Background of the Research

2 by a speaker to a listener who sits near the window and the condition is unpleasant. It means that the speaker asks the listener to open the window. The utterance could be interpreted differently depends on the context. It becomes inseparable for language to be studied without the context of people as communicator or the users of language. In linguistics, there is a field of language that studies the language in context which is known as pragmatics. According to Mey 2001:6, pragmatics is the study of human language usage in communication as determined by the society conditions, which means it explores the language in communication and the context surrounds it. Because pragmatics does not only study about certain linguistic form, the social and the surrounding context are considered in pragmatics. It is possible for an utterance to mean differently, from different speakers, to different listeners, at different times, and places. According to Yule 1996:21, context means the physical environment or the situation surrounding the production of an utterance. It includes what is present around the speaker or the listener at the time of communication occurs, such as where the communictaion takes place, what is going on, and etc. Context is needed to understand the meaning of an utterance. The listener who has limited knowledge about the context of the utterance might find difficulties to interpret the correct message from the speaker. People communicate not only to share their ideas, but also to deliver their intentions to listeners. The embedded actions in the utterance are called as speech acts. According to Yule 1996:47, speech acts are actions which are performed via 3 language. Any spoken language that contains speech acts has functions such as to command, to warn, to request, or to express speaker’s intentions. The usage of language also takes part in the aspect of entertainment such as video games. In which, language becomes the key part that shapes the story of the games. One of them is Bully, also known as Canis Canem in Latin, which means „dog eats dog ’. It is an open world action-adventure video game released by Rockstar Vancouver for PlayStation 2 in 2006. The setting is in a school environment. The player plays as James Jimmy Hopkins, who is a student with a difficult background. The game starts with the moment when Jimmy enters Bullworth Academy. Jimmy is enrolled at the school when his newly married mother and stepfather go on a year-long honeymoon cruise. The researcher is interested in the way the main character interacts in this game. This interaction will be studied using pragmatic approach to find the types of speech acts based on Searle’s classifications and to find the way speech acts delivered in the conversations.

B. Focus of the Research

The analysis of Bully using pragmatic approach aims to uncover the speech act features based on Searle’s classification and the directness of speech acts in the game. This research focuse s on analyzing the “Chapter I: Making New Friends and Enemies” and “Chapter II: Rich Kid Blues” as the objects of the data. These chapters tell about Jimmy ’s arrival in the academy and how he adapts with the new 4 environment. In order to limit focus and context of the study, the researcher thinks it is sufficient to take the data from these chapters. There are some problems found when the researcher analyzing the game. First is speech acts. There are three related acts which are divided into locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary act. Locutionary act is the act of saying something. Illocutionary act is what one does in saying it. Perlocutionary act is the desired effect by saying it. Based on Searle’s classifications in Yule 1996:53-54, there are five types of general functions of speech acts. They are declaratives, representatives, expressives, directives, and commissives. The way speech acts delivered are divided in to two types. They are direct speech acts, and indirect speech acts. Direct speech acts deliver action directly through language, while indirect speech acts perform act implicitly which leads the listener to have deeper interpretation about the speaker intention. Second is the context of the utterances. Context is the physical or social setting that becomes the background knowledge to interpret speakers ’ intentions. The listener must understand the context of the dialogues in order to decrease the possibility of miss interpretations. Context helps the listener to interpret the implied meaning of the speaker’s utterances. Third is the way the speaker and the listener cooperate or flout maxims in communication. A good communication must follow the rule of cooperative principles as how communication must be done. Cooperative principles will lead to cooperative communication in which the information delivered is relevant,