Thought (IT) ... 40
c. Narrative Report of Thought Acts (NRTA) ... 42
B. Åsne Seierstad’s Characterization of Sultan Khan ... 44
1. Direct Characterization ... 45
2. Indirect Characterization ... 52
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ... 60
REFERENCES ... 62
APPENDICES ... 64
Appendix 1: Summary of Speech Presentation ... 64
xi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
DS : Direct Speech DT : Direct Thought FDS : Free Direct Speech FDT : Free Direct Thought FIS : Free Indirect Speech FIT : Free Indirect Thought IS : Indirect Speech IT : Indirect Thought
xii
LIST OF TABLES
No. Table Page
1 Table 1. Levels of Language 11
2 Table 2. Frequency of Speech and Thought Presentation 24 3 Table 3. Verb Distribution in Direct Speech Presentation 29 4 Table 4. Verb Distribution in Indirect Speech Presentation 34 5 Table 5. Verb and Verb Phrase Distribution in Indirect Thought
Presentation
39 6 Table 6. Verb Distribution in Direct Thought Presentation 41 7 Table 7. Verb and Verb Phrase Distribution in Narrative Report
of Thought Acts 43
8 Table 8. The Frequency of Speech and Thought Presentation as Direct Characterization
51 9 Table 9. The Frequency of Speech and Thought Presentation
as Indirect Characterization
58
10 Table 10. Summary of Speech Presentation 64
xiii ABSTRACT
PURYADI, ALOYSIUS FEVRIERY BAGAS ADWIANDY. (2019). Speech and Thought Presentation of the Main Male Character in Åsne Seierstad’s The Bookseller of Kabul: Stylistic Analysis. Yogyakarta: Department of English
Letters, Faculty of Letters, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Literature is a representation of human life. It is closely related to the life of human beings. In appreciating literature, linguistics provides an alternative way to scrutinize the works through stylistics. Stylistics aims to examine the relation between language and the artistic function in literature. This research focuses on a particular novel from Åsne Seierstad entitled The Bookseller of Kabul. The story
revolves around Sultan Khan, a bookseller from Afghanistan, and his family. Sultan Khan as a male character and the head of the family living in Afghanistan is presented in a particular way by Åsne Seierstad and speech and thought presentation is seen as the most significant technique used by the author to characterize a male character.
There are two main research objectives covering this research. The first is to find the speech and thought presentation techniques used by Åsne Seierstad. Moreover, the distribution of the speech and thought presentation within the novel is utilized to examine the characterization of Sultan Khan as a particular male character analyzed. Stylistic analysis is utilized in order to scrutinize the way the author characterize a male character in the novel. There are two particular chapters
analyzed, which are “Burning Books” and “The Business Trip”.
There are two findings in the research. The first finding is that there is a total of ninety four speech and thought presentations, with fifty eight presentations belongs to thought presentation and thirty six are speech presentation. Indirect Thought (IT) and Direct Speech (DS) are the two most occurred speech and thought presentation within the chapters analyzed. There are forty eight presentations in the form of IT and twenty presentations in a form of DS.
The second finding is that IT, which occurs the most within the two
chapters, creates an indirect characterization of Sultan’s dedicated-self, while the DS and Free Direct Speech (FDS) presentation technique present Sultan’s
straightforwardness. Thus the characterization seen from the speech and thought presentation is both direct and indirect characterization.
xiv
ABSTRAK
PURYADI, ALOYSIUS FEVRIERY BAGAS ADWIANDY. (2019). Speech and Thought Presentation of the Main Male Character in Åsne Seierstad’s The Bookseller of Kabul: Stylistic Analysis. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Sastra Inggris,
Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Literatur adalah representasi dari kehidupan manusia dan sangat berelasi dengan kehidupan manusia. Ilmu linguistik dalam mengapresiasi literatur, memberikan sebuah cara alternatif untuk menganalisis karya tersebut lebih dalam melalui ilmu stilistika. Stilistika memiliki tujuan untuk mengetahui hubungan bahasa dengan fungsi artistiknya dalam literatur. Penelitian ini berfokus pada sebuah novel dari Åsne Seierstad berjudul The Bookseller of Kabul. Novel tersebut
bercerita tentang Sultan Khan, seorang penjual buku dari Afghanistan, dan keluarganya. Sultan Khan sebagai karakter pria serta kepala keluarga yang tinggal di Afghanistan digambarkan melalui sebuah cara tersendiri dari Åsne Seierstad dan teknik penyajian ucapan dan pikiran terlihat sebagai teknik yang paling signifikan dalam menggambarkan seorang karakter pria.
Terdapat dua rumusan masalah dalam penelitian ini. Yang pertama bertujuan untuk mengetahui teknik penyajian ucapan dan pikiran yang digunakan oleh Åsne Seierstad. Kemudian, teknik-teknik penyajian ucapan dan pikiran dalam novel tersebut digunakan untuk menganalisis karakterisasi dari Sultan Khan sebagai karakter pria yang dianalisis. Analisis stilistika digunakan untuk meneliti cara penulis menyajikan karakter pria dalam novel. Terdapat dua bab khusus yang dianalisa dalam penelitian ini, yaitu “Burning Books” dan “The Business Trip
Terdapat dua temuan dalam penelitian ini. Temuan pertama menunjukkan bahwa terdapat sembilan puluh empat penyajian ucapan dan pikiran, dengan empat puluh delapan penyajian dalam bentuk penyajian pikiran dan tiga puluh enam dalam bentuk penyajian ucapan. Pikiran Tidak Langsung (PTL) dan Ucapan Langsung (UL) adalah dua teknik yang paling sering digunakan dalam bab-bab yang dianalisis. Terdapat empat puluh delapan penyajian dalam bentuk PDL dan dua puluh penyajian dalam bentuk UL.
Temuan kedua menunjukkan bahwa PTL, sebagai teknik penyajian yang paling sering digunakan, membentuk sebuah karakterisasi tidak langsung dari kepribadian Sultan yang berdedikasi, sedangkan UL dan Ucapan Langsung Bebas (ULB) menyajikan keterusterangan Sultan. Maka dari itu, karakterisasi yang terdapat dalam bab-bab yang dianalisis menggunakan karakterisasi langsung dan tidak langsung.
