The Primary Acts of utterances in Question Only Game as Analyzed

44 psychological state of this category is expressing speaker‟s belief on something through proposition uttered. Approving, asserting, clarifying, claiming, concluding, guessing, confirming, correcting, denying, describing, insisting, predicting, reporting, and stating were some examples of acts in this category. Those act appeared 73 29.44 from total 252 utterances in the conversation. The analysis below is the illustration of confirming act in the conversation. It appears 14 times. EXCERPT Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Questions Only Season 8, Episode 11 [01:31] [Scene: This conversation setting is in an old hotel, which turns out to be Frankenstein castle, where Wayne and Kathy stumbled upon earlier. Ryan, the receptionist, offers Wayne a bedroom in case he wants to have a stay for a bad weather outside. In this very occasion, Wayne is commenting about the bed type. ] Wayne : Is that a King-sized bed? Ryan : Is that your favorite type? As the main theme of the game suggests, Wayne was stumbled across Frankenstein castle which was first assumed as a hotel. As offering Wayne to stay, Ryan showed a room which he offered to Wayne. After Wayne saw the room, he then asked Ryan about the bed size whether it was a King-sized bed or not. Ryan then responds by asking back saying “Is that your favorite type?” while smiling. The analysis on the conversation is elaborated in the paragraphs below. First, after being displayed to the bed, Wayne asked about the bed size. Ryan responded to that proposal by asking about Wayne‟s favorite bed size. Next, Wayne assumed that Ryan was cooperating in the conversation. Therefore, his utterances should be intended to be relevant. Third, the relevant response to 45 Wayne ‟s utterance must be a confirmation, denial, or a further discussion on the bed size they were talking about. However, Ryan‟s literal utterance was not one of these possible responds. Though the utterance topic was related to the conversation, it was not used to respond to Wayne‟s utterance. Therefore, Ryan might mean more than he said. The primary act of Ryan‟s utterance might differ from its literal one. The sixth step, Wayne might notice that Ryan was trying to offer the best product he had. A king-sized bed should have distinct look then other bed type. Moreover, Ryan was saying his remark while smiling. Next, therefore, Ryan must be feeling fortunate to offer the right type of bed. His remark seemed to justify Wayne proposal and excitement of seeing the king-sized bed. Besides, Ryan did not try to correct Wayne as he acknowledged the bed as he believed. Then, the preparatory conditions for confirming are that the speaker has reason to have same opinion on truth of the propositional content and it was not obvious that the hearer know the propositional content. Therefore, Ryan‟s remark was intentionally meant to show his fortunate feeling for offering the right bed to Wayne. Ryan was smiled when Wayne was showing his excitement once the bed was presented and not trying to correct Wayne. Finally , Ryan‟s primary act is to confirm that the bed was a king size bed which also Wayne‟s favorite type. After presenting the bed, Wayne was asking the specific size or type of the bed. Bed type must be almost similar for a hotel standard and that Wayne was excited seeing one indicated that the bed type was actually his favorite. As the preparatory condition of confirming, which was the speaker had the same idea 46 with the hearer, was achieved, it successfully performed the act. It predominantly said like “Whoa, good for you. Your favorite it is, a king-sized bed.” By not correcting Wayne as well, Ryan indirectly confirming that the one he showed to Wayne and what Wayne presupposed was actually the same thing. They believed that the bed type was king-sized one and it favored Wayne as Ryan offering the right choice. 2 Directives The next category in Searle‟s typology is Directives. As presented by Searle 1975, to perform act in this category, the utterance propositional condition should present the future act of the hearer. Its sincerity condition of this category asserts the sp eaker‟s desire to get the predicated act done. The essential condition subsequently tells the speaker‟s goal which is to make the hearer to do the action proposed by the speaker. The last condition is preparatory condition which differentiates one act and the other under the same category. It results in some specific act with the same three preceding conditions in this category. The questioning act did not have to be analyzed the same way as the other act. Questioning act was considered as a direct speech act since question known for its relation with questioning act. Utterances with this act was still analyzed its felicity