SPEECH ACTS IN THE APPRENTICE ASIA TV PROGRAM.

(1)

SPEECH ACTS IN THE APPRENTICE ASIA

TV PROGRAM

A Thesis

Submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Magister Humaniora

By:

MUHAMMAD REZA PAHLEVI Registration Number: 8126111023

ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM

POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL

(2)

(3)

(4)

ABSTRACT

Pahlevi, Muhammad Reza. 2014. Speech Acts In The Apprentice Asia TV Program. A Thesis. English Applied Linguistics Study Program, Postgraduate School, State University of Medan.

This study is concerned with the use of speech acts in The Apprentice Asia TV program in the boardroom sessions. The objectives of this study were to describe the types of speech acts used by the host, advisors and contestants of The Apprentice Asia, to explain how those types of speech acts were used by them and to explain the reasons why those types of speech acts were used as the ways they were. The source of data in this study were the host, advisors and contestants of The Apprentice Asia, while the data were their utterances gathered from the conversations among them from five episodes. The instrument used for collecting the data was observation from the video recordings of five episodes of The Apprentice Asia. The data were collected by downloading those videos, and

transcribing the participants’ utterances occured in the boardroom, then they were

grouped based on the host, advisors and contestants’ utterances and classified

them into the types of speech acts. The findings of this study showed that all types of speech acts, namely representative, directive, commissive, expressive and decalarative were used by the host and contestants, while the advisors did not use expressive and declarative. The dominant type of speech act used by the host was directive in the form of questioning, while the advisors and contestants dominantly used representative speech act in the form of informing. The participants performed them by direct, indirect, literal and non-literal way. There were some reasons of using types of speech acts used by all participants. In order to get information from other participants about the performances of the contestants in running the task, type of speech acts used by the host was directive in the form of questioning. On the other hand, the advisors and contestants were the participants whose informations required by the host. Therefore, in responding what the host asked to them, they performed their speech acts through representative in the forms of informing.

(5)

ABSTRAK

Pahlevi, Muhammad Reza. 2014. Speech Acts In The Apprentice Asia TV Program. Thesis. Program Studi Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris, Program Pascasarjana, Universitas Negeri Medan.

Penelitian ini berfokus pada penggunaan speech acts pada acara TV The Apprentice Asia di babak ruang direksi. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui jenis-jenis speech acts yang digunakan oleh pembawa acara, penasehat dan peserta dari acara tersebut, bagaimana mereka menggunakannya dan mengapa mereka menggunakannya seperti apa yang mereka ujarkan. Sumber data penelitian ini adalah pembawa acara, penasehat dan peserta dari acara tersebut, sedangkan datanya yaitu ujuran-ujaran mereka yang diperoleh dari percakapan antara mereka dari lima episode. Instrumen yang digunakan untuk mengumpulkan data yaitu observasi dari lima rekaman video acara tersebut. Data diperoleh dengan mengunduh video-video acara tersebut dan mentranskrip ujaran-ujuran partisipan yang terjadi di ruang direksi, kemudian diklasifikasikan berdasarkan jenis-jenis speech acts. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa semua jenis speech acts seperti representative, directive, commissive, expressive dan decalarative digunakan oleh pembawa acara dan peserta, sedangkan penasehat tidak menggunakan jenis speech acts expressive dan declarative. Jenis speech acts yang dominan digunakan oleh pembawa acara adalah directive dalam bentuk questioning (pertanyaan), sedangkan penasehat dan kontestan dominan menggunakan speech acts jenis representative dalam bentuk informing (menginformasikan). Para partisipan menggunakan jenis-jenis speech acts tersebut secara langsung, tidak langsung, literal dan non-literal. Ada berbagai alasan penggunaan jenis-jenis speech acts tersebut yaitu berdasarkan peran masing-masing partisipan di acara tersebut. Untuk memperoleh informasi tentang kinerja para kontestan dalam menjalankan tugas, jenis speech acts yang digunakan pembawa acara adalah directive dalam bentuk questioning. Di sisi lain, para penasehat dan kontestan merupakan informan yang informasinya diperlukan oleh pembawa acara. Oleh karena itu, untuk merespon apa yang ditanya oleh pembawa acara, mereka menggunakan jenis representative speech acts dalam bentuk informing.