1 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Literature is a representation of human life. It is closely related to the life of human beings. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, literature is the
embodiment of author’s ideas in written form distinguished by author’s intention
and the perceived aesthetic excellence of their execution (Rexroth, 2018). In literary study, criticizing literature as a work of art is also a form of appreciation towards the author and the work itself.
Linguistics provides a way to criticize literary works using modern linguistic concept in the perspective of a linguist called stylistics (Leech & Short, Style in Fiction, 2007). To understand literature, a thorough scrutiny is needed. Spitzer, a literary critic, also suggests that:
Therefore, the understanding of a literature in linguistic fields depends on the relation between the knowledge of linguistics science and its effect to create such works of art (Leech & Short, 2007, p.2).
In that case, knowledge about linguistics is essential in order to analyse literary works through stylistics, so that the author’s style can be clearly revealed.
specific branches of linguistics as the approach to reveal the style and the functions of particular linguistic features of literary works.
In conducting stylistic study, Simpson proposes seven levels of language that can be used to analyse the style. The seven levels consist of Phonology or Phonetics, Graphology, Morphology, Syntax or Grammar, Lexicology, Semantics, and Pragmatics or Discourse analysis (Simpson, 2004). Each of them have their own focus. Phonology and Phonetics focus on the sounds of a language. Graphology focuses on the written language shape and pattern. Morphology focuses on word formation. Syntax and Grammar focus on the clause, phrase, and sentence structure. Lexicology focuses on the vocabulary of a language used by particular people. Semantics focuses on the word or sentence meaning. Pragmatics and Discourse analysis focus on the utilization of words and sentences in particular context.
The analysis conducted in this research is in the discourse level, specifically in the speech and thought presentation technique of a male character in the novel. The analysis in the speech and thought presentation examines the way an author characterizes a character through character’s speech, thought and interaction to its surrounding and its effects on the characterization of a character in a literary work.
Speech Acts (NRSA). The five categorization of thought presentation are Indirect Thought (IT), Direct Thought (DT), Free Direct Thought (FDT), Free Indirect Thought (FIT), and Narrative Report of a Thought Act (NRTA).
This study analyses a novel by Åsne Seierstad, a Norwegian writer and journalist, entitled The Bookseller of Kabul. The novel was originally published in
Norwegian in 2002 and translated to English in 2003. This novel was inspired by an Afghan family whom Seierstad lived with in 2001. According to the reviews in Goodreads.com, this novel gained 3.76 out of 5 in its rating with 2.854 reviewers from around the globe. This novel is a portrayal of an Afghan family’s life, how they live during the fall of Taliban.
The story in The Bookseller of Kabul revolved around Sultan Khan, a
bookseller, and his family where only three people are exposed to English. For more than twenty years Sultan Khan operates an underground business related to books which he loves, while also resists the authorities in supplying books to Kabul’s people. He is going through hard times in his life regarding of the business as the bookseller which he ran. He is arrested, interrogated and imprisoned by the authorities, and even sees the Taliban soldiers burned his books in the street.
This study focuses on observing the language style of Åsne Seierstad’s The Bookseller of Kabul seen from its speech and thought presentation in representing
and characterizing a male character which is Sultan Khan. The study is intended to reveal the effect and meaning of the use of the speech and thought presentation techniques in characterizing Sultan Khan. The study will classify the speech and thought presentation techniques into different categories. Moreover, the thorough analysis of the data will be used to guide the research to the primary objective in
analysing the language style in Åsne Seierstad’s The Bookseller of Kabul.
B. Problem Formulation
This study has two problems that are formulated based on the background of the study, namely:
1. What speech and thought presentation techniques are used to represent a male character in Seierstad’s The Bookseller of Kabul?
2. How do the techniques reveal the characterization of the main male character in the novel?
C. Objectives of the Study
This study focuses on the language style of Åsne Seierstad’s The
Bookseller of Kabul seen from its speech and thought presentation in representing
presentation techniques into different categories. Moreover, the thorough analysis of the first objective will be used to guide the research to the objective in finding the effects of the speech and thought presentation used in characterizing a male character in Åsne Seierstad’s The Bookseller of Kabul.
D. Definition of Terms
In order to avoid misunderstanding about the terminology used, this section provides four definition of terms. The first term used is speech presentation. Speech presentation has the definition as the way an author
characterizes a character through speeches. An author may distinguish a character
from another with the presentation of speech alongside with the character’s
presentation of thought to be interpreted by the reader (Leech & Short, 2007). The second term used is almost similar to the first term. It is thought presentation. Thought presentation shares the similar definition to speech
presentation which is the way an author presents a character’s characterization
using character’s thought. According to Leech and Short, thought presentation is
the only way for readers to see through a character’s mind and as important as
soliloquy on a stage performance (p. 270). This means that it has the purpose to describe what is inside a character’s mind. Thought presentation and speech presentation has different form but with the same purpose, to present a character in a way the author wants.
human beings. Murphet proposes the idea that a character, including also the behaviour and motive, refers to an individual or the society of human being (2017). This means that a character must be presented as similar as it can to human traits in order to be categorized as a character.
7 CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
This section consists of three main parts, which are review of related studies, review of related theories, and theoretical framework. In the review of related studies, there are two journal articles and two thesis reviewed. In the next section, the review of related theories, there are four theories used as the approaches in this research discussed. The theoretical framework explains how the theories applied to the research.