condition. If the felicity condition matched the condition of questioning act, the analysis would stop there. In the following part, the analysis was an example of the directive category. The acts of this category found in the conversation were advising, asking, imploring, inviting, ordering, querying, questioning, requesting, 47 commanding and suggesting. The acts in this category were appeared 137 55.24 times. The analysis below would illustrate the analysis on act of commanding which appeared 2 times. The excerpt below delivered the condition in which the conversation took place which would be followed by the analysis. EXCERPT Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Questions Only Season 8 Episode 11 [02:03] [Scene: This conversation takes place on an international flight. In this scene, Brad encountered with Wayne. Wayne was one of the passengers on the flight. Then, Brad draws a gun on Wayne at which the dialogue bellow happened. ] Wayne : Oh, what do you want from me? Brad : Will you take your clothes off? The scene of this conversation was set on an International flight. Brad played a role as a bad guy. He possessed a gun and pointed the gun to Wayne. Since Wayne was felling oppressed by Brad, he asked what Brad want from him. Wayne‟s utterance served questioning act since he wanted to know what he could do to save his life. Brad responded with another question. The analysis was illustrated below. Wayne asked Brad about what he wanted from him. Brad responded to Wayne‟s utterances by making a question about whether Wayne would put off his clothes. Next, assuming that brad was cooperating in the conversation, his utterance was intended to be relevant with the conversation setting. A relevant response to Wayne ‟s question must be an explanation on things or action Brad desired Wayne to do. Then, however, the literal utterance was that. Thus, Brad might mean more than he actually said that his primary act must differ from its literal one. 48 When Brad was pointing a gun to Wayne, he must want to make Wayne to obey and do anything he asked Wayne to do. Therefore, Brad might not ask Wayne‟s willingness or his future action whether he would take off his shirt. He just wanted Wayne to do it. The preparatory condition is that the speaker has the authority over the hearer and it was not obvious whether the hearer will do the predicated act in a normal course of event. Therefore, Wayne was aware that Brad asked him to take off his clothes. In addition to the gun possession, Wayne was forced to do the action or else Brad would pull the gun trigger. Lastly, his primary illocutionary point is to command Wayne taking of his clothes. As the analysis of the conversation was depicted above, the question asked by Brad to Wayne was performing questioning act. Brad, who possessed a gun, was forcing Wayne to take off his clothes. The authority was gained from the gun which is possessed by Brad. Thus, the utterance, “Will you take your clothes off?”, was not serving other directives like request, since Brad has an authority over Wayne. Brad did not perform requesting act even though the utterances could serve as a request. However, since Brad had a gun with him, he gained an authority over Wayne. Since requesting act was not being force to the hearer, the conversation in the setting failed to fulfill the felicity condition. Thus, Brad was considered as doing act of commanding. 3 Commisives Commisives category focuses on the speaker commitment to carry out an action in the future. According to Searle‟s typology 1979, this category has the 49 same direction of fit with direction type which is world-to-word. The utterance propositional content should explain the future act of the speaker. It shows the speaker‟s intention as the sincerity condition to sincerely carry out the act. The act essential condition is that the speaker agrees to do the action stated in the utterance. Preparatory condition for each act in this category differentiates one act from the other. The comisives acts category found in the conversation were accepting, offering, refusing and inviting. These acts appeared 24 times from total utterance, which was 9.68. The analysis below illustrated refusing act which appeared 7 times in the whole conversation. The excerpt shows the condition of the conversation and be followed by the analysis. EXCERPT Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Questions Only Season 8 Episode 8 [19:46] [Scene: The setting of the conversation was in Chicago, precisely in the year of 1930’s. The tension broke out in the gangster world. In this scene, more precisely in the bar, Drew met up with a familiar girl, who was acted out by Wayne. The girl was asking Drew to kiss her. ] Wayne : Can you give a girl the kiss? Drew : You want me to puke? This scene was about the breaks out in the gangster world of Chicago in the 1930s. In this setting, the use of slang and strong words were quite common. Also, the scene suggested about the rising tension in the gangster world. In the example above, Drew responded the request made by Wayne with a question. The analysis of the utterances illustrated below. 