(6)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In the name of Allah SWT, the most gracious and merciful, all praise for His mercy, guidance and loving care which have been given to the writer, so this thesis entitled “Speech Acts In The Apprentice Asia TV Program” could be

completed. This thesis is aimed to fulfill one of the requirements for the degree of Magister Humaniora at the English Applied Linguistics Study Program, Postgraduate School of State University of Medan.

During the process of completing this thesis, the writer has received a lot of assistances from some people. First of all, he would like to thank his thesis advisers, Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A., Ph. D., and Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M. Hum., who have given the precious time and valuable knowledge in correcting and supervising his thesis.

Secondly, his thanks are indebted to Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M. Pd., Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S., and Farid Ma’ruf, the head, secretary and administration staff of English Applied Linguistics Study Program, Prof. Dr. H. Abdul Muin Sibuea, M. Pd., the Director of Postgraduate School, for the suggestions and administrative assistance during the completion of this thesis and also all lectures who have given very valuable knowledge through academic years.

(7)

Then, a very special thanks to Aurora (Chairul, Dhani, Tari, Kara, Sugih, Melita, Ayu, Aisyah, Ami, Tia, Arin, Raisa and Desi) who have given more than one friendship colors, have been good listeners for every complaint and have filled his loneliness and emptiness with happiness. Further thanks are directed to his friends and classmates for help and encouragement. To Minda and Rika, thanks for the heart to heart conversations on mobile phone, facebook and face to face talks. He appreciates the advice and encouragement on many levels. He wouldn’t have made it without you and he has learned so much from each of you and he appreciates your friendship. Thanks to Riza, Teti, Junaidi and Sahabat Adventure (Lili, Rudi, Dewi, Isma, Fika, Sahrial and Juan) who always accompany him spending weekends to explore wonderful places in North Sumatera in order to erase his boredom in facing lectures pressures and open his eyes to see God’s majesty and remind him to be a humble one. He would like also thank to his students who never questioned his craziness during the last year and were patient with getting grades back.

At last, the he would like to thank to bus drivers and assistents of Intra, Sentosa, Sejahtera, KUPJ, Prima Jaya, and M97 who have given their service to bring him from Serdang Bedagai to his campus returns.

Medan, March 2014

The writer,

(8)

LIST OF TABLES

page

Table 1. The Example of Direct Illocutionary Acts ... 17

Table 2. The Percentage of Speech Acts Used by the Host ... 34

Table 3. The Percentage of Speech Acts Used by the Advisors ... 42

Table 4. The Percentage of Speech Acts Used by the Contestants ... 46

(11)

LIST OF APPENDICES

page

Appendix 1 Transcript of The Host’s Utterances ... 62

Appendix 2 Transcript of The Advisors’ Utterances ... 81

Appendix 3 Transcript of The Contestants’ Utterances ... 84

(12)

1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Background of the Study

Language is involved in nearly all fields of human activity. People do many more things with language. For example, when a manager utters “you are fired!”, he terminates the service of an employee. This example shows how the

use of language brings certain effect and change in the environment.

According to an American language philosopher, Searle (2000) speaking a language is performing speech acts, acts such as making statements, giving commands, asking questions or making promises. Searle states that all linguistic communication involves linguistic (speech) acts. In other words, speech acts are the basic or minimal units of linguistic communication. They are not mere artificial linguistic constructs as it may seem, their understanding together with the acquaintance of context in which they are performed are often essential for decoding the whole utterance and its proper meaning. The speech acts are used in standard quotidian exchanges as well as in jokes or drama for instance. In line with Searle, Umar (2006: 13) states that many utterances, termed performatives, do not only communicate information, but are equivalent to actions. So, through utterances, people do things or have others do things for them.

