An Analysis Of Directive Speech Acts Employed By The Main Characters In The Movie “Oliver Twist (2005)” (A Pragmatics Study)

Oleh :
Ita Watiningsih - C1307011 - Fak. Sastra dan Seni Rupa

This research was conducted to find out the types of directive speech acts in the movie entitled Oliver Twist, the way the speakers apply those types, and the reasons of the speakers to utter those types. This research used the pragmatics approach with speech act as the field of study. It is a descriptive qualitative research and it employs purposive sampling as the sampling technique. In this research, the researcher took only the types of directive speech acts, namely expressions which are expressed by the speaker to get the hearer do something as data. Based on the findings, there are four types of directive speech acts employed by the characters in the movie “Oliver Twist”. They are advices, requests, commands, and questions. The results of findings are explained further in the data analysis, namely; politeness strategies employed in the directive speech acts. They are bald on-record, positive politeness, and negative politeness. The researcher does not find off-record strategy in this movie. Bald on-record strategy is commonly realized in imperative form. In this strategy, the speaker has relative power toward the hearer. Negative politeness tends to be conventionally indirect since the speaker wants to show the deference. Positive politeness is uttered by the speaker in order to be accepted or preferred. Finally, off record tends to give hint to the hearer. In this analysis, the researcher explores the verbal and non-verbal expression. The verbal expression means that the speaker utters direct or indirect speech acts, explicit or implicit statement, in high, normal, or low intonation. The non-verbal expression is realized through body movements. The analysis also shows the reason why the characters exploit directive speech acts in certain situations. They are to show that the speaker intends to take care of the hearer, to respect the hearer, to show anger expression, to show the hearer’s duty, to show the emergency, to seek agreement, and to find the reasons for uttering certain expression. Based on the findings, students are expected to explore other types of directives, such as prohibition and requirement. Moreover, they are expectedto useother classifications of speech acts such as, representatives, commissives, expressives, or declarations in the movie “Oliver Twist.”The researcher also suggests that other researchers take other media besides film such as novel and television series.