1.1 Background of the Study People
are social creatures who need other human beings to live their life. In dealing
with other human beings, people speak a
language as a medium. When people talk and write in order to communicate with others,
consciously and unconsciously they produce language.
People ally use language to speak and to
deliver what is in their mind either doing something or asking a thing.
In linguistic, there are speech acts or also
known as speech functions; they are (1) statement,
(2) question, (3) command, and (4) offer. The function of statement is giving information and question is asking
information. Command and offer share goods and services in cases where command is asking goods and
services and offer is giving them. According to language function, language is to do something
or doing action as Saragih (2003: 64), said that language is used to perform a deed or
action, such as making a statement, question, offer and command. We can conclude that statement,
question, offer, and command are action.
All the four actions then will be realized in
the tone of the conversation at 3 level of grammars which is technically called mood. As
the realization of the action of the stage of grammar, mood consists of declarative,
interrogative, and imperative. Action of “statement” is realized by declarative, action of
“question” is realized by interrogative, and action of “command” is realized by imperative. Action
“offer” does not have a definite mode of realization; it can be realized by
declarative, interrogative, and imperative.
Normally finding the action and its
realization in the language is by analyzing a text.
Text can be found in oral (verbal) and written
(non verbal) form. If the text is in non-verbal form, it is called written text and if the
text in the form of verbal will be referred as an oral Universitas Sumatera Utara text. However,
there is also someone who is simultaneously doing both speaking and writing, for example in the class if somebody explains
what he/she intends by writing a topic and explaining about it orally it is also
considered as text.
As we know text contains much information like
entertainment, politics, health, botany,
crime, and many else. The text which is in written form, for example; journal, newspaper, short story, novel or in oral form
like spontaneous spoken text and the preparation verbal spoken with reading a text which is
prepared to be read aloud in front of all-important public event, for example a speech.
ally speech is written in order to be spoken
but also could be written down from audio
tape or video tape such as Nelson Mandela speech taken in April th 1964 at the Palace of Justice, Pretoria Supreme Court
Pretoria South Africa. The court was recorded by the State on cassettes for which there is now
no playback equipment. Mandela’s statement from the dock was digitized with the
assistance of the British Library, and this digital recording now in the custody of the National
Archives of South Africa. This recording was used to transcribe the speech. The speech is
approximately 2 hours and 56 minutes long with titled "I'm Prepared to Die".
This speech tells about Nelson Mandela said
that justice was established, how black and
colored Africans were enslaved in their own homeland, separated from the
standard worth of a human life and their
family, even be killed arbitrarily anywhere in the name of apartheid. He had to struggle to explain why
violence is inevitable for his way to freedom by using guerilla warfare and demands to the
government who should distribute education and equal job to both colored and white people
because that is the way to root poverty out in South Africa.
Universitas Sumatera Utara Nelson Mandela is a
South African anti-apartheid activist, revolutionarist and politician who served as President of South
Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first to be elected in a fully representative, multiracial
election. He is also the one who has responsibility of dismantling apartheid's legacy, and cutting
racism, poverty and inequality in South Africa. In performing a speech, Nelson Mandela uses
structured and persuasive words to posses’ people to believe and budge sympathy.
In the Nelson Mandela speech (1964: 6 ) he
says: “At the beginning of June 1961, after a long and anxious assessment of
the South African situation, I, and some
colleagues, came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable; it would be
unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time
when the Government met our peaceful demands with force” The sentence implied that Nelson
Mandela decided to start against South Africa Government with no longer use peace or
non-violence way. When we associate action and what was mentioned by Nelson Mandela above,
the sentence has to separate into clauses in process getting the meaning.
Here are the clauses: 1. At
the beginning of June 1961, 2. After a long and assessment of the South
Africa situation, I, and some colleagues, came to the conclusion that as violence in
this country was inevitable.
3. It
would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace
and non-violence at a time when the
Government met our peaceful demands with force.
After the clauses are separated, then they are
divided the clauses into type of action.
The clause (1) is giving information about
time explanation so the type is “statement” action.
Clause (2) is giving information so this is a
“statement” action and clause (3) is also a Universitas Sumatera Utara “statement” action
which told about stay in peace are irrational. All the clauses are giving information that Mandela intends to against
violence from National Party (NP) goverment.
Moreover, he said that the non-violence way is
wrong from the beginning government torture the black people physically and using weapon
to kill.
This study is about how to interpret action
and its realization in Mandela’s “I’m Prepared
to Die” speech text. Because, after deciding the actions of the clauses it is
very important to find the realizations
in order to understand the meaning. In Halliday’s theory, the realizations are divided into three kinds.
They are declarative, interrogative and imperative.
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