A. Review of Related Studies
There are several related studies used as a reference in making this research due to the similarities that they have with this research. The first related study is a thesis of Anggraheni (2017) entitled “A Stylistic Study of the Interior Monologues
in William Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury”. The research discusses the use of
interior monologue in the novel. Interior monologue is a unique narrative style which uses complicated and assorted language features that makes the readers to be confused with it. The researcher uses stylistics as the approach in analysing the language features in the interior monologue. The language features analysed are grammatical, lexical, figures of speech, and graphological features. The research concludes that by applying interior monologue as a technique in thought presentation of the characters creates an effect that enables the readers to get inside
The thesis by Anggraheni is similar to this research due to the same purpose and object that the thesis which are the thought presentation technique of
the characters’ in the novel and its effects in the novel. The difference between the thesis and this research lies in the novel analysed, which is William Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury, and the range of the problem analysis. The thesis is only
analysing the thought presentation technique and its effects, while this research conducts the analysis on not only thought presentation but also speech presentation techniques along with their effects in the characterization of a character in a novel. The second related study is a thesis of Pratama (2017) entitled “Noun
Phrases of Jace Wayland’s Utterances in Mortal Instruments: City of Bones”. The
thesis focuses on the analysis of the noun phrases and their role in characterizing Jace Wayland in Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. The thesis
uses stylistics as the approach in finding out the effect of the noun phrase used in the novel. The researcher uses the population study as a method in collecting the data. The thesis suggests that the characteristics formed by the presentation by the means of noun phrases utilization are descriptive and direct character. The researcher concludes that noun phrase is essential in the characterization of Jace Wayland.
The similarities between the thesis and this research are the object that is observed, which is a novel, and the aim of the research to reveal the effect of the speech presentation in the form of Jace Wayland’s utterances in characterizing a particular character. The thesis by Pratama differs from this research in the term of
the speech presentation technique but also on the thought presentation technique of a particular character.
The third related study is a paper by Isti’anah (2018) entitled “Speech and Thought Presentation in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies”. The paper
analyses both the speech and thought presentation techniques along with their
effects in presenting some characters in Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies. There
were one hundred and sixty one speech and thought presentation found in the short story and most of them categorized as speech presentation. The researcher found that Indirect Thought (IT) presentation, as last narrative presentation found in the short story, involves only one particular character, Mr. Kapasi and the technique indicates that Mr. Kapasi is an important character who needs to be acknowledged in terms of his position in career. The researcher suggests that further analysis on the findings of the research should figure out further analysis to find the meaning of its use by means of discourse analysis.
The paper has a similarity to this research in the aim of the analysis, which is to reveal how the speech and thought presentation techniques affect the characterization of each character in the novel. The only difference between the paper and this research is the title of the object analysed, which entitled Interpreter of Maladies.
The other related study is conducted by Guo (2017). The research focuses
on the thought presentation in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. The paper offers a
detailed description on the thought presentation used in the literary work by the
presentation along with various reporting clauses are used to present the variation
in the character’s mental state and the negotiation between the inner voice and the
environment outside. This paper shares the same aim to this research to reveal the utilization of thought presentation in the term of characterization, while the differences lies in the object analysed and the data observed. The paper only analyses on the thought presentation only, while this research focuses on the speech presentation also.
This research is going to develop the research of each related studies which are to find the effects of the utilization of both the speech and thought presentation
to the characterization of a character. Leech and Short’s model of speech and
thought presentation will be a base to analyse the speech and thought presentation for a character.
B. Review of Related Theories
This section will explain further about the theories that will be used in this research, which are stylistics, speech and thought presentation, and character with its characterization.
1. Stylistics
“Stylistics, the study of style, can be defined as the analysis of distinctive expression in language and the description of its purpose and effect” (Verdonk, 2002, p. 4). From that idea, it is acknowledgeable that the study of style examines literary works by the means of linguistic features to know the effect and the purpose of the utilization of the styles used by the authors.
Stylistics analyses literature using various branches of linguistics in discovering the language style which the authors give into their literary work. Stylistics give a different way to appreciate literary works with the critical evaluation using specific branches of linguistics as the approach to reveal the style and the functions of particular linguistic features of literary works.
There are several levels of language that can be used in conducting stylistic analysis. Simpson proposes seven levels of language used to analyse the style. Below is the table explaining the seven levels of language (Simpson, 2004, p. 5).
Table 1 Levels of Language Analysis
Level of Language Branch of Study The sound of spoken language; the way
words are pronounced.
Phonology, Phonetics The patterns of written language; the
shape of language on the page.
Graphology The ways words are constructed; words
and their constituent structures Morphology The way words combine with other
words to form phrases and sentences. Syntax, Grammar The words we use; the vocabulary of a
language.
Lexical Analysis, Lexicology The meaning of words and sentences. Semantics
The way words and sentences are used in everyday situations; the meaning of language in context.
The purpose of this research is to identify the speech and thought presentation of a male character in a novel to reveal the purpose of the particular way that the author uses in characterizing the character. Therefore, the analysis is done within the utterances and the mind of the character using the discourse level of language and they are explained in the next part.
2. Speech and Thought Presentation
The analysis conducted in this research is in the discourse analysis level, specifically in the speech and thought presentation technique of the main male character in the novel. The analysis in the speech and thought presentation examines
the way an author characterizes a character through character’s speech, thought and
interaction to its surrounding and its effects on the characterization of a character in a literary work.
Leech and Short (2007) suggests five categorization of speech presentation techniques and also five techniques of thought presentation. The five categorization of speech presentation are Indirect Speech (IS), Direct Speech (DS), Free Direct Speech (FDS), Free Indirect Speech (FIS), and Narrative Report of Speech Acts (NRSA). The five categorization of thought presentation are Indirect Thought (IT), Direct Thought (DT), Free Direct Thought (FDT), Free Indirect Thought (FIT), and Narrative Report of a Thought Act (NRTA) (Leech & Short, 2007).
a. Direct Speech (DS) and Direct Thought (DT)
Direct Speech (DS) is one of the speech presentation techniques used by authors in presenting a character to the reader in a literary work. The most significant characteristic of DS presentation technique is the use of quotation marks and the interference of the narrator in the utterance. Below is the example of DS technique.
He said, “Are you kidding me?!”
It is clear that the use of the quotation marks and the narrator’s description
indicates that the speech presentation utilized is the direct speech.
Direct Thought (DT) is almost similar to the Direct Speech (DS) presentation technique in characterizing a character. DT also uses the quotation marks and narrator’s contribution in presenting what the character thought. Below
is the example of DT technique’s utilization. He thought, “For real? It’s not funny.”
The utilization of DT is marked by the contribution of the narrator which can be seen clearly from the example (Leech & Short, 2007). From the excerpt above it can be seen that the narrator contributes in presenting how the character thought or let character’s thought expressed by the use of explanatory clause “He thought”
preceding the thought.
b. Indirect Speech (IS) and Indirect Thought
presentation uses the narrator as the presenter of what the character utters. Below is the example of IS utilization.
