Future Researchers Research Benefits

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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The writer provides two parts in this section: theoretical description and theoretical framework. The theoretical description includes the discussion of pragmatics, speech acts, and sociolinguistics theory. Furthermore, the theoretical framework is used to synthesize all the theories elaborated in the theoretical description to relate the theories to the current study.

A. Theoretical Description

The writer discusses four parts in this section. The first part that will be discussed is pragmatics. Since the study deals with the utterances produced by the characters of a movie called Iron Man, it is necessary to include the discussion pragmatics because it is closely related with meaning in contexts. The second part is speech acts. Speech acts is a part of pragmatics and the focus is language as a tool for communication. Sociolinguistics is included as well because the theory clarifies the context of conversation based on the situation, setting, plot and also the characters’ utterances. Sociolinguistics needs to be defined and included as a part of the underlying theory in order to make clear understanding on the topic discussed.

1. Pragmatics

Van Dijk 2009 states that, “pragmatics is one of the fields of linguistics and discourse studies that has most systematically studied the relations between 10 context and language” p. 13. Levinson 1983 writes, “pragmatics covers both context-dependent aspects of language structure and principles of language usage and understanding that have nothing or little to do with linguistic structure” p. 9. Pragmatics clarifies the language usage and language structure as the basic concepts in understanding language within contexts. The focus of pragmatics is how the speakers use language to convey information in communication. Meanwhile, Leech 1992 mentions that, “pragmatics is the study of how language is used to communicate and also how someone uses language within context in particular ways in communication” p. 19. Thus, based on the theories the writer states, pragmatics is the language that is used to show our language usage and language structure in our daily communication.

a. Grice’s Cooperative Principle

It is important for speakers to deliver the accurate information to the hearer so the conversation is going to run well. According to Grice 1989, “the conversational contribution such as is required at the stage at it occurs, by the accepted purpose of the conversation exchange in which you are engaged” p. 26. Based on the definition, the writer tries to infer that the language in conversations should be conducted in the right rules. It makes the conversation will be efficient and effective in speaking. In the cooperative principle, the speaker and the hearer shall always assume that all parties involved are cooperative, so that the speaker’s implied meaning based on their knowledge on a conversational maxim.