CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This first chapter introduces background of research including several

theories related to the study. Besides that, it provides the research questions,
research problem, research objective, research signification, conceptual, and
framework is presented in this chapter as the general depiction of the research
paper.

1.1.

Background of Research
As social creatures, communication is very important in the social life, the

main function of communication is to connect among of member in society to get

information.

According

to Bernard

(1964:527),

communication

is

the

transmission of information, ideas, emotions, skills, etc, by the uses of symbol.

These statements show that communication is an important tool for transferring
information, idea, emotions to others. There are two types of communication:
verbal and nonverbal communication. Verbal communication is the way of
communicating massages by using words as elements. Meanwhile, nonverbal
communication is the way of communicating messages by using gesture, body
movements, eye contact, facial expression, or general appearances as the
elements.

In daily activity, people use language as a way to communicate to each

other. As a tool of communication, language has the important role in human
civilization. Beside that, people use language to share their feeling, thought,
experience and so on. The function of language is as the instrument of
communication or interaction. Language is very important in communication.
According to Keraf (1997:1), language is a communication tool between members
of society in the form of a symbol of the sound produced by human vocal organ.
From this quotation, language is an important tool in communication between
societies.
When people communicate with other, they use utterances to express what
they want in their mind toward listener. Beside that, the function of utterance is
not only to explain the speaker mind toward listener, but also to show the
relationship between them. Utterance could be said as main point in speech acts.
It means that when people have a conversation, there occurs utterance. Austen in
Yule (1996: 3), called it as speech acts. Speech acts are the act of communication.
By doing speech act, people (speaker) try to convey their intention and purposes
of the communication by the hope that is understandable by the hearer. Speech
acts are not just acts such as making word, but also having more meaning behind
the words uttered. Speech act is part of language, it concerns with people say
through the language such in meaning of utterance.
Speech act is a kind of verbal communication, the word speech act are
derived from two words are speech and act. Speech is the utterance that occurs
and act means action. This is the reason why people have to interpret the meaning

of communication or language through speech acts. Austin (1962:98) classifies

speech acts into three parts, they are locutionary act, illocutionary act and
perlocutinary act.
The first one is Locutionary act, It is an act of how people produces the
utterance or produce a meaningful linguistics expression, and understandable to
the hearer. According to Wijana (1997:17), the purpose of locutionary act is just to
inform the reader/hearer. For example, I am going home. The second is
Illocutionary act, is an act of making utterance for specific purpose. In the
previous example, when someone says I am going home, the illocutionary force or
the speakers purpose is to inform the hearer of his intention to go home. The last
is Perlocutionary act, in which it is the effect of the utterance which the speaker
said to the hearer. For example, when I am going home uttered by guest, after
heard this utterance the host might accompany the guest to the front of house.
This effect is also called as a perlocutionary effect.
Illocutionary act has some different types. Yule (1996:53) has set up the
classification of illocutionary act as five subdivisions. They are: declarative,
representative, expressive, directive, and commissive. Each type has different
context and meaning. In conversation, directive is often used by speaker but they
say in different way. The speaker has to concern about situation and context to
make the hearer do as they want. Situation in conversation can be seen in some
aspects, such as who is the hearer, what things speaker wants to say, and time of
conversation.

The most prominent context in directive speech act is about the hearer, and
the relationship between speaker and hearer. Relationship between speaker and
hearer can be an indicator that makes speaker used different way to asks hearer to
do something for them. This is the logically reason why directive speech act
divided is into four specific aspects. They are: commands, orders, requests, and
suggestions. In daily conversation, command properly use to friend or younger
hearer, but request, order, and suggestion can be used for any age of hearer.
Basically, people decide to use particular utterance based on the context of
situation. They can use it appropriate with status scale in the society, for example
the conversation between children with their parents. The children will use the
polite words or positive utterance in communication. It can be different, when
he/she communicates with his/her friends. Sometimes, he/she uses polite/positive
utterance, in other time he/she use impolite/negative utterance.

The basic

principle in the conversation is politeness principle. This principle tells about the
role in communication, especially when people want someone doing something as
expected. Brown and Levinson in Yule (1996: 59-65) classify the politeness
strategy into two categories, there are say nothing and say something. The first is
say nothing which happens when a person does not say anything, yet he does
something to get the other persons attention and understands what he wants. For
example, how to get a pen from someone else. When the speaker uses say nothing
strategy, then he will not say a word but try to look for it in his bag.
The other strategy in a communication is say something. If someone wants
to borrow the pen from someone else, he can utter their meaning or their want.

The person says something to get what he wants. However, in saying something,
there are also two strategies. They are on record and off record. The example of
using off record strategy is by saying I forgot my pen when the speaker wants
to get a pen from someone else. The use of on record strategy is also divided into
two types. They are face saving act and bald on record. Bald on record is used
when a person directly asked for something, such as, saying, Give me a pen!, in
order to get a pen from someone else.
There are two types of face saving act strategies in a communication. They
are positive and negative politeness. Positives politeness can make the speaker get
a greater risk of suffering a refusal (Yule, 1996: 64). For instance, the utterance of
asking a pen, How about letting me use your pen?. Then, the negative
politeness has a great opportunity for the speaker. This is because the negative
politeness is more polite than positive politeness in a communication. Next, it is
the example of negative politeness, Could you lend me a pen?.
Previously, there are several research with the similar themes there are:
Directive Speech Acts in Captain America the first Avenger was written by
Moch Luthfi Hakiem (2014) from Islamic State University Sunan Gunung Djati
Bandung. The purposes of his research are to find out the types of directive
speech acts employed by the characters in the film Captain America and to reveal
the reason and the purposes of those directives are employed by the main
characters.