He said that he would join John if he have enough time.
IS, as seen in the example, uses no quotation marks and the narrator contributes to the whole utterance of the character. IS is basically the passive version of DS.
Indirect Thought (IT) is almost similar to IS since the use of quotation marks is omitted. Unlike IS, IT presents what is inside the character’s mind. Below
is the example of the use of Indirect Thought. He wondered if she still love his friend.
From the example above, the character does not state his thought personally, but through the description by the author (Leech & Short, 2007).
c. Free Direct Speech (FDS) and Free Direct Thought (FDT)
Free Direct Speech (FDS) is the speech presentation technique that is almost similar to the Direct Speech (DS). FDS, unlike DS, removes either or both
the quotation marks and the narrator’s intermediary to create a freer technique. This technique of speech presentation is considered as a freer form of DS (Leech & Short, 2007). Below are the examples of the utilization of FDS.
“I’ll be back for sure.”
I’m sure he’ll be back.
Free Direct Thought (FDT) shares the similar form to the FDS. The only difference is that the FDT present the thought of a character instead of the speech. FDT shows the character’s thought immediately without the narrator as the media to present it. Below is the example of FDT’s utilization.
I wonder if he will be back soon.
The narrator is not involved in the presentation of the character’s thought in the
example above, instead the character just states what is in his or her mind directly (Leech & Short, 2007).
d. Free Indirect Speech (FIS) and Free Indirect Thought (FIT)
Free Indirect Speech (FIS) is one of the techniques of speech presentation that is freer than the Indirect Speech (IS). FIS, unlike IS, omits its reporting clause. Below is the example of the use of FIS.
He would come back here to see my dog next semester.
The omission of the reporting clause in the example above resulted the freer version of an indirect form.
Free Indirect Thought (FIT) is almost similar to the FIS since it shares the similarity which is the absence of quotation marks. This technique of thought presentation uses the third person point of view as the indirect feature. Below is the example of the FDT utilization.
Did she still hate him?
e. Narrative Report of Speech Acts (NRSA) and Narrative Report of Thought Acts (NRTA)
Narrative Report of Speech Acts (NRSA) is a form of a speech presentation technique utilizing minimum account of the statement in presenting a character’s speech. What makes it different from the Indirect Speech (IS) is that the reported speech acts are minimized and not stated specifically. It is also considered as the summarized report of the speech acts. Below is the example of the use of NRSA.
She told everyone his secret
From the example above, it can be observed that the narrator is only focusing on the summary of what the character told. Instead of telling what the secret is
explicitly, the narrator only states ‘his secret’ to minimize the reported speech. Narrative Report of Thought Acts (NRTA) shares the similar characteristic to the NRSA. The reported thought is minimized to give a compact report of what being thought by the character. While NRSA focuses on the speech acts, NRTA concentrates on the thought acts. Below is the example of NRTA’s use.
She keeps thinking about her decision earlier.
The example above shows the summary of what the character thought. Instead of
explaining the thought that the character had, the narrator only uses ‘her decision’
3. Character and Characterization
Character in a prose or novel can be defined as the representation of human traits in a form of human beings, animals, or even plants. Rimmon-Kenan proposes the idea:
As emerges from Mudrick’s statement, the so called “realistic argument
sees characters as imitations of people and tends to treat them with greater or lesser sophistication-as if they were our neighbours or friends, whilst also abstracting them from the verbal texture of the work under consideration (2002, p. 34).
From that explanation, a character must share the similar traits or at least representing human traits to be considered as a character.
Characterization is an essential part in building a character. Characterization can be defined as the way a character is presented by the author. In this research, the way the author characterises a character may not be seen explicitly but rather through the way a character described by the author.
Characterization has two methods in presenting a character, direct characterization and indirect characterization. Direct characterization is the method of characterization involving any act performed by the author that develops the
characterization shows the reader the character and exemplifies it in various ways. (2002, p. 63). The utterance “I love you”, for example, cannot just merely be said.
However the statement can be shown through the actions of the character showing affection.
C. Theoretical Framework
This research has two problems scrutinized. It all leads to one main problem regarding the effect of the style used by the author of the novel in term of speech and thought presentation to the characterization of one male character. Thus, three theories mentioned in the section above are essential in revealing the answer of the problem formulations.
The first problem, which is the distribution and frequency of the speech and thought presentation used in characterizing a male character, needs the speech and thought presentation theory to answer it. The clauses presenting the speech and thought presentation are collected and classified into five types of speech presentation and five types of thought presentation in accordance to Leech and
Short’s model of speech and thought presentation.
19 CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
This chapter is divided into three main parts consisting object, approach, and method of the Study. Object of the study is an elaboration of the object under scrutiny. The second is the approach of the study which explains the utilization of stylistics as the means to analyse the object of the study. The last one is the method of the study which gives details of the way the data are collected and examined.
A. Object of the Study
This study focused on the speech and thought presentation of Sultan Khan
as a male character in Åsne Seierstad’s The Bookseller of Kabul. The novel was
published in 2004 by Hachette Book Group, Inc. This novel gained 3.76 out of 5 in its rating with 2.854 reviewers from around the globe according to the reviews in Goodreads.com. The story in The Bookseller of Kabul revolved around Sultan
Khan, a bookseller, and his family where only three people in that family were exposed to English, in Afghanistan. For more than twenty years Sultan Khan operated an underground business related to books which he loves, while also resisted the authorities by supplying books to Kabul’s people. In the novel, Åsne Seierstad used speech and thought presentation to characterize a particular
There were total of nineteen chapters in the novel and only two chapters selected to be scrutinized. The two chapters were “Burning Books” and “The Business Trip”. The two selected chapters were chosen since Sultan Khan was
presented clearly within the chapters.
B. Approach of the Study
This study utilized the study of stylistics as the approach of the study. The study of style has the main goal of explaining the relation between the language and its artistic functions in literature (Leech & Short, 2007). Stylistics covers the analysis of various branches of linguistics in discovering the language style which emerged from the authors that was poured into their literary works. Therefore, stylistics gives new insight in analysing literary works with specific branches of linguistics as the approach to reveal the style and the functions of particular linguistic features of literary works.
