An Analysis of Directive Speech Act in the Crazy Rich Asian Movie by Jon M.Chu

Abstract

Speech act is not only as part of communication but also as part of social interaction. In
speaking activities, speakers do not just convey messages, but they also build social
relationships with speakers. Speaker needs to choose speaking strategy to deliver the
message appropriately can build social relationships. In other words, the speaker is not from
opening his mouth in talking but he must first think about the speech he will speak. Speech
act phenomena do not only occur in daily life or daily conversations, but also in the dialogue
of movie. Crazy Rich Asian movie is one of the interesting subjects to be analyzed in terms of
speech act of directive. Therefore, the purpose of this research are to find out the types of
speech act of directive act from the dialogue of characters and also to find out the form of
directive speech acts. There are many ways that can help people to create a good
communication. One of them is by using directive.
According to Searle (1976) speech act of directive is kind of speech act that involve
attempts by a speaker to get a hearer to do something. It means the speaker want the hearer to
do something or action giving by the hearer. In using directives, speaker have situation and
context to make speaker express her/his feelings toward hearer. In order to analyze speech act
of directive, the writer also relate to form of directive speech act theory by Yule (1996).
According to Yule, there are 3 form of directive. They are imperative, intterogative, and
declarative.
This research uses descriptive qualitative research. It is done by collecting the data,
analyzing the data that it is a speech act of directive from the dialogue of characters, giving
explanation, and drawing conclusions. The data in this research is a form of utterance spoken
by the characters in the movie by Jon M.Chu according to Searle’s theory. The source data of
this research is Crazy Rich Asian Movie.
The results of this study were divided into two parts. The first is the writer found 3
types of directive speech act, they are commanding, requesting, and suggestion based on
Searle’s theory. The most directive speech act used by characters is types of speech act of
commanding. Commanding act contains the understanding that in saying the speech the
speaker wants the spoken partner to do an act. Furthermore, imperative forms is the most
commonly found. The second is the writer found the differences in social class also affect
people’s speaking style. The language used by people of high social class is different from
people of low social class. For example, based on data analyzed by people with low social
class, they often use requests while people with high social class tend to use command when
they speak.
Keywords: pragmatics, directive speech acts, form of directive speech act