Austin (2009) distinguished the performance of speech acts into three types; namely locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary act. Illocutionary acts become the major investigation in this study related to the intention of utterances or performances of particular language function. Finch (2000) categorized the

(13)

2

illocutionary acts into five, namely representative, directive, commissive, expressive and declarative. Speech acts in one form of utterances can be used by the speakers of interlocutors to convey the meaning of their purposes in communication. In communication itself, pragmatic competence has an important role. In this way, the pragmatic competence as the ability to perform speech acts should be mastered in different types of speech acts.

The use of language is different in certain settings, such as in social, science or religion. In social purpose, particularly happened in the reality TV shows that they are monologue which used as truth-signs of direct access to the authentic (Aslama and Pantti, 2006). The power of monologue in the reality genre promotes the transformation of television from a mass medium to first-person medium addressing masses of individuals. The power of the monologue in reality TV can be seen as a parallel to the fascination of the entire genre for its audiences. The monologue, as with reality programming in general, contains an ambiguous interplay of the pre-scripted and non-scripted, individual and collective, performed and non-performed and fake and real. Consequently, the thrill for viewers is to hunt for the few rare authentic moments when the participant seems to reveal their „real self‟ (Hill, 2002). The monologue situations hardly resemble

any everyday talk events, but the literary way of talk does not diminish the claim for authenticity. Rather, the form serves the purpose of giving the viewers the ultimate opportunity to assess the key characteristic of authenticity: the participant‟s integrity and credibility when it comes to feelings. The paradox of an

(14)

3

The Apprentice Asia is an Asian reality game show which is adapted from

The Apprentice US in which a group of aspiring young businessmen and women

across Asia compete for the chance to work with the Malaysian entrepreneur Tony Fernandes, who also serves as the host of the show. People are placed in two teams, and each week (i.e. in each episode of the show) they are assigned a task to

be performed and asked to select a project manager for the task. The decision of

what team wins/loses is made based on the teams‟ performance with respect to the

task assigned. The winning team receives a reward, while the losing team faces a

“boardroom showdown” in order to determine which team member should be

fired (eliminated from the show). Elimination proceeds in two stages; in the first

one, all of the losing team‟s members are confronted. The project manager of the

losing team is asked to select some of the team members who are believed to be

most responsible for the loss. In the second stage, which takes place in the

boardroom meeting, the rest of the team is dismissed, and the project manager and

the selected members face a final confrontation in which at least one of the

members is fired by Fernandez at the end of the meeting. In this meeting, on one

side is the „candidates board‟ and on the other side is the „executive board‟. The

„executive board‟ is formed by Fernandez together with two advisors who will

help him making the decision of what member of the team gets fired.

(15)

4

Lumpur for the day, designing a new set of uniforms for Air Asia staff (guest services, weekend flight attendant and ramp attendant) and present them at a fashion show, producing a live commercial for the Volkswagen Beetle (A5), facing one-on-one interviews with three of Fernandes' trusted associates, etc, the viewers will be inspired by how the contestants present themselves professionaly and the way they sell themselves to impress Fernandes in order to be his apprentice. The host, Fernandes also educates the candidates and viewers as well through informing a lot of useful information in business world. For instance, pricing is very important because it is the main factor of convincing buyers to buy the products. In business world, playing safe may not be the best choice because it projected that we may not have the drive to push ourselves during tough times. In addition, getting in business world can be really competitive, so be ready to get step on, used for get criticized by others. In communication aspect, related to the assigned tasks, the viewers are taught to communicate with others well in conducting presentation, job interview and doing transactions in sale.

