Speech Acts of Defeat in Defense of the Ancients 2 (DotA 2) Game: A Study of Gender Differences in Language Use. A dissertation submitted to the English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Jember, as one of the requirements to obtain the award of Sarjana Sastra degree in English Studies. I hereby declare that the thesis entitled "Speech Acts of Defeating in Defense of the Ancients 2 (DotA 2) Game: A Study of Gender Differences in Language Use".
Title: Speech Acts of Defeat in Defense of the Ancients 2 (DotA 2) Game: A study of gender differences in language use. All the teachers in the English department who taught me patiently during my studies;. Speech Acts of Defeiring in Defense of the Ancients 2 (DotA 2) Game: A Study of Gender Differences in Language Use; Ahmad Bayu Aji Subroto.
This study focuses on the speech acts produced by the heroes in the game Defense of the Ancients 2 (DotA 2) when they defeated their enemy. There are 20 quotes from male and female heroes used as data sources. Illocutionary acts are then classified into one of 5 forms according to Searle (1979), which are affirmative, expressive, declarative, imperative, and imperative.
- Background of the Study
- Research Topic
- Research Problem
- Research question
- Goal of the Study
Game-enhancing features, such as adding some special sayings to the heroes included in the game. Thus, to know the intended meaning of the heroes' utterances and to describe the differences between male and female heroes in the use of such utterances in the game related to real-life social practices, an analysis is needed. To make a clear distinction, the research only focused on the differences approach as the purpose of this study itself is to change the speech of the male and female characters, so it should elaborate on the differences between the utterances.
Therefore, related to the background above, the research examines the difference between male and female heroes in the language used in the game. Through Austin's speech act theory (1962), focusing on illocutionary acts, and Searle's (1979) classification of illocutionary acts, the research attempts to discover the intended meaning of the heroes' utterances. Subsequently, related gender research is applied to find out how the difference between male and female heroes arises in language use.
The topic of this research is the gender difference in language use in defeat speech acts produced by male and female heroes in the game Defense of the Ancients 2 (DoTA 2). Valve created the Dota 2 game with a large number of heroes consisting of male and female heroes that you can play with for free. Thus, the utterances will be analyzed to describe the intended meaning and to find differences between the male and female characters in their language use.
What kinds of illocutionary acts can be found in the selected expressions of Valve's DoTA 2 heroes. What are the differences between male and female heroes in the game due to the language used by the heroes in the selected expressions of Valve's DoTA 2 heroes. To discover the illocutionary acts produced in the select expressions of Valve's DoTA 2 heroes.
To recognize the types of illocutionary acts in selected utterances of Valve's DoTA 2 heroes. To demonstrate the differences between male and female heroes in the game using the language of heroes in selected quotes of Valve's DoTA 2 heroes.
Previous Research
She used at least 3 theories to support the study which are 'uses and gratification theory' explaining consumer satisfaction from using media, 'cultivation theory' explaining the cultural indicator and 'feminist theory' explaining the gender relationship at play . . She found that the representation of women in video games today is changing and improving compared to the video games of the 80s and 90s. She concluded that this happened because game companies are interesting in creating new types of video games with their different characters.
Thus, compared to this study, Kondrat used a different tool to analyze the data and used different theories to conduct further studies. But the purpose of her study, explaining that video games also contribute to our perception of the real world, is in line with this research. It aims to analyze the utterances produced by the heroes, which are made by the developer, and relate them to the current study of gender.
Theoretical Framework
- Pragmatics
- Speech Acts
- Language and Gender
The context is built by the speaker and the listener or the situation in society. He believes that a speech act tells the listener to do something as the speaker says. Sometimes it happens because the listener could not understand the intended meaning of the speaker by uttering the speech acts.
The speaker's message by uttering speech acts is not received by the listener. The act of saying the above is the act of producing the sounds of "get" and "it". containing the actual meaning of both words. In short, it is the effect of consequences after the listener accepted the illusory force of the speaker's words.
The dominance approach is an approach which explains that women's language is a subaltern to men's language (men dominate the conversation more than women). This approach began to analyze women's speech outside the framework of women's oppression or powerlessness (Coates 2004:2). The study of gender differences was first initiated by Lakoff (`1975) with her book Language and Women's Place (1975).
She explained that between the language of men and women, there are some differences in women's language that show the lack of women's language compared to men. For example, women's language uses more questions because of the uncertainty of their statement. Uncertainty itself shows the speaker's weakness to the listener, so they seek confirmation from the listener about their statement.
These differences of conversational style between men's and women's language invite the other experts to analyze more about gender differences to prove Lakoff's hypothesis. Dubois and Crouch therefore oppose Lakoff's hypothesis about women's lack of male language. She believes that there is nothing between men's and women's language that overlaps or is crushed by each other, like the case of deficit model that explained the lack of women's language.
The gender theory used to distinguish male and female heroes is from Cameron (2007), who does not focus on the inadequacy of women's language compared to men's, but believes that the differences between men and women are a fundamental difference in the way they use it.
- Type of Research
- Research Strategy
- Data Collection
- Data Processing
- Data analysis
The data was taken from defeated speech acts produced by the heroes when they succeeded in conquering their enemy to clearly describe the differences between male and female heroes in the use of language in the game. The research therefore focuses only on the speech acts produced by the heroes when they are engaged in defeating or defeating an enemy. The research focuses on choosing 20 male and female heroes' statements in DotA 2 the game as the subject to be analyzed.
Describing illocutionary acts to obtain the intended meaning of the speaker's statement. Then the statements are classified into one of the 5 types of illocutionary acts proposed by Searle. The findings are then discussed to determine how male and female heroes differ in language use or utterances using the gender differences approach of Valve's DoTA 2 heroes when defeating their enemy.
Based on the analysis, it is found that male heroes produced 5 expressive illocutionary acts, 4 assertive illocutionary acts and 1 direct illocutionary act. The expressive illocutionary acts produced by the male heroes are mockery (3 utterances) and praise (2 utterances). On the other hand, female heroes produced 8 expressive illocutionary acts, an assertive illocutionary act and a direct illocutionary act.
From the analysis, it appears that women produced more expressive illocutionary acts than men, which could bring us to an understanding that women like to take their feelings into their utterances (Cameron 2007:8). Furthermore, this analysis reveals that there are differences between male and female heroes in using the language in the game. In this case, both sexes produced taunts to taunt the enemy after the fight, but in different ways.
Here, the male characters tend to make fun of the abilities or skills that the enemy has, while the female characters tend to make fun of the physical condition of the target of the speech. The language that appeared within the game, spoken by the characters, was a reflection of the life we lived.
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Data Analysis
- Male heroes’ utterances
- Female Heroes’ utterances
Discussion
In this view, the male heroes used language to refer to what they could do, while the female used language to mock the enemy by looking at the enemy's physical condition. The second difference is in making a mocking statement, both genders also use their language similar to the previous findings. The third finding is the use of terms from the female language while the male language does not.
In this part, female language found using terms to explain the condition they face. The variation of terms representing the target of speech were Weed, Fat, and Fish Rod, and Corpse. Based on the discussion above, this study shows evidence that the developer of this game tried to develop a game that reflects our real life.
They may believe that gender differences in language use are not due to how male language dominates conversation or how female language is viewed as deficient.
