THE USE OF COMMISSIVE SPEECH ACTS AND ITS POLITENESS IMPLICATION: A CASE OF BANTEN GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE DEBATE
A research paper
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Sarjana Sastra degree
by
Nabilah Fairuz Al-Bantany
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION
ABSTRACTS
This study entitled “The Use of Commissive Speech Acts and its Politeness Implication: A Case of Banten Gubernatorial Candidates Debate” examines the use of commissive speech acts in the Banten gubernatorial candidate debate and the implication of politeness in the use of the speech acts. This study is largely qualitative, supported by some descriptive quantification. Data were collected by downloading the debate from relevant websites. The data analysis was based on Searle’s (1979) classification of speech acts and Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory of politeness. It is found that commissive speech acts were mostly realized through guarantee (53.7%), followed by promise (38.9%), and refusal (7.4%). It is also found that in terms politeness, all the candidates appear to behave in relatively the same way. This seems to result from the weightiness which is not largely different and the candidates’ consideration that the panelists and other candidates are only media to speak to a party that has the ultimate power, i.e. the people of Banten. It is suggested that further research examine other types of speech acts in political speech and expand the politeness analysis.
ABSTRAK
Penelitian ini berjudul “Penggunaan tutur kata komisif dan kesopanan: kasus debat Banten. Penelitian ini membedah penggunaan tutur kata komisif dalam debat para kandidat calon gubernur Banten dan implikasi kesopanan dalam tutur kata tersebut. Penelitian ini kualitatif, didukung oleh beberapa penghitungan deskriptif. Data dari penelitian ini diperoleh dari mengunduh sesi debat dari website yang berhubungan. Analisis data dari penelitian ini berdasarkan teori klasifikasi tutur kata Searle (1979) dan teori kesopanan Brown dan Levinson (1987). Penelitian ini menemukan bahwa jenis tutur kata yang paling sering digunakan adalah Jaminan (53.7%), janji (38.9%) dan penolakan (7.4%). Ditemukan juga bahwa dalam kesopanannya, semua kandidat bersikap sama yakni sangat sopan karena dapat dilihat dari hasil weightiness yang tidak terlalu berbeda dan pertimbangan dari semua kandidat bahwa panelis dan kandidat lain hanyalah sekedar media untuk komunikasi dengan seluruh warga Banten karena yang memiliki hat mutlak untuk memilih mereka adalah warga banten. Penulis mengharapkan adanya penelitia lebih lanjut untuk meneliti jenis tutur kata dalam bidang politik dan memperluas analisis kesopanannya.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF AUTHORIZATION ... Error! Bookmark not defined. PREFACE ... Error! Bookmark not defined. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... Error! Bookmark not defined. ABSTRACTS ... Error! Bookmark not defined. TABLE OF CONTENTS ... 1 LIST OF TABLES ... 3 CHAPTER I ... Error! Bookmark not defined. INTRODUCTION ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 1.1 Background of the study ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 1.2 Research questions ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 1.3 Aims of the study ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 1.4 Scope of the study ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 1.5 Research method ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 1.6 Clarification of key terms ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 1.7 Organization of the paper... Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER II ... Error! Bookmark not defined. THEORETICAL FOUNDATION ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.1 Speech acts theory... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.1.1 Speech Act Categories ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.1.2 Direct and Indirect Speech Acts ... Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.1.3 Illocutionary Force Indicating Device (IFID)Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.1.4 Felicity Conditions ... Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.2 Commissive speech act ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.2.1 Promise ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.2.2 Guarantee ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.2.3 Refusal ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.2.4 Threat ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.2.5 Volunteer ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.2.6 Offer ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.3 Politeness Theory ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.3.1 Lakoff Rules of Politeness ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.3.2 Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Strategies and Face ConceptError! Bookmark not defined.
2.3.3 Independence and Involvement as the Aspects of FaceError! Bookmark not defined.
2.5 Previous Studies ... Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER III ... Error! Bookmark not defined. RESEARCH METHOD ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 3.1 Design ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 3.2 Data collection ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 3.3 Data analysis ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 3.4 Concluding remarks ... Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER IV ... Error! Bookmark not defined. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.1 The Commissives in The Candidates’ DebateError! Bookmark not defined. 4.1.1 Promise ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 4.1.2 Guarantee ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 4.1.3 Refusal ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 4.1.4 Commissive speech acts distributionError! Bookmark not defined. 4.2 Politeness Phenomena ... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.2.1 Power ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 4.2.2 Social distance ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 4.2.3 Degree of imposition ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 4.2.4 Weightiness ... Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER V ... Error! Bookmark not defined. CONCLUSIONS ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 5.1 Conclusions ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 5.2 Suggestions ... Error! Bookmark not defined.
