Illocutionary Acts In The Movie Divergent.

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ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS IN THE MOVIE

DIVERGENT

DELLA MAHARANI 1201305017

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF ARTS

UDAYANA UNIVERSITY

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my sincere and biggest gratitude to Almighty God, Ida Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa for the blessing and enlightenment in finishing this undergraduate thesis entitle Illocutionary Acts in The Movie Divergent.

I would like to give my sincere gratitude to I Nyoman Aryawibawa, S.S., M.A., Ph.D., as my first supervisor and Ni Ketut Sri Rahayuni, S.S., M.Hum., as my co-supervisor for their encouragements, academic guidance and giving their precious time to give suggestions, corrections, and advising me so I could finish this undergraduate thesis.

My gratitude is also addressed to Prof. Dr. Ni Luh Sutjiati Beratha, M.A., as the Dean of Faculty of Arts, Udayana University; I Gusti Ngurah Parthama, S.S., M.Hum., and my academic supervisor A.A. Sagung Santhi Sari Dewi, S.S., M.App.Ling and all the lecturers of English Department, Faculty of Arts, Udayana University; whom I have learned much during my academic years.

I wish to thank my parents, Made Sugita and Emiliana Emil Diaz for their patience, care, pray and financial support. Also, my brother Komang Angga Mahaputra for his endless supports until I finally complete this undergraduate thesis.

I am especially grateful to all of my class mates ENGLISH 2012 for their support mostly for my best friend sepermainan anti-d who support, concern and help me during the preparation so I could complete this undergraduate thesis.

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Finally, I realized that this undergraduate thesis far beyond perfect and still needs correction and suggestion in order to improve this undergraduate thesis to be better.

Denpasar, April 2016

Della Maharani

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ABSTRACT

This undergraduate thesis entitled Illocutionary Acts in the Movie Divergent. This study aimed to identify the types of illocutionary acts found in the movie titled Divergent. Besides, this study also tries to find out and describe how the context of situation supports the illocutionary acts in the movie Divergent.

The library research was used to collect the data from the movie and descriptive qualitative method was used to analyze the data. The theoretical framework used to analyze the data were the classification of illocutionary acts proposed by Searle (1976) and context of situation theory proposed by Halliday (1985).

The result of the analysis shows that there are only four out of five types of illocutionary acts found in the movie Divergent: representatives, directives, commisives and expressive. The declarative illocutionary acts, however were not found. There are five directive illocutionary acts, three representative illocutionary acts, three expressive illocutionary acts and one commisive illocutionary act. Theory of context of situation proposed by Halliday (1985) shows how the context of situation (field of discourse, tenor of discourse and mode of discourse) support the illocutionary acts found in the movie Divergent.

Keywords: speech act, illocutionary acts and context of situation.

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As a human, we live in this world by interacting with others in order to complete our needs. Communication itself is the sharing of experiences, ideas, information, knowledge and opinions while interacting with another person (Mead, 1926). In using language to communicate with others sometimes it triggers misunderstanding in communication itself. When people communicate with others, they might be performing more acts at the same time while they are uttering something. This kind of acts is called speech acts. People may do not realize while they are performing speech acts. The acts could be making statements, giving commands, asking questions, making promises, and the like (Searle:1969). Therefore, we can assume that it is important for people to avoid misunderstanding of the real intent of someone’s utterances (speech acts) in our daily life. Austin in 1962 states that speech act is the act of making an utterance in which the speaker is performing a certain kind of act, such as: giving advice, asking a question, making promise, making an offer, etc. There are 3 (three) types of speech acts, they are locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act.

According to Austin (1962), a locutionary act is the utterance of a sentence with determinate sense and reference. An illocutionary act is the making of statement, offer, promise, etc in uttering a sentence by virtue of the conventional force. And a perlocutionary act is the effects on the audience when someone

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uttering the sentence, such effects being special to the circumstances of utterance. Searle (1976) in Levinson (1983:240) has stated that illocutionary speech act has five basic types that someone can perform it in saying something; representatives, directives, commisives, expressives, and declaratives.

