Speech Acts in Tolkien's Film Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring (INTRODUCTION)

Speech Acts in Tolkien's Film Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring (INTRODUCTION)




Written by Ari Julianto

1.1. The Background of the Study
Halliday (1994: 68) describes that the most fundamental types of speech role, which lie behind all the more specific types that we may even truly be able to recognize, are just two: (a) giving and (b) demanding. Along with this, Richards (1985: 265) states that speech act is an utterance as a functional unit in communication. Meanwhile, Yule (2001: 132) describes that the use of the term speech act covers actions such requesting, commanding, questioning and informing. In human civilization, human has two roles in his life, which is giving and demanding.

The locutionary act is a kind of speech act to express something. Locutionary act sometimes called as the act of saying something, or sometimes called as utterance act. This concept related to the propositional of the sentence. The sentence or utterance in this case as the units that consist of two items, that is topic/subject and predicate/comment. The second act is Illocutionary. Illocutionary is an utterance that can function as an expression or informing something and can be used to do something. Illocutionary act is whatever of activities done by the human in expressing something related to the context as what Austin (1962: 45) suggested. And the third act is Perlocutionary. Perlocutionary acts are generally performed by uttering something; acts that produce effects upon the listener. A perlocutionary act carried out by a speaker making an utterance is the act of causing a certain effect on the listener and others.

There are some media that can be used for the speaker or writer of language, especially in English; they are newspaper, books, letters, magazines, radio, television or films. Films have great influences in developing English language where the watchers or listeners might learn about some essential vocabularies which are appeared in the dialogs of the film.

Film has much in common with language as Searle (1980:17) explains that is speaking is a rule-governed form of behavior. People who are visually educated and who have seen many films can see and hear with greater clarity than those who rarely see films. Experience in the "language" of films enables that person to have a higher interpretive ability, and they can find a greater number of meanings. The same phenomenon can be observed in the area of verbal language. Literature can only be understood when the recipient has the ability to read the printed letters. The speech acts performances can be realized in the form of dialogs taken from the film language. Let us see the following example from the following examples:

A:  “SONY is a trade mark of an electronic device”
(SONY is a trade mark. This utterance is locutionary in which it is a statement to give information to someone that SONY is a trade mark of an electronic device)
B: “Mother told me to be careful while I will be in the jungle”
    (this utterance contains an information or act about a warning from a mother to her child. This utterance is an illocutionary act in which it is related to a warning act)
C: “You can do because you are smart”
(This utterance is perlocutionary. It contains statement to inform about inspiring or give spirit to someone to do something by telling a smart thing)

From the example above, as the learners or watchers, we can obtain some knowledge about the function of speech acts including the types of the speech acts which are realized in the form of film dialogs appeared in each scenes of the film. The main reasons are that by recognizing the speech acts, we will get some important information occurring in this world accurately especially in English language films and the vocabulary in the dialogs of the film is easy to understand.

It is hopefully by analyzing the speech acts, watchers or students especially would take some advantages by knowing the speech acts appeared in the dialogs of the film. The watchers or students in which most of them prefer watching to reading would increase their understanding in the actor or actresses utterances in English by recognizing the types of speech acts that they use in the dialogs of the film.

The reasons why the writer took the topic of this research are that most of students prefer watching film
to reading text or any other the media. Besides that by understanding the speech acts the learners may understand each scenes of the film. By recognizing the speech acts, the learners hopefully will get some important information occurring in this world accurately especially in English language films and obtain or improve their vocabulary through the dialogs of the film.

1.2. The Problems of the Study
Based on the background above, the writer formulates the problems as follows:
1. What type of speech acts is used in the utterance of the film “Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring”?
2. Which type of speech act is dominantly used in the film “Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring”?

1.3. The Objectives of the Study
In relation to the problems mentioned above, this study attempts to reach the following objectives:
1. to identify the types of speech acts used in utterance of the film “Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring”,
2.  to find out the dominant types of speech acts used in the film “Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring ”.

1.4. The Scope of the Study
This study is focused on the analysis of speech acts in the film “Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring”. The use of speech act is limited on the use of types of speech acts in the film “Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring”. They are locutionary acts, illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary acts.

1.5. The Method of the Study
1.5.1 The Source of the Data
The source of this research will be taken from the DVD film “Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring” that contains 38 scenes. Some other sources are needed in this study such as the literature from books, and internet that related to the subject matter.

1.5.2. The Number of the Data
In this study, the writer will take 10 from 38 scenes of the film, they are scenes 4,8,12,16,20,24,28,32,36,38. The writer will take this number of the data by considering the most utterances appeared in each scene of the film because some of the scenes are not full of dialogs and they are only contain the actions.  The writer also will take all the dominant use of speech acts appeared in the film “Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring”.

1.5.3. The Way of Collecting the Data
In writing this thesis, the writer is allowed to use library research. First of all the writer watches the film “Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring” entirely to compare the content then transfer the data occurred in the paper. 

1.5.4. The Way of Analysis
In analyzing the data, exposition technique will be conducted to find out the most dominant use of speech acts in the film “Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring”. The data were analyzed through some steps by:
1.  Identifying the types of speech acts used in the film “Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring”
2. Classifying the types of speech acts used in the film “Lord of The Ring: the Fellowship of the Ring”
3. Calculating the percentage of the types of the most dominant speech acts.

1.6. The Significance of the Study
An observation in linguistic field is attempted to collect more knowledge. The knowledge in all languages will result in a better using of the language itself. This study is expected to be an additional contribution to what has been done by other people in the field of speech act. The practical significance of this study is that this study is expected to stimulate those who are interested in linguistic field especially in speech act. 

1.7. The Organization of the Study
This thesis is arranged into four chapters: Chapter one, the introduction deals with the background of the study, the problems of the study, the significance of the study, the organization of the study, the objective of the study, the scope of the study and the method of the study. Chapter two, the theoretical background deals with the description of speech acts, types of speech acts, description of analysis and film language, the film “Lord of The Ring: The Fellowship of The Ring” and the brief of the film. Chapter three deals with analysis contains analysis of the data and Chapter four is the closing, deals with conclusion in relation to the material; presented in this thesis

REFERENCE
Austin, J.L. 1962. How To Do Things With Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Halliday, M.A.K. 1994. Introduction to Functional Grammar. London:

Richards, Jack et al. 1985. Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. London: Longman.

Searle, John.R.1980.  Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language.  London: Cambridge University Press.

Yule, G. 2001.  The Study of Language. London:  Cambridge University Press.