Illocutionary Act of Modal Auxiliary Can In HBO Series Game of Thrones
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DOI: 10.24843/JH.2018.v22.i03.p20 ISSN: 2302-920X
Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Unud
Vol 22.3 Agustus 2018: 704-709
Illocutionary Act of Modal Auxiliary Can In HBO Series Game of Thrones
Dewi Zahra1*, I Gusti Ngurah Parthama2
[12]English Department, Faculty of Arts, Udayana University 1[Email:[email protected]], 2[Email:[email protected]] *Corresponding Author
Abstract
This study is entitled Illocutionary Acts of Modal Auxiliary Can in HBO Series Game of Thrones. This study is aimed at analyzing and classifying the types of illocutionary act and its force through the modal auxiliary can in Game of Throne Series. Besides, this study also tries to explain the context of situation that supports the illocutionary act in Game of Throne Series.The library research was used to collect the data which carried modal auxiliary can from the TV series and descriptive qualitative method was used to analyze the data. The Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts proposed by Searle (1979) about classification of illocutionary act was used to classify the data and classify them to the types of the acts with the purpose to know the force of the illocutionary acts. Theory of context of situation proposed by Halliday was applied to show how the context of situation (field of discourse, tenor of discourse, and mode of discourse) support the illocutionary acts found in Game of Throne Series.The result of the analysis showed that there were five types of illocutionary acts found in Game of Throne Series, they are; assertive, directive, commissive, expressive, and declarative. The forces found in the analysis are; suggesting, telling, stating, asking, entreating, promising, attitudes, refusing, intending, complaining, defying, and declaring.
Keywords: modal auxiliary can, illocutionary acts, force, context of situation
Abstrak
Penelitian ini berjudul ilokusi dan makna tersiratnya melalui kata bantu Can dalam Serial Game of Thrones. Selain itu, penelitian ini juga menjelaskan konteks situasi yang mendukung tindakan ilokusi dalam Serial Game of Thrones. Penelitian kepustakaan digunakan untuk mengumpulkan data yang membawa kata bantu Can dalam serial televisi dan metode deskriptif kualitatif digunakan untuk menganalisis data. Teori Taksonomi dalam Tindak Ilokusi Illocutionary Acts of Modal Auxiliary Can in HBO Series Game of Thrones. Penelitian inibertujuan untuk menganalisis dan mengklasifikasi jenis tindakan yang diusulkan oleh Searle (1979) tentang klasifikasi tindakan ilokusi yang digunakan untuk mengklasifikasi data serta mengklasifikasi data tersebut menjadi bagian dalam jenis-jenis tindakan dengan tujuan untuk mengetahui makna tersirat dalam tindak ilokusi. Teori konteks situasi yang diusulkan oleh Halliday (1989) digunakan untuk menunjukkan bagaimana konteks situasi (ranah wacana, pelaku wacana, dan wacana yang dibicarakan) mendukung tindak ilokusi yang ditemukan dalam Serial Game of Thrones. Hasil dari penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ada lima jenis tindak ilokusi yang ditemukan dalam Serial Game of Thrones, yaitu asertif, direktif, komisif, ekspresif, dan deklaratif. Makna tersirat yang ditemukan dalam penelitian ini adalah; menyarankan, memberi tahu, menyatakan, meminta, memohon, berjanji, bersikap, menolak, berniat, mengeluh, menentang, dan mendeklarasikan.
Kata kunci: kata bantu Can, tindak ilokusi, makna tersirat, konteks situasi.
According to Yule (1996:4), the advantage of studying language through pragmatics is that one can speak about people’s intended meanings, their assumptions, their purposes or goals, and the kinds of action that they are performing when they speak. In other words, pragmatics is the study about the meaning of the context between the speaker and hearer. The people apply pragmatics because they have certain purposes, implicit or explicit in doing communication. By understanding the implicit meaning of the utterance, they will get more information that is unmentioned.
The study of pragmatics is divided into several fields; however, this study only focuses on speech act. Yule (1996:9) said that speech act is the study of the relationship between linguistic forms and the users of those forms. In other words, speech act is the utterance which speaker says or speaker performs in every speech. Speech act performs when people make utterances such as apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation, compliment, or refusal.
Austin (1962) classified speech act into 3 levels: (i) locutionary act or the act of saying something, (ii) illocutionary act or an act the speakers intend to do something by producing an utterance, and (iii) perlocutionary act or the act done by the hearers affected by what the speakers have said.
Illocutionary act is considered to be the core of speech acts. It is closely related with the speakers’ intention. It is the act of making a statement, command, promise, offer, apologize, and declare. This act divided into 5 categories namely assertive, directive, commissive, expressive and declarative (Searle 1979).
The studyabout modal auxiliary can be used in the content of illocutionary act. Every day people may speak or
writing consisting of the modal can, and some of those act may refer to speech act, especially illocutionary act. There are some definitions of the modal verb can according to The Oxford English Dictionary; expressing ability,
permission, possibility, contingency, and requests.
