CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This
chapter presents background of the study, problem of the study, objective of the study, scope and limitation
of the study, significances of the study,
and definition of the key terms.
1.1 Background of the Study When we communicate with others, weproduce an
utterance as type of action. It means
that we can do many things through language such as ordering, requesting, apologizing, asserting, commanding
and thanking. To express the idea,
people do not only produce utterances consisting grammatical structures, but also they do an action via their utterances
(Yule, 1996: 47). Language is also identified
as a representation of action. We realize that we are doing something with words when we talk. For example, when
somebody says “I’ll pick you up at eight”,
it means that the speaker has donethe action of promising through his or her utterance. Something is not only being
said but also being done. An action is being
made in the form of utterance (Grundy, 2000: 49) Generally, speech act is the act of
communication. To communicate is to express
a certain attitude and the type of speech act being performed corresponds to the type of attitude being expressed. For
example, a statement expresses a belief,
a request expresses a desire and anapology expresses regret. As an act of communication, a speech act succeeds if the
audiences identify the attitude being expressed
by the speaker (Bach, 2006).
Renkema (1993:21) argues that the
relationship between form and function has
been affected by speech act theory. Inspeech acts theory language is seen as a form of acting. This theory stems from the
school of philosophy which is called ordinary
language philosophy. This schoolwanted to analyze philosophical problem by looking at ordinary language. In
ethics, sentences used for ethical evaluation,
such as human activity is judged to be good or bad, and how people apologize for bad behavior. Speech acts theory
has had strong influence on the field of
discourse studies as this theory focuses on what people are doing when they use language.
Austin (in Yule, 1985: 48) argues that any
occasion, the action performed by
producing an utterance will consist of three related acts. Firstly, locutionary
act is physical act of producing
utterance. Secondly, illocutionary act. According to Renkema (1993: 22) illocutionary act isthe act
which is committed by producing an
utterance; by uttering promise, uttering a request, uttering a threat,
agreement etc. Thirdly, perlocutionary
act. It isthe production of effect through locution and illocution on hearer’s responds.
In addition, Searle identifies four basics
categories of speech acts such as: utterance
act, propositional act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. Utterance act is spoken word or string of spoken words.
At the simplest level, to utter is simply
to say a word with no particular forethought or intention to communicate a meaning. While propositional act is a more
meaningful type of utterance makes reference
to or describes a real or imaginary object. An illocutionary act is spoken with the intention of making contact witha
listener. Perlocutionary act is the effect
of illocutionary act on hearer’sresponds (attitude or belief).
There are six types of general
functions performed by speech acts, namely
: directives, commissives, representatives, expressives, verdictives, and declaratives (Brinton, 1984: 305). Directive
is kind of speech acts that speaker uses
to get someone else to do something such as commands, orders, advices, suggestions, etc. The type of directive canbe
illustrated in “could you lend me a book,
please?” , the speaker gets hearer to do an action (lending book) through his or her utterances. The next type of speech
acts is commisives. Here, speaker commits
himself or herself to do some future action such as promises, threats, refusal, etc. Representatives are the type of
speech act which represents a state of affairs
such as affirming,describing, claiming, stating and explaining. Expressives are those kinds of speech acts the speaker’s
feeling such as pleasure, pain, joy or sorrow
(Yule, 1996: 53). Then, verdictivesare the speaker expresses a value judgment or rates something such as assessing,
ranking and rating. Declaratives are the
prototypical speech act. The speaker brings about a change a world by uttering a locutionary act. The example of
declarative is referee’s utterance “You are
out!” to expel indiscipline player of football. In this case, the speaker
changes the world via words.
Cook (1989: 25) states that the utterance only
succeeds in having the function of
speech acts if certain external conditions are fulfilled. The conditions which must be fulfilled are known as felicity
conditions. Felicity conditions can be
defined as the conditions which must be in place for a speech act to be performed appropriately (Grundy, 2000: 273).
For example the word “I promise to come
to the meeting on time”. The felicity conditions are the speaker has power and chance to come on time, and the situation
which is allowed to the speaker to come
on time to the meeting.
Searle in Renkema (1993: 23)
formulated that four 'felicity conditions' which illocutions must be met. Four felicity
conditions will be illustrated using the
illocutions 'to promise’. The first, the propositional content condition, is
the act which refers to the future
action. The second, preparatory conditions, is the circumstances would require that the content
of the promise is not matter of course.
The third, the sincerity condition, isthe speaker must honestly be willing to fulfill the promise. The fourth, the
essential conditions, is the speaker takes upon himself the responsibility of carrying
out the act stated in the content of promise.
Speech acts can be found in whole
activities of human life. Speaking language
means uttering speech act such as requesting, commanding and thanking. The field of speech act can be found
in movie. It tells about a story about
human activities. The conversation in movie is very interesting to be analyzed because it comprises speech acts of
daily routines of people. Therefore the
researcher chooses movie "Are we there yet?" as the object of
research. It can be included as oral
communication. This film is categorized as comedy film. The main characters in this film are: Nick(Ice
Cube), Suzanne (Nia Long), Kevin (Philip
Daniel Bolden) and Lindsey (Aleisha Allen). This film tells us how Nick falls in love for single mother Suzanne. He
knows that Suzanne is widower.
However, he does not care about
it. He initially does not have to worry about what her kids think of him because she just wants
to be friend. When Suzanne finds herself
in a jam and needs someone to escort her kids to meet her in Vancouver for New Year's Eve, Nick gladly opens the door
of opportunity. It could be the best way
to get her heart or the biggest mistake of his life. With one destination on his mind, Nicks embarks on a road trip he will
never forget (Turner, 2005).
This movie is very interesting to be analyzed
especially using speech act theory. When
people speak to others, it means that he or she does an act through utterances. The language used in the movie
“Are we there yet” represents speech acts
which are commonly used by people tocommunicate in daily routines. Every utterances has own intended meaning of the
speaker. The main characters in this movie
often produce utterances which illustrate the situation such as when they are angry, when they are confused, when they
are happy and when they are sad. In addition,
the research is focused on language of native speaker. The previous researchers never observe the language
produced by native speakers. They often observe
Indonesian language or Javaneselanguage. Therefore, the researcher chooses movie "Are we there yet?" as
the object of research.
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