The language spoken by the host, advisors and contestants in this reality TV show can be very different. For instance, in the elimination time taken place in the board room, there will be a bitter disputation among the contestants which is proved from their speech in order not to be eliminated by the host and deserve to go to the next round. For example:

Fernandez (the host) : Dian, why I shouldn‟t fire you? (Directive–Questioning) Dian (the contestant) : I have too much fire in me that have just been succumbed

because of another life and I want to get back to it. (Representative – Informing)

Fernandez (the host) : All right! Naz? (Directive - Questioning)

(16)

5

biggest fan and I always wanted to be an apprentice. Your apprentice, sir. And I have personal values that is very, very high, Sir. And that includes integrity and love and passion. (Representative – Informing)

Fernandez (the host): Based on everything I‟ve heard. Nazril, you‟re fired! (Declarative-firing)

The host asks questions to get alot of information from the advisors and contestants in order to make the right decision to determine who the weak contestants are and then fire them. He asks about every contentants‟s opinions

about members of the team who do not do the project assigned well and should be fired. He also asks to the advisors in order to hear their opinions about the contestants‟ performances. To avoid misinterpretation between the host, advisors

and contestants, he performs his speech acts directly and literally without uttering ambiguous words or sentences. In helping the host to make the right decision and give advices to what the contestants did and what should every project be successfully run, the advisors inform a lot of informations through their utterances. They inform the host about the plus minus of teams‟ projects and give advices or suggestions to the contestants performances. On the other hand, the constestants are the participants who are required to answer the host‟s questions. That is why they need inform the host about their performances in running the project assigned and whose members of the team are unable to do the project as the weak ones and pointed them to be the fired candidates.

Based on the phenomena above, the researcher is interested in investigating the use of speech acts in The Apprentice Asia TV program. It is focused on the host, advisors, contentestans‟ utterances in board room in order to

(17)

6

to perform an act such as stating a fact, stating an opinion, confirming or denying

something, making a prediction or a request, asking a question, issuing an order,

giving a prmission, giving a piece of advice, making an offer, making a promise,

thanking or condoling somebody. In this case, the choice of speech acts theory as the linguistic framework for the analysis of speech acts in The Apprentice Asia TV Program is based on the fact that the participants perform various actions through various utterances.

1.2 The Problems of the Study

Based on the the background of the study, the problems of the study are formulated as the following.

a) What types of speech acts are used by the host, advisors and constestants of The Apprentice Asia?

b) How are those types of speech acts used by participants of The Apprentice Asia?

c) Why are those types of speech acts used in the ways they are?

1.3 The Objectives of the Study

In relation to the problems, the objectives of the study are to

a) discover the types of speech acts used by the host, advisors and constestants of The Apprentice Asia,

b) explain how those types of speech acts are used by participants of The Apprentice Asia and

(18)

7

1.4 The Scope of the Study

This study investigated speech acts used by the participants of The Apprentice Asia in five episodes (episodes 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9) which took place in

board room in elimination time. The focus is on types of speech acts, namely representative, directive, commissive, expressive and declarative. Further, investigation was on the realizations of speech acts and reasons for their occurrences.

1.5 The Significances of the Study

Findings of the study are expected to give some relevant constribution both

a) theoretically, to enrich the theories of pragmatics and sociolinguistics, specifically give a better understanding and new insight on how speech acts are related to the aspects of pragmatic study and it is usefully considered to provide the information of what type of speech acts used by the participants in the reality TV program when they express the language in the board room and b) practically, to be a guidance for those who are interested in reality TV program

(19)

1

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

5. 1 Conclusions

After analyzing the data in the boardroom sessions of The Apprentice Asia TV program, some conclusions are drawn as the following.

a) All types of speech acts were used in the boardroom sessions of The Apprentice Asia, namely representative, directive, commissive, expressive and

declarative. All those types of speech acts were not used by all participants. The advisors did not use expressive and declarative. The most dominant type of speech acts used by the host was directive in the form of questioning, while representative in the form of informing is frequently used by the advisors and contestants.

b) There were four ways used by participants in performing their speech acts during the boardroom sessions, namely direct, indirect, literal and non-literal. The host and contestants performed their speech acts through those four ways, but the advisors only used direct and literal way. When uttering their utterances non-literally, the host and contestants also used metaphor whose meanings were well understood by them.