C. Method of the Study
In conducting this study, there were two ways taken which were data collection and data analysis.
1. Data Collection
This study utilized the purposive sampling method by taking the utterances and thoughts of a male character, Sultan Khan, from particular chapters in the novel
The Bookseller of Kabul since in accordance to Creswell (2007) the purposeful
of the study (p. 125). In this research, the data were not taken from the whole novel, but only from significant chapters only. Two chapters were selected from the total of nineteen chapters in the novel.
In gathering the data of speech and thought presentation techniques, first the researcher read the whole novel and selected two chapters that represented the life of Sultan Khan very well. Then the researcher listed the utterances and thoughts of Sultan Khan found in the two chapters and put them into a particular table. After
that the utterances and thoughts were categorized based on Leech and Short’s
proposed speech and thought presentation techniques. 2. Data Analysis
To answer the first problem, the collected utterances and thoughts of Sultan Khan within the two chapters were listed and categorized into Leech and
Short’s speech and thought techniques in order to find out the distribution of the
speech and presentation techniques used by the author. To figure out the style of
the author, the collected data were analysed through their verbs and the author’s
discourse within the particular frequency of the speech and presentation techniques. Thus, the author’s characterization of Sultan Khan is revealed.
The Frequency of Speech and Thought Presentation Speech Presentation Thought Presentation Types Frequency Percentage Types Frequency Percentage
DS IS FDS
FIS NRSA
Total Total
The second table consisted of the lists of the utterances and thoughts of Sultan Khan and their categorization. The first column consisted of the number. The second column described the speech and thought presentation of Sultan Khan. The third column consisted of the type of the speech and thought presentation listed. The fourth column was the page the presentation belong to. The last column was for the chapter where the presentations distributed. The table below is the excerpt of the described table.
Summary of Speech Presentation
No. Speech Presentation Types Page Chapter
23 CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
This chapter consists of two main parts which answer the problems in this research. The first part answers the first problem by discussing the distribution of each speech and thought presentation of the observed character by the author and categorizing them into techniques of presentation based on Leech and Short’s
classification concept. The second part answers the second problem which focuses on the style of Åsne Seierstad by the frequency of the utilized speech and thought presentation techniques distributed in the novel to characterize a particular character.
A. Speech and Thought Presentation Techniques by Åsne Seierstad of Sultan Khan
This part deals with the distribution of the speech and thought presentation techniques used by the author to present Sultan Khan as a central part of the novel. The speech and thought presentations collected are seen from the utterances and thoughts of Sultan Khan.
The speech and thought presentations are taken from two selected chapters
which are “Burning Books” and “The Business Trip”. From the chapter “Burning
Books”, a total of twenty three speech and thought presentation of Sultan Khan are found, in which twenty two of them are categorized as thought presentation and only one of them is in a form of speech presentation. In the chapter “The Business
six of them are categorized into thought presentation technique and thirty five of them are speech presentation. The list of speech and thought presentation by Åsne Seierstad can be seen in the appendix.
The table below summarizes the frequency of the speech and thought presentation techniques used from both chapters.
Table 2. The Frequency of Speech and Thought Presentation Speech Presentation Thought Presentation
Type Frequency Percentage Type Frequency Percentage
DS 20 55.6% DT 5 8.6%
IS 3 8.3% IT 48 82.8%
FDS 12 33.3% FDT 0 0%
FIS 0 0% FIT 0 0%
NRSA 1 2.8% NRTA 5 8.6%
Total 36 100% Total 58 100%
From the table above, it can be seen that the thought presentations appeared the most within the two chapters with the total of fifty eight thoughts. The most appeared thought presentation is in the form of Indirect Thought (IT) with forty eight thoughts categorized in it. The Direct Thought (DT) and Narrative Report of Speech Acts (NRTA) comes right after IT with five thoughts in each of the types.
techniques of speech and thought presentation given by the author in characterizing a particular character.
1. Speech Presentation
Within the two chapters, Åsne Seierstad uses four speech presentation techniques in characterizing Sultan Khan, which are Direct Speech (DS), Indirect Speech (IS), Free Direct Speech (FDS), and Narrative Report of Speech Acts (NRSA). The following parts explain the use and effect of speech presentation techniques used by the author.
a. Direct Speech (DS)
Direct Speech (DS) is the technique used by the author from the two chapters. Direct speech is the technique involving the narrator’s description of the
way a character speaks and the quotation marks to mark the character’s utterance
(Leech & Short, 2007). From the two chapters, only one utterance belongs to DS in
the chapter “Burning Books”, while the rest are in the chapter “The Business Trip”.
Below is the excerpt of the use of the DS technique by Åsne Seierstad within the
chapter “Burning Books”.
He answered proudly, “You can burn my books, you can embitter my life, you can even kill me, but you cannot wipe out Afghanistan’s history.”
(p. 12)
The excerpt above shows the clear characteristic of the utilization of DS as the technique in presenting what Sultan Khan utters which is the interference of
the narrator in presenting the utterance by “He answered proudly,” and also the
not to the history of Afghanistan that Sultan preserve by providing the books as the source of knowledge. Thompson (1996) proposes that the use of quotation marks in it is utilized as an indicator that the utterance presented as if it was in an authentic event (Semino & Short, 2004, p. 89). In this case, the author wants to stimulate the readers’ senses to feel as if they were in the same situation as the character. This also means as the way an author creates an intimate closeness between the readers and the character. Below is another excerpt for the DS techniques used by the author taken from the chapter “The Business Trip”.
“That’s what you say. You have no experience of Taliban. Pakistan would collapse if the Taliban came to power, don’t believe anything else,” Sultan
thunders. (p. 62)
The narrator described Sultan Khan’s utterance and how he utters it clearly using the verb “thunders”. Instead of utilizing “says”, Seierstad employs the verb “thunders”, which in accordance to Oxford Living Dictionaries means to speak loudly and forcefully or angry, especially to denounce or criticize, to describe how the speech is uttered. Thus, the description given by the narrator shows the enthusiastic way of Sultan Khan when it comes into his experience about living among the chaotic environment during the Taliban’s regime. Following is another example from the same chapter.
