SPEECH FUNCTION IN ‘YEAH MAHASISWA’ TWEETS.

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SPEECH FUNCTION IN ‘YEAH MAHASISWA’ TWEETS

A THESIS

Submitted to the English Department of UNIMED Medan in Partial as Fulfillment of the Requirement for

The Degree of Sarjana Sastra

By:

Rondang Donna Berhnitha Manalu

Reg No: 2101220011

ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, the writer would like to say thank to Jehovah for the blessing, guarding, guidance, and everything that have been given along her life until the writer accomplish this thesis.

This thesis is aimed to fulfill one of the requirements to obtain the S1 degree of Sarjana Sastra at English Department in Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.

In completing this thesis, the writer has received a lot of assistance and academic support from some people. Therefore, the writer would like to express her sincere gratitude, love and special thanks to

 Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si., as the Rector of State University of

Medan,

 Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of Faculty of Languages and Arts,

 Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., as the Head of English Department, Rika S.Pd, M.Hum., as Secretary of English Department, Dra. Meisuri, M.A., as

the Head of English Literature Department, and Dra. Masitowarni, M.Ed., as the Head of English Education Department,

 Drs. Elia Masa Gintings, M.Hum., as her Thesis Advisor,

 Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A., Ph.D., as her Academic Advisor,

 all the Lecturers throughout her academic years at State University of Medan that could not be mentioned one by one,

 her beloved parents; her father, Dohara Manalu and her mother, Yohana

Sitompul for the pray, love, moral and financial support. And thanks for the

love and support from her dearest sister and brother, Anggi Rosaulina

Manalu and Robinsar Fiezhardo Manalu,

 her uncle S. Silaban, her aunt N. Manalu and her beloved cousins Sonia

Maysarah Silaban and Bertha Manalu thanks for the place, pray, love and

support,

 all her beloved classmates of Applied Linguistics Regular 2010 especially

Hisarmauli Desi, Rizky Meiyani, Zahrina Putri, Sri Devi Arista, Bintang Nopita, Nurhafizha, Mariati Sembiring, Irwan Saputra, Ali Muis, Adi Putra Wijaya and others that cannot be mentioned all. Thank you for the

support, information, encouragement, and beautiful day spent together and  her another best friendsReni Anggraini, Lily Sitorus, Jeni Eria, Umul

Khairunisa, Liska Septiana, Tri Asrimta, Rizky Amelia, Melinda Lena Sianipar and Julius Efrata Tarigan. Thank you for thelove, support,

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Finally, the writer admits that this thesis still far from perfect. Therefore, the writer would like to invite the readers to give suggestion for the improvement of this thesis later on.

Medan, August 2014 The writer,

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ABSTRACT

Rondang Donna Berhnitha Manalu. 2014. Speech Function in ‘Yeah

Mahasiswa’ Tweets. A Thesis. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan.

This study deals with speech function in ‘Yeah Mahasiswa’ tweets. The research was conducted by using descriptive qualitative method. The data were collected from the twitter account of Yeah Mahasiswa which chosen purposively. The findings of the research show that there are 105 clauses which consists of 4 speech functions, Statement (84), Question (11), Command (6), and Offer (4). The most dominant type of speech function used by Yeah Mahasiswa is statement because it tend to give information in its interaction through its tweets. The occurrence of the dominant speech function due to the context of situation, covering field, tenor and mode.

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Speech Role & Commodities in Interaction ... 11

Table 2.2 Speech Function & Mood Realization ... 14

Table 2.3 Speech Function & Responses ... 15

Table 4.1 The Sample ... 28

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LIST OF FIGURES

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LIST OF APPENDICES

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of the Study

Language is the basic need of human being to carry out their activities in

every aspects of life. It is use to communicate to each other. Language is primarily

spoken, although it can be transferred to another way, such as written. In other

words, language is a communication system; therefore it as a means of

communication play important roles in human‟s life.

Communication means when people use language, they need not only to

interact with others but also to get other persons to understand their thought and

feeling. In general, communication can be divided into two forms; spoken and

written communication. Spoken communication means the process of expressing

ideas and feelings or giving information, which is done orally. Whereas, written

communication is done in written form, such as; magazine, newspaper, brochure,

letter, internet, etc.

In doing spoken or written communication, human, as socialized

individuals, spend much of their live interacting to other people to make

communication. Interacting is a process of making meaning. It is known as

performing interpersonal meaning which studies the clause that concerns the

speaker‟s role in the speech function. Speech function is a way someone delivers

ideas in communication to make the listener understand the ideas well. Speech

function itself divided into four types, statement, question, offer, and command.

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spoken or written. Speaker may be giving something to listener or demanding

something of him. Giving means inviting to receive and demanding means

inviting to give. Realizing or not, people may be giving or demanding something

in their interaction. Something here means commodity being exchanged; either

information or goods and services.

Several studies on speech function have been done previously. Wanda

(2010) looks at “Speech Function in Facebook Users‟ Status”. He analyzed every

clauses in Facebook users‟ status to find the most dominant type of speech

function which is statement. It means that Facebook users is mostly giving

information through their status.

