Udayana Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, p-ISSN: 2549-6956, e-ISSN: 2621-9107

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24843/UJoSSH.2020.v04.i01.p02

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Illocutionary Acts Uttered by Ralph in Film Wreck-It Ralph

Ayu Putu Vania Myanti

English Department - Faculty of Arts - Udayana University Denpasar, Indonesia

Email: vania.myanti@gmail.com

Abstract: This study focused on the discussion of illocutionary acts uttered by the main character. This study aims to identify the functions and the illocutionary acts force uttered by Ralph in the film ‘Wreck-It Ralph’. The data were taken from a film entitled Wreck-It Ralph and its dialogue transcript. The expressions of the character when they talk to each other can be seen clearly by watching the film, while the conversations between characters can be easily understood by reading the dialogue transcript. The theory used in this study is proposed by Yule (1996). This study used a qualitative method. The steps to analyze the data were categorizing the illocutionary acts uttered by Ralph, analyzing the illocutionary acts uttered by Ralph, and then writing the result as a thesis. The result of the study showed that there were four types of functions and seventeen types of forces uttered by Ralph in film Wreck-It Ralph. The illocutionary act functions uttered by Ralph are representative with asserting, concluding, describing forces; expressive with protesting, disliking, congratulating, complaining, apologizing, joy forces; directive requesting, asking, commanding, advising, suggesting forces and commissive with swearing, refusing, and promising forces.

Keywords: Illocutionary, Functions, Forces

  • I.    INTRODUCTION

Communication is one of the important parts of human beings. To communicate with other people, human needs language. Language and human beings are related and cannot be separated from one another. Language influences human life as the bridge to associate with other people. While we communicate with other people, the discourse could be acknowledged and comprehended by the speaker and receiver when they have conversations. To understand what the speaker means in a conversation, we can analyze it with one of the theories of meaning, that is, pragmatics.

According to Leech (1983: 9), “pragmatics is distinguished from semantics in being concerned with meaning about a speech situation.” To know the relation between the sign and the object they signify is where semantics lead us, but in pragmatics, its concern is how the speaker makes utterances and how the listener accepts them. As stated by Griffiths, pragmatics is about how we manage to convey more than is what encoded by the semantics of sentences (2006: 153). Pragmatics can also be defined as a study about what the speaker means. It is about the meaning of the context between the speaker and the hearer. In other words, pragmatics is known as the contextual study of the language used in communication. In pragmatics, there are context, reference, speech acts, and politeness. Meanwhile, this study discusses speech acts.

Speech acts can be defined as an utterance that acts, such as giving a warning to, greeting, applying for, telling what, confirming an appointment. According to Levinson (1983: 227), “a speech act is quite essentially pragmatics because it is created when the speaker makes an utterance to the heaver in context and must be interpreted as an aspect of social interaction.” Austin said that speech acts are the actions performed in saying something. In a book entitled ‘How to Do Things with Words’, Austin takes us to return to fundamentals and think about how many senses there may be in which to say something is to do something, or in saying something we do something, or even by saying something we do something. He then stated that there are three basic types of speech acts, i.e. locutionary acts, illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary acts. Illocutionary acts are considered rather complex from those three types of speech acts. Illocutionary acts are defined as an utterance spoken by people that have functions such as to request, to command, to warn, to inform, or to express the speakers’ purposes.

These days, lots of people like to watch the film but, not many of them understand the function of language, for example, regardless of whether it is to give a command or, to apologize and or, to ask for something, that is used by the character in a film when they talk to one another. Based on this phenomenon, this research was conducted. The focus of this study is on analyzing the illocutionary acts uttered by Ralph, the main character.

The data source is a film entitled ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ and the dialogue transcript of it. Wreck-It Ralph is a 2012 animated film produced and released by a famous company, Walt Disney. As the synopsis of the film, Wreck-it Ralph is a film about Ralph, a video game villain who wants to be a hero and sets to achieve his dream to be acknowledged by other characters in his game. Unfortunately, his hunt brings disaster to the whole arcade, where he must save the entire arcade games from being shut down permanently. This study explains the functions and forces uttered by Ralph in the film. There is intended meaning in every speech uttered by the speaker from which we can know how the speech influences the receiver's action.