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1 Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts (Searle’s, 1979, p.12-20)Error! Bookmark not defined.
Table 4.1 The Distribution of Commissive Speech Act CategoriesError! Bookmark not defined.
Table 4.2 Distribution of Promise Strategies ... Error! Bookmark not defined. Table 4.3 Distribution of Guarantee Strategies ... Error! Bookmark not defined. Table 4.4 Distribution of Refusal Strategies ... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Table 4.5 Distribution of Commissive Speech Act StrategiesError! Bookmark not defined. Table 4.6Commissive speech act frequency by the candidatesError! Bookmark not defined. Table 4.7 Modality frequency ... Error! Bookmark not defined.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents introduces the present study. It consists of the background of the study, the research questions, the aims of the study, the scope of the study, the research method, the clarification of key terms, and the organization of the paper.
1.1 Background of the study
Debate is a tool for governmental campaign. Hornby (2005 in Sari, 2010: 2) defines debate as a “formal discussion to show skill and ability and arguing”. To convince the opponent and all
the audience towards the candidate’s argument is the essence of debate. The debate can be
considered not only as a session of arguing and stating the argument but also an expression of beliefs, opinions, feelings, and ideas.
In November 2011 Banten people had to choose their governor for 2012-2017 period and all the gubernatorial candidates had to do the campaign in order to gain people support. Debate is one part of the campaign. The Banten Provincial General Election Comission required that the debate be held and attended by all candidates. This must be done to explore the candidates’
A debate may be examined in a variety of points of disciplines, including pragmatics. Within pragmatics a debate may also be examined from different points of view, including the theory of speech acts, which was originally developed by Austin (1962). The theory explains how speakers use utterances to perform intended actions and how hearers interpret intended meaning from what is said. As Searle (1969: 42) puts it, “all linguistic communication involves linguistic acts”. This is to say that there is an act in every communication that people perform.
The theory has developed fast and there are hundreds of studies that explore the speech act issue. There is research which analyzes speech acts on trial (Ljungberg and Holm,1996). There have also been several studies examining commissive speech acts, including Bilbow (2006), who discussed commissive speech acts in intercultural business meeting and Puspasari (2006), who analyzed commissive speech acts employed by the characters in the movie “a bug’s
life”.
It appears that there has not been research on commissive speech acts that focuses on gubernatorial election. Thus, the present study investigates the realisation of commissive speech acts the Banten gubernatorial election. Moreover, the study will see the implication of politeness (see Brown and Levinson 1987) in the use of commissive speech acts. It is expected that this research will contribute to the field of pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and linguistic studies in general.
1.2 Research questions
The problems of the present study are formulated in the following research questions:
2. How is politeness implied in the use of commisive speech acts?
1.3 Aims of the study
In relation to the research problems above, the present study aims to
1. find the commissive speech acts performed by the candidates in the debate. 2. examine politeness that is implied in the use of commissive speech acts.
1.4 Scope of the study
The study discusses the commissive speech acts used by the candidates in Banten gubernatorial candidate debate and the politeness implication. This study focuses on the use of commissive speech acts. The data include the use of commissive speech acts in the gubernatorial candidate debates broadcasted by a television station, i.e. Metro TV.
1.5 Research method
This research is largely qualitative, especially in identifying and classifying the commissive speech acts that appear in the debates. Descriptive quantification, however, is also used to identify the trend in the use of commissive speech acts, and the results are used to make further interpretation of the use of the speech acts, especially with regard to the politeness implication.
(1979) and Yule (2000). Later the occurrences of the speech acts were calculated to find their percentage. This quantification was made in order to examine the implication of politeness in the use of commissive speech acts.
1.6 Clarification of key terms
In order to avoid misunderstanding, the following key terms are defined in the context of the present study.
Politeness is a system of interpersonal relations which is designed to facilitate an
interaction by minimizing the potential conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange (Lakoff, 1990)
Speech acts refer to a theory that explains how speakers use utterances to perform
intended actions and how hearers catch intended meaning from what it is said. In other words, speech act is best described as “in saying something, we do something” (Austin,
1962: 18).