(20)

2

host questioned to them. It was used by the advisors to help the host in deciding the right decision and also to give advices to what the contestants did and what should every project be successfully run, while the contestants informed him based on the host question about their performances in running the assigned projects.

5.2 Suggestions

Related to the conclusions above, some suggestions are pointed out in the following.

a) It is suggested that the lecturers of pragmatics should develop the theory of speech acts used by exemplifying the theory with the TV program discourse by which the lectures can be enlivened and the students’ interests in research can

be aroused.

b) The use of speech acts will influence the host in making final decision in the boardroom sessions. Therefore, it is suggested that the contestants should use appropriate speech acts in order that the host can get the right information and make the right the decision received by all contestants fairly.

(21)

1

Asher, N. & Lascarides, A. 2006. Indirect Speech Acts. Accessed on October, 10, 2013 from http://www.jstor.org/stable.

Brinton, L. J. 2000. The Structure of Modern English: A Linguistic Introduction. John Benjamin Publishing Company.

---. 2007. The Development of I Mean: Implications for the Study of Historical Pragmatics. In: Susan M. Fitzmaurice and Irma Taavitsainen (eds.). Methods in Historical Pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 37–79.

Bryman, A. 2000. Triangulation. Leicestershire: Loughbourough University Press.

Cook, G. 2003. Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. 1994. Intoduction Entering The Field of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

(22)

2

Grundy, P. 2000. Doing Pragmatics. New York: E. Arnold.

Guba, E.G. 1981. Criteria for Assessing the Trustworthiness of Naturalistic Inquires. Educational Communication and Technology Journal 29.

Hill, A. 2002. Big Brother, The Real Audience, Television and New Media 3(3): 323–40.

Josiah, U. E., and Johnson, S.E. 2012. Pragmatic Analysis of Presiden Goodluck Jonathan’s and President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Adresses. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 2 No.1, pp 261-278.

Lyons, J. 1995. Linguistics Semantics: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Marquez, R. R. 2000. Linguistic Politeness in Britian and Uruguay; A Contrastive Study of Requests and Apologies. Philadelphia: John Benjamins

Punch, K.F. 1998. Introduction to Social Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches. Sage Publication

Purnomo, M. D. 2009. Speech Acts Used by Street Children in Medan. An Unpublished Thesis. Medan: English Applied Linguistics Study Program, State University of Medan.

(23)

3

Rowan, B. 2000. Reality TV Takes Hold. Accessed on October, 10, 2013 from http://www.infoplease.com/spot/realitytv1.html

Sbisa, Marina. 2002. Speech Acts in Context. Language & Communication 22 (2002) 421–436. Department of Philosophy, University of Trieste, Via dell’Universita 7, 34123 Trieste, Italy.www.elsevier.com/locate/langcom. Searle, J. R. 2000. Soz Edimleri. (R. Levent Aysever, Trans.). Ankara: Ayrac Yaymevi.

Smith, M. J., & Wood, A. F. 2003. Survivor Lessons: Essays on Communication and Reality Television. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.

Spencer, H., & Zegarac, V. 2002. Pragmatics. In N. Schmitt (Ed.), An Introduction to Applied Linguistics (74-91). London: Hodder Education.

Stapleton, Laura E. 2004. Variation Variation In The Performance Of Speech Acts In Peninsular Spanish: Apologies And Requests. A dissertation. Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College. Taavitsainen, Irma., & S. Fitzmaurice. 2007. Historical pragmatics: What it is and how to do it. In: Susan M. Fitzmaurice and Irma Taavitsainen (eds.). Methods in Historical Pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 11–36.

SPEECH ACTS IN THE APPRENTICE ASIA TV PROGRAM.