“How is your cousin?” asks Sultan, laughing. (p. 50)
how Sultan Khan utters the speech. The use of verb “asks” describes the manner of speech being uttered by Sultan at that moment, which is asking or responding to an argument by asking a question. The action verb “laughing” also utilized in order to describe Sultan’s action which not only asking, but also making fun of the person.
Another example from the same chapter can also be seen in the following excerpt.
Sultan agrees. “He is trying to destroy our soul and he must me stopped
before he corrupts others too. Not even the Communist went as far as that; they behaved with a certain amount of respect and did not try to trash our religion. Then you have this smut from someone calling himself a
Muslim.” (p. 64)
Unlike the examples before, the presentation above uses the introductory reporting clause preceding Sultan Khan’s utterance. This shows another variation of the
utilization of DS technique in presenting a character. The verb “agrees” shows that
Sultan shares the similar idea to the preceding opinion within the page about the corrupted party that is against Sultan’s design in preserving Afghanistan’s history
since according to the Oxford Living Dictionaries the verb means having the same opinion about something.
The following presentation shows another variation in the use of DS presentation technique.
It can be seen from the example above that the reporting clause by the narrator follows the utterance. It is the same as most examples given, yet it gives a more complete description of the circumstance and the context around the speech. The additional introductory reporting clause is not only focusing on the circumstances but also can be utilized to describe the way or the behavior of the character while delivering the utterance.
“What a tart,” says Sultan, reclining on a pillow like a Roman emperor. (p. 49)
The presentation above is an example showing the additional reporting clause by Seierstad in presenting how Sultan Khan responds to a particular situation in his speech. The variation of DS presentation technique shows that in the narrator always involved in its presentation by the author and that the author can have many ways in putting the reporting clause. It can be either precedes or follows the utterances of the particular character, in this case Sultan Khan. The
Table 3. Verb Distribution in Direct Speech Presentation
No. Verb Frequency Page
1 answered 1 12
2 asked 1 45
3 said 1 46
4 answer 1 48
5 says 7 48, 49, 50,56,61
6 snorts 1 49
7 asks 2 49,50
8 states 1 56
9 thunders 1 62
10 teases 1 63
Total 20
From the table above, it can be seen that “says” is the most frequent verb used by Seierstad in presenting Sultan Khan through DS presentation technique with total of seven speech within the chapters observed. This indicates that the narrator focuses on the words that the speaker utters rather than focuses on the content of the message since according to the Oxford Living Dictionaries it means to utter words also to convey information, an opinion, a feeling or intention or an instruction. The complete presentations using the verbs listed in the table above are in the appendix 1.
b. Free Direct Speech (FDS)
“Do you think praying will help you?” Sultan asked contemptuously. “The
Koran tells us that we must work, solve our own problems, sweat and
toil. But we Afghans, we’re too lazy. We ask for help instead, either
from the West or from Allah.” (p. 45)
The presentation above shows the characteristics of FDS very clearly by the absence of the narrator’s reporting clause marks the significance of the FDS utilization. The author utilized FDS presentation techniques in order to leave the character to be independent and left the character to talk entirely on their own (Leech & Short, 2007, p. 260).
Following is another excerpt of the FDS used within the chapter.
“Don’t forget, two months,” he says.“If you cannot make the time limit, you’ll ruin my business, do you understand?” (p. 61)
From the speech presentation, it can be seen once again that the narrator gives no introductory reporting clause, yet it still uses the quotation marks. The only clue about the FDS presentation is through the reporting clause “he says” which follows DS presentation and precedes FDS presentation. The unclear description missing in the presentation created a multi-interpretation to the way or manner of how the character utters the speech. Lodge also proposes an idea in his comment on
Hemmingway’s A Clean, Well-Lighted Place’s FDS technique that an author
arouses the readers’ sense to differ one’s speech to another in a difficult way, yet the character can have the freedom to express their idea on their own (Cited in Leech & Short, 2007, pp. 259-260)
But he adds grudgingly that if she’s the one Yunus wants, he’ll do his best.
“Unfortunately they’ll end up saying yes. Our family is too good to
turn down.” (p. 56)
The presentation has IS preceding the utterance that can be considered to act as a form of reporting clause in a form of different technique since it gives the way Sultan speaks. The technique occurs only once in the chapter.
The verb “adds” in the speech presentation shows the act that Sultan does.
The verb “adds” in accordance to Oxford Living Dictionaries is defined as an act to
say something as further remark. Right after Sultan Khan utters his words, he adds more information to show his concern to the issue being discussed. Thus, the preceding presentation gives clarification of FDS presentation coming after that
along with FDS’s manner of speech.
Narrative Report of Speech Acts (NRSA) presentation technique also can be found preceding the IS technique. Similar to the IS presentation preceding the FDS presentation, the NRSA presentation becomes the guide for the FDS presentation also. The following is an excerpt for the variation.
Sultan was shouting now, egged on by his own words. “We search blindly for a holy man, and find a lot of hot air.” (p. 45)
The variation above shows the NRSA presentation “Sultan was shouting now, egged on by his own words” at the beginning and followed by FDS. The presentation has the reported speech act as the explanation of how Sultan utters the speech in FDS presentation technique.
preceding the FDS, NRTA in this case is also becomes the description and the guide to how the following FDS is being uttered.
c. Indirect Speech (IS)
The third most occurred speech presentation technique is the Indirect Speech (IS) technique with only 3 utterances presented by Seierstad. Indirect speech major characteristic is on the narrator’s total control of the presentation (Leech & Short, 2007). The total control here is seen in the absence of the quotation marks which indicate that the presentation has direct quotation of the speech uttered by a character. From the two chapters observed, the IS technique can only be found in
the chapter “The Business Trip”.
IS as one of the presentation techniques employed by Seierstad uses narrator to describe how Sultan Khan uttered the speech. From the example below, the IS presentation is utilized to create a report of the speech.