50 Wayne, who acted as a girl, asked Drew whether he could give her a kiss. In response to the request, Drew asked whether Wayne wanted him to puke. Secondly, it was assumed that Drew was trying to be cooperative in the conversation. Therefore his utterance was intended to be relevant. The relevant response to Wayne‟s proposal should be one of acceptance, rejection, or might be a further discussion. However, Drew‟s literal remark was not one of those possible responses. Thus, suppose that Drew‟s utterance was intended to be relevant, his primary act must be different from the literal one. Wayne was aware that if someone was puking usually because he disgusted by something. He implied that Drew would puke the outcome of the action kissing Wayne. Hence, Drew probably did not have any interest in kissing the girl which he exaggerated it by stating that he would puke if he kissed Wayne. The preparatory condition for accepting the proposal is the speaker ability to perform the act predicated in the propositional content condition. However, Drew was not interested in carrying out the action as he pointed out the bad things puking he might suffer from doing so. Thus, Wayne knew that Drew had said something which resulted in the condition in which he could give the kiss, or more precisely that he did not have the interest in accepting the proposal. Lastly, Drew‟s utterance primary act is to refuse doing Wayne‟s request. In this dialogue, Wayne made a proposal to Drew about giving him a kiss. Drew responded by asking “You want me to puke?”. From the utterance, Drew implicitly said he would not like to kiss Wayne. However, he said it in a strong language saying that kissing Wayne would make Drew sick. Thus, Drew simply 51 does not accept the proposal. Even though the speaker could actually carry out the act, he did not want to do. Thus, he committed not to do the act requested by the earlier speaker. 4 Declaration The next category in Searle‟s typology is Declaration. According to Searle 1969, acts in this category are the act that changes the reality by the time the utterance is made as its direction of fit is making both the words fit to the world and the world fit to the words. By the time the words are said, the reality becomes fit to the words. Its setting usually is bound with an institutional setting. The act in this category has no sincerity condition since whether the speaker sincere or not, the world is already changed by the words. Then, the essential condition is to change the affair of the world fit the words and conversely by its very utterance. This act category relies heavily on the institutional background. The act of this category found in the conversation is only one, which is appointing. Analysis on the appointing as an indirect speech at was presented in the explanation as follows. EXCERPT Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Questions Only Season 8 Episode 19 [03:18] [Scene: The conversation takes place in a high school reunion party. Ryan acts as a Police officer and Collin acts as the place or party organizer. The conversation was about the permit one should possess if he wanted to sell alcohol. Ryan then asked about that matter to Collin. ] Ryan : You have a permit to sell alcohol? Collin : Do I need one? Ryan : Well can you just take you hands up please? 52 The conversation setting was a high school reunion. The party provided the guest with punch, which is known as an alcoholic drink. In this conversation, Ryan, who played role as the police, arrived at the party and checked whether Collin, who was the party organizer, had the permission to sell alcohol. Colin‟s response implied that Colin did not know or just ignorant and he did not have the permit. Then, Ryan asked Colin whether he could take his hands up. Therefore, the complete analysis on the appointing act in the conversation is elaborated in the paragraphs below. Collin made proposal about the necessity of having a permission to sell alcohol. In responding to the proposal, Ryan asked whether Colin could put his hands up. Assuming that Ryan was cooperative, his utterance must be intended to be relevant. A relevant response to Collin‟s question must be confirmation, denial, or a further discussion. However , Ryan‟s response was not one of these and it could be considered as an irrelevant response. Therefore, Ryan probably meant more than what he said. His utterance primary act must be different from its literal one. Collin must be aware of a strict permission