Sulistyowati (2011) analyzed the speech function in the conversations

between the fourth semester English Department students of Muria Kudus

University and some foreigners, the writer found that the opening speech

functions are produced mostly by the students; it indicates that the students play

as initiators. The foreigners show their respect and appreciation to the students as

the respond to the student initiations b producing more responding and continuing

moves. The number of turns and moves produced by the students and foreigners

are quite similar; it indicates that both of the participants get the same chance to

take their roles. The foreigners a s tourist show they interest to some tourism

objects by describing to the students some objects they have visited and by

comparing to their own country. Learning language cannot be separated from its

culture, therefore speech functions and cultural understanding should be taught in

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Tri (2011) analyzed speech function used in reality show “Uya Emang

In this research, the writer would like to analysis speech function in ‘Yeah

Mahasiswa’ tweets. It is the most popular twitter account through the Indonesian

students. @yeahmahasiswa is the most funny and famous twitter account that

mostly tweets about the other side of University-student‟s life while getting in

trouble because of assignment from lecture, out of meal, and the loneliness caused

by having no boy/girlfriend.

The writer choose twitter to be observed because twitter is a relatively

recent phenomenon. According to its website, it is “a real time information

network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover

what‟s happening now”. It is also an Internet based – messaging services

(although users are able to text their messages, or „tweets‟, to their profiles), with

each messages displayed publicly rather than privately. Users then choose which

other member of the Twitter community they wish to follow, and the website

displays the messages posted by those people in an automatically updated

chronological timeline. People do make the interaction in using this kind of

medium to communicate. They also can give and demand information or goods

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the speech functions; statement, question, offer and command are commonly used

by the users to interact.

In order to have an understandable research, the writer use an underlying

theory that explains the types of speech function based on what is proposed by

Halliday (1994).

B. The Problems of the Study

The problems of study are formulated as the following.

1. What types of speech function are used in ‘Yeah Mahasiswa’ tweets?

2. What type of speech function is dominantly used in ‘Yeah Mahasiswa’

tweets?

3. In what context does the dominant type of speech function occur?

C. The Objectives of the Study

In line with the problem, the objectives of the study are

1. to derive the types of speech functions used in ‘Yeah Mahasiswa’ tweets,

2. to determine the most dominant type of speech functions used in ‘Yeah

Mahasiswa’ tweets, and

3. to reason for the dominant type of speech functions (findings) used in

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D. The Scope of the Study

The subject matter of the study is focused on the types of speech function

in @yeahmahasiswa‟s tweets. There are four primary speech functions; statement,

question, command and offer which are realized in mood; declarative;

interrogative and imperative. This study will analyze the speech functions that are

found in @yeahmahasiswa‟s tweets.

E. The Significance of the Study

Finding of the study are expected to be useful for

1. students of the English Department particularly to improve their

knowledge and develop their understanding of how speech function works

in texts or online texts,

2. to help people to understand the theory of speech function easier, so that

readers can have deeper understanding about speech function, and

3. other researchers who want to make further research of speech function on

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

A. Conclusions

After analyzing the using of speech function in ‘Yeah Mahasiswa’ tweets,

the conclusions can be drawn as follows:

1. There are four types of speech used in ‘Yeah Mahasiswa’ tweets with the

occurrences of statement is 84 (80%), question is 11 (10.5%), command is

6 (5.7%), and offer is 4 (3.8%).

2. The dominant type of speech function used in ‘Yeah Mahasiswa’ tweets is

statement 84 (80%), because @yeahmahasiswa tend to give information in

its interaction through its tweets. When @yeahmahasiswa used giving, it

actually invited viewers to receive something from them through its

tweets, such as information of whereabouts, action, situation, condition, or

anything else. And when it used demanding, it actually invited the viewers

to give something the viewers have, such as information, response or

reaction.

3. Statement as the dominant type occurs because of the context. The context

are field, tenor and mode. For field are (-) institutionalized and (-)

specialized, tenor are (-) formal situation, (+) interpersonal and (+)

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B. Suggestion

Referring to the result of this research, the following suggestions are

forwarding.

1. It is suggested to the students of English Department to learn more about

speech function in order they can develop their understanding on how

speech function works in texts or online texts.

2. For other researches, this thesis can be used as reference when they decide

to discuss the same topic for their thesis.

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REFERENCES

Arikunto, S. 2006. Prosedur Penelitian. Jakarta: Rineka Cipta.

Astuti, Tri. 2011. Speech Function Used in Reality Show “Uya Emang Kuya” on SCTV. FBS. Unimed

Bell, Roger T. 1976. Sociolinguistics: Goals, Approaches and Problems. London: B. T. Batsford.

Bloor, M and Bloor, T. 1995. The Functional Analysis of English: A Hallidayan Approach. London: Edward Arnold.

Clark, E. V and Clark, H. H. 1997. Psychology and Language: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovic.

Gee J. P. 1999. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. London: Rouledge.

Gerot, L and Wignell, P. 1994. Making Sense of Functional Grammar. Sidney: Southwood Press.

Halliday, M. A. K. 1994. Functional Grammar, 2nd ed. London: Edward Arnold.

_____ , M. A. K. 2002. Linguistics Studies of Text and Discourse. Peking: Peking University Press.

Martin, J. R., Matthiessen, C. M. I. M., and Painter, C. 1997. Working With Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.

Morley, D. 2000. Syntax In Functional Grammar. London: Biddles.

Saragih, Amrin. 2013. Discourse Analysis. Medan, State University of Medan (Unpublished).

Sembiring, Wanda. 2010. Speech Function in Facebook User’s Status. FBS. Unimed.

Sulistyowati, Titis. 2011. The Speech Function in the Conversations between the Fourth Semester English Department Students of Muria Kudus University and Some Foreigners. Journal of Speech Function. Vol. 1. p 1.

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http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/700-understanding-the-language-of-twitter/ (retrieved on May, 2014)

http://eju-online.com/trapped-stuck-follow/ (retrieved on January, 2014)

SPEECH FUNCTION IN ‘YEAH MAHASISWA’ TWEETS.