Social Function of Expressive Speech Act in Characterizing Protagonist and Antagonist Character as the Main Characters in HBO TV Series: Game of Thrones - Season 1
CHAPTER IV
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4. 1 Findings
COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOUR
4.1.1 The use of the expressive speech act by the Protagonist and Antagonist Characters tends to be fluctuate for each stages of the HBO TV Series: Game of Thrones - Season 1. At the first stage or orientation, the characters only state small number of expressive speech act. In the second stage, the use of expressive speech act become more intense and the number is highly increasing as the stage shows the conflict of the story at the complication. Meanwhile, at the stage which the problem is resolved in the evaluation, the expressive speech act used by the characters goes through a reduction. At the final part of the plot as it is called as evaluation, the expressions which show the expressive speech act in the movie are portrayed in a very small quantity. The up and down of the expressive speech act used by the characters happen due to the rising and falling problems of the movie storyline.
4.1.2 The protagonist and antagonist characters state the same type of the expressive speech act, either the negative or positive one, but the frequency of the use of the expressive speech act is different. The antagonist expressed more frequent on the negative expressive speech act that are mocking or humiliating, swearing or cursing, and angry, but stated less on the positive expressive speech act, such as apologizing, caring, and complimenting. Meanwhile, the protagonist characters also assert the negative speech act, but not as many as the antagonist characters did. This is because of his character on the movie is a king which has a firm and discipline characters with a small touch of empathetic personality portrayed as he also showing a caring expression towards his surroundings.
4.1.3 The context of situations that are Power (P) and Distance (D) affected the use of the expressive speech act in HBO TV Series: Game of Thrones - Season 1.
This occurs since the roles of the characters in the movie are protagonist, as a King in The North, and the antagonist, as a Queen of Seven Kingdoms. Then, the Power (P) and Distance (D) that appears more is the one with the presence of power and the presence of (+P +D), that happens when the character is in higher position with long distance among the other characters. This is also because of the position of the characters itself which have a high occupation throughout the movie. It is then followed by the existence of the presence of power and the absence of distance (+P -D) and it shows then the absence of power and presence of distance (-P +D), and lastly, there are no presence of power and the absence of distance (-P -D).
4.1.4 The type of expressive speech act is actually divided into two category, the negative one (Mocking/Humiliating, Swearing/Cursing, Angry, Wishing Bad Luck) and the positive one (Apologizing, Complimenting, Caring, Wishing Good Luck) which are written down vertically from the negative until the positive. The negative expressive speech act will lead to the negative characterization that are offensive/impolite, angry, disloyal, and arrogant. On the contrary, the positive expressive speech act, Polite, Respectful, Kindness, Sincerity, and Integrity The type of expressive speech act above are mentioned both by the antagonist and protagonist characters, except the wishing bad luck expression. The types that appear on each staging are different due to the flowing of the storyline throughout the movie.
4.1.5 The characterization of the antagonist and protagonist characters is classified into two parts, that are the positive characterization i,e Polite, Respectful, Kindness, Sincerity, and Integrity and the negative characterization i.e Offensive/Impolite, Angry, Disloyal, and Arrogant. Both of them based on the expressive speech act performed by the characters can define whether the character has positive or negative characterization in the movie. The antagonist character states more on the negative expressive speech act which shows that she has a negative character.
4.2 Discussion
After attaining the findings and patterns of behaviour from the domain, taxonomy and componential analysis above, the further step in analysing this research is by discovering the cultural theme. A cultural theme is defined as any principle recurrent in a number of domains, tacit or explicit, which serves as a relationship among sub-system of cultural meaning (Spradely, 1980). In addition, by discovering the cultural theme, the researcher also conducting an analysis to examine the substantial context which can be scrutinized further from the componential analysis that have been done before. The purpose of this investigation is to put the patterns of behaviour found in componential analysis into the use of the context of the topic to be analysed as a whole (Santosa, 2017). In this study, the researcher discusses the pattern of the type of expressive speech act in characterizing the protagonist and antagonist characters in relation to the staging and context of situation in the HBO TV Series: Game of Thrones - Season 1. The discussion leads to these points, there are:
1. The effect of staging on the use of the type of expressive speech act and the analysis of the context of situation.
2. The positive and negative characterization of the antagonist and protagonist characters based on the use of the expressive speech act.
3. The type of expressive speech act used by the protagonist and antagonist characters in characterizing their character throughout the HBO TV Series: Game of Thrones - Season 1.
The following are the discussion from the result on the componential analysis and patterns of behaviour:
4.2.1 The effect of staging on the use of the type of expressive speech act and the analysis of the context of situation.
Narrative is the representation of an event or a series of events, where an event can be linked as an action (Kaliszewski, 2013). In a very basic of narrative patterns, the story will run through the following stages: orientation, complication, evaluation and resolution (Martin, 1992). In examining the movie as a narrative, the researcher also applied the external context theory in politeness stated by Peter Grundy (2000). In the
middle of the viewpoints of expected external context that are especially determinate of language choice within politeness are the power-distance relationship of the speaker and hearer and also the degree to which a speaker forces on or requires something of his/her addressee (Grundy 2000:127). In this study, the researcher will be only applying the power and distance relation in analysing each staging of the movie regarding with the use of the expressive speech act.
As Game of Thrones is an American fantasy ‘drama television series’, it contains of eight seasons in total. In this research, the analysis will only be focusing on the first season which consist of ten episodes. To make it easier in conducting the study, all these episodes are divided into four stages (Martin, 1992) as orientation stage occurs in Season 1, complication stage arises in Season 2-7, followed by evaluation stage in Season 8 and end up with resolution in Season 9-10. In addition, there are characters to be analysed: Eddard “Ned” Stark who is the head of House Stark, Lord of Winterfell, and Warden or King of the North as the protagonist character and Cersei Lannister who is The Queen of Seven Kingdoms as the antagonist character.
The orientation stage is defined as a stage where characters, setting and time are established (Soeprapto and Darwis, 2007) and the movie shows its very beginning at this stage. Based on the movie, the orientation tells the story about what is going on in the movie that is exposing the occurring incident after the death Jon Arryn who is The Right-Hand Man of the King that makes King Robert Baratheon travels north to Winterfell to ask his old friend Lord Eddard “Ned” Stark to assume the role (The Right- Hand Man of the King). The queen, Cersei Lannister; her twin brother, Jaime Lannister;
and their brother Tyrion Lannister also arrive with the king. The two families blend together in a party. In the next day, Bran (the second youngest of the Stark children) accidentally saw Jaime and Cersei Lannister having incestuous sex, so Jaime pushes him from a tower window to silence him and cover their shame (Jaime and Cersei), and there the story begins. The show sets the scene, mood and introduces the characters, that includes 'When', 'Where', 'Who' and 'What' in this section in order to explain to the reader what the story is going to be about. In result, the types of expressive speech act are rarely be seen, this is because of this stage only provides the background information that is necessary to make sense of the action, describe the setting and introduce the major characters. The conversation between the characters, in this case
are protagonist and antagonist characters, also be infrequent on this stage. Consequently, there are only seventeen expressive speech acts with the situation of the presence of power and the presence of distance (+P +D) with eight numbers and also the presence of power and the absence of distance (+P –D) with nine numbers presented by Ned Stark as the protagonist character. The types of expressive speech act which appear are Mocking or Humiliating, Angry, Complimenting, Apologizing, Caring, and Swearing or Cursing. The types of negative expressive speech act, such as Mocking or Humiliating, Angry and Swearing or Cursing, lead to the negative characterization as being impolite or offensive. On the contrary, the types of positive expressive speech act, such as Complimenting, Apologizing and Caring, head to the positive characterization as being respectful, kind, and sincerity. Meanwhile, Cersei Lannister as the antagonist characters only portrays six expressive speech acts with the situation of the presence of power and the presence of distance (+P +D) with four numbers and also the presence of power and the absence of distance (+P –D) with two numbers. The kinds of expressive speech act that expresses by Cersei are Mocking or Humiliating, Complimenting, and Swearing or Cursing. The types of negative expressive speech act, such as Mocking or Humiliating and Swearing or Cursing, which indicate the negative characterization as being impolite or offensive and disloyal as we can see on the matrix.
