In conducting the research, the researcher chooses a movie as the source of data rather than a kind of field study. Besides, since movie is the representation of
human life, the researcher thinks it is acceptable to use movie as source of data. A movie of which the researcher presumes having the phenomena of address terms is
The Theory of Everything. The Theory of Everything is a British biographical romantic drama movie which tells a theoretical physicist named Stephen Hawking.
A movie entitled The Theory of Everything is chosen as the object of the research because the conversations all characters represent our daily life
conversations, and they employ or use some types of address terms. Through this movie, people can see that address terms can be used for any reasons depending on
the situational contexts. For example, the use of address terms in college will be different from the use of address terms at home. Therefore, the phenomena of address
terms can be obstacles for the audience who does not understand the rules of address terms.
B. Research Focus
Sociolinguistics is defined as the study of language in its social context Holmes, 2001: 1. In different social contexts, an individual will speak in different
ways due to the difference of age, gender, social class, and ethnic group. This phenomenon can be portrayed in a movie.
As a reflection of a real life experience, a movie has two kinds of communication. There are spoken communication and written communication. The
example of spoken communication can be seen from the conversation among the characters in the movie. When the characters in the movie are having a conversation
with another one, it cannot be avoided that they use more than one type of address terms due to some factors including relationship they have with the addressee.
There are many address terms used in a social interaction. They vary depending on who use it, where they use it, when they use it and why they use it. This
research takes a Hollywood movie entitled The Theory of Everything. There are several problems found in this movie based on the phenomena of address terms. The
first problem is concerned with the types of address terms that are used in this movie. Addressing other people not only uses Mr. or Mrs., but also uses several ways such as
by using last name LN or kinship terms KT. The second problem is social factors that affect the characters in using certain types of address terms.
To gain a specific area, the problem of discussion is limited on discovering the topics involved in the address terms used by the characters in The Theory of
Everything movie by using Wardaugh’s and Chaika’s theories. Based on the explanation above, this research is intended to answer the following problems:
1. What types of address terms are uttered by the characters of a movie entitled
The Theory of Everything? 2.
What social factors do affect the characters of The Theory of Everything movie in certain types of address terms?
C. Objectives of the Research
In reference to problem formulations mentioned above, the objectives of the research are stated as follows:
1. to identify the types of address terms which are uttered by the characters of a
movie entitled The Theory of Everything, and 2.
to analyze the social factors that affect the characters of The Theory of Everything movie in certain types of address terms.
D. Significance of the Research
Based on the result of the research, it is expected that this research provides both theoretical and practical contributions.
1. Theoretical significance
Theoretically, the research findings confer additional information to linguistic field dealing with sociolinguistic research under the issue of address terms.
2. Practically significance
Practically, it is expected that this research is useful for the academic society in enriching the knowledge of address terms. In addition, this research is
hopefully able to give an important contribution for other researchers who are interested in doing similar research.
