Tact Maxim Used By The Characters In The “Monsters University” Movie
on
ISSN: 2302-920X
Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Unud
Vol 18.2 Pebruari 2017: 219-125
Tact Maxim Used By The Characters In The “Monsters University” Movie
Dian Novita Mayasari1*, I Gusti Ngurah Parthama2, Ni Ketut Sri Rahayuni3 [123]English Department – Faculty Of Arts – Udayana University
3
Abstrak
Penelitian ini berjudul Tact Maxim used by The Characters in the “Monsters University” Movie sebagian besar untuk menggambarkan kegunaan dari tact maxim yang digunakan oleh karakter di dalam film “Monsters University”. Tujuan dari karya ilmiah ini pertama, untuk mengenal jenis-jenis dari tact maxim yang digunakan oleh karakter di dalam film tersebut, kedua untuk menggambarkan faktor yang mepengaruhi tact maxim yang diterapkan di dalam film.Data yang dikumpulkan berasal dari film yang berjudul “Monsters University”.
Karya ilmiah ini menggunakan metode dokumentasi untuk mengumpulkan data dan menggunakan metode deskriptif untuk menganalisa data. Seluruh data yang telah dianalisis untuk menjelaskan tentang jenis-jenis and faktor yang mempengaruhi tact maxim yang telah diterapkan oleh karakter didalam film tersebut yang telah dianalisis secara deskriptif.
Karya ilmiah ini menemukan 19 ucapan dimana seluruh ucapan tersebut menerapkan teori dari Kreidlertahun 1998 yang menyebutkan terdapat tujuh jenis cara berbicara seperti, assertive, performative, verdictive, expressive, directive, commissive dan phatic. Akan tetapi karya ilmiah ini hanya berfokus pada dua ucapan seperti, directive yang terdiri dari command, request dan suggestion. Commissive yang mengandung promise, pledges, threats, and vow.
Setelah menganalisa seluruh data yang didapat, hasil menyatakan bahwa pengucapan secara directive yang lebih cenderung terlihat pada percakapan terutama dengan cara meminta dan menganjurkan. Ada pula faktor yang mempengaruhi tact maxim seperti factor umur, jenis kelamin, hubungan keluarga dan status sosial.
Kata Kunci: Tact Maxim, Directive, Faktor
Communication is the most important thing to deliver feelings, ideas, and thoughts. In daily life, people make some conversations to build a good relation among
them. To make a good conversation, the speakers have to know how to speak politely to listener in order to achieve a good utterance. Besides, the speakers have to be more polite than the listener to avoid a conflict. According to Leech (1983:33) politeness is a form of behavior that establishes and maintains comity. It is the ability of participants in a social interaction to engage in interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony.
When the speaker speaks, it can be described whether the speaker is polite or impolite and minimize cost to other or maximize benefit to others called tact maxim (Leech, 1983:131). It means that the speakers always minimize a fund to the hearer and maximize a fund to the hearer when they are having a conversation. Tact maxim is important thing for human being and leads us to become more polite to have an attitude to avoid a conflict. For example, “Would you mind answering the phone?”
The title of this study is Tact Maxim used by the Characters in “Monsters University” Movie. Hopefully, after reading this paper people can learn to be more polite with other people when they are having conversations. When people study this maxim, the speaker can tell how to be a more polite person, think about avoiding arrogant attitudes and make people enjoying when talking to them.
In addition, being polite is not only about producing polite utterance but people should be determined by some factors in environment such as social status, gender, kinship terms and age. On the other hand, politeness does not only appear in the daily conversation but also appear in the movie as the depiction of life. It can be seen that the utterance in this movie were analyzed in order to get suitable way of the characters to present politeness.
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a. What types of tact maxim are used by the characters in “Monsters University” movie?
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b. What factors influences the tact maxim applied by the characters in “Monsters University” movie?
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a. To identify the types of tact maxim used by the characters in “Monsters
University” movie.
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b. To describe the factors which influence the tact maxim applied by the characters
in “Monsters University” movie.
The data in this study were taken from the utterance between the characters in the “Monsters University” movie released in June 21th 2013 in US. The method of collecting the data is documentation method. The data were collected by using some following steps. Firstly, by watching, listening and reading the movie script and secondly trying to find the data which contain tact maxim. After that, analyzing the data using the descriptive method. Furthermore, the technique of analyzing the data was done by classifying the data which contained only tact maxim. Then, analyzing the data based on Kreidler’s theory, and clarifying the influencing factors such as age, gender, social status and kinship terms.
Directive (Command, request, suggestion)
Example 1: “No, it’s totally great, you gotta use it.”
This conversation happens in the dormitory, when Mike tries to open the door of his room. Mike sees the black shadow in that room. Apparently, Randy is hiding in the shadow. Suddenly, the students drop the box to Randy. Then, Randy disappears. Actually, he considers it a joke and he is not confident to use it in scaring program. Here, Mike says, “No, it’s totally great, you gotta use it”.
Mike’s utterance means that he delivers a command to Randy. The meaning of command is that the speaker has the authority to express a wish that the addressee should (not) act as the speaker wants the addressee (not) to act. In this case, the word “gotta” means Mike is in the authority to express a wish that Randy should act as he wants. Mike expresses a command to Randy because he wants Randy to use it in the
scaring program. Besides, Mike expresses some degree of control over the actions of the listener (Randy) by producing the imperative word.
