CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
This chapter is divided into four parts. The first section in this chapter is literature review, which covers some theories on pragmatics especially speech act of
request. The second section is a brief description of Office Space movie which covers the synopsis of the movie. The next section is the previous research findings which
explain the previous research conducted by other researchers in the same research area. The last section is conceptual framework that explains the concept in
accordance with the problems of the research.
A. Literature Review
1. Pragmatics
Language is used in daily life to interact with each other. It needs to be understood by people since it can reveal people`s thoughts and ideas. When someone
says, ”I‟m hungry”, hisher words can be interpreted in many ways. The hearer can interpret it as a sign that the speaker is merely hungry. However, it also can be
interpreted that the speaker wants someone to get himher food. Hence, the hearer also needs context or situational background to interpret a speaker`s intention since
an utterance can be interpreted in many ways. To understand people`s intention, heshe cannot only depend on the structure of
language but heshe should deal with the context. Yule 1996:3 writes that
pragmatics is a study of contextual meaning which involves the interpretation of what people mean in a particular context and how the context influences what is said.
Being more detail, Griffiths 2006:1 states that pragmatics is concerned with the “toolkit” for meaning: knowledge encoded in the vocabulary of the language and
in its patterns for building more elaborate meanings in meaningful communication. In other words, pragmatics is about the interaction of semantic knowledge related to the
world, as well as contexts of use. Meanwhile, according to Leech 1983:10, pragmatics can be defined as the study of how utterances have meanings in situation.
Regarding the definitions and concept of pragmatics as mentioned above, pragmatics studies the meaning of utterances in relation to the context of language
which involves how speakers can produce the best utterance to deliver their intention of the speaker`s utterances.
2. Speech Acts
a. The Definition of Speech Act
Pragmatically, an action that is done through language can be studied under the labels of speech act. Yule 1996:47 uses the term speech act to refer to the actions,
which are performed via utterances. For example, when a boss says, “You are fired”,
hisher words constitute the act of firing an employee. In this example, the boss is performing an act via utterance. It means the words can change someone`s status
Mey, 1994:112.
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