CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents background
of the study, research problem, objective of the study, scope and limitation of the
study, significance of the study, and definition of the key terms.
1.1 Background of the Study A micro structure analyzes the internal
structure of text consisting of words, sentences,
propositions, and phrases. According to van Dijk, a micro structure is
concerned with the meanings of discourse byinvestigating and analyzing words, sentences, propositions, and phrases.
The
using of words, sentences, propositions,
and phrases is considered by van Dijkas elements of the speaker or writer’s strategy to achieve their goal. By
using this strategy, it is not only viewed as the way of conveying the information but
also asthe technique of speaker to influence
and control the listener’s minds, create support, strengthen legitimate and power.
In addition, van Dijk explained
in his theory that besides examining the overall meanings or topics of media, we also
need to examine the local meanings of
words and sentences.
It
means that van Dijk considered a micro structure a significant position in an analysis of
discourse because it not only observes the global meaning but also examines the small
elementsof linguistics such as words, Sakban Rosidi. 2007. Analisis Wacana Kritis
sebagai Ragam Paradigma Kajian Wacana [Critical Discourse Analysis as Variance
of Paradigm of Inquiry on Discourse]. Working Paper.
Malang: Universitas Islam Negeri
(UIN) Malang. p. 10.
Teun A.
van Dijk. New(s) racism: a Discourse Analytical approach. Retrieved July 1,
2009 .http://www.daneprairie.com/ p.39 2 phrase,
and sentences which needs hard effort to identify the discursive meaning viewed from the internal structure of text.
Richardson supported the
statement above and arguedthat the analysis of particular words used in media is always the
first stage of analyzing any text or discourse.
Words convey the desire of society and of value judgments. They convey connoted
as well as denoted meanings. All typesof words, but particularly nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs, carry
connoted in addition to denoted meanings.
Huckin
further explained the influence of word choice in a discourse.
That even one word can convey
strong meaning connotations. These connotations
are not always or seldom assigned in the dictionary, but often assigned on the basis of the cultural
knowledge of the participants. Connotations associated with one word, or
through metaphors and figures of speech
which can turn the uncriticalviewer’s mind.
The
statement above indicates that the power of word can convey strong meanings because it can influence the people
to believe and control the readers or listeners’
mind about an event in which it often represents the power of the speaker or
writer legitimately. In addition, the meaningof word is not always attached in the dictionary’s terms but more often
attached with the basis of the cultural condition
and context around the participants. As the example, which is commonly used in
the media, the use of word protestorrather than demonstrator,has a certain meaning and intention to convince and
influence the readers or listeners’ mind
that the action of protestor has more negativeimage because it is judged as the action of against the government policy or
decision. It also shows that the me- John
E. Richardson. 2007. Analyzing Newspaper: An Approach from Critical Discourse
Analysis.New York. Palgrave Macmillan Huckin, T. N. 1997. Critical Discourse
Analysis. In T. Miller (Ed.), Functional approaches to written text.Retrieved May 6, 2009.
http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/pubs/BR/functionalsec3_6.htm
3 dia tend to marginalize the minority group or
the people who have a lower social status
as the form of discrimination from the majority group which has full power to control the media to marginalize the
minority. So, by using their power or authority, they want to control other
people to believe and legitimate what they say about the powerless group who are against
their decision or policy.
In addition, when there are
options of lexicalization, choosing one word rather than another often has contextual
reasons, such as the opinions of the speaker
about a person, a group or their actions.
For the
example, the word “terrorist”is often used by the powerful or influential
groupto indicate the people who destroy
the policy or decision of the powerful group and they are also considered as
the people who can threat the powerful people to maintain their position.
Most traditional texts and
content analysis focusedon the words being exposed used in media about
minorities such as derogatory words more frequently in media.
How is
discourse involved in the reproduction of (or resistance against) racism? Racism is a social system of ethnic or
racial inequality, just like sexism, or
inequality based on class. That system has two main components, namely a social
and a cognitive one.
Van
Dijk explained more his principal from the social cognitive point of view.
The social component of racism
consists of everydaydiscriminatory practices,
on the micro level of analysis, and organizations, institutions, legal
arrangements and other societal structures at the macrolevel. Since discourses
are social practices, racist discourse belong first of all to this social dimension of
racism. Onthe other hand, so- Teun
A. van Dijk. New(s) racism: a Discourse Analytical approach. Retrieved July 1,
2009 .http://www.daneprairie.com/ p.
Teun A.
van Dijk. New(s) racism: a Discourse Analytical approach. Retrieved July 1,
2009 .http://www.daneprairie.com/ p.
Ibid,
p. 35 line 1 4 cial practices also have a cognitive
dimension, namely the beliefs people
have, such as knowledge, attitudes, ideologies, norms and aspect. These beliefs
or social representations many members of the dominant ingroup have about immigrants and
minorities are largely derived from
discourse.