Therefore, this study is also intended to find out what type of illocutionary act is used through modal auxiliary can and how does context of situation support the illocutionary act in the dialogue between the characters in HBO Series Game of Throne. Based on the understanding the detail of what is being said, we can understand the story more and the way the characters communicate there
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a) What types of illocutionary act and their force are identified through modal can in Game of Thrones Series?
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b) What is the context of situation that supports the illocutionary act in Game of Thrones Series?
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a) To analyze and classify the types of illocutionary act and their force through modal canin Game of ThronesSeries.
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b) To explain the context of situation that supports the illocutionary act in Game of Thrones Series.
In the research method, there are four elements referring to the problems already formulated, namely: data source, method and technique of collecting data, method and technique of analyzing data, and method and technique of presenting analysis. These methods are described as follows:
The data in this study were taken from an American fantasy drama television series broadcasted in HBO Channel US entitled Game of Thrones. It consists of ten episodes in each season, and each episode lasts approximately for 55 minutes. The series is based onA Game of Thrones, the first novel in A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, adapted for television by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss.The first season of Game of Thrones was chosen as a data source in this study because it has an interesting plot as the beginning of the all the existing seasons and also containing many items related to the topic in this study that is the object of analysis; namely, illocutionary acts with modal auxiliary can.
The method of collecting data was documentation method. The techniques of collecting data in this study were watching, reading, and note taking. First, the data were collected by watching the TV series and listening carefully in order to comprehend the utterance and to see relationship between one character to another character. Second, reading the script play in order to catch the missing words. Third, selecting the relevant data by note-taking of the dialogue or utterance through modal auxiliary can and which is relevant with illocutionary acts.The chosen data were collected usingthe simple random sampling from the theory probability. The data were chosen randomly based on their type of the illocutionary acts and the context of situation.
The descriptive qualitative method was used to analyze the collected data in
this study by inserting the utterance which using the modal auxiliary can. The first problem was analyzing and classifying using the Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts proposed by Searle (1979), whether they are considered as assertive, directive, commissive,
expressive, or declarative illocutionary acts. The second problem was analyzing using the context of situation proposed by Halliday (1989). It was needed to describe the situation that made the force occur.
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4.4 Method and Technique of Presenting Result of Data Analysis
This study used descriptive qualitative method in presenting the analysis. In order to answer the problems of this study, first the data which containthe modal canwere classified into the types of illocutionary acts based on Taxonomy of Illocutionary Act’s theory proposed by Searle (1979). Second, the analysis of the data were explained descriptively based on the related theory by Searle (1979). Last, the context of situation of each data that support the illocutionary acts was explained descriptively using the context of situation theory proposed by Halliday (1989).
The following five analysis present which types are applied by the speaker in the TV Series.
S : “If this news is true, and the
Lannisters conspire against the throne,who but you can protect the king?”
H1 : “They murdered the last Hand. Now you want Ned to take the job?”
The use of modal can in utterance above shows the asking for ability of the hearer to be hand of the king. In 1976, Searle stated that assertive acts have the point of the purpose to commit the speaker to the truth of expressed preposition, and thus carry a truth-value. The speaker expressed their belief. The utterance above can be categorized as assertive illocutionary act because the speaker expressed his belief that no one accepted the hearer who was able to protect the king.
The illocutionary force of utterance above shows the act of suggesting. The speaker implicitly suggested the hearer to accept the offer to be hand of the king. The speaker thought that he needed to suggest the hearer because the other hearers did not support the speaker to be hand of the king.
H : “Yes.”
The use of modal can in the above utterance shows possibility of the hearer to teach the speaker. There was a condition at the moment where the speaker asked for help to get the information from the hearer about her husband. Indirectly, the speaker intended the hearer to do further action, that was helping teach the speaker to make her husband happy. The point of this utterance was appropriate with the point of directive type which attempted the speaker to get the hearer to do something (Searle:1979).
The speaker asked for help because her husband was a grumpy man even with his wife. Thus, the speaker thought of the way to make him become a better person than before. Eventually, she asked for some information and was helped by the hearer to do that. Therefore, it was
clear that the force of the utterance was an asking from the speaker to the hearer.
S : “There must always be a Stark at
Winterfell. Until I return that will be you. You are not to leave the castle walls while we are gone. Do you understand? Listen to Maester Luwin. Look after your little brother.”
H : “I will”
S : “I'll send letters whenever I
can, but if you don't hear from me, don't be scared.”
The modal can in the utterance shows possibilities of the speaker to send letters to the hearer. The utterance performed by the speaker can be simply understood as a promise. This act whose point is commit the speaker to some future course of action (Searle:1979), in this case, to send the letters to the hearer. By saying about his intend, indirectly the speaker promised to send letters whenever he had a chance or time in a war.
The speaker felt to need to promise thehearer to make him calm down and relaxed.The hearer asked to join the war when the speaker farewell to him but it was impossible because he paralyzed after falling from the tower. Thus the speaker prohibited him and said some advices and promised before he went to the war.
H : “And my son... Help him, Ned.
Make him better than me.”
S : “I'll... I'll do everything I can
to honor your memory.”
The use of the modal can in the utterance shows the ability of the speaker to do what the hearer wanted. This utterance can be simply understood as an expressive act because the
utteranceshows an attitude of the speaker
to the hearer as the king. According to Searle (1979), the illocutionary point of expressive type is to express the psychological state. In this case, the speaker expressed his appreciation by showing his attitudes to honor the king’s memory.
When the hearer was dying, he wanted the speaker to do what he asked to make his son to be a better person, and then the speaker showed his attitude to do what his king wanted to honor his kindness at the past time. An attitude must be uttered in a polite way in order to show the sincerity of the speaker to receive a request from his king. Nevertheless, this utterance can be also seen as a promising depends on the social status or level of the speaker.
H : “What if it comes back to him?
If he tells his father what he saw...”
S : “We’ll say he was lying. We’ll
say he was dreaming. We’ll say whatever we like. I think we can outfox a 10-year-old.”
The use of the modal can in the utterance shows the ability of the speaker and the hearer to outfox a 10-year-old child. The utterance above belongs to declarative illocutionary act since the speaker was able to change the state of affair in the world through the utterance. The speaker stated that a 10-year-old only a child who could be fooled by cheating on it. Further, future action was not needed to do by the hearer because she only listened to the statement from the hearer. The speaker believed that something bad would never happen to them because a ten-years-old child wasimpossible to do that.
After the dark affair of the speaker and the hearer got caught by Brandon Stark, they did not think that Brandon Stark was alive after the speaker thrown
him from the tower. They both felt panicked and were making other plans to kill Bran again.
In analyzing the intended meaning of an utterance, knowing the context is very important because the only one who knows the real meaning of an utterance is the speaker itself.Context of situation that supports the intended meaning consists of three elements; they are field of discourse, tenor of discourse, and mode of discourse.
S : “Don't you think it's a little bit
unfair? Making us take our vowswhile they sneak off for a little sally on the side? It's silly, isn't it? What, we can't defend the wall unless we're celibate? It’s absurd.”
H : “I didn't think you'd be so upset
about it.”
The field of discourse in the theory context of situation proposed by Halliday (1989) refers to subject matter in a conversation. The conversation above took place in the armory of the Night Watch House. The speaker and the hearer being punished by their commander for cleaning up those rooms because of what the hearer did to other trainer before. It made the speaker started to complain because he thought it was unfair for him.
Tenor of discourse analyzed the participants in a conversation. The speaker in the utterance above is SamwellTarly and the hearer is Jon Snow. Both of them were trainers to be the Rangers of The Night’s Watch. They were trained until they could fight to defend the Wall and patrol the Haunted Forest. The speaker was a new member in The Night’s Watch recruited randomly by his commander when hunting in the forest. Because of fat and weak, he was often mocked by other trainers in The
Night’s Watch. But the hearer always defended him out of pity for him.
Mode of discourse in context of situation analyzed the language used by the speaker in uttering his or her utterance. The indirect illocution performed by the speaker is classified as declarative type of complaining act. The characteristic of the utterance is argumentative because the speaker actually told the hearer that he felt treated unfair by the officer of The Night’s Watch. Because he knew for a fact that some of the officers in The Night’s Watch went to the brothel in the town whereas they made him and other trainers to take the vows to celibate to be men of the Night’s Watch. It is known that the belief of the Night Watch was that keeping the Wall must be a bachelor so that the Wall could nolbe passed by the enemies.
Through the analysis of the utterance based on what this study found in the HBO Series entitled Game of Thrones,related to answer the research problems of this study. This study can be concluded as follows:
Firstly, there are five types of illocutionary acts found in Game of Thrones. They are assertive, directive, commissive, expressive, and declarative. The analyzed data did not only look into the word of the modal auxiliary can but also through the whole utterance and context which used and carried modal auxiliary can. All the types found through the way of classifying the force of the utterance. Classifying the forces of the utterance uttered by the speaker is important to determine the point of purpose of the utterance. The forces found in the analysis are; suggesting, telling, stating, asking, entreating, promising, attitudes, refusing, intending, complaining, defying, and declaring. This
process is aimed to determine which one of the force belongs to types of illocutionary acts.
Secondly, the context of situation is related to the speech act conditions; it influences the appearances of these acts because it influences the speaker to utter the acts using field, tenor, and mode. Besides, speech act conditions were really useful to analyze the meaning of the utterance because they also explain the condition and situation surrounding the participants; therefore, the five types of illocutionary act can be found. The context of situation which supports the appearance of those five acts are; field of the situation, tenor of the situation, and mode of situation.
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Bach, Kent & Harnish, R. M. 1979.
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Halliday, M.A.K. and Ruqaiya Hasan.
1989. Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. Victoria: Deakin University
Searle, John R. 1979. Expression and Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Searle, John R. 1969. Speech Act: An Essay in the Philosophy of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
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