INDIRECT COMMISSIVE ACTS USED BY MAIN AND SECONDARY CHARACTER IN TITANIC MOVIE
on
INDIRECT COMMISSIVE ACTS USED BY MAIN AND SECONDARY CHARACTER IN TITANIC MOVIE
Ida Ayu Gede Tresna Noviyanti
Jurusan Sastra Inggris Fakultas Sastra Unud
Abstrak:
Bahasa adalah alat komunikasi yang sangat penting dimanapun kita berada. Bahasa juga digunakan untuk berbagai tujuan, seperti mengexspresikan perasaan, memberikan informasi, berjanji, berterimakasih, menyapa dan mengucapkan selamat tinggal. Namun banyak juga ujaran yang disampaikan pembicara memiliki banyak maksud dan tujuan yang terkadang dapat membingungkan pendegar. Adapun beberapa teori yang digunakan dalam menganalisa jenis-jenis ujaran berdasarkan teori Hurford and Heasley yang di ambil dari sebuah buku yang berjudul Semiotic A course Book (1983:259), dan teori yang kedua milik Bach and Harnish yang di ambil dari sebuah buku yang berjudul Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts (1979:50). Menurut teori-teori yang digunakan, tindakan – tindakan commissive adalah salah satu bagian dari tindakan illocutionary yang intinya untuk mengikat pembicara akan suatu rangkaian dari beberapa tindakan di masa yang akan datang.
Language is a means of communication that is very important wherever we are. In this case language plays an important role as a media of communication in spoken and written. We use language for many purposes. We tell others what we know or think we know, we express our feelings, ask question, make request, protests, insult, apologize, promise, thank, say hello, and goodbye.
The simplest cases of meaning are those in which the speaker utters a sentence and means exactly and literally as what he says. But not all cases of meaning are so simple like that. In such cases, however, the speaker utters a sentence means as what he says but also means something else.
When the speaker says “I’m going to pay you back for that”, he could be making a promise or issuing a threat. This utterance then becomes a problem, which makes the hearer confuse because the ambiguity. It is ambiguity for the reason that this utterances does not clear whether it is a promise or a threat. There are many more of utterances that contain ambiguities. Based on the problem above, it is interesting for me to analyze other types of utterances that are found in the Titanic movie, which contain the commissive acts, particularly the utterances that reflect the indirect commissive acts.
The discussion in this study focuses on analysis the other types of utterances that are found in the Titanic movie, which contain the commissive acts, particularly the utterances that reflect the indirect commissive acts. This study analyzes the indirect commissive acts in Titanic movie, just for the character Rose Dewitt Bukater and Jack Dawson as the main character and Caledon Hockley as secondary character. The analysis of it will begin on the kinds of the utterances to perform the indirect commssive acts on that movie, especially for the main and secondary character.
This study analyzes about the kinds of the utterances to perform the indirect commissive acts and to interpret the speaker’s utterance reflected the indirect commissive acts that presented in a sentence form in the Titanic movie. When we talk about utterance, it is very important to distinguish between the sentence and the utterance because it is important to recognize what meanings are communicated to us in language and which meanings we drive from the context in which language is used. The meaning of an utterance is the meaning of the sentence plus the meaning of the circumstances: the time and place, the people involved, their backgrounds, their relationship, to one another, and what they know about one another. Another reason why we should distinguish between sentence and the utterance is to distinguish
between linguistic meanings, what is communicated by particular pieces of language, and utterance meaning, what a certain individual meant by saying such and such in a particular place, at a particular time, and to certain other individuals. Every utterance uttered by the speaker cause an effect. The effect of the utterance shows an act.
The main data was taking directly from the sentence conversation and dialog in the script Titanic movie which is directed, written and produced in 1997 by Cameron distributed by 20th century FOX about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. In this study, the data were collected by documentary methods. In this process, the data were collected by watching the movie first and then the sentences that were appearing in the movie were analyzed and identified the indirect commissive act. Lastly when some corpus data were collected, they will be classified into certain categories. In analyzing data in this study, deductive-inductive method was used. After the data were collected it is classify into five parts: indirect commissive acts for promising, indirect commissive acts for offering, indirect commissive acts for volunteering, indirect commissive acts for threatening and lastly indirect commissive acts for inviting.
Commissive acts are the acts of obligating oneself to do something specified in the prepositional content, which may also specify condition under which the deed is to be done or does not have to be done. In committing oneself to do something, one expresses the intention to do something and the belief that one’s utterance commits one to do it, at least under the condition specified or mutually believed to be relevant.
Reminded again that promises are what the speaker promise to the hearer to do an action or something that the speaker believes can do from what the speaker promise to the hearer. The act of promise is used by the speaker who promises something to the hearer and the hearer hopes the speaker will fulfill with what the speaker said.
- “We will drink a cheap beer, ride on the roller coaster, and then we ride horse on the beach, right in the surf…(Jack Dawson), The utterance in the above sentence reflect indirect act of promising because the speaker made his attention implicitly by choosing a modal will rather than a per formative verb promise to make a promise. Jack by his utterance uses declarative utterance in getting the hearer, Rose, to believe that he will bring her to a new world that she had never experienced during her life. In uttering the act of promising, of course, he has an aim or point. She realizes that the young man, Jack has an interesting journey in his life. And she wants to get an interesting life like that. It is a reason why she believes that he will give the new experiences that he had never felt before.