The result of his research showed that there are four types of Directives
which is divided into two sub-classes, there are Advisives and Mandatives, which
employed by the characters in the film Captain America, namely Warning of
Advisives, Advice of Advisives, Instruction of Mandatives, and Threat of
Mandatives. Another result showed that reasons of the directive speech act
performed by the characters in the film are classified into four. First, in Warning
of Advisives, the speaker wants to show his/her care about the addressee. Second,
in advice of Advisives speech, the speaker wants to show his/her apprehensive to
the addressee. Third, in Instruction of Mandatives, the speaker wants to show
his/her authority. Fourth, threat in Mandatives, the speaker wants to warn the
addressees.
The next previous research with the similar theme is Directive Speech
Acts Used in Harry Potter-The Deathly Hallow and Bride Wars Movie was
written by Lidya Oktoberia (2012) from State University of Padang. He observed
the use of speech act, especially in directive speech act in Harry Potter-The
Deathly Hallow and Bride Wars Movie.
The result of his research showed that there are four types of Directives
Speech act found in Harry Potter-The Deathly Hallow and Bride Wars Movie.
There are: In request utterance, the researcher found 24 utterances in Harry
Potter-The Deathly Hallow, and 30 utterances in Bride Wars. In suggestion
utterance the researcher found 20 utterances in Harry Potter-The Deathly Hallow,
and 22 utterances in Bride Wars. In command utterance, the researcher found 48
utterances in Harry Potter-The Deathly Hallow, and 22 utterances in Bride Wars,

and in order utterance, the researcher found 5 utterances in Harry Potter-The

Deathly Hallow, and 11 utterances in Bride Wars.
Based on the background above, the researcher is interested in analyzing
and elaborating the classification of directive speech act, and politeness strategies
used by the speaker in making directive act in the dialogue of the movie in his
research. The transcription of the dialogue in Iron Man 3 is used as the data. The
researcher chose this movie because there are so many utterances that are used by
the characters and the utterance relates to the speech action and speech event.
These utterances relating to directive speech acts include ordering, commanding,
requesting, and suggesting. Beside that, the researcher used Iron Mam 3 as the
data because he wants to know how the politeness strategies used by the
characters in action movie. Besides that, the researcher used the dialogue in the
movie, because dialogue in the movie concerns with the daily life condition. Also,
movie depicts everyday happening that make them as mirrors to the real world
phenomena. The existence of directive act can be found in movie. Same as daily
conversation, the usage of directives act is also used in a movie because movie is
actually a representation and reflection of the real conversation in natural society.

1.2.

Research Problems
People can do some ways in expressing what they want by using directive

speech act and strategies they used in uttering directive speech act. Because of
that, the researcher formulates a main problem to be answered as stated in
following research question:

1.2.1. What kinds of Directive Speech Acts are found in the Iron Man 3 movie
script?
1.2.2. How are Politeness Strategies used in Directive Speech Act in Iron Man
3 movie script?

1.3.

Research Objective
In general, the object of the research is to describe the phenomena of

directive speech act in communication that reflected in Iron Man movie script.
The specific aim of this research is to elaborate the kinds of directive speech act
in the Iron Man 3 movie script into type, mood, and function used by the speaker
to the hearer in the movie, and to explore the politeness strategy used by the

speaker in uttering directive speech acts.

1.4.

Research Significance
This research is expected to give valuable contribution theoretically and

practically. Theoretically, the result of this research is expected to contribute on

the development of pragmatic study, especially on how to analyze text using the
speech act theory. Practically, the result of this research is expected to be useful
for:
1.4.1. Students of English Department, the researcher hopes that this research
can give more understanding about speech act, especially in directive act
and the used of politeness strategies in pragmatic field.

1.4.2. Other researchers, this research will be reference in another research with
the similar theme and the different case.

1.5.
Conceptual Framework
This research has some key terms, there are:
1.5.1. Directive Act: Kinds of speech acts that speaker uses to get someone to
do something. They express what the speaker wants, they are: request,
orders, command, and suggestions, and as illustrated in example, they can
be positive or negative (Yule, 1996:54).
Example:
a. Give me a cup of coffee! Make it black!
b. Could you land me a pen please?
1.5.2. Politeness Principle Strategy: There are two type of politeness principle
strategy: Say Nothing, it happens when a person does not say anything,
yet he does something to get the other persons attention and understands
what he wants. The other strategy in a communication is say something.
If a person wants to borrow the pen from someone else, he can utter their
meaning or their want. The person says something to get his wants.
However, in saying something, there are also two strategies. They are on
record and off record. The use of on record strategy is also divided into
two types. They are face saving act and bald on record. Bald on record is
used when a person directly asked for something. There are two types of
face saving act strategies in a communication. They are positive and
negative politeness. Positives politeness can make the speaker get a
greater risk of suffering a refusal (Yule, 1996:64). The negative politeness

10

has a great opportunity for the speaker. This is because the negative
politeness is more polite than positive politeness in a communication.
1.6.

Organization of Writing
The paper is organized into five chapters, there are:

Chapter I

: Introduction, this first chapter consists of background of

research,

research

questions,

research

problem,

research

objective, research signification and conceptual framework.

Chapter II

: Theoretical Foundation, this chapter deals with theories

related to the study.

Chapter III

: Research Method, this chapter includes the research method,

the sample of data, the source of data, the techniques of
collecting data, and the technique of analyzing data.

Chapter IV

: Findings and Discussions, this chapter presents the research

finding and discussion related to the formulation of the research.

Chapter V

: Conclusion and Suggestion, This chapter covers the

conclusions of the study and suggestion that might have benefits
and inputs for everyone who wants to conduct a research relating
to this study.