INDIRECT COMMISSIVE ACTS IN VIRGINIA ANDREWS’S IF THERE BE THORNS
on
1
INDIRECT COMMISSIVE ACTS IN VIRGINIA ANDREWS’S IF THERE BE THORNS
I GustiAyuPutuRadhitaNindyaSaraswati
JurusanSastraInggrisFakultasSastraUdayana
Abstrak:
Bahasa, baik lisan maupun tulisan, sangatlah penting bagi manusia. Setiap orang sangat memerlukan bahasa untuk berinteraksi dengan yang lain di setiap situasi dan mengekspresikan perasaan dan mewakili satu kata dalam lisan maupun tulisan. Namun banyak juga ujaran yang disampaikan pembicara memiliki banyak maksud dan tujuan. Adapun beberapa teori yang digunakan dalam menganalisa ujaran berdasarkan teori milik Bach and Harnish yang di ambil dari sebuah buku yang berjudul Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts (1979:50), dan teori yang kedua milik Keith Allan yang di ambil dari sebuah buku yang berjudul Linguistic Meaning(1986:195). Menurut teori-teori yang digunakan, tindakan illocutionary menjelaskan tindakan apa yang dilakukan pembicara dalam mengujarkan ujaran kepada pendengar dalam suatu konteks. Tidakan – tidakan commissive adalah salah satu bagian dari tindakan illocutionary yang intinya untuk mengikat sipembicara akan suatu rangkaian beberapa tindakan di masa yang akan datang. Dalam mengungkapkan jenis tindakan – tindakan itu dapat dilakukan secara langsung dan tidak langsung. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian, dapat dijelaskan bahwa jenis – jenis tindakan tidak langsung commissive yang ditemukan dalam sumber data adalah tindakan tidak langsung commissive untuk berjanji yang diujarkan menggunakan struktur will+be going to dan disampaikan dalam bentuk pernyataan, tindakan tidak langsung commissive untuk menawarkan yang disampaikan dalam bentuk pernyataan dan pernyataan, tindakan tidak langsung commissive untuk bersukarela yang disampaikan dalam bentuk pernyataan, tindakan tidak langsung commissive untuk mengancam yang menggunakan struktur will dan disampaikan dalam bentuk pernyataan, dan yang terakhir tindakan tidak langsung commissive untuk mengundang yang disampaikan dalam bentuk pernyataan dan pernyataan.
Kata kunci :Commissive, Speech Act, Indirect
Language, both written and spoken, is very important to human being. People need language for interaction with others in every situation. Through language one can express felling and represent one’s thought into words both spoken and written language. Certain people use different kinds of language for transferring their impression about something.
We do not speak merely to exercise our vocal cords. Generally, the reason we say what we say when we say it is to communicate something to those we areaddressing. That is, in saying something a person has a certain intention, and the act of communicating succeeds only if the hearer recognizes that intention.
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 confused because of the ambiguity. It is ambiguity for the reason that this utterance is not clear whether it is a promise or a threat. There are many more 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.
Discussing about commissive actsis very wide and complex, so I will limit this topic on the utterances that indicate indirect commissive acts as a part of the illocutionary acts. The study is only concerned with the kinds of the utterances to perform the indirect commissive acts found in the novel entitled If There be Thorns and types of sentences the utterances expressed found in the novel.
Every scientific paper should have its certain aims. This paper has three main aims, which are: general aim, specific aim, and academic aim. The study is carried out in order to get an experience in conducting a research. Besides, I also need to know more about the application of the theory that I have got when I studied in the campus. Specifically, the second aim of this writing is done to know some factors influencing the success of both the speaker and the hearer in communication. More over, it is important to observe the relationof the sentence type and the massage intended by the speaker through his utterance. Therefore, the ability in communicating and interpreting the function of utterances in speech acts could be improved. Finally the academic aim of this writing is to fulfillthe last academic requirement in obtaining a Sarjana Degree (S1) in the English Department, Faculty of Letters,Udayana University.
The data in this study were secondary data, therefore there was no respondent who formally involved. The data were collected from some English conversations found in novel Virginia Andrew’s If There be Thorns. They are two methods of
research which were commonly conducted, library and field research. Firstly, collecting the novel as the data source in order to find out the examples that are related to the topic. Secondly, it is related to the technique that is applied in collecting data. Afterwards, they were selected in order to find out some corpus data. Lastly, when the corpus data were collected, they were classified into certain categories. In analyzing data in this study, deductive-inductive method was used. After the data were collected, it was classified into five parts: indirect commissive acts for promising, indirect commissive acts for offering, indirect commisive acts for volunteering, indirect commisive acts for threatering and lastly indirect commessive acts for inviting. In presenting the analysis, informal technique was used, that is, giving the explanation in descriptive and narrative way.
