CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This
chapter presents background of the study, problem of the study, objective of the study, scope and limitation,
significance of the study, and the definitions
of the key terms.
1.1. Background of the Study We realize or not, when we talk with some body
else, we produce utterances such as
giving information or report about something true and utterances as types of action such as
promising, ordering, and requesting. It means that we often produce two types of utterances
namely constative and performative in
daily communication (Albert, 2007). We use constative especially to say or describe about something true or false and we
use performative to perform an action
beyond our words (Austin in Coulthard, 1985).
Unfortunately, not all speakers
or listeners have sufficient knowledge and understanding about this utterances type. Some
people may not understand well what
types of utterances they produce or listen, whether the speaker describes about something or performs an action with his
words, as a consequence they cannot
interpret and understand the intended meaning of all utterances well (Austin in Beck, 1985). For example: when
PresidentObama says “I will to do the
best of my ability…,”some of listeners may interpret that the speaker is describing or stating the reality about his
willingness to do the best of his ability, but actually the speaker is performing an
action ofpromising to do the best based on
his ability (Samosir, 2009). Based on this phenomenon, I am interested in analyzing two types of utterances namely
constativeand performative utterances which
are proposed by Austin.
Austin in Beck (1985) stated that
constatives are aclass of “fact-stating” utterances, which “constate” something true or
false. This includes reports, statements,
descriptions, assertions, predictions etc. A simple example is “that books are white and blue”.Meanwhile, a
performative utterance is doing something
rather than saying something. It is not true or false but felicitous (happy) and infelicitous (unhappy). Besides,
Austinin Korbayova (2006) divided performative
into explicit performative that have aspecific linguistic structure, such as the normal form (NF) for
performatives: first person singular, present tense, active, and allows the use “hereby”.
Then, implicit performative that does not
have the normal form (NF) of a performative cannevertheless function as a performative.
Austin in Beck (1985) stated that
constative and performative are used to understand
the intended meaning of all utterances, especially in oral communication. It is very important to be used
because it helps us to understand what
is really meant by the speaker, whether the speaker just says or states something of fact or he does something than
says something. For example the utterance
“Smoking is dangerous”.By using constative and performative, we will understand clearly whether the speaker states
a report or an information of fact that
smoking is dangerous or the speaker performs an action such as warning or advising to avoid smoking because smoking is
dangerous.
Based on the description above, I
consider that constative and performative
act are very important to investigate.To conduct this research, I choose Obama’s dialogues as the object of the
studybecause of several reasons.
First, today Obama’s speeches or
conversations become of central interest and widely acknowledged in the world. Second,
Obama’s dialogues or conversations have
linguistic uniqueness. Ireland (2009) stated that Obama’s language is very good and his rhythm in English sounds
beautiful because he uses sensory words, metaphor, less complexity and embellishment
words, for example: Obama’s utterance
"Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive,
that thecity and the country, alarmed at
one common danger, came forth to meet it"(Listiaji, 2009). Third, the utterances or sentences in Obama’s dialogues
show the use of constative and performative
utterances.
Other researchers have conducted
researches on performative utterances.
Kartika (2003) found that the
main characters in “Ada Apa Dengan Cinta” film use all of five types of performative
utterances, namely representatives, commisives,
expressives, declarations, and directives. Another previous research was done by Xiaofei (2006) who found that the
feasibility of performatives provides a
proper theoretical framework for successful dramatic dialogue translation especially in Ying Ruocheng’s
English version Teahousethan Howard’s.
Furthermore, Botnaru (2007) found that the possible illocutionary forces of performative verb namely assertive,
commisive, declarative, expressive and
directive are used in 19 species of Romanian literature particularly Limba Romana. From these results, I find other area
such as constative, explicit and implicit
performative which require further analysis.
Based on the previous results
above, I conclude that performative utterances
are very important to be investigated. Even less, the previous researchers have not conducted a research on
constative and performative utterances
in Obama’s dialogues because they only focused on the types of performative utterances. Therefore, I am
interestedin analyzing constative and performative
utterances in Obama’s dialogues.
1.2. Problem of the Study Concerning on the background of the study
above, I formulate the following
question: “How are constative and
performative utterances used in Obama’s dialogues?” 1.3.
Objective of the Study Related to
the problem above, the objective of thisstudy is to understand and give detailed explanation about how
constative and performative utterances are
used in Obama’s dialogues.
1.4. Scope and Limitation of the Study This research focuses on constative and
performative acts. In this research, it
is hard to analyze all utterances in Obama’s dialogues because of the limited time, expense and energy. Therefore, to avoid
broadening the discussion and to make my
research manageable, I limit this research and focus on constative and performative utterances that are used in
Obama’s dialogues happened at rd , th February, and th March 2009 about economic problems in
America.
Some aspects of speech act theory
related to the concept of constative and performative utterances proposed by Austin
(1962) are taken into consideration in order
to help me in giving a clear description of the analysis within discussion.
1.5. Significance of the Study The result of the study is supposed to be
useful because this research gives understanding
about constative and performative acts and how these acts are applied in presidential dialogues. Besides, it
is also expected to be able to enrich the
Discourse Analysis area theoretically and practically. As theoretical contribution, it is supposed that the result
of thestudy contribute more empirical information
about the basic concept of Austin’s theory, especially about constative and performative utterances when
they study speech act theory.
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