Speech acts especially illocutionary acts can be found in our daily conversation in unwritten even written texts, one of the examples is movie or movie script. Movie is a literary work which can deliver a message from the speaker (actor/actress or script writer) to the hearer (audience). The message of the movie can be found in the dialogue or the action of the casts because the dialogue/script of the movie may express thoughts, experiences and human feelings about something whether it happened or not.

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weekend. The storyline was interesting and the dialogues contain the illocutionary acts.

1.2Problems of Study

From the background that has presented above, there are 2 (two) problems to be discussed in the following chapter:

1. What types of illocutionary acts are identified in the movie Divergent?

2. How does the context of situation support the illocutionary act in the movie

Divergent?

1.3Aims of Study

Related to the problems in this undergraduate thesis there are two aims that are expected to be achieved, those are:

1. To identify what type of illocutionary acts used in the Divergent movie. 2. To explain the context of situation that supports the illocutionary act in the

movie Divergent.

1.4 Scope of Discussion

The analyses in this study only focus on illocutionary acts based on a theory from Searle in 1976. The analysis is limited into these two scopes of discussion.

1. The illocutionary acts’ type that are identified in the Divergent movie. 2. The context of situation that support the illocutionary act in the Divergent

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1.5 Research Method

Research method is the scientific procedures which are very important in order to get the research’s validity. This undergraduate thesis uses qualitative

method. Qualitative method is a means for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem. The process of research involves emerging questions and procedures, data typically collected in the participant’s setting, data analysis, inductively building from particulars to general themes, and the researcher making interpretations of the meaning of the data (John Creswell : 2009 :4).

The research of this undergraduate thesis was done by applying a library research and the data source was selected by doing online data research on the internet. The online data research obtains the online movie which is relevant to the objective of this undergraduate thesis. The research method in this study consists of three components such as: data source, method and technique of collecting data, and method and technique of analyzing data.

1.5.1 Data Source

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from the movie script Divergent. The movie script Divergent was obtained by doing browsing on the internet.

The dialogues in the movie are the sources of the data and taken as the samples of conversations which contain illocutionary acts. This data is selected because in the movie Divergent there are some parts which contain utterances that are suitable with this undergraduate thesis’s topic. The sample dialogues in this study are the dialogues that can be classified as the illocutionary acts.

1.5.2 Method and Technique of Collecting Data

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1.5.3 Method and Technique of Analyzing Data

After the all the data were collected, it needs to be analyzed using method and technique of analyzing data. The descriptive qualitative method is used to analyze the collected data source in this study. The analysis in this undergraduate thesis is descriptive analysis which describes the data based on certain theory. Meanwhile, the data can be categorized as qualitative data because the data and analysis is in the form of word and sentence and it not contains any statistic or numbers form. The data source needs to be analyzed using descriptive qualitative method to make the data described as clear as possible. The collected data was analyzed based on the theories which are related to the undergraduate thesis. The first step is classified the utterances found in the movie Divergent to the appropriate illocutionary acts’ types. After classifying basic types of illocutionary acts found in the movie script Divergent, the data was classified by using speech act theories according to Searle (1976) whether they were considered as representatives, directives, commisives, expressives or declaratives illocutionary acts. Next step was to analyze the intended meaning of the utterances and find out the context of situation which supports the participants in those dialogues by using the context of situation proposed by Halliday (1985).

1.5.4 Method and Technique of Presenting Analysis

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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURES, CONCEPT AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Review of Literatures

Speech acts is a very interesting topic to be discussed. There are several undergraduate theses about speech act done by student of English Department, Faculty of Arts and Culture, Udayana University.

The first undergraduate thesis reviewed is “The Analysis of Indirect Commisive in Speech Acts in the Novel ‘The Beach’.” written by student of

English Department, Giri in 2004. The paper only focuses on the analysis of indirect commisive of promises and indirect commisive of offers realize through declarative and interrogative forms. The strength of this paper is the paper has very clear explanation and easy to understand by the readers. However, in his work, the weakness is that Giri did not describe about the setting or the context of situation that relevant to the sample dialogues. This study gives some contributions to this study, mainly in the area of theory used to analyze the data. Giri’s study used theory of speech act proposed by Searle (1969). The study

reviewed is relevant to this study which takes speech acts as the topic of discussion. However, the differences between this study with study reviewed above is that this study analyzes all types of illocutionary acts found in the movie, while the study above discussed more specifically about the indirect commisive of promises illocutionary acts.

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A similar undergraduate thesis which takes speech act as the topic discussion is “The Analysis of Directive Illocutionary Act in the Radiotelephony of

Air Traffic Service Control” done by Trisnaputri (2004). This paper focused on

the directive illocutionary act in the conversation that happened in the radiotelephony of air traffic control at Ngurah Rai airport. The strength of this study is this study gives readers new information about radiotelephony and the function of each utterance as commonly used and it is explained in detail. However, there is also the weakness of this study, the analysis in Trisnaputri’s

work is very complicated because there are many technical terms used in her study. It is hard to understand because not all the readers understand terms used in Radiotelephony air traffic. The similarities and the differences of Trisnaputri work to this study is almost the same like the previous undergraduate thesis reviewed.

Trisnaputri’s undergraduate thesis above is relevant to this study’s topic which

takes speech acts as the topic. But, there is a slight difference because the study reviewed above discussed specifically about directive illocutionary acts while this study concerns with five basic kinds of speech acts proposed by Searle (1969)

Another relevant undergraduate thesis to review comes from Sapitri in 2004 “The Directive Act in the Novel Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” Sapitri’s

study gives some contributions to this study, mainly in the area of theory used to analyze the data and Sapitri’s study gives a good example of elaborating theory

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Sapitri’s study to this study is her study only concerns about one type of

illocutionary act that is directives illocutionary act while this study focuses on all types of illocutionary act, in addition to the object used in the study. Sapitri uses novel as her object, while in this study uses movie as the object to find out the illocutionary acts. The strength of this study is that Sapitri explains the context of situation clearly in her work to make readers more easily understand what speech act is.

The next undergraduate thesis under review is from Purwaningsih (2006) entitled “Illocutionary Act in ‘My Fair Lady’ by Alan Jay Lerner”. This is a good study because the strength of this study is easy to understand even by the new learners of speech act. It also contains good classifications with clear explanation. However, there is also weakness in Purwaningsih’s work in the sense that she

does not explain about the context of the situation that support the illocutionary utterances in the drama ‘ My Fair Lady’ which did not support her classification

of illocutionary speech act. The difference in Purwaningsih’s work with this study

is from the data source. Purwaningsih data were taken from drama entitled My Fair Lady, while the data used in this study is taken from the movie Divergent. The study reviewed is relevant to this study which takes speech acts as the topic of discussion.

The study conducted by Widiani (2008) entitled “Commissive and Expressive Illocutionary Acts in Morinelli’s ‘The Sins of the Mother’ is also

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this study tries to get all kinds of illocutionary acts found in the movie script Divergent. Her study is a good study because it easy to understand and worth reviewing because it has a similar topic about illocutionary acts, although Widiani’s work more specifically discussed about commissive and expressive

illocutionary acts. The difference of Widiani’s work and this study is still in the data sources. Widiani chose a play as her data source, while this study chooses a movie as the data source. The study reviewed above is relevant to this study’s topic which takes speech acts as the topic and it gives contribution in theoritical aspect.

An article from the international journal to be reviewed here entitled “A Sociopragmatic Analysis of Griping: The Case of Iranian Students” by Hamid

Allami, Yadz University, Iran in The Linguistics Journal, January 2006. This study is an attempt to investigate the responses provided for griping in term of six major categories: 1) topic switch/blank reply, 2) question, 3) contradiction, 4) joking/teasing, 5) advice, 6) agreement/commiseration. The strength of this paper is that this paper chooses unique kind of communication happens in our daily life and it has an interesting discussion. The weakness found in Allami’s study is that

his study is considered complicated because it is a field research when the readers did not know the exact situation of Iranian students and also his data is written in Arabic alphabet. Although his data is written in Arabic alphabet, the writer translated his data into English. So, the reader could understand the analysis in Allami’s study. The study is relevant to this study’s topic which takes speech acts

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2.2Concepts

In this subchapter, there are three concepts that are related and relevant to speech acts which are need to be explained. The concepts which are going to be described cover the understanding of speech acts, the understanding of illocutionary acts and the understanding of movie.

2.2.1 Speech Acts

According to Austin (1970), communicate by speaking a language is performing speech acts. The acts would be various kinds such as giving commands, making statements, making promises or asking questions. These kinds of acts named speech acts. The specific formulation of speech acts theory by Austin, open with a distinction between what he called the ‘constative’, an utterance used for ‘stating’ things, for conveying information, and the

‘performative’, an utterance used for ‘doing’ things for performing acts.

Searle (1969) stated that speaking a language is engaging in a role governed form of behavior. In “Speech Act: An Essay in The Philosophy of Language”

Searle also stated that speaking a language is performing speech acts such as making statements, giving commands, asking questions, asking promises, etc.

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2.2.2 Illocutionary Acts

According to Austin (1970), illocutionary acts can be identified by emphasizing that “by saying something, we do something.” Illocutionary act is the

issuing of the utterance with conventional communicative force achieved in saying something. Searle (1976) in his book entitled A Classification of Illocutionary Acts briefly convey the classification of illocutionary acts proposed by Austin (1962). In his book, Searle stated that Austin divided his five categories of illocutionary acts they are:

Verdictives These 'consist in the delivering of a finding, official or unofficial, upon evidence or reasons as to value or fact so far as these are distinguishable'.

Examples of verbs in this class are: acquit, hold, calculate, describe, analyze, estimate, date, rank, assess, and characterize.

Exercitives. One of these 'is the giving of a decision in favor of or against a certain course of action or advocacy of it. . .', 'a decision that something is to be so, as distinct from a judgment that it is so'. Some examples are: order, command, direct, plead, beg, recommend, entreat and advise. Request is also an obvious. Example, but Austin does not list it. As well as the above, Austin also lists: appoint, dismiss, nominate, veto, declare closed, declare open, as well as announce, warn, proclaim, and give.

Commissives'.The whole point of a commissive', Austin tells us, 'is to commit the speaker to a certain course of action.' Some of the obvious examples are: promise, vow, pledge, covenant, contract, guarantee, embrace, and swear.

Expositives are used in acts of exposition involving the expounding of views, the conducting of arguments and the clarifying of usages and reference'. Austin gives many examples of these, among them are: affirm, deny, emphasize, illustrate, answer, report, accept, object to, concede, describe, class, identify and call.

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Searle (1969) stated that in performing an illocutionary act one characteristically performs propositional acts (referring and predicating) and uttering words (morphemes and sentences). In the book entitled A Classification of Illocutionary Acts, Searle convey that he is dissatisfied with the classification of illocutionary acts proposed by Austin. In his opinion the classification need to be revised because it contains several weaknesses.

The first thing to notice about these lists is that they are not classifications of illocutionary acts but of English illocutionary verbs. Austin seems to assume that a classification of different verbs is eo ipso a classification of kinds of illocutionary acts, that any two non-synonymous verbs must mark different illocutionary acts. (Searle, 1976:9)

In the same book, he conveyed the classification of illocutionary acts which is relates to Austin’s. According to Searle, there 5 (five) types of illocutionary

acts; those are representative illocutionary acts, directive illocutionary acts, commisives illocutionary acts, expressives illocutionary acts and declarations of illocutionary acts. The further explanation of the classification proposed by Searle (1976) will be discussed in the theoretical framework.

2.2.3 Movie

Movie is a series of moving pictures recorded with sound that tells a story and shown at the cinema or movie theatre (Hornby, 2010: 1148).