Example 2: “Please give me some sugar”
All the monsters do the meeting in Squishy’s house. In several minute meeting, Don gives some coffee to each monster. Suddenly, he forgets to put some sugar in the coffee. Than, he asks Squishy to get some sugar in the kitchen by uttering, “Please give me some sugar”. Squishy gives positive response that he does not reject Don’s request by saying “Okay dad”.
Don uses directive form (requesting) in his sentence. Request is an expression of what the speaker wants the listener to do. In this case, Don wants Squishy to give him some sugar in the kitchen. He uses the word “give” to ask Squishy to do what he wants. On the other hand, Don uses the word “Please” because he knows that he cannot control over the listener (Squishy) and also to avoid rejection.
Example 3: “Stay outta trouble, wild man!”
This conversation happens in the class room, when Mike pines up his calendar and covers the scare games flayer. Meanwhile, Randy tries to clean up his table after he makes cupcakes. Suddenly, Randy tells him to join a fraternity and sorority party. Otherwise, mike refuses to join that party because he knows that they are having a final exam on December. To refuse to join the party, Mike tries to present a suggestion by saying, “Stay outta trouble, wild man!”
Mike’s statement “Stay outta trouble” means that he expresses a suggestion to Randy to study before the final scaring. Mike presents two kinds of expression, a positive expression (advise) and negative expression (warn) by saying, “Stay outta trouble, wild man!” to Randy. It indicates that he does not want something bad to happen (fails the exam) to himself and also Randy.
Commisive (promise)
Example 4: “I’m gonna win the race for us.”
All of the team gathers to start the scare games. When the senior gives the cue, suddenly Squishy asks Mike if he realizes that his opponent has considerable experience in the scare games. Confidently Mike answers that question firmly. Mike believes that his team can be the winner in this game by saying, “I’m gonna win the race for us”.
The utterance “I’m gonna win the race for us” is the commissive utterance (promising). Mike commits himself by promising to win the games competition for the team. It shows that the word “gonna” as the predicate and “I” as the subject of the sentence. Besides, the verb “gonna” as a commissive predicate shows that Mike purposes to commit oneself to do an action by himself to some future action.
Factors Influencing Tact Maxim
Age
Example 1: “Would you give me that letter?!”
The conversation above happens in the living room. Don is in a hurry from the living room to the front of Mike`s room when he gets a letter. When Don tries to open the letter, suddenly Mike expresses a request by saying “Would you give me that letter?”. In this case, Mike is younger than Don and he tries to be polite to Don (older).
The word “Would” describes that the younger speaker (Mike) has to speak politely to the older listener (Don). The speaker shows that the younger speaker has to speak politely to the older listener (Holmes,1992). The factor of age really gives an impact to people who have different ages between them. When Mike asks for something to Don, he says in polite way because he knows that Don is older than him.
Kinship term
Example 2: Ms. Quibbles: Sweetie, turn on the light on while you’re down here. You’re going to ruin your eyes
Squishy : Mom, we’re doing an initiation
The conversation above occurs in the basement of Squishy’s house. In the basement, a super bright light comes on, fulfills the basement with light. Ms.Quibbles (Squishy’s mom) comes down the stairs to carry a basket of laundry. In this case, their relation is close. Ms. Quibbles as mother of Squishy wants to express a command to her
son by saying "Sweetie, turn the lights on while you're down here. You're going to ruin your eyes ".
Kinship term is considered a system of social relationship that is expressed in a biological idiom, using the terms like “Mother”, “Son” and soon (Tonkinson (1991: 57). In this case, the words “Sweetie” and “Mom” mean that there is a system of social relationship that is expressed in biological idiom. It can be seen that the word “Sweetie” means Ms. Quibbles as the mother of Squishy wants to express love to her son. Furthermore, the word “Mom” shows when son or daughter wants to call their mother.
Social Status
Example 3: “Okay, Professor”
Prof. Knight and the students are sitting in the classroom to begin the scaring class. Then Prof. Knight asks the students to take out the book under the table. After that, he tells the students to open the book by saying “Open the chapter one”. Then the students give a good response by uttering “Okay Professor”.
Social status is divided into three classes such as, high class, middle class and low class. In this case, the students are in low class. Low class refers to the people who do not get enough education or just graduated from elementary and junior high school (Holmes, 1995). In this case, the students realize that they come from the lower class that is why they produce the word “Professor” to respect the people that come from the highest level.
Based on the findings, there are two types of tact maxim used by the characters such as directive and commissive. The data consist of 20 conversations expressing directive and commissive. Directive utterance found 14 utterances consisting of command (6), request (6) suggestion (5). It can be found in the conversation that the speakers who want to get the hearer to do something always use directive utterances.
Besides, the commissive utterance found 3 utterances. It shows that the speakers who want to commit to future action always produce commissive utterance to the listener.
Based on the result of the discussion, there are some factors which influence the tact maxim. From the data analyzed, the participants choose some words to respect each other depending on their age, kinship term and social status.
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