set by the government for selling alcoholic drink. Ryan should be aware that Colin‟s question might indicate he was not aware of it which implied he did not have the permit which was against the law. It was widely known Ryan‟s expression as appointing the lawbreaker. The preparatory condition of a Declaration act is the speaker ‟s authority which was fulfilled since Ryan was a cop. Therefore, Collin knows that Ryan has said that Collin was not following the regulation and he should be 53 arrested for his regulation violation. Lastly, Ryan ‟s primary act was to appoint that Collin was guilty for selling alcohol without permission. Based on the analysis, the question primary act was appointing act. The preparatory condition, which required the speaker to have an authority, was fulfilled. It was not a request, since the conversational setting suggested that the conversation was between a cop and a suspected lawbreaker. The plausible act to be done by Ryan in response to Collin‟s remark was appointing act. The contextual setting was fulfilled, therefore, the appointing act was successfully performed. 5 Expressives The last category in Searle‟s speech acts typology is Expressive. As Searle 1979 explains, this act is used to express some various psychological states of the speaker. Unlike the other categories, it does not have illocutionary point. From this category, the acts found in the conversation were greeting, expression of excitement, and expression of shocked. Total, those acts were appeared 13 times or 5.24. The explanation below would illustrate the analysis on the expression of excitement. EXCERPT Whose Line Is It Anyway: Questions Only Season 6 Episode 9 [1:56] [Scene: The scene happened in an international flight. In this scene, Ryan and Brad were the passengers of the same flight. Eventually, they recognized each other and it seemed that they had not seen each other for a long time. So, their conversation goes as follow. ] Ryan : How the hell are you? Brad : Where have you been? 54 In the conversation , Ryan was asking about Brad‟s current condition as they had been seen each other for unrevealed year in the scene. However, Brad was not actually explaining his condition. Instead, he responded to Brad by asking another question. The analysis of Brad‟s remark is depicted in the paragraphs below. In response to Ryan‟s greeting, Brad asked where Ryan had been all this long. Assuming that Brad was cooperating, his remark should be intended to be relevant. A relevant response to Brad‟s utterance should be information about Brad‟s current condition. However, the literal response was not that. Thus, brad might mean more than he said. In the setting, both of them were just met each other by chance. Thus, Brad might want to recognize Ryan as well. The preparatory condition for a greeting was that the speaker just encountered the hearer recently. Thus, Brad might as well want to show his recognition toward Ryan as they knew each other. Thus, the utterance primary act was to greet Ryan in return. Another consideration was that the utterance implies that Ryan was actually shocked for meeting Brad on the flight. It was such a coincidence to see his old friend there. Thus, it was taken as an expression of one‟s feeling. The direction of fit of this utteranc e is considered as “null” for it was neither trying to make the words fit the world nor world fit the words. Those are the examples of how the indirect speech act or utterance primary act analyzed. The analysis was heavily relied on the context. One reason was that 55 the analysis steps indeed employed Grices‟s cooperative principles. Moreover, a context is indeed affect a sentence meaning or aim. Based on the analysis above, this research found that the question in the context given could actually perform act from all of five categories. Each question which was assigned with a certain act was able to fulfill the felicity condition. It showed that the utterance force could not be identified by its syntactical form. This finding clarifies that one speech acts could be performed through different utterances. As the findings suggest, the relation between utterances form and its force was not as precise as the assumption suggest. From the total utterances analyzed, the researcher only found 70 of them of which force was questioning. The acts from other Searle‟s categories were performed by the questions in the conversation. Regardless of its form suggested, the utterances were fulfilling other acts felicity condition which was enabling them to perform that act. This finding implied that the sequences made of those 70 utterances mentioned earlier and the rest were not constructed of one act in particular. The second part of this chapter would address the topic about the conversation sequences in more detailed explanation.