Offering is used by the speaker in order to offer something to the hearer and in this case believes can do it. In uttering expression, speaker offers to do something to the hearer if speaker expresses the belief that speaker’s utterance obligates him to do something on condition that hearer indicate he wants speaker to do something.
- “Could I speak you in private?” (Rose Dewitt Bukater)
In uttering could I speak you in private, the speaker performs indirect act of offering. The speaker’s utterance has a meaning of offering because speaker offer something to the hearer. The speaker (Rose) offers the hearer to do a serious conversation.
According to the text in the movie, the speaker (Rose) is very thankful for what he did, not just for saved her life but also for his discretion. She wants to tell him about the misery that she is felt. She wants to share all about her life and her problems to someone who assists her when she almost falls from the top of ship.
Referring back to the response given by the hearer, it seems that the interrogative sentence uttered by the speaker is fully understood by the hearer and interpreted as an offer for him to have a private conversation. Therefore, Rose’s
intention is recognized by Jack, it makes Rose linguistically succeeds in communication.
The act of volunteering is used by the speaker in order to give a help to the hearer and the speaker believe can do it. Bach and Harnish said that volunteer is the act when the speaker offers services. In this case the speaker offers services for the hearer.
-
- “Take my hand and I’ll pull you back in.” (Jack Dawson)
From the utterance above, we can say that the utterance shows the commissive act. In uttering “Take my hand, I’ll pull you back,” the speaker is not just asserting the hearer, but also reflects the indirect act of volunteering. Speaker’s utterances consider as a volunteer act because the speaker offers his service for the hearer. The one who perform the above utterance is a man named Jack Dawson to a woman named Rose Dewitt Bukater.
Allan said that when hearer would prefer speaker not doing action to his doing action, the promise is consider as a threat. It means that the act of threatening is used by the speaker to threat the hearer from the action that the hearer does not want the speaker does the action.
-
- “If you let go, I’ll jump in after you”. (Jack Dawson )
Referring to the utterances (1), we can say that the utterances indicates commissives act. In uttering “If you let go, I’ll jump in after you.” the speaker expresses the indirect act of threatening. The uses of will in the above utterance reflect the act of threatening because the speaker threats the hearer from the action that the hearer does not want the speaker does it. The person who performs this utterance is a
man named Jack Dawson to a woman named Rose Dewitt Bukater. The speaker (Jack) performs the indirect act of threatening because the speaker orders the hearer (Rose) to not jump and threats that he will jump into the sea after in if the hearer does not obey him. Jack knows her weakness and he wants to get an advantage from it. That’s why he makes a threat to her.
The act of inviting is used when the speaker request hearer’s presence and promises acceptance of his presence. As mentioned above, a declarative utterance and an interrogative utterance either can be used in performing the commissive act. In performing the act of inviting, the form of declarative and interrogative can also be used.
-
- “Perhaps you could join us for dinner tomorrow…”(Cal Hockley)
In uttering “Perhaps you could join us for dinner tomorrow…” the speaker’s (Cal Hockley) reflects the indirect act of inviting. It reflects the act of inviting because the speaker requests the hearer presence and promises acceptance of his presence. The one who performs this act is a man called Cal Hockley to Jack Dawson. The speaker, Cal Hockley, in his utterance tries to invite the hearer (Jack) because he saved her fiancé (Rose) when she want to suicide herself by jump to the sea. Cal by his utterance succeeds in performing the act of inviting because Jack recognizes his intention as an inviting for him to join for the dinner tomorrow.
Conclusion is short description on the analysis of the main topic in the writing. Based on the analysis of indirect commissive acts that is given in the previous, there are some principal things that were concluded.
The first, the word “will” and “going to” can be used in the utterance to perform the act of promising. The word “will” is used to perform a possible promise and the word “going to” is used to perform definite promise. Secondly, to perform the
act of promising, threatening and volunteering the subject must be in first singular person (I) or first plural person (we). The third, in performing the indirect commissive acts we can use a declarative form and an interrogative form to convey our intention. However, in the analysis find that in performing the act of offering and inviting either two forms can be used while in performing the act of promising, threatening and volunteering, it takes declarative form only. Referring to my analysis in “Titanic” movie, it can conclude that the kinds of the utterances to perform the indirect commissive acts that can be found are the indirect act in the utterances for promising, the indirect act in the utterances for offering the indirect act in the utterances for threatening, the indirect act in the utterances for volunteering and the indirect act in the utterances for inviting.
References
Allan, Keith.1986. “Linguistic Meaning Volume 2”. London: Routledge&Kegan Paul Inc.
Alston, W. P. 2000. “Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning”. Available from: www.google.com
Bach, Kent&R.M. Harnish, 1979. “Linguistic communication and speech acts”. United States of America: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Cameron, James. 1997. “Titanic Screenplay”. Available from: www.titanic-titanic.com/titanic_screenplay.shtml
Crystal, David. 1985. “A Dictionary of Linguistic and Phonetics”. Oxpord: Basil Blackwell Ltd.
Hurford, J.R. & B. Heasley. 1983. “Semantic A Course Book". Great Britain: Cambridge University Press.
Searle, John R 1969. “Speech Acts An Essay in the Philosophy of Language”. Great Britain. Cambridge University Press.
8
Discussion and feedback