The analysis of command in the novel “the red pony” by John Steinbeck

Oleh :
Dionisia Diantisari - C1306518 - Fak. Sastra dan Seni Rupa

ABSTRACT The research is based on Socio-pragmatics study. The aims of the research are to describe the kinds of politeness strategy used by the characters in giving command in the novel “THE RED PONY” and to find out the reasons for choosing certain kinds of politeness strategy. The research employs the Socio-pragmatics approach with the speech act of commands as the scope of the analysis. This research is a descriptive qualitative research. It employs purposive sampling technique. All the dialogs containing commands are taken as the data. They are 25 data representing the criteria. The data are analyzed with Brown and Levinson politeness theory for the strategy of command and the analysis also considers Holmes’s social dimension and Hyme’s SPEAKING formula. From the analysis, I find the following results: First, there are three politeness strategies of command employed by the characters in the novel. The strategies used by the characters by following Brown and Levinson theory, namely Bald On Record, Positive Politeness, and Bald Off Record. The data show that there are 17 data using Bald On Record, 4 data using Positive Politeness and 4 data using Bald Off Record. Second, there are various factors influencing the characters to employ each strategy. They are the situations happening in the conversation, the relationship between the characters, the social status between the characters and the degree of imposition that may damage the hearer’s face. From the results, it is expected that the research will give an input to the readers in studying speech act of commands. It is suggested that other researchers analyze the employment of commands in other classification of speech act. They may attempt to analyze it in many other sources, such as film or dramas.