2.3Theoretical Framework

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2.3.1 Classification of Illocutionary Acts

The classification of illocutionary act proposed by Searle (1976) is classifying the illocutionary act and he also stated the close relation between locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary act. Searle (1976) in “The

Classification of Illocutionary Acts” stated that there are 5 (five) bansic categories

of illocutionary acts, they are representatives illocutionary acts, directives illocutionary acts, commissives illocutionary acts, expressives illocutionary acts, and declaration illocutionary acts. Therefore, in the analysis of this study the theory proposed by Searle will be used as a tool to analyze the first problem of this study.

2.3.1.1 Representatives

According to Searle (1976) the point or purpose of the members of the representative class is to commit the speaker (in varying degrees) to something's being the case, to the truth of the expressed proposition. All of the members of the representative class are assessable on the dimension of assessment which includes true and false. In performing this type of illocutionary act, the speaker represents the world as he or she believes it is, thus making the world fit to the world to belief. The type include arguing, asserting, boasting, claiming, complaining, criticizing, denying, describing, informing, reporting, suggesting, swearing and threatening. For example when someone informing her friend by saying “I met

your parent yesterday”, this is a type of representative illocutionary act, as the

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2.3.1.2Directives

The illocutionary point of this type consists in the fact that they are attempts (of varying degrees, and hence, more precisely, they are determinates of the determinable which includes attempting) by the speaker to get the hearer to do something (Searle 1976). The acts are advising, asking, begging, challenging, daring, demanding, forbidding, insisting, inviting, ordering, permitting, recommending, requesting, suggesting, The utterance “Don’t go to the party!” is an example of directive illocutionary act because the speaker forbidding someone to go to the party which based on the definition given by Searle (1976) that stated that directive illocutionary acts attempts the hearer to do something.

2.3.1.3Commissives

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2.3.1.4 Expressives

According to Searle (1976) expressives illocutionary act is the illocutionary that express the psychological state specified in the sincerity condition about a state of affairs specified in the propositional content. The acts are apologizing complimenting, condoling, congratulating, deploring, praising, regretting, thanking, etc. Searle also stated that in expressive illocutionary acts, the speaker is trying to get the world to match the words or the word to match the world. For example when the speaker uttering “Thank you” as the act of thanking, the hearer

will get the psychological state felt by the speaker that he/she is grateful to somebody for something they have done.

2.3.1.5Declarations

It is defining characteristic of this class that the successful performance of one of its members brings about the correspondence between the propositional content and reality, successful performance guarantees that the propositional content corresponds to the world (Searle 1976). The acts of declaratives are approving, betting, blessing, christening, confirming, cursing, declaring, disapproving, dismissing, naming, resigning, etc. When an employee says, “I quit from this job!” the speaker uses the declarations illocutionary act to change the

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2.3.2 Context of Situation

According to Michael Halliday (1985), a social semiotic is enable people to

exchange meaning and therefore act socially. Halliday developed an analysis of

context in terms of field of discourse, tenor of discourse and mode of discourse.

The theory of context of situation proposed by Michael Halliday (1985) will be

used in this study as a tool to analyze the second problem. These three elements

offer a system which helps illustrate any socio-linguistic occurrence.

2.3.2.1Field of discourse

The field of discourse in the theory context of situation proposed by

Halliday refers to the subject matter and it may be similar to certain uses of the

term domain in computational linguistics: what is happening, to whom, where and

when and why it is happening. Field of discourse analyzed the topic being

discussed in the conversation.

2.3.2.2Tenor of discourse

Tenor of discourse refers to the social relation existing between the

interact ants in a speech situation. It includes the relations of formality, power,

and affect (manager/clerk, father/son). Tenor influences interpersonal choices in

the linguistic system, and thereby it affects role the structures and the strategies

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2.3.2.3Mode of discourse

Halliday describes mode of discourse as the way the language is being used

in the speech interaction, including the medium (spoken, written, or written to be

spoken) as well as the rhetorical mode (expository, instructive, persuasive,

Illocutionary Acts In The Movie Divergent.