B. Act Sequences of the Game Questions Only

As the first part addressed the utterances act, this part would focus on the sequences emerged based on those primary acts. The problem of the conversation in the game Questions Only was that the conversations consist of questions only. 56 It was against the adjacency pairs which suggest that the sequences should be question-answer. The conversation should be coherent and relevant for the questions never meet the answer. According to Leech 1983 and Huang 2006, interrogative sentence are identified as performing an act of questioning. Thus, the conversation was considered as ill-sequence conversation by Levinson 1984 for having XXX sequence. However, Levinson 1984 and Leech 1983 object the notion of one-to- one relation between utterances form and forces. This was clarified by the first part of this chapter finding which suggested that an utterance in form of question was not exclusively performing questioning act in any condition. Regardless of the utterances‟ form, the notions which suggest that the utterances bound the conversation coherency were proved to be irrelevant. Levinson 1984 suggests that the sequences were found between the acts performed by the utterances. This research employed adjacency pair and sequencing to address the relation between the utterances in the contextual conversation Cutting, 2002, p. 30; Levinson, 1984, p. 306. Since the first part had revealed the indirect speech acts in the conversation, this second part would see the sequence of the act in the conversation. It would be presented in the excerpt below. By doing this step, this research seek to find the relevance and the coherence of the conversation. The successful conversation should be relevant and coherent conversation. According to Levinson 1984, relevant means the utterances in a conversation have a related topic to each other while coherent means that the utterances have the sense of being intact within the utterance sequence and the relation of the 57 utterance and its context p. 31. This research would present the analysis with the steps in the first part to explain the relation between the utterances, particularly based on adjacency pair and some insertion. Some additional information was presented as the conversation often contained some cultural or specific event in the conversation. This research would try to illustrate the processes of how the participants understood the conversation and be presented in some paragraphs below. Each paragraph was numbered to indicate the utterance order in the conversation. The conversation also included some detailed information in the scene as well. The analysis was illustrated below. EXCERPT Whose Line Is It Anyway: Questions Only Season 7 Episode 25 [01:03] [Scene: Kathy and Wayne were new married couple. They had a honeymoon when the weather became stormy one stormy night. As they going, they were stumbled across the Frankenstein’s castle. They were discussing about going inside the castle or not. ] No. Participants Utterance Speech acts 1 Katy : Shouldn‟t we stop for the night? Suggesting 2 Wayne : Huh, you hear that? Questioning 3 Katy : What? Questioning 4 Wayne : What‟s that noise? Describing 5 Katy : Were you trying to scare me? Denying 6 Wayne : Is that Frankenstein castle in the distance? Guessing 7 Katy : You mean that building over there? Questioning 8 Wayne : You wanna go in? Questioning 9 Katy : Shouldn‟t you go first? Suggesting 10 Wayne : Why brother gonna go first? Refusing 58 1. Shouldn’t we stop for the night? Kathy was making a proposal to Wayne whether they should stop or not. Wayne might assume that the question was quite urgent. However, her question was not really having a point. It was just asking whether they should stop or not. Therefore, Wayne might be well aware that Kathy was trying to say something more than that. She must not just randomly ask the necessity of stopping for the night. Wayne might be aware that it was a stormy night. It was too dangerous to drive in a situation like this. Thus, she might be thinking of a safer plan than keep on driving the car. The preparatory condition for a directive was that it was not sure whether the hearer would do the act in the future. More specifically for a suggestion, that the speaker believed the act would benefit for the hearer. Therefore, Wayne might be aware that Kathy was saying a better plan for him to consider. In the end, He was aware that the primary illocutionary act made by Kathy was to suggest him to stop for a while. 2. Huh, you hear that? In this utterance, Wayne was not replying the previous proposal made by Kathy. He made another proposal which was indicated that he heard some noise. He was opting out for being distracted by the voice he believed he heard and start a new conversation from here. A preparatory condition for act of questioning is that the speaker does not know the propositional content and it is not obvious that the hearer would give the answer without being asked. Wayne wanted to know if Kathy heard the sound. 59 3. What? After asking Kathy about the sound he heard, Kathy responded by simply saying “What”. She did not believe and was not aware that there was a sound as Wayne reported earlier. Therefore, then, she tried to get the information on that issue. The propositional content was a simple question. She wanted to know what he heard while she did not. 4. What’s that noise? Since Kathy did not hear yet, Wayne kept on trying to ask Kathy about the sound he heard. Wayne then responded to Kathy‟s question by asking the same question. It was assumed that Wayne wanted to be relevant and cooperative. Thus, the response should be an explanation on something being the case. In that case, Wayne might say more than he said. Since the literal act was irrelevant, his primary act must differ from the literal act. Kathy might be aware that he did not hear the noise which is heard by Wayne. In fact, Kathy was clueless and trying to ask Wayne about it. On the other hand, when someone was sure about something, the speaker might try to keