CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
A.
Research Background
Language is a significant part of social communication. It is an instrument to
convey feeling, idea and message to the members of society and community. When
someone speaks a language, the focus is not only on what he or she is uttering, but
also on what the speaker intends to convey (Yule, 1996:127). Hence, understanding
the intended meaning or catching the message is very crucial in social interaction.
The function or the purpose that the speaker has in his mind when uttering a
sentence is called illocutionary force or illocutionary act, mostly known as speech
act. It can be expressed explicitly or implicitly in the real words uttered by the
speaker, called locutionary act. Meanwhile, the effect of the speech act on the hearer
is perlocutionary act, in many situations and certain reasons, speech act can always
be manipulated by the speaker as a strategy to manage social interaction, and the
effect may be different between one hearer and another (Chaika: 1994:153).
The act that is manipulated can be called as an indirect act. Thomas (1994:
119) states that an indirect act occurs when there is mismatch between the uttered
meaning and the implied meaning. In certain situations, an indirect act may always be
employed because of the social reason to avoid threatening the hearer’s face, feeling,
Commanding is an act of getting someone to do something. In issuing a
command, the speaker must have the right or duty to command and the hearer has
responsibility or obligation to do the command. There are two types of command,
direct command and indirect command. The direct command is sometimes considered
as impolite and indirect command is considered more gently and polite than direct
command. The use of indirect command deals with the use of certain strategies, to
avoid threatening individual’s feeling or face. Below is the example :
Do you know where the Ambassador Hotel?
The form of utterance is yes-no question, but it will be a joke if the hearer
answers “yes” without an action because the utterance is a request, the speaker asks
the hearer to tell the way to Ambassador Hotel (Yule,1996:133).
The other examples of indirect commands are taken from a film entitled
“The Ghost Writter”. In this film, the reseacher find many cases of indirect command
occures in many situations, for example when an assistant of a former British Prime
Minister asked his boss to read a paper information.
Datum 10/Np
The assistant : Sorry Adam, This is running on AP” Adam takes the paper and read it
The command is uttered by a female employer of Adam Lang, former British
serious with his assistant and the writer. She gave him a paper from the Association
Press.
In issuing the command, she did not use direct imperative form “Read this,
Adam!”, but used statement form, the assistant employed negative politeness
strategy. The strategy could be seen at the begining of her statement, she asked for
apology, “Sorry Adam …”. The use of “sorry” was also an indication that she
realized that she was not in appropriate position to command. The statement “…this
is running onAP’ was a strategy of beingindirect.
The dialogue occurred in an office room and the context was in work place.
Status relation of the speaker and the hearer was subordinate to superior. She used the
strategy to avoid disrespect, impoliteness and threatening Adam’s face. The assistant
gave the command in formal m anner, very polite and carefully. In this case, the
social status influenced the use of the strategy. Adam responded his employer’s
command with a positive respond. He took the paper at once and read it.
There was also an interesting case when the speaker had authority to require
or command the hearer, but he employed an indirect command because of formal
procedure.
Datum 18/Np
Police : “We're gonna need your passport”
The writer : “Why?”
The writer directly gives his passport
The dialogue occured at the police office. The former British Prime Minister,
Adam Lang, was murdered in US territory and The writter was taken to the office as
the key witness, he was with Adam when the murder happened. In fact, he was also
included as a suspect. The police officers needed to keep him close to avoid his
running away or at least to make him cooperate untill the case is solved. Hence, the
officers had authority to seize his passport.
The police’s sentence has meaning “Give me your passport!”. The strategy
used by the police was negative politeness. He used indirect form by saying a
statement and this strategy was used to minimize imposition to The writer. In issuing
the command, the police spoke formally, calmly and politely.
The dialogue occurred in a security domain. In normal security procedure or
situation, a police has to behave well to civilians. In the situation above, the police
had to be polite and avoid imposition and threat; hence, he used negative politeness.
After being commanded to give his passport, the writer responded by saying
“why?”. This response indicated a temporary refusal; he required a reason to give his
passport. After being told by the police, he understood that the command was a
normal security procedure and then he gave his passport. This response indicated that
the command was complied by The writer. He did the command consciously,
From the cases above, the researcher assumes that an analysis on indirect
command is very necessary and beneficial. Hence, the researcher conducts a research
on indirect command entitled “An Analysis of Indirect Commands in Film
Entitled “The Ghost Writer”.
B. Problem Statement
1. What are the types of strategies employed by the characters in film “The
Ghost Writer” for issuing indirect commands?
2. What are the factors that influence the use of the strategies employed by the
characters in film “The Ghost Writer”?
3. How do the hearers respond the commands in film “The Ghost Writer”
C. Research Objective
1. To know what are the types of strategies employed by the characters in film
“The Ghost Writer” for issuing indirect command
2. To know what are the factors influencing the use of the strategies employed
by the characters in film “ The Ghost Writer”.
D. Problem Limitation
This research is an analysis of command act, which is included in directive
speech act. There are two kinds of command act, direct command and indirect
command. The focus will be on an indirect command uttered by characters in film
“The Ghost Writer”, and how the hearers respond to command employed by the
speakers.
E. Research Benefit
This research is expected to be beneficial to:
1. English Department students
This will provide deeper understanding and information about the use of
indirectness in commanding.
2. Other researcher
This research can be used as reference for those who are interested to have
research on directive speech act, mainly on command or other related study.
3. Public
This research can provide understanding and information about the use of
F. Research Methodology
The research method used in this research is qualitative method. This method
explores descriptive and interpretative phenomenons; the focus is on the quality of
data such as context, situation, and meaning (Ghony & Almansyur, 2012: 25).
According to Sutopo (2002:35), qualitative research method requires collecting data
in the form of words, sentences or pictures having meaning. In this research, the
technique of collecting data is a purposive sampling technique. This research will
describe the cases of indirect command utterances in film “The Ghost Writer”, and
the focuses of analysis are the types of politeness strategies employed to command,
the factors influencing the uses of strategies in employing command and the respond
toward the command. The data are dialogues containing indirect commands uttered
by the characters. The processes of research are finding data, selecting, analyzing data