To support the study, books related to the theory of pragmatics, especially the speech acts theory of illocutionary acts are needed. As the references, this study also reviewed some related undergraduate theses and journals about illocutionary acts research.

Problems of the Study

The problems of the study when analyzing the illocutionary acts uttered by Ralph in ‘Wreck-It Ralph' film is elaborated in the following questions: a. What are the illocutionary act forces uttered by

Ralph in ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ film?

b. What are illocutionary act functions uttered by Ralph in ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ film?

Aims of the Study

Based on the research problems above, the aims of the study when analyzing the illocutionary acts uttered by Ralph in ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ film are written as follows:

  • a.    To identify the illocutionary act forces uttered by Ralph in ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ film.

  • b.    To identify the functions of the illocutionary act uttered by Ralph in ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ film.

  • II.    RESEARCH METHOD

This section is divided into four methods; data source, method, and technique collecting data, method, and technique of analyzing data and method and technique of the presenting data.

Data Source

This research uses primary data sources. The primary data source is a film and a dialogue transcript of the film. The data source is a film entitled ‘Wreck-It Ralph' and its dialogue transcript was taken from the internet. The film is used to show the character's expression and the tone when producing an utterance. The transcript is needed to help get a detailed speech uttered by the character. Both are needed to do a deep analysis of the illocutionary acts uttered by the character.

Method and Technique of Collecting data

The research employs a documentation method because this study uses the dialogue transcript of the film taken from the internet. The steps of collecting the data are; first, watching the film Wreck-It Ralph. The expression of the characters when they talk to one another can be seen by watching the film. Second, reading the dialogue transcript of the film Wreck-It Ralph film. The conversations between characters can be easily understood by reading the transcript of dialogue. Third, re-watching the film while checking the dialogue transcript. The data become more validated by re-watching the film while checking the dialogue transcript. Last, highlighting the illocutionary acts uttered by Ralph in the film Wreck-It Ralph. Highlighting was used to help classify the data.

Method and Technique of Analyzing data

This research employs a qualitative method. This study identifies and describes the functions of the illocutionary acts and the illocutionary acts forces uttered by Ralph in the film ‘Wreck-It Ralph’. The steps of analyzing the data are, first, categorizing the illocutionary acts; second, analyzing the illocutionary acts uttered by Ralph in that film, and then writing the result as a thesis entitled ‘Illocutionary Acts Uttered by Ralph in the film ‘Wreck-It Ralph’.

Method and Technique of Presenting data

The data of this research are presented in the form of a table and description. It is formed in a classification table of illocutionary acts spoken by Ralph in the film ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ film. The illocutionary acts table shows the illocutionary act functions and the illocutionary act forces uttered by Ralph. After that, the data are described based on the table. The steps of presenting the data are first, putting the data categorized earlier into a table of illocutionary acts spoken by Ralph in the film ‘Wreck-It Ralph’; and then describing the result of the analysis.

  • III.    RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The Illocutionary Acts Uttered by Ralph

The results of the analysis are presented in the form of a table that consists of the illocutionary acts uttered by Ralph which are then discussed with several examples from each function of illocutionary act uttered by Ralph.

Table 1. The illocutionary acts found in the film Wreck-It Ralph

Illocntioiian- Acts Functions

Declaratives

Representatives

Expressives

Directives

Cpmmissjves

IlIociitionary Acts Forces

Asserting

Concluding

Describing

Protesting

Disliking

Congratulating Complaining Apologizing Joy

Requesting

Asking

Commanding

Advising Suggesting

Swearing Refusing Promising

Table 1 reveals that there is no declarative function uttered by Ralph in the film Wreck-It Ralph. However, there are four illocutionary acts functions uttered by Ralph in the film Wreck-It Ralph; they are representative, expressive, directive, and commissive.

Based on the table, the total number of illocutionary acts force uttered by Ralph in Wreck-It Ralph film is seventeen, they are asserting, concluding, describing, protesting, disliking, congratulating, complaining, apologizing, joy, requesting, asking, commanding, advising, suggesting, swearing, refusing, and promising. Furthermore, the results of the analysis are discussed based on each function of the illocutionary act uttered by Ralph.

Representative

SATAN       :   It’s sai-tine, actually.

RALPH      :  Got it. But here’s the thing...

(exhales, then)

I don’t want to be the bad guy

anymore.

GASPS. Bowser spits out his coffee and thus fire. CY-BORG   :  You can’t mess with the program,

Ralph.

