A STUDY OF ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS IN STAND-UP
COMEDY
A THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
By
GIEL UTAMI PUTRI
Reg. No.: 208222024ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
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ABSTRACT
Putri, Giel Utami. 208222024. A Study of Illocutionary Acts in Stand-up Comedy. A Thesis. Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan. 2012.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim
Alhamdulillahi rabbil ‘alamin, all praise and gratitude the writer dedicate to Allah SWT for His blessings, mercy, guidance, strength, and help which have been given to her so she can finish this thesis well.
This thesis was written in order to fulfill one of the requirements to obtain the degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Department of Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
In the completion of this thesis, the writer was greatly indebted to many people which without their help; she will not be able to complete this thesis properly. Therefore, on this occasion the writer would like to express her gratitude and appreciation to:
Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si. as the Rector of State University
of Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum. as the Dean of Faculty of Languages and
Arts, State University of Medan and to all her staffs.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd. as the Head of English Department, Dra. Rahmah, M.Hum. as the Secretary of English Department, and Dra. Meisuri, MA as the Head of Non-Educational English Program thanks for
their educational and non-educational help during the writer’s academic years in English Department of State University of Medan.
Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S. as the writer’s Thesis Supervisor who has helped her patiently finishing this thesis by giving guidance, constructive suggestions, correction, and motivation, since the preliminary manuscript until the completion of this thesis.
Drs. Elia Masa Gintings, M.Hum. as the writer’s Academic Counselor
who has given advice and support during her study.
All lecturers of English Department for lessons, advices and useful
knowledge.
Mam Enda and Mam Indri for their kind help in providing academic
administrations to the writer.
The best family of the author, her beloved Mama, Mrs. Dra. Sri Hartati
Ekawati, the truly inspiring number one man, her Papa, Mr. Burhanuddin, S.H. and her two brothers, Abim Bima Dinata and Daffa Daniswara, for their endless love, support, encouragement, motivation,
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The writer’s best friends Dirhamsyah (Dirham) and Monik Caesar Widya Ningsih (Monik) for the love, friendship, and tremendous help and
support so far. Also for her comrade Dian, for those beautiful songs and his very useful help with her notebook.
The writer’s special colleagues: Yuni Alfiana (Dipaparang), Riko
Sidabutar (Atok), Ulfian Haitami (Upin), Julianti Hairani S (Dipapakuw), for the friendship, love, helps, laughter and tears, and for
all the sweet and happy memories shared. She loves them all the way and will never forget them.
All seniors in English Department, especially Kak Xiant, Kak Vidya,
and Bang Agus who have helped her with her thesis. It means a lot to her.
Tya, Eny, Rehan, Wilda, Penk, Atiqah, Tuti and all of the writer’s friends in Applied Linguistics A and B 2008, for having a great time
studying, taking photographs, gossiping and having lunch in DPR and under the stairs. She will be missing those memories.
Everyone who has been involved directly or indirectly in the writing of this thesis that can not be mentioned one by one, and thanks for all the memories that the writer got during her study at this beloved campus. Thank you very much. May Allah bless us all. Amin.
