FELICITY CONDITION OF WOMEN’S ILLOCUTIONS IN THE NOVEL STAND BY ME
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FELICITY CONDITION OF WOMEN’S ILLOCUTIONS IN THE NOVEL
STAND BY ME
Diah Putu Putrica Adnyasuari
English Department
Faculty of Letters and Culture Udayana University
Abstrak
Jurnal ilmiah berjudul “Felicity Condition of Women’s Illocutions in The Novel Stand By Me” ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui tipe-tipe ilokusi yang ditemukan dalam novel tersebut dan juga mengetahui apakah sebuah ujaran yg diucapkan oleh seorang pembicara tersebut tepat atau tidak. Studi ini membatasi pembahasannya hanya pada ujaran yang mengandung unsur bahasa wanita. Dengan demikian, pembahasan mengenai ilokusi dan ketepatannya menjadi lebih spesifik dan berbeda dari studi yang sudah membahas mengenai hal ini sebelumnya.
Untuk mengumpulkan data dari sumber data (novel), penulis menggunakan metode dokumentasi. Sementara, untuk menganalisa permasalahan yang muncul pada studi ini, penulis mengaplikasikan metode deskriptif kuantitatif karena selain menggunakan teory untuk membedah permasalahan, studi ini juga menekankan pada jumlah data yang ditemukan dari sebuah novel. Untuk menganalisa tipe-tipe ilokusi yang muncul pada novel Stand By Me, penulis menggunakan teori ilokusi yang diusulkan oleh Searle (1979). Selain itu, penulis juga menggunakan teori mengenai felicity condition yang dikemukakan oleh Austin (1962) untuk mengetahui apakah ujaran-ujaran tersebut tepat atau tidak.
Kata Kunci: women’s utterance, illocutionary acts, felicity condition.
In daily life, utterances can be easily found in our communication both in speaking form and written form. It has been known that those utterances have intended meanings which can be interpreted by people as speakers or listeners. There is a theory in pragmatics that manages the utterances being interpreted namely theory of speech act. Speech act is easily understood as a way of perform his action through
uttering words. Theoretically, aspects of utterances can be divided into three different parts; locutionary acts, illocutionary acts and perlocutionary acts. Yet this study is only concerned with the discussion of illocutionary acts.
An illocutionary act can be defined as a performance or a real action of saying or uttering something. It is closely related to the speaker’s intention such as ordering, promising, apologizing, etc. In addition to understanding the theory of illocutionary act, it is also needed to know and understand the concept of felicity condition in order to find whether an utterance is appropriate or not. Felicity condition is related to the success of speech or achievement of performative. Therefore, this study was conducted in order to know whether an utterance is appropriate or not based on the theory of felicity condition. It was conducted in accordance with the concept of felicity condition proposed by Austin (1962). This study is very interesting because the scope of study was not only on the discussion between illocutionary acts and felicity condition, but also specific on the utterances spoken by women. Women’s utterance or women’s language was chosen because it has special characteristics which are different from men’s language.
In this study, the analysis is focused on describing illocutionary acts from the utterances spoken by women and its felicity condition. Based on the background above, the research problems were formulated as follows: 1.) What types of illocutions were found in the women’s utterance in the novel Stand By Me?, 2.)How felicity condition in each of illocutionary act was described?
Specifically, the aims of conducting this study are: 1.) To find out the types of illocutions in the utterances spoken by women in the novel Stand By Me. 2.) To describe the felicity condition of women’s illocutions in the novel Stand By Me.
This study uses novel as the data source. The novel entitled Stand By Me written by famous author named Sheila O’Flanagan was chosen to be analyzed. Academically, this novel was chosen since it consists of many women’s languages which also contain of illocutionary acts and felicity condition. Tha data were selected randomly from the dialogues in chapter one until chapter three of the novel. The only several data which fulfill the requirement of illocutionary acts were chosen as sample data and further to be analyzed.
Documentation method was used in this study to collect the data. There were also some techniques applied in order to collect the data easily. First, the chapters of the novel were limited, only the first, second and third chapters were taken as sample data in this study. Then, the novel was read carefully, intensively and repeatedly in order to get the understanding of the dialogue and also get down the illocutionary acts spoken by women. Next, the technique of selecting and noting the relevant data were done in order to get the illocutions containing of features of women’s language. The data that have been selected were cited in different paper to be analyzed.
