16 Expressive speech acts communicate to the hearer that a specific emotion is present
in the speaker. These can clarify, amplify, and precise the intended message of emotions. They deal with social and interpersonal relations. Expressive speech act
includes thanking, apologizing, congratulating, and welcoming Searle, 1976. The examples of an expressive category as written in Yule 1996 are: 1
I’m really sorry 2 Congratulations 3 Oh, yes, great, mmmm, ssahh
e. Declarative
Declarative category is a speech act where the speaker brings about some state of affairs by the mere performance of the speech act Searle, 1979. Someone
who performs declarative speech acts wants to create a new reality. It transforms into a new state. Yule 1996, p. 128 said that it is
“a speech act that brings about a change by being uttered, e.g. a judge pronouncing a sentence.” The examples of
declarative category as written in Yule 1996 are: 1 Priest: I now pronounce your husband and wife. 2
Referee: You’re out 3 Jury Foreman: We find the defendant guilty.
Furthermore, there is correlation between mood types and speech acts. In this case, mood types influence the role of speech acts. Based on Huddleston and
Pullum 2002, the sentence type is the grammatical system which has the major types: declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamative. They also explain that
each of the types has own characteristics. First, declarative sentence is used to give the statement. It is the common
types in writing. It ends with period. For example: 1 Practice makes perfect. 2 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
17 The happiest person is the prettiest. 3 John plays piano. Second, interrogative is
used to ask the question. It ends with the question mark. There are two kinds interrogative sentence in English. Those are yesno question and wh- question. The
examples are: 1 Where do you come from? 2 Can I put this pen? 3 Do you like coffee?
Then, imperative is used to direct something. It expresses the command or the request. It ends with period or exclamatory point. There is implied subject in
this sentence and means ‘you’. For example: 1 Please, take me an umbrella. 2 Help me 3
Don’t drive fast. Last, exclamative is used to make exclamatory statement or strong feeling. It ends with the exclamatory point. The examples are:
1 Good Job 2 What a beautiful it is 3 Wonderful In the text, expressing one speech act category can use several mood types.
Mood types show the form of the text and speech acts show the function of the text. As the example, Huddleston and Pullum 2002 give the illustration below:
i. Passengers are requested to remain seated.
ii. Would you mind opening the door for me?
Illustration i and ii show how the speaker expresses the request. From the function point, those show directive category. The speaker wants other people to do
an action. However, the speaker uses different mood types in showing the category. Illustration i uses declarative type. The speaker gives the statement to announce
the information for the passengers. Meanwhile, illustration ii uses interrogative type. Through the question, the speaker asks someone to do an action.
18 2. Speech Act Categories in Written Communication
A human being, on the basis of acquired linguistic and general knowledge, can understand andor produce lingual utterances. Language itself is always related
to action. When people are doing communication, they are not only delivering the message, but also performing an action from the utterance. This is called speech
acts. Speech acts do not move independently in communication. It is specified as conversations or discourses in more global units of communication Moeschler,
2002. It includes real-life interaction and requires knowledge and appropriate use of that language in a certain culture.
Every utterance shows the role of speech acts. Human’s thoughts and
perceptions are passed as a message to the receiver who will store, process and change it into meanings. Speech acts exist to express the goal of saying. “People
normally have goals of communication in mind such as establishing social relationships or expressing emotions or directing people to do something” Ad-
Darraji, 2012. A speaker intends his utterance to produce some effects to make the hearer recognizes this intention Grice, 1989. People should choose their words
and how they speak wisely because what they say can have profound effects.
C. Theoretical Framework
This part elaborates how the theory is conducted in the research. The research is concerned in speech act categories which are employed in TYS column
of the Jakarta Post. The researcher uses the main theory from Searle about speech act categories. T
he researcher only uses Searle’s theory to answer two problem PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
19 questions of the research in the explanation of five speech act categories. The
supporting theories are from Austin, Huddleston Pullum, Yule, Verschueren, Crystal
,
and Ad-Darraji. Speech acts are divided into five categories based on the
speaker’s intention by uttering the sentence. Based on Searle’s theory, the categories are assertive, commissive, directive, expressive, and declarative.
Figure 2.1 The Theoretical Framework
Speech acts locutionary
acts illocutionary
acts
assertive commissive
directive
TYS Column
expressive declarative
perlocutionary acts
20
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter explains about methodology which is used to answer two research problems. There are five parts in this chapter. They are research method,
research subject, research instruments and data gathering technique, data analysis technique, and research procedure.
A. Research Method
A qualitative method is the “logic that links data to be collected and the
conclusions to be drawn to the initial questions of the study” Yin, 2009, p. 24. By using a qualitative methodology, the researchers want to gain richer information
and get details of issues, cases, or events Arora Stoner, 2009. It is a method that seeks the collection of evidence. The researchers could use a wide range of
techniques to collect data such as in-depth qualitative interviews; observation, field notes, focus groups, document analysis, and other methods of data collection.
Qualitative research is multi-method in focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that qualitative
researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to
them. Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials
– case study, personal experience, introspective, life story, interview, observational, historical, interactional
and visual texts – that describe routine and problematic moments and
meanings in individuals lives. Denzin Lincoln, 2004, p. 2.
In this case, the researcher used descriptive qualitative analysis in the study. The researcher wanted to obtain deeper information and get the details about speech
21 act categories which were employed in TYS column of the Jakarta Post. The
researcher described the data using visual aids such as tables to make the readers understand the data distribution.
There are various types of qualitative method. They are phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, interpretive description, narratives, and discourse
analysis. This study was included in the discourse analysis type. In this case, the study analyzed the script of the opinions of the readers in TYS column of the Jakarta
Post newspaper. The researcher wanted to analyze the form of language and its functions of written texts.
Discourse analysis concerns about written texts and spoken language McCarthy, 2000. Discourse analysis is used to analyse the form of language and
its functions. It also covers the study of written texts and spoken language. Discourse analysis takes analytic approaches and theoretical perspectives such as
speech act theory, interactional sociolinguistics, ethnography, conversation analysis, and other analysis related to language Schiffrin, 1994 as cited in Darwish,
2011.
B. Research Subject
The researcher used TYS column in the Jakarta Post newspaper as the subject of this study. The column provided people to write down their opinions about
certain issues which are built by newspaper staffs. The issues were the hottest issues in that time.
22 TYS column was chosen because the column is an interactional written
communication which forms stimulus-response model in communication. The column has many texts from the readers in expressing their opinion toward certain
issues. The text consists of one sentence or many sentences. It can be found that one text can have more than one speech act categories. The comments could be
showed in various types and showed the role of speech act categories. The data was collected from September 2015 issues. During September
2015, there were 16 issues provided to build the comments of readers. As the response to the issues, the researcher gained 114 comments to analyze the speech
act categories.
C. Research Instrument and Data Gathering Technique
The researcher gathered the data from the Jakarta Post website. The researcher went to the readers’ forum and chose TYS column. The data were
downloaded. The researcher used word processing program as the first instrument to make the transcript of TYS column after downloading. In the transcript, the
researcher made cross tabulation tables as the second instrument to present the gathered data. Then, the data were classified based on the appropriate speech act
categories from Searle’s theory. After that, the researcher made the checklist in each
classification. To determine the speech act categories, the researcher compared the related theory with the texts. Then, the researcher changed the speech act categories
into verb form to assert, to be committed, to direct, to express. The intention was PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