Quite the reverse, even though she is an antagonist character, Cersei also state the types of positive expressive speech act in her expression, that is Complimenting that result in the positive characterization as being respectful. Based on the matrix, we can also know that the most frequent appearance of expressive speech act are the type of mocking or humiliating and complimenting during this stage. Furthermore, the characterization of Ned Stark and Cersei Lannister tend to be negative on this stage.
On the second stage that is the complication, the conflict or the problem starts to arise (Anderson and Anderson, 2003). The story explain that Ned Stark faces a family crisis and route to King’s Landing, he probes Jon Arryn’s death until he confronts Cersei Lannister about her secrets of disloyal to the King by having an affair with her brother. All those problems result in the amount of the use of the expressive speech act to highly decreasing. This can happen because the complication is the stage where the problems or crisis of the story is rising at that point (Soeprapto and Darwis, 2007), the conflict can be predicted to be escalated among the characters which resulted to the
plentiful of conversation between characters. When the problems arise, the characters tends to contribute more in the story either through their actions or dialogue. Moreover, the analysis of this study also focuses on the main characters. Throughout the story, the main characters are the one who make the problems rise. As stated by Hirseberg (n.d) that complication instigates a clash between one character and another or between a character and the forces of nature or society, it means that the main story starts.
Therefore, this rising action is events that complicate the situation and intensify or complicate or introduce the conflict that make the expressive speech act is liven up here.
Subsequently, within this stage, Ned Stark as the protagonist character are expressing a high number of expressive speech act there are twenty-two expressive speech act either the positive or negative one. The types of expressive speech act which appear in his utterances are Mocking or Humiliating, Angry, Complimenting, Swearing or Cursing, Apologizing, Caring, and Wishing Good Luck. Meanwhile, the types of negative expressive speech act which can be found in his expression are Mocking or Humiliating, Angry and Swearing or Cursing, which lead to the negative characterization as being impolite or offensive. On the contrary, the types of positive expressive speech act, such as Complimenting, Apologizing, Wishing Good Luck and Caring, resulted into the positive characterization as being respectful, sincerity and integrity. In addition, the context of situation embodied by Ned Stark are the presence of power and the presence of distance (+P +D) with fourteen numbers, the presence of power and the absence of distance (+P –D) with seven numbers and also the absence of power and the presence of distance (-P +D) with one number presented by Ned Stark as the protagonist character. On the other hand, Cersei Lannister as the antagonist character only exposes twenty-four expressive speech acts with the situation of the presence of power and the presence of distance (+P +D) with ten numbers, the presence of power and the absence of distance (+P -D) with six numbers, the absence of power and the absence of distance (-P -D) with three numbers and also the absence of power and the presence of distance (-P +D) with four numbers. The types of expressive speech act that exist between those numbers are Mocking or Humiliating, Angry, Swearing or Cursing, Caring and Complimenting. The types of negative expressive speech act stated by Cersei Lannister, such as Mocking or Humiliating, Angry, and Swearing or Cursing, determine her negative characterization as being impolite or offensive. In contrast, she
also said the types of positive expressive speech act, that are Complimenting and Caring that develop her in positive characterization as being respectful and kind. Based on the matrix, it can be seen that the type of expressive speech act mostly emerged are the type of mocking or humiliating and complimenting at this stage. During this stage, we can conclude that the characterization of Ned Stark is likely to be positive and Cersei Lannister’s characterization has a tendency to be negative.
