Background of the Study

1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background of the Study

There is always a hidden truth behind every confession. To confess something, logically, means to tell the truth. The further possible question, however, would be whether the truth has been completely told and delivered by the confessor. Most of the times, there is something else behind a statement that needs to be analysed. In some particular cases, an advanced interpretation is needed in order to analyse and dig out the precision and genuineness of statements stated by a speaker. Such an analysis is called the analysis of meaning. Linguistics provides two fields that concentrate on meanings as the their heart of study: semantics and pragmatics. These two branches of linguistics are fairly similar because they deal with meaning. Nevertheless, they are also completely different because they focus on different kinds of meaning. Semantics studies the literal meaning in linguistic forms. Any entities outside the form is considered out of reach. For instance, a husband tells his wife: “A cup of hot coffee would be nice in this cloudy morning.” The sentence above, when being analysed semantically, means that the husband thinks that a cup of hot coffee would be literally perfect in the cloudy morning. Semantics associates the meaning with what is believed to be logically correct. A cup 2 of hot coffee is surely considered to be appropriate in such a temperature as stated in the sentence. However, the study of pragmatics is much wider than only analysing the literal meaning that a sentence implies. As a matter of fact, pragmatics is the only branch of linguistics that allows humans into the analysis. It means that pragmatics does not only deal with meanings, but it also considers the speakers, their intended meaning and the context as the objects of the study Yule 1996:4. Pragmatics, according to Yule 1996:3, is the study of speaker meaning; the study of contextual meaning; the study of how more gets communicated than is said; the study of the expression of relative distance. By studying language via pragmatics, we can talk about people’s goals, purposes, assumptions, and even the kind of action for example, requests that they are performing when they speak. Thus, the sentence “A cup of hot coffee would be nice in this cloudy morning.” may suggest that the husband is indirectly trying to tell his wife to make a cup of hot coffee for him. There is no sign of request in the sentence if we look at it in a glimpse, but when being analysed pragmatically, we can learn that the sentence does, implicitly, contain a request. Actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts Yule: 1996:47-49. Basically, there are three related acts in producing an utterance. The first one is locutionary act, which is the act of producing a meaningful linguistic expression. The second one is illocutionary act which is related to the fact that we must have purposes in producing an utterance illocutionary force. The last one is 3 perlocutionary act, which deals with the response upon our utterance perlocutionary effect. Based on those acts, we can conclude that what is called by locutionary act is the statement “A cup of hot coffee would be nice in this cloudy morning.” The illocutionary force is the intention of the husband to ask his wife to make a cup of hot coffee for him. While the perlocutionary effect might be the act of the wife which goes to the kitchen and starts making the coffee. However, the study of pragmatics can also be frustrating because there is no guarantee that the interpretation of a statement would be objective, consistent and unbiased. This is because different people have different interpretations. Pragmatics, for this reason, requires us to make sense of people and what they have in mind Yule 1996:4. What people utter and what they actually have in mind when uttering their statements might be distinct. Statements that are uttered are called verbal language. Indeed, the communication via verbal language has the function to exhange information from the speaker to the listener. Nonetheless, it would be too shallow to say that that is the only function of verbal language. Language, when used in particular times, can be a tool to control people’s thought and even direct people’s belief upon a certain issue; that is what we call as manipulation. Manipulation is the act of concealing truths in as undetectable as possible ways in order to cover up one’s stories for certain purposes. According to Fairclough 1989:8, the use of language for particular intentions to influence people’s mind can be categorised as the act of manipulating. 4 In general, manipulation is often practiced in two fields, politics and advertisements. A candidate for president, for instance, may promote himself using attention-grabbing sentences. Oftentimes, in those sentences, he may insert some manipulative words in order to make people believe that he deserves to be the president. As in advertisement, manipulation is often done to capture people’s interest in a product. According to Coxall 2013:4, media manipulation is a series of related techniques in which partisans create an image or argument that favours their particular interests. However, there is another field in which manipulation is often practised. This field seems to be less popular compared to the other two fields mentioned above, but it does not erase the fact that it is still very interesting to be discussed. Manipulation is also practised in crime cases. The guilty suspect might compile sentences to manipulate law officers to lessen their punishment, or even, to free them from the case that they are accused of doing. The analysis of language manipulation can be completed through the study of pragmatics as one of the branches of linguistics. Manipulation cannot be detected instantly at the time the language is spoken. It takes further study and break down to investigate the meaning and even connotation in the language. According to Yule 1996:3, pragmatics is the investigation of invisible meanings. Relying on the fact that language manipulation contains hidden meaning, this study focuses on analysing the language manipulation strategies and motives found 5 in the statements of Theodore Robert Bundy most well-known as Ted Bundy, who was famous as an American serial killer in the era of 1970s. Ted Bundy was chosen to be the figure of which his statements would be analysed in this thesis for several reasons. Firstly, he was recognised as one of the most famous serial killers in the world with approximately over 50 murder cases. Secondly, in many of his interviews in different periods of times between 1977- 1989, he had expressed numerous statements which are suspected to be manipulative. He used language manipulation mostly to defend and justify his crimes and behaviors. This fact was confirmed by his trials to escape from the jail twice after being caught in June 7, 1977 and December 30, 1977 respectively. Analysing language manipulation, however, is not an effortless task. It really takes deep investigation and study before coming out with accurate interpretations. Therefore, in helping the writer analyse and interpret the language manipulation strategies and motives in the statements of Ted Bundy, the theory of language manipulation strategies by Simon 2000 is used side by side with the theory of language manipulation motives by Braiker 2004. Simon 2000:80-92 suggests that there are 14 types of language manipulation strategies that might be used by a person. Those strategies are denial, selective inattention, rationalization, diversion, lying, covert intimidation, guilt tripping, shaming, playing the victim role, vilifying the victim, playing servant role, seduction, projecting the blame blaming others, and minimization. These strategies are found in Ted Bundy’s statements which later will be discussed in this study. 6 Braiker 2004:52 states that manipulation exists because it works. Therefore, manipulation is surely not practised without certain motives owned by the speaker. These motives are what drive them to manipulate people. Braiker 2004:54-57 suggests that there are three principal interpersonal motives possessed by manipulators. Those motives are 1 to advance manipulator’s own purposes, 2 to attain feelings of power and superiority, 3 to feel in control of manipulator’s own emotions. The language manipulation strategies discussed in this study are in form of statements, which are called as locutions in pragmatics. Meanwhile the language manipulation motives are referred as illocutions in pragmatics. By using the theory of Simon 2000 and Braiker 2004, it is possible to find out how the language manipulation works in the statements of Ted Bundy and what are the motives that underlie Ted Bundy’s manipulative expressions illocutionary acts.

1.2. Problems of the Study