Medan, May 2012
The Writer,
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4. The Implication of the Dominant Type of Illocutionary Acts 18
C. Comedy ... 19
1. Stand-Up Comedy ... 21
D. Metro TV ... 24
E. YouTube ... 25
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CHAPTER IV DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ... 31
A. The Data ... 31
B. The Types of Illocutionary Acts Used in Stand-Up Comedy ... 31
C. The Dominant Type of Illocutionary Acts Used in Stand-Up Comedy ... 32
1. First Show ... 33
2. Second Show ... 34
3. Third Show ... 36
4. Fourth Show ... 38
5. Fifth Show ... 39
6. Sixth Show ... 41
7. Seventh Show ... 42
8. Eighth Show ... 44
9. Ninth Show ... 46
10. Tenth Show ... 47
D. The Implication of the Dominant Type of Illocutionary Acts ... 49
E. The Function of Stand-Up Comedy in the Using of Illocutionary Acts ... 49
1. Entertaining ... 50
2. Informing ... 51
3. Insinuating ... 52
4. Criticizing ... 54
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 55
A. Conclusions ... 55
B. Suggestions ... 56
REFERENCES ... 57
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LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
Table 1 The Total Number and Percentage of Illocutionary Acts Types ... 31 Table 2 The Dominant Types of Illocutionary Acts Used in Stand-Up
Comedy Show ... 32 Table 3 The Illocutionary Acts Used in the First Stand-up Comedy
Show ... 33 Table 4 The Illocutionary Acts Used in the Second Stand-up Comedy
Show ... 35 Table 5 The Illocutionary Acts Used in the Third Stand-up Comedy
Show ... 36 Table 6 The Illocutionary Acts Used in the Fourth Stand-up Comedy
Show ... 38 Table 7 The Illocutionary Acts Used in the Fifth Stand-up Comedy
Show ... 39 Table 8 The Illocutionary Acts Used in the Sixth Stand-up Comedy
Show ... 41 Table 9 The Illocutionary Acts Used in the Seventh Stand-up Comedy
Show ... 43 Table 10 The Illocutionary Acts Used in the Eighth Stand-up Comedy
Show ... 44 Table 11 The Illocutionary Acts Used in the Ninth Stand-up Comedy
Show ... 46 Table 12 The Illocutionary Acts Used in the Tenth Stand-Up Comedy
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LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix Page
A Identification of Functions of the Comics’ Utterances in
Stand-up Comedy Show ... 59 B Identification of Illocutionary Acts Based On the Function of
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Language cannot be separated from human in their daily lives. All human beings can communicate with their respective speech communities using the language they speak. Besides the primary function of language, which is as a tool of communication, language also has other functions depending on the users, such as a means to express themselves, as a means to adapt in one area, as a social control, as a means to interact, inform, entertain, and so forth. As an example of using language in comedy, unconsciously, human beings have been using one of the functions of language, which is entertaining other people.
Comedy, as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedy)
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thinking outside the box about things that happen in everyday life. This is the point which attempted to be highlighted by stand-up comedy.
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Here the comics, the performer of stand-up comedy deliver their comedy materials in stand-up state. Usually material that is delivered is concerning everyday life. The comic is usually recounted the experience which he considers strange and unusual and simultaneously include social criticism about an event. However, only certain people can catch their actions as criticism. Therefore, stand-up comedy is often called smart humor for demanding the viewers to think logically upon the words they utter. In this case illocutionary acts is importantly needed.
Illocutionary act is one type of speech acts covered in pragmatics. Just as people can perform physical acts, such as hitting a baseball, they can also perform mental acts, such as imagining hitting a baseball. People can also perform another kind of act simply by using language; these are called speech acts. (Jennedy, Polletto, Weldon, 1994: 229)
As stated by Peccei (1999: 44), Austin pointed out that in analyzing a speech act, we need to make a distinction between the locution and illocution. The locution is the actual form of words used by the speaker and their semantic meaning. The illocution is what the speaker is doing by uttering those words: commanding, offering, promising, threatening, thanking, etc. For example, the
locution of the utterance “Give me some cash” would be “Hand some money over
to me”. Meanwhile the illocution of the same utterance is the speaker performed
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distinguished a third part of a speech acts namely the perlocution. This is the actual result of the locution. (Peccei, 1999: 44) For example, the former utterance
could have any of the following perlocutions: „the speaker persuaded the
addressee to give him the money‟; „the addressee refused to give him the money‟,
etc. The perlocution is defined by the addressee‟s reaction. Austin‟s idea that it is
possible to state the necessary conditions for a particular illocution to „count‟ was
developed further by John Searle (Peccei, 1999: 50)
Some say that illocutionary act is the real speech acts. One general classification system lists five types of general functions performed by speech acts: declarations, representatives, expressives, directives, and commissives. (Yule, 1996: 53) Speakers use commissive to commit themselves to do something in the future. One example from stand-up comedy, “Gue tantang lu, buka
Facebook, lu search aja „satu juta Facebooker…” is counted as commissive because the speaker guarantee that there will be the group such „satu juta
Facebooker…‟ found on Facebook. Declarative is the kind of illocutionary acts that change the world via utterances. For example from one of the stand-up comedy shows: “Gue mau menggunakan kesempatan ini untuk ngomong
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class of marijuana in Indonesia because it is included in the first class of drugs. Expressive is used when the speaker wants to express his feeling and attitudes about something. For example, the sentence “Karena terus terang, gue ga ngerti
sama orang yang kerjanya memburu tren, ga masuk akal.” is counted as expressive because the speaker expresses his feeling towards the people who hunt trends. Representative is describing states or events in the world. For example,
“Ganja masuk narkotika kelas satu, dimana dia sama sekali tidak boleh
dimanfaatkan.” This sentence is counted as representative because the speaker knows for sure that his statement is true.
Many other studies analyze about illocutionary acts in some different media. Simamora (2010) analyzed the illocutionary acts used in political caricature utterances in newspaper. The writer of the study intended to avoid misunderstanding between the speaker and hearer, in this case, the reader, because she took the utterances from the written media. Pasaribu (2009) analyzed the illocutionary acts used in a talk show program on television. The writer of the study intended to find the common illocutionary acts used in the talk show without explaining further why some types of illocutionary acts are used more than other types of illocutionary acts.
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utterances in stand-up comedy because the words they generally produce are related to the pragmatics meaning and from this study the reader will know why one type of illocutionary acts is used frequently than other type of illocutionary acts.
B. Problem of the Study
As related to the background of the study, the problems of the study are formulated as the following:
1. What types of illocutionary acts are used in stand-up comedy performances in Indonesia?
2. What is the dominant type of illocutionary acts used in stand-up comedy performances in Indonesia?
3. What is the implication of the dominant type of illocutionary acts which used in stand-up comedy performances in Indonesia?
4. Which utterances in stand-up comedy performances show the function of stand-up comedy?
C. Objective of the Study
In relation to the problems of the study, the objectives of the study are: 1. to find out the types of illocutionary acts in stand-up comedy performances in
Indonesia
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3. to describe the implication of the dominant type of illocutionary acts which is used in stand-up comedy performances in Indonesia
4. to find out which utterances in stand-up comedy performances show the function of stand-up comedy
D. Scope of the Study
The scope of the study will be limited to the types of illocutionary acts as found in stand-up comedy performances in Indonesia, the implication of the using of illocutionary acts in stand-up comedy performances in Indonesia, and the function of stand-up comedy. The source of data is taken from the transcription of
the comics‟ utterances in stand-up comedy performances in Indonesia.
E. Significance of the Study
The study is expected to be useful for:
1. the readers who want to have wider insight about illocutionary acts, especially in its application in stand-up comedy
2. the audiences of the stand-up comedy who want to know more about the application of illocutionary acts in everyday life
3. the fans of the stand-up comedy show who want to know more about the stand-up comedy show and what is behind the humor of the comics
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Conclusions
After analyzing and determining the functions of stand up comedy, the use of illocutionary acts in stand up comedy performances and also categorizing the types of illocutionary acts, some conclusions are drawn as follows:
1. All types of illocutionary acts were used in the selected stand-up comedy performances. Total number of illocutionary acts was 1378, which consisted of 770 representatives, 315 directives, 224 expressives, 42 declaratives, and 27 commissives.
2. The percentages of each types of illocutionary acts used in the selected stand-up comedy shows are 55.9% of representatives, 22.9% of directives, 16.2% of expressives, 3% of declaratives, and 2% of commissives.
3. The type of illocutionary acts which is dominantly used in the selected stand-up comedy shows was representatives with the total number of 770, and total percentage of 55.9%. In using representatives, the speaker conveys his belief that some proposition is true. Indirectly, the comics hope that their statements could affect the audience, and then they could change their point of view of something according to the materials conveyed.
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performances in Indonesia, namely, entertaining, informing, insinuating, and criticizing. All functions of stand-up comedy can be realized in all types of illocutionary acts.
B. Suggestions
By considering the conclusions above, there are some suggestions offered: 1. The audience of stand-up comedy show is supposed to have a sense of humor
and broad thinking in order to understand the materials provided by the comedian. They also must be able to choose the material which aims to build, and which material is only as entertainment. Moreover, the audience of stand-up comedy show should have to possess noble hearts to take all given statements without being easily offended.
2. Besides the students, everyone is also important to study the types of illocutionary acts, because by understanding this material, it would be easier for them to understand why and for what purpose someone produces an utterance.
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