This
research focuses on the lexical style or lexical choice to examine the historical event on the ethnic’s tension which
is portrayed in a movie and analyzed by using critical discourse analysis
approach. It studies the relations among discourse, power, dominance, social inequality
and the position of the discourse analyst
in such social relationships.
In this
study, it is concerned with analyzing spoken
words to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality, bias and how these sources are initiated,
maintained, reproduced, and transformed within
specific social, political, and historical contexts.
van Dijk stated that critical discourse
analysis focus on social problems, and
especially the role of discourse in the production and reproduction of power abuse or domination.
Here, dominance is defined as the exercise of
social power by elites, institutions or
groups, that results in social inequality, including political, cultural,
class, ethnic, racial and gender inequality.
It seeks not merely to describe language but also to offer critical
linguistic resources to those wishing to resist various forms of power.
More specifically, critical discourse analysis
want Ibid, p. 35 line Teun A.
van Dijk. 1993. Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis. Discourse and
Society. Vol. 4 : 249—283.
Sue L. T. McGregor.2003. A Critical Discourse
Analysis: A Primer. Retrieved May 31, 2009.
(Online) www.kon.org/archives/forum/15-1/mcgregorcda.html.
John E. Richardson. 2007. Analyzing Newspaper: An Approach from
Critical Discourse Analysis.New York. Palgrave Macmillan. p.
Teun A.
van Dijk. 1993. Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis. Discourse and
Society. Vol.
4 : Edward Haig. 1999. A study of application of
critical discourse analysis to ecolinguistics and the teaching of Eco- literary. Working paper.
5 to know what structures, strategies, or other
properties of text, talk, verbal interaction or communicative events play a
role in these modes of reproduction.
The main purpose of critical discourse
analysis is to understand how people are
manipulated by public discourse and thereby subjected to abuses of power.
This does not mean that we see power and dominancemerely
as unilaterally imposed on others. On the contrary, in many situations, and
sometimes paradoxically power and even power abuse may seem jointly produced.
Habermas supported his critical theory stating that CDA
aimsto help the analyst understand social
problems that are mediated by mainstream ideology and power relationships.
Also, Fairclough’s view on the objective of
CDA isto uncover the ideological assumptions that are hidden in the words
ofwritten text or oral speech in order
to resist and overcome various forms of powerover.
In sum, there are some varieties of the
critical discourse analysis study which
views that language is not neutral medium from ideology, power, and self- interests. The CDA theory of Fairclough and
Teun van Dijk are considered as the most
popular CDA analyst. The work of van Dijk is however valued as more effective
in elaborating the structure, component, and discourse elements and also his model is commonly used in analyzing
critical discourse analysis.
So, I be- Teun A.
Van Dijk.1993. Principle of Critical
Discourse Analysis, Discourseand Society. Retrieved on April 28, 2009.
http://www.daneprairie.com.
Thomas Huckin. 2002. Critical Discourse
Analysis and the Discourse of Condescension. University of Utah. Retrieved on
May 31, 2009.
http://www.writing.ucsb.edu/wrconf08/Pdf_Articles/Huckin_Article.pdf.
Ibid.p. 5 Sue L. T. McGregor.2003. A Critical Discourse
Analysis: A Primer.
www.kon.org/archives/forum/15-1/mcgregorcda.html.
Retrieved May 31, 2009.
Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. New
York: Longman.
Sakban Rosidi. 2007. Analisis Wacana Kritis
Sebagai Ragam Paradigm Kajian Wacana. Working paper. P. 10 6 lieve
that his theory is more effective and relevant to be applied in this present study.
Referring to the previous
description, I decided tochoose the movie entitled Hotel Rwandaas my data
source to analyze the utterances of thecharacters of the film based on several considerations.
First,this movie is a real historical drama
film which was being nominated for multiple awards. So, it can be valued as having high quality and containing
interesting and challenging plots. Second, this movie told about chronological conflicts
between majority and minority groups
Hutu and Tutsi. Commonly their utterances produced were also influenced by the social status, class structure, ethnic
background and also physical feature which
have little differently but it is very important because it is considered as
one of the sources of the ethnic war’s
conflict. Third,this movie contain the discrimination and racism aspects
reflected through the language which is performed by the characters to show that in their life
occurred the social imbalance between two different ethnics, Hutu and Tutsi. The example
of discrimination expression performed by a Hutu to indicate the Tutsis is when
oneof the characters is a captain, one
of a Hutu army soldier, said “go with my soldiers. And hurry back if you want to keep these cockroaches”. The lexical choice
of “cockroaches“has a more connotative meaning than denotative meaning because
the word cockroacheshere does not mean
the name of an animal but it is an expression to label the Tutsis low social level as minority groups in their
community.This word is used by a Hutu army
to underestimate the Tutsis. So, this word is valued to contain derogatory meaning to discriminate the minority group.
Based on some considerations and 7 the example which has been presented above, I
decided to analyze this movie using CDA theory.