On the contrary, in the evaluation, the number of expressive speech act stated by the characters is declining. The evaluation is the sequence of events that shows the problem solutions take part on the storyline (Anderson and Anderson, 2003). For the reason that the conflict is started to be diminished, the characters dialogue become lessen as the falling action of the characters is happening in this event and the conflicts begin to resolve themselves or everything starting to calm down. In addition, Ned Stark as the protagonist character also had died at this stage and resulted to the reduction of the dialogue between the characters to analyse the expressive speech act portrayed in the movie. In the analysis of the context of situation, there are only one context of situation with the expressive speech act mocking or humiliating and caring resulted in the negative characterization that is impolite or offensive and positive characterization of being respectful showed by Ned Stark in his dialogue with Lord Varys with the presence of power and the presence of distance (+P +D) as Ned has more power as a King and extensive distance with Lord Varys. Ned Stark only stated fewer expressive speech act at this stage because he is being arrested for treason and imprisoned for attempting to take the throne from King Joffrey (King Robert’s Son) so that he is having a smaller amount of conversation with the other characters compared with the previous stages. The other reason is that at the end of the stage, Ned Stark died at the hands of Ser Ilyn Payne, a knight who served as royal executioner to King Joffrey. King Joffrey ordered Ned’s death after he confessed to treason against the crown. Meanwhile, on the point of view of the antagonist character, Cersei Lannister also performs small number of expressive speech act during this stage because the situation that is happening in this stage is a war between the people and the nobles. So, the spotlight of the movie is focused more on things that take place in the surroundings rather than conversation among characters. The context of situation can be found in Cersei utterances is the presence of power and the presence of distance (+P +D) with two expressions of anger
as she speak with Sansa Stark which has lower position and narrow distance to Cersei.
From the explanation above, the characterization of Ned Stark becomes neutral at this stage until he is dead since the number of the expressive speech act in his dialogue is equivalent between positive and negative expressive speech act which affected to the same condition in his characterization. However, the characterization of Cersei Lannister has an inclination to be negative by stating anger.
The last staging that is resolution occurred as the crisis or the problem of the story is resolved (Soeprapto and Darwis, 2007). The circumstances happened in this stage are almost the same with the evaluation stage which that the use of the expressive speech act by the protagonist and antagonist characters is declining. Resolution is the final part of plot, in which events are wrapped up and the story comes. Furthermore, the end of the story also run in the resolution (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, n.d.) that is why the conversation between characters can probably occur less compared with the other stages. Based on the matrix, it is can be seen that Cersei Lannister only states one expressive speech act that is swearing or cursing in the context of situation of the presence of power and the presence of distance (+P +D) as she speaks to her son who is going to execute Ned Stark which show that her expression indicates the state of sincerity that she couldn’t see someone (Ned Stark) to be sentenced to death.
In summary, the use of the type of expressive speech act is dynamic throughout the staging of the movie and it is also influenced by the context of situation which occurs. In orientation, the types of expressive speech act which come out are fewer than those on the complication which highly arise during the appearing and rising of conflicts. Meanwhile, it jump into a decreasing number in the evaluation and resolution as the movie goes to the end.
4.2.2 The type of expressive speech act used by the protagonist and antagonist characters.
The pattern of the expressive speech ac used by the protagonist and antagonist character for each stages of the film is different. Even though the protagonist or antagonist also use the same type or expressive speech act either the positive (complimenting, caring, apologizing, and wishing good luck) or negative one (mocking
or humiliating, cursing, angry, and wishing bad luck), but the protagonist uses more on the positive expressive speech act especially in complimenting, caring, apologizing and the use of negative expressive speech act such as mocking or humiliating, cursing, angry is less than the antagonist.
4.2.3 The positive and negative characterization of the antagonist and protagonist characters based on the use of expressive speech act.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. What are the type of expressive speech act expressed by protagonist and antagonist characters in HBO TV Series: Game of Thrones - Season 1?
2. How is the analysis of the movie staging, context of situation, and type of expressive speech act which affected the characterization of the protagonist and antagonist characters in HBO TV Series: Game of Thrones - Season 1?
3. How is the social function analysis of the expressive speech act used by the protagonist and antagonist characters in HBO TV Series: Game of Thrones - Season 1 to support their characterization in the movie?
