Download 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of Study Language

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of Study
Language is one of the important things in life because people share their thoughts
with others by using language. According to SGBAU (2013), communication is defined
as, “a process, which involves organising, selecting and transmitting symbols in an
appropriate way to ensure the listener perceives and recreates in his own mind the
intended meaning of the communicator”. It means that a communication is more than
just saying words.
Actually, when we do communication with others, we also do an interaction with
them. Besides interacting, we also build our social relationship with other people
through communication. One thing that we can do to maintain this social relationship is
by using politeness in our communication. The politeness itself is really crucial in order
to have a good relationship with others.
Furthermore, it is not just about politeness that we can see through a conversation
but sometimes, we also see the impoliteness. It is very hard to determine which one is
polite and which one is impolite because there are a lot of factors that influence this. For
example, the writer remembered about one moment when the writer’s friend and the
writer wanted to have lunch in the cafeteria. The writer’s friend did not bring her Flazz
card and she asked me to pay for him first. The writer still remembered what she said,
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“Lyn, pay for me first, I forgot to bring my Flazz card”. The writer’s friend might not
have the intention to be impolite, but the writer thought why she did not ask the writer
in a more polite way. For example, “Lyn, could I lend some money from you? I forgot
to bring my Flazz card”.
Moreover, the communication itself cannot only be seen in our real life only, but it
can also be seen from the fiction text such as from the movie script. Actually, it is also
inevitable that the conversation in a movie script depends on the script writer’s will. It is
about what he wants to show and to tell to the viewers. Although it is just a fiction, but
we can consider it as the portrayal of the real life events. It is because sometimes the
event in the movie is based on the real event in the reality.
Safei (2009) conducted a research that is entitled The Analysis of Four Strategies of
Politeness Strategies of Politeness in a Play Titled “Stolen” by Jane Harrison. In his
research, he found out that the main character of this play is the most polite of all and
his mostly used strategy is the off record strategy.
Furthermore, since the politeness and impoliteness are very crucial in a
communication to maintain the social relationship, the writer feels really eager to
analyze about the politeness and the impoliteness strategy that is used by the American
people. The writer chose the American people because the writer wanted to know about
the politeness and the impoliteness that they use in their daily conversation, to see
whether their politeness and impoliteness patterns similar or different with Indonesian.
Actually, the use of the politeness and the impoliteness strategy cannot just be seen on
the real life only, but also can be observed from the movie. It is because a language in
the movie is the representation of the real life even it is based on the script writer’s will.
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In this research, the writer chose the Thirteen movie. Actually, the reason why the
writer chose this movie is because this movie tells about the life of the American
teenager with her world. So, the use of language in the movie must be the use of the
daily conversation of the Americans. Besides, this movie also can be considered as the
portrayal of the Americans’ life because the story of this movie is based on a true story
of one of the character named Evie.
The writer also limited the scenes that were analyzed only for the scenes that are full
of anger situation. The reason why the writer chose the anger scene is only because the
writer wants to analyze about what kind of strategy in politeness and impoliteness that
someone uses when they are angry and full of emotion. As we know, mostly people
tend to be more aggressive and tend to be more direct in communication when they are
angry. So, the writer wants to analyze whether this tendency influences the use of
politeness and impoliteness strategy or not.
1.2 Problem Formulation
As stated earlier, this research is concerned with the politeness and the impoliteness
strategy in the script of the Thirteen movie. Moreover, through this research, the writer
wants to find out several problems that are included to the problem formulations below:
1. Which politeness and impoliteness strategy is used in the Thirteen movie especially
in the full anger scenes?
2. What are the general functions of using politeness and impoliteness strategy?
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1.3 Scope and Limitation
The scope of this research is about the politeness and impoliteness which have
already become major topics in pragmatics study. In this case, it is about the politeness
and impoliteness that is used by the Americans in their daily conversation. The theory
that the writer uses is the theory about politeness by Brown and Levinson (1978) and
the theory of impoliteness by Culpeper (1996).
The limitation of this research is the script of the Thirteen movie that is limited only
for the script of scenes that has anger situations.
1.4 Goals and Functions
The goal of this research is to show about what kind of politeness and impoliteness
strategy that is used in this movie. Besides, the writer also wants to explain about the
functions of using that certain strategy.
The functions of this research are to be a reference and also to broaden the reader’s
horizon about the analysis in pragmatics study which emphasizes on politeness and
impoliteness area. The writer also hopes that this research will give a glance portrayal
of the Americans’ use of language in their daily conversation to the reader.
1.5 Research Method
In order to conduct this research the writer used two kinds of methods which are the
library research and also the descriptive qualitative research. The library research was
used to obtain the theory, definitions, previous research and other information from
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books, e-journals, e-articles and thesis which were got from the library as well as from
the Internet.
Besides, in the descriptive qualitative research, the writer obtained the data from the
script of the movie and after that the writer analyzed it based on the theory of politeness
(Brown and Levinson, 1978) and impoliteness (Culpeper, 1996). The script itself was
also limited only to eight scenes of that are full of anger among the characters. The
reason why the writer chose this situation because anger is an emotion that cannot be
apart from us as the human being and the writer wanted to see what kind of strategies
that the characters use when they are angry. When we are fully emotional, we will do
more aggressions and do less indirectness in communication.
The descriptive qualitative research itself means that this research focuses on
observing and also giving a depiction of the social phenomenon. In this case, this
research emphasizes on the politeness and impoliteness phenomenon in Americans
daily conversation that can be seen through the movie, especially when they are angry.
Firstly, in this method, the writer watched the movie and selected the scenes full of
anger, after that the writer selected the script based on those selected scenes. Those
selected scenes were used as the data that were tabulated and analyzed per category for
each strategy. Therefore, in implementing this method, the writer got a result that
became a depiction of the use of politeness and impoliteness in the American’s daily
conversation.