Related to this research, there
are some previous researchers who conducted studies of critical discourse
analysis. First, Siddiq (2008) analyzed the tactics on word structure, phrasal
structure, expression or oral structure, and sentential structure that are used
by Barack Obama in hispolitical speeches. His finding shows that Barack Obama used micro structural
levelstrategies to enhance the cohesion
and coherence of his political discourse, his tactics cover on word, phrasal, oral, and sentential structures.
Second, Basid (2008) showed that Ahmadinejad used macro-structural and
super-structural level strategies to strengthen his ideas of his political discourse. He, uses
those strategies to convince the public and
invites people to voice liberty, equality, and solidarity in all aspects of
life.
Third, Hanum (2008) analyzed the
study on sentence forms as a discursive tactic on six texts of John McCain’s political
speeches. She concluded that John McCain uses active voice more often than passive
voice.
Referring to the previous
researchers, I propose the study on lexical style using critical discourse analysis. By
conducting this research, I would like to know how discursive strategy used by the
charactersto convince, influence, and control
the listeners’ or spectator mind on the movie as one of most favourite media of
the people. In this research, I also want toreveal the meaning behind the lexical style used among the characters with
different physical feature, social status,
ethnics’ background, and etc. Therefore, based on the reasons and
considerations that have been explained above, this research is important to do.
8 1.2 Problem of the Study Based on the background of the study above,
the research problem can be formulated
as follow: How are discursive strategieson lexical style used by both main and supporting characters in “Hotel
Rwanda”? 1.3 Objective of the Study Based
on the research problem of the study, the main objective of this study is to construct deep understanding on
how discursive strategy on lexical style
is used by the characters in “Hotel Rwanda”.
1.4 Significance of the Study There are two benefits for conducting this research.
This study is significant to do with theoretical and practical contributions,
particularly, to the interdisciplinary study of critical discourse analysis
areato study how to understand and examine
critically and linguistically the lexical style applied in a movie based on Teun A. van Dik theory of CDA.
Theoretically, this study is
expected to give academic contributions, especially to build the theoretical
bases of critical discourse analysis study about the use of lexical style which concerns about the
social phenomenon on racism which is
introduced by van Dijk theory’s social cognition. This is done by providing the
more empirical data on this particular
area.
Practically, this study can give
valuable knowledgeto the researcher itself to understand and interpret deeper about
critical discourse analysis particularly how to analyze and interpret the lexical style
which is concerned with any aspects and
context including social, political, cultural background. Furthermore, this
research finding can also show how to apply internal structure of lexical style
of 9 discourse as exercise in interpreting a media
(movie) which are related to the social context background. In addition, they also
canemploy this research result as one of
the sources of information to analyze the similar genres with more complex discussion such as in media press, television
programmers, etc.
In addition, this result can be a
reference for other researchers to conduct further research in this area to give
significant contributions to the wide range of CDA studies.
1.5 Scope and Limitation of the
Study This study focuses on critical
discourse analysis which is proposed by Teun
van Dijk’s model analysis on micro structure level. In fact, there are some elements of a micro structure, but to make
this research more feasible and deeper discussion,
I concentrate only on lexical style used as discursive strategy to understand
and interpret more deeply the utterances or the word used by the characters in Hotel Rwanda which indicate racism.
In terms of data, I limit
obtaining the data sourcein a movie entitled Hotel Rwandawhich portrays the real phenomena
happened in Central Africa exactly in Rwanda.
It is also supported by any materials of the historical story of this movie which give more complete source of information
and different findings which may come up
from different data are not covered.
1.6 Operational Definition of the Key Terms This part consists of some key terms used in
this study. I define some key terms as
followings: 10 1. A
micro structure: the small component of discourse structure to analyze and investigate words, sentences,
propositions, andphrases.
2.
Discursive strategies: a strategy
of the speakers that uses discourse as an ‘instrumental and vested with interests’, to realize their benefit, and marginalize the minority one to evacuate
them from social life to maintain the
majority power which is representedby the structure of text. In this research,
the discursive strategy is practiced through
the internal structure of text is the lexical style.
3. Lexical style: the lexical choice which
indicate the real meaning, meaning that
appropriate with our sense observation, or forgranted meaning.
And also, the word which has positive and
negativefeelings to which they evoke
based on the context. In this research, lexical style is defined as the word choice containing
racism and discrimination aspects in the movie’s characters utterances.
4. Racism or Racial Discrimination: In this
study, this term may be defined as hostility
towards another race believing that theirrace is better than the other, as in the case of the Hutu and the
Tutsiethnics in Rwanda genocide. Related to the present study, the term of
racism is concerned with the utterances
produced by the movie’s characters containing
language discrimination in their conversation which show that their ethnics is more powerful than
others ethnics. Sakban Rosidi. 2007. Analisis Wacana Kritis
sebagai Ragam Paradigma Kajian Wacana [Critical Discourse Analysis as Variance
of Paradigm of Inquiry on Discourse]. Working Paper.
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