Commissive speech acts refer to a type of speech acts that speakers use to commit
themselves to do some future actions. Commissive speech acts are acts of promising, pledging oneself, guaranteeing, swearing to do. It defines the notion in terms of commitment (see Searle, 1979)
Banten Gubernatorial election is an event held to vote for Banten governor. This is
1.7 Organization of the paper
CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHOD
This chapter discusses the method used in this study. It is designed to address the two research problems that have been outlined in Chapter 1, those are (1) the commissive speech acts performed by the candidates in the debate and (2) how piliteness in realized in the use of commissive speech acts. Accordingly, Section 3.1 presents the general design of the study. Furthermore, Section 3.2 presents the procedures for data collection, and Section 3.3 outlines the framework of data analysis.
3.1 Design
The present study is largely qualitative, which is commonly used in exploring issues, understanding phenomena, and answering questions in order to comprehend a social phenomenon from participant point of view (see Cresswell 1994 in Nurhasanah 2008; Rahmat 2002; Maxwell 1996; Cresswell 2008; Moleong 2008; Alwasilah 2008; Ereaut, 2011; Sukmadinata in Alwasilah, 2011). Accordingly, a qualitative research focuses on situations or people and its emphasis on words rather than number.
qualitative nature is also applied in the identification and classification of commissive speech acts in the debate, which require qualitative consideration.
In addition, descriptive quantification is used to identify the trend in the use of commissive speech acts. This quantification includes frequency count and percentage. The results of this quantification are used to make further interpretation regarding the use of the commissive speech acts, especially with regard to the politeness implication.
3.2 Data collection
Table 3.1 The debate sessions on Metro TV
Session Time Duration Source 1 candidate couples. The first couple includes Ratu Atut Chosiyah and Rano Karno. They are the incumbent, who has lead Banten province the previous period. The second couple includes Wahidin Halim and Irna Narulita, and the third includes Jazuli Zuwaini and Makmun Muzakki.
The debate lasted about two and a half hours. There were three session in the debate and they were recorded in seven videos. The first session was the questions from the panelists. Each candidate was only given three minutes to answer the questions. The second session contained the questions from a candidate to other candidates. The debate was later transcribed for analysis.
3.3 Data analysis
Table 3.2 Commissive speech act and its characteristics
No. Commissive speech acts IFID
1. Promise
Performative verb: promise
Force: there is an intention which gives benefit to the hearer.
2. Guarantee
Performative verb: guarantee
Force: the speaker affirms constative the quality of something.
3. Refusal Performative verb: refuse Force: there is a negation 4. Threat
Force: There is an intention from the speaker to give harm or gives no
In example [3a] below, the utterance is identified as a promise, which is identifiable from the use of modal auxiliary akan ‘will’. The utterance shows the speaker’s intention to build flats, which is understood to benefit the the hearer.
[3a] Saya akan membangun rumah susun untuk memfasilitasi karyawan dan rakyat miskin.
Translation:
I will build flats to facilitate employees and poor people.
3.4 Concluding remarks
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS
This chapter presents conclusions and suggestions of the present study. The conclusions elaborate findings of the study with the previous study which are explained in the previous chapter by relating to the theories and concepts. Finally, the suggestions are made to enhance the future studies similar to this research.
5.1 Conclusions
This research aims to investigate the realization of commissive speech acts and its politeness implication in candidate debates in Banten gubernatorial election 2011. In analyzing this research, the commissive speech act proposed by Searle (1979) and politeness principles by Brown and Levinson (1987) were applied.
It is found that commissive speech acts are mostly realized through guarantee (53.7%), followed by promise (38.9%) and refusal (7.4%). Guarantee is mostly used perhaps because it is a very strong statement that can result in positive emotion.
different. Second, the difference of power in candidate-panelist and candidate-candidate relations seems to be ignored because the candidates saw the panelists and other candidates as media to speak to a party that has the ultimate power in that context: the people of Banten.
Based on the findings above it can be said that politeness operates in the use of language in real life, including the use of commissive speech acts. Power, especially the one owned by the people of Banten, appears to have influenced the linguistic behaviour of the candidates.The present study also confirms that pragmatics is a discipline that has the potential to explore social issues. It is a study that can bridge linguistics and other disciplines.
5.2 Suggestions
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