In general commissive act is any illocutionary act, which essentially involves the speaker commitinghimselfto behave in some required way, such as: promising and offering. The data were taken from a novel by Virginia Andrews “If There be Thorns”. In analyzing the data below, I will try to interpret the speaker’s utterances that reflect the indirect commissive acts from the speaker and the hearer point of view. The data are presented in sentences. My analysis of utterances that reflect the acts of indirect commissive is presented in the subsequent below.
The utterances to express indirect act of promising are constructed with such word (s) as “will” and “going to”. Declarative sentences can be used in promises. The utterances expressing the act of promising using the world “will” conveyed in the declarative sentences form, as seen in the following data, are:
-
1. “Come back tomorrow if you want, and bring Jory with you. I’ll have whatever you want….(Andrews, 1981:45)”
-
2. I’ll come over everyday and pay you a visit or even two or three (Andrews, 1981:46)”
From the view point of its structure, all the utterance above are constructed by the word (s) “will”. From data (1), we can see that the utterances indicatecommissive act. The utterances in the above sentence reflects indirect act of promising because the speaker made his intention implicitly by choosing a modal will rather than a performative verb promise to make a promise. The use of modal will in the sentence above has a meaning of promises to the hearer, because the speaker promises something to the hearer and the hearer hopes speaker will fulfill with what speaker’s said. In data (2), we can state that the utteranceexpresses commissive act. In uttering I’ll come over everyday and pay you a visit or even two or three, the speaker performs indirect act of promising.
Offering is used by the speaker in order to offer something to the hearer. In performing indirect commissive of offer it may also take form interrogative. The following data are the examples of commissive act in the utterances that reflect the indirect act of offering in declarative form.
“Your brother was here and has depleted our supply of ice cream but I can offer you a cola drink and cake or cookies(Andrews. 1981:63)”
Referring to the utterance above, we can state that the utterance indicates the commissive act. In uttering I can offer you a cola drink and cake or cookies, the speaker performs indirect act of offering. The speaker’s utterance has a meaning of offering because the speaker offers something to the hearer. The act
performed by the speaker is considered indirect because in uttering her utterance the speaker is not explicitly expressing her intention.
The act of volunteering is used by the speaker in order to give a help to the hearer and the speaker believes can do it. In this case, the speaker offers services for the hearer. The following data are the examples of indirect commissive act in the utterances that reflects volunteering, taken from the data source:
“…..,I can take over, and you could sit back and relax (Andrews, 1981:256)”
From the utterance above, we can say that the utterance shows the commissive act. In uttering I can take over,…., the speaker is not just asserting thehearer to take over the vechile but it also reflects the indirect act of volunteering. The speaker’s utterance is consided as a volunteer act because the speaker offers his service for the hearer.
Allan said that where hearer would prefer the speaker not doing action to his doing action, the promise is consided a threat. It means that the act of threatening is used by the speaker to threat the hearer from the action that the hearer doesn’t want the speaker does the action. Below are the data of indirect commissive act in the utterances for threatening, taken from the data source:
“I’ll pack my bags and move out before the hour is over, if that’s what
you want (Andrews, 1981:57)”
Referring to the utterance above, we can state that the utterance indicates commissive act. In uttering I’ll pack my bags and move out before the hour is over…., the speaker expresses the indirect act of threatening. The use of willreflect the act of threatening because the speaker threatsthe hearer from the action that the hearer doesn’t want the speaker does it.
In performing the act of inviting, the form of declarative and interrogative can be also be used. The following are the data of indirect commissive acts in the utterances for inviting using a declarative form taken from data source:
“Come back tomorrow if you want, and bring Jory with you (Andrews, 1981:45)”
Referering to the utterance above, we can see that the utterance belongs to commissive act. In uttering come back tomorrow if you want…., the speaker’s utterance reflects the indirect act of inviting. It reflects the act of inviting because the speaker request the hearer presence and promises acceptance of his presence. The act of inviting performed by the speaker is considered indirect because the speaker’s utterance reflect two illocutionary acts. First, the act of asserting the hearer to come back the next following day.Secondly, the act of inviting the hearer to come back the next following day. But seen from the context of the story in the novel, the act is learning as an inviting.
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.
However, in the analysis was found 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 Virginia Andrews’s If There be Thorns, 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.
Reference
Andrews, Virginia 1981. If There be Thorns. Great Britain: Cox & Wyman Ltd.
Bach, Kent & R.M. Harnish, 1979. “Linguistic communication and speech acts”.
United States of America: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Allan, Keith.1986. “Linguistic Meaning Volume 2”. London: Routledge&Kegan Paul Inc.
Kreidler, Charles W. 1998. Introducing English Semantics. Great Britain: TJ International Padstow Cornwall.
Lyons, Jhon 1997. Semantic Volume 2. London: Cambridge University Press.
Palmer, F.R. 1976. Semantic A New Outline. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press.
Thomson, A.J and A.V. Martinet 1986.A Practical English Grammar.Fourth Edition. London: Oxford University Press.
Discussion and feedback