M. BISON   :  (miming “crazy”)

You’re not going Turbo, are you?

The participants are Ralph and the people at BadAnon gathering. The relationship between them is that they are friends. The utterance uttered by Ralph “I don’t want to be the bad guy anymore” is identified as a representative illocutionary act with the asserting force. The utterance is illocutionary because by saying “I don’t want to be the bad guy anymore”, Ralph makes the words fit the world (of belief). The real meaning of the speaker’s utterance is illocutionary because the explicit meaning is to state that the speaker does not want to be a bad guy because the speaker wants the same love as his colleague, Felix, got from the Nicelanders.

Vanellope stares wide-eyed at the kart,.

RALPH         :  Aye yi yi. Look, kid... I tried

to warn you, I can’t make things, I just break-

VANELLOPE :  I love it!

The participants are Ralph and Vanellope. The relationship between them is that they are friends. The utterance uttered by Ralph “Look, kid... I tried to warn you, I can’t make things, I just break-” is identified as an expressive illocutionary act with the apologizing force. The utterance is illocutionary because by saying “Look, kid... I tried to warn you, I can’t make things, I just break-”, Ralph makes the words fit the world (of feeling). The real meaning of the speaker's utterance is illocutionary because the explicit meaning is to express his apology. After all, he cannot help Vanellope get her dream kart.

Directive

RALPH         :  (pointing at her)

YOU! Give me back my medal right now.

VANELLOPE :  Oh boy.

The participants are Ralph and Vanellope. The relationship between them is that they are strangers. The utterance uttered by Ralph “YOU! Give me back my medal right now” is identified as directive illocutionary acts

with the commanding force. The utterance is illocutionary because by saying “YOU! Give me back my medal right now”, Ralph makes the world fit words (via the hearer). Ralph gives a command to Vanellope, the kid who took his hero medal, wanted her to bring back his medal that she stole from him. The real meaning of the speaker's utterance is illocutionary because the explicit meaning is to make the listener act, in this case, Ralph wants Vanellope to give his medal back to him, stop running away, and claiming his medal as her own.

Commission

VANELLOPE    :  You don't know anything, do

you? Glitches can't leave their games. It's one of the joys of being me.

Ralph looks around at her sad life. He gets a thought. He raises his giant fist and starts pounding the twisted, nonsense architecture.

Hey! What are you doing?! Come on! I know it’s a dump, but it’s all I got!

RALPH           :  (still pounding)

If you’re going to be a racer, you have to learn how to drive, and you can’t do that without a track.

The participants are Ralph and Vanellope. The relationship between them is that they are friends. The utterance uttered by Ralph “If you’re going to be a racer, you have to learn how to drive, and you can’t do that without a track” is identified as commissive illocutionary acts with the promising force. The utterance is illocutionary because by saying “If you’re going to be a racer, you have to learn how to drive, and you can’t do that without a track”, Ralph makes the world fit words (via the speaker). Ralph shows he tends to help Vanellope win the race by making a training track. The real meaning of the speaker’s utterance is illocutionary because the explicit meaning is to commit himself to help the listener learn to drive.

  • IV.    CONCLUSION

Based on the analysis that is presented in the previous chapter, the point which can be drawn as the conclusions of this study are: First, the illocutionary act functions found are representative, expressive, directive, and commissive; Second, the illocutionary act forces found are asserting, concluding, describing, protesting, disliking, congratulating, complaining, apologizing, joy, requesting, asking, commanding,   advising,   suggesting,   swearing,

refusing, and promising.   All of those types of

functions and forces were found in the film Wreck-It Ralph after analyzing it based on the theory of illocutionary acts proposed by Yule (1996).

REFERENCES

Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do Things with Words. Great Britain: Oxford University Press.

Griffiths, P. (2006). An Introduction to English Semantics and Pragmatics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Leech, G. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. Harlow: Longman.

Levinson, S.C. (1983). Pragmatics.  Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Wreck-It Ralph movie script. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.scripts.com/script/wreckit_ralph_ 215

Wreck-It Ralph  (2012) Plot Summary. (n.d.).

Retrieved                             from

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1772341/plotsummar y?ref_=m_tt_stry_pl

Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Yule, G. (2010). The Study of Language (4th Edition). New York: Cambridge University Press.