The method that has been implemented in this study was descriptive quantitative method. The term of descriptive method refers to the theory that will be applied to a given topic of a study. Meanwhile, quantitative method emphasizes on gathering numerical analysis of data collected through those three chapters of the novel. By using descriptive quantitative method, the theory could be applied to help the writer analyze all problems of this study. Meanwhile, the technique of analyzing data can be explained as follows: 1.) Identifying and classifying the types of illocutions spoken by women using theory of illocutionary acts proposed by Searle
(1979), 2.) Analyzing the felicity condition of women’s illocutions based on theory proposed by Austin (1962). In addition, a brief explanation of linguistic features of women’s language was also presented as an indication that the utterance belonged to women’s language.
Searle (1979) classified types of illocutionary acts into five types, those are are assertives, directives, commisives, expressives and declaratives. Each of them has different purpose in communication. For instance, the purpose of directive acts is to get the hearer to do something and the classes belong to this type such as commanding, ordering, etc. This journal presented one example of types of illocutionary acts found in data source. The type is assertive illocutionary acts particularly informing acts. Here is the analysis:
The data clustered as informing acts below was chosen because it contained empty adjective ‘lovely’. Empty adjective is one of women’s language features proposed by Lakoff (1975) which indicates that an utterance or sentence is a women’s language. The use of empty adjective ‘lovely’ marked how kind and attractive that guy was.
EVELYN : “I want to know what he’s like.”
DOMINIQUE : “He’s lovely. And that’s all you need to know.”
In the dialogue above, Evelyn was asking Dominique about her new boyfriend. Evelyn wanted to know what kind of guy dared to date her daughter because Dominique never introduced any guy to Evelyn before. Dominique then responded only by saying that the guy was lovely because someday Dominique would introduce him to Evelyn.
In accordance to the theory of illocutionary acts proposed by Searle (1979) that the purpose of assertive acts is to commit the speaker (in varying degrees) to something being the case, to the truth of the expressed propositions. By looking at the essence of assertive acts proposed by Searle (1979), the utterance above committed
Dominique as speaker to the truth of expressed proposition to give information about what Evelyn needed to know. Thus, this utterance can be clustered as assertive acts particularly informing acts.
Furthermore, to answer the problem number two in this study, the theory of felicity condition proposed by Austin (1962) was applied. Linguistic literature concerning the theory of speech acts often deals with Austin’s example of marriage in connection with felicity conditions. Felicity condition itself is defined as the condition that must be fulfilled in order to make happy or successful utterances. Austin (1962) proposed the theory of felicity condition that an utterance can be counted as successful act if the speaker fulfills the condition as felicity condition. Those conditions are preparatory content condition, preparatory condition, sincerity condition and essential condition. Here is the way to describe felicity condition of informing acts below to know whether it is felicitous or not:
EVELYN : “I want to know what he’s like.”
DOMINIQUE : “He’s lovely. And that’s all you need to know.”
The Felicity Condition:
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a. Propositional Content Condition : Dominique would try to give information about her boyfriend to Evelyn.
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b. Preparatory Condition : Evelyn asked Dominique about her boyfriend.
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c. Sincerity Condition : Dominique believed Evelyn would know little
information about Brendan.
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d. Essential Condition : It was counted as an attempt of Dominique to give information to Evelyn.
In order to be felicitous, the speaker must fulfill all the conditions as felicity condition. As can be seen, the propositional content condition was made by Dominique based on her willingness to give information to Evelyn. Dominique also fulfilled the preparatory condition based on the situation that Evelyn asked Dominique about her new boyfriend. The sincerity condition was also fulfilled by Dominique. Dominique believed that Evelyn would know a little bit about Brendan
after being told by her. And the last, essential condition was fulfilled by Dominique by uttering the act of informing above. This utterance would be infelicitous if the hearer did not ask the information or if the speaker uttered the utterance to the wrong person. By considering the condition fulfilled by Dominique above, thus, it can be called appropriate or felicitous.
From five types of illocutionary acts proposed by Searle (1979), there are only four types of illocutionary acts found in this study. Yet, only assertive type was presented in this journal as a representative of data. By looking to the point or purpose of an utterance and regard it to the point of each type of illocutionary act, it can be easy to cluster an utterance into the types of illocutionary acts. Meanwhile, to know whether an utterance is felicitous or not, the theory of felicity condition proposed by Austin (1962) can be used to analyze it. In order to be felicitous, the participants must fulfill the condition as felicity condition. The example presented above is felicitous because the participants fulfill those four conditions.
Austin, J.L..1962. How to do Things with Words. London: Oxford University Press.
Lakoff, Robin. 1975. Language and Woman’s Place. New York: Harper and Row Publiser.
O'Flanagan, Sheila. 2010. Stand By Me. London: HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
Searle, Johm. L.. 1979. Expression and Meaning: Studies in Theory of Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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