But when Sultan with a single word says it’s time to leave, the couple go home, daughter Shabham in tow. (p. 53)
The part “when Sultan with a singleword says it’s time to leave” in the presentation shows the focus of the presentation which is Sultan’s speech. The narrator is seen reporting Sultan’s utterance in a total control using no quotation marks to quote
Sultan’s words directly, instead the narrator uses only reporting clause. This means
that Sultan’s utterance is not directly mentioned.
of the verb, Seierstad uses the infinitive form of the verb to show that the description is given in the same time as the character utters it.
IS technique modifying another technique in order to make the presentation clearer. The technique employed is still reporting the utterance indirectly but at the same time gives cue to the following presentation technique of what the context is and the way the character utters it.
The following excerpt shows the utilization in the modification.
But he adds grudgingly that if she’s the one Yunus wants, he’ll do his
best. “Unfortunately they’ll end up saying yes. Our family is too good to turn down.” (p. 56)
Seierstad uses the total control as a narrator in presenting the utterance, yet she also uses the technique in giving description on how the following utterance should be uttered since the following FDS presentation shows the independence of Sultan Khan in expressing his utterance on his own.
The verb “adds” in the presentation describes the act of speech done by
Sultan, which Oxford Living Dictionaries defines as an act to utter something as a further remark. The manner shown from the adjective “grudgingly” helps the FDS presentation that comes right after IS technique. Therefore, in this variation, the IS presentation describes not only its own presentation, but also helps the readers to understand the manner of speech from the following FDS technique, which has no reporting clause describing the presentation.
entirely. It only states the act of speech as detail as it can and to show that there is a speech involved within the presentation. The response of the other character is also stated in the following line.
While the sound of the printing presses reverberates through thin walls in the little office, he tries to persuade Talha to put all other jobs aside.
“Impossible,” says Talha. (p. 60)
The presentation shows that IS technique focuses on the persuasive speech that Sultan did to convince Talha, a young man who is a third generation printer in Afghanistan, to prioritize his books to be printed. The part “he tries to persuade Talha to put all other jobs aside” is the focus of the presentation of the speech while the following part indicates that there is a conversation in a form of persuasion seen
from Talha’s response in a form of DS.The verb “persuade” shows that the speech
aims to motivate another character to do exactly what the character uttering the speech wants. The following table shows the distribution of verbs used in the IS presentation technique.
Table 4. Verb Distribution in Indirect Speech Presentation
No. Verb Frequency Page
1 says 1 53
2 adds 1 56
3 persuade 1 60
Total 3
d. Narrative Report of Speech Acts (NRSA)
The Narrative Report of Speech Acts (NRSA) is the least occurred presentation in the chapters observed. There is only one presentation found in a form of NRSA and the occurrence was found in chapter “The Business Trip” only. NRSA is almost similar to the IS technique since both of them are reporting the
utterance by the use of narrator’s total control in the presentation. The only difference is that NRSA presentation reduces its reporting clause and directly summarizes the content of the utterance in a form of noun phrase or pronoun. The following presentation provides the example of the NRSA employment.
Sultan was shouting now, egged by his own torrent of words.
The bolded part of the presentation shows the reported act of uttering a speech and the way Sultan express the speech. The noun phrase “his own torrent of words”
shows the summarized reported speech content which is his words. It does not mention the content of the speech entirely but only using simplified reported clause using a noun phrase.
2. Thought Presentation
a. Indirect Thought (IT)
Indirect Thought (IT) technique is the most frequent presentation within the two chapters occurred with forty eight presentations. IT is a type of thought presentation technique which is similar to the IS since they present the character in an indirect way of presentation. The only difference lies in the object presented, which in IT are thoughts.
The technique of IT requires no quotation marks in its employment since the narrator fully controls the presentation and excludes the particular character in
as the participant. Isti’anah (2018) suggests that the absence of quotation marks shows the indirectness between the character and the readers.
Sultan contemplates contentedly how large a cut he can demand of the $2 million. (p. 58)
The absence of the quotation marks forms such an indirect form of the thought
within Sultan’s head. Seierstad employs the verb “contemplates” to picture the deep
thought Sultan has that moment. Instead of using verb “thinks”, Seierstad utilized
verb “contemplates”. They share similar meaning to each other, yet the degree is different. “thinks” and “contemplates” share the similar idea of using one’s mind
actively to form connected ideas. It can also refer to the opinion or belief within
one’s mind. According to the Oxford Living Dictionaries, “contemplate” means to
think deeply about something. It is not only just a surface thinking. It describes the
carefulness of Sultan’s mind. Thus, the significance of the verb choices determines
also the thought’s manner.
control of the presentation in through narrator’s report. Similar to speech presentation techniques, there is an absence of quotation marks or italicized part which indicate the direct quotation
Below is the presentation showing the example of the IT used
He could not allow this collection, which he had built up over a period of thirty years, to be lost. (p. 21)
The excerpt above shows that the narrator is responsible for the presentation of Sultan thought. The part “could not allow” in the presentation indicates the strong thought of Sultan to prevent something to happen. This can be seen from the modality. Seierstad employs modal “could” to show the ability of Sultan to avoid
something to happen in the past since could is the past participle form of “can” and
it expresses the ability to do something. Thus, the modality shows that Sultan was
able to let his collection to be lost, but due to the existence of “not” as the negation
to “could”, Sultan shows inability to let his collection lost.
Within the presentation, the context shown from the adverbial clause
“which he had built up over a period of thirty years” gives a clear explanation of
the importance of the collection that Sultan has. Thus, the verb “allow” comes to
present the mental-state of Sultan to forbid his collection vanished.
He wanted freedom to travel and often visited Tehran, Tashkent and Moscow. (p. 15)
From the example above, Seierstad utilizes mental verb “wanted” as the means to show Sultan’s thought. Since the verb “wanted” is categorized as mental verb, it emphasizes the will or a character’s state of mind to obtain or gain something. Seen from the context of the speech, it can be concluded that the freedom that Sultan Khan once had is going to be taken away soon.
Unlike IS and NRSA, which have more compact reported clause, IT gives more information about the thought rather than the summary of the thought. The following excerpt gives more explanation about the concept.
Sultan wanted to return to the books from the time of Zahir Shah, the king who ruled for forty comparatively peaceful years before he was deposed in 1973. (p. 58)
The presentation above gives a complete description of the thought’s content. The part after the verb “wanted” shows the description of what Sultan wants. Instead of summarizing the description into “books”, Seierstad presents the entire content of
Table 5. Verb and Verb Phrase Distribution in Indirect Thought
in this research. The complete version of the presentations using the verbs listed are in the appendix 2.
b. Direct Thought (DT)
Within the two chapters, Direct Thought (DT) has five presentation categorized in it that makes it become the second most occurred thought presentation technique. DT is a form of presentation which presents the thoughts or mental states directly. The examples of the presentation is as follows.
Lucky the armed half-wits did not look behind the shelves, Sultan thought
on his way to detention. (p. 10)
From the presentation above, it can be seen that DT is similar to DS since both of them quotes the character’s thought directly and still uses the narrator’s role
in reporting the thought of the character. The only difference lies in the quotation marks. DT presentation above utilizes no quotation marks, instead the original thought of Sultan Khan is italicized without having quotation marks on them. The
verb “thought” also indicates that the presentation is a thought presentation. The
adverbial clause “on his way to detention” also acts as an additional information to specify the place where Sultan had the thought.
Sonya is no doubt angry, he thinks to himself and smiles. (p. 65)
The above example points out narrator’s involvement by the use of the
verb “smiles” as the additional information of what the character does while having the thought. The directness shown is similar to DS in the presentation which is the information given by the author through the employment of a narrator.
Leech and Short (2007) propose that when DT is utilized, the author is
made his thought explicit’ (Leech & Short, 2007). Therefore, such directness of the
character’s thought is employed in order to achieve the goal, yet the narrator is still
given the responsibility to present the character’s thought.
The time has come to be a wolf, thought Sultan. (p. 22)
The example given above provides the form of a directness shows from the exact thought of Sultan presented in a form of DT. Similar to the first excerpt of DT presentation, the verb “thought” is employed to indicate that it is a thought presentation. The difference lies within the fact that the verb in this excerpt does not have any additional information of Sultan while having the thought. The italicized part of the DT marks the thought of what Sultan would have said if it can be uttered. Below is the summary of the verb distribution in DT presentation technique.
Table 6. Verb Distribution in Direct Thought Presentation
No. Verb Frequency Page
1 thought 2 10, 22
2 thinks 3 46, 65, 66
Total 5
The most frequent verb used in the DT presentation is “thinks”. This is coherent to
Leech and Short’s idea about directness of the presentation. Seierstad uses the
verb in infinitive form in order to perform a direct quotation of Sultan’s thought the same time as Sultan had the thought.
c. Narrative Report of Thought Acts (NRTA)
found within the two chapters. NRTA is similar to IT since both of them use no quotation marks and focuses on the verb utilized by the author. The only difference is that the NRTA sentence incorporates as minimum as it can in reporting what the character thinks using noun phrase or pronoun (Leech & Short, 2007).
Anyhow, he had a secret plan, a dream, for his collection. (p. 22)
The part “had a secret plan” indicates the thought act that Sultan had in mind, while the underlined part is the plan and also a dream to preserve his collection of books that Sultan had. The compactness of the information shown in by the use of the
noun phrase “a secret plan” interprets as a representation of Sultan’s dream and plan that he had in mind that is kept from the readers.
NRTA, similar to IT, has total control of the narrator and omits the participation of the character in its presentation. There is indirectness shown from the absence of the character and the presence of the narrator replaces the presenter of the thought.
Sultan had expected this. (p. 10)
The presentation above shows the indirectness which lies on the absence of the character and depends only on the narrator’s description. The use of “this” also
indicates the compactness of the thought content’s information. The verb “this”
refers to a certain condition that Sultan encounter during the time being, which in this case is the law enforcement against his illegal business. Sultan knows that he will someday sent to jail. Rather than describing what Sultan is expecting, Seierstad utilizes the NRTA technique in compressing the presentation into a pronoun.
The above presentation simplified the account of the statement by only
mentioning “his compatriots” instead of showing what happened behind Sultan and his company. This density of a presentation once again presents the exact difference between NRTA and IT in presenting thoughts indirectly. The use of the verb
“disappointed” indicates that the presentation is a thought presentation since it is
also a mental verb, which in accordance to Oxford Living Dictionaries means sad
or displeased because someone or something failed to fulfil one’s expectation. The concept of NRSA and NRTA is similar. Both utilize minimum account of reporting clause in order to summarize relatively unimportant prolonged conversation or thoughts so that the only main point is presented (Leech & Short, p. 260). Below is the table of the distribution of the verbs used in the NRTA presentation technique.
Table 7. Verb and Verb Phrase Distribution in Narrative Report of Speech Acts Presentation
No. Verb Frequency Page
1 Expected 1 10
2 had a secret plan 1 22
3 Disappointed 1 45
4 Prays 1 65
5 Ponder 1 66
Total 5
B. Åsne Seierstad’s Characterization of Sultan Khan
The two chapters analysed are from “Burning Books” and “The Business
Trip”. Chapter “Burning Books” focuses on Sultan’s life before marriage where he struggles a lot on the preservation of his books and Afghanistan’s history. The story
begins with the fall of Sultan’s bookshop. The Taliban burns down every books in
that bookshop. Then the story goes on with Sultan’s fight in preserving his books to be distributed around the area for the sake of preserving knowledge and history of Afghanistan. Then the chapter wraps everything up in Sultan’s determination to
realize his dream to complete his collection and to aid the looted public library by giving some of his collection.
“The Business Trip” revolves around Sultan’s present life where he is on his journey for the sake of his business. The story begins with Sultan’s preparation
on his journey to Pakistan in order to complete his collection in his bookshop. The
story goes on with Sultan’s journey in Pakistan on his hunt for books since Pakistan
is known as the piracy printer’s paradise. The chapter then wraps the story with
Sultan’s journey back to Kabul.
This part focuses on how the speech and thought presentations reveal the characterization of Sultan Khan. The speech and thought presentations that have been categorized are analysed and categorized again into direct and indirect form of characterization in order to reveal the types of characterization used by Åsne Seierstad in presenting Sultan Khan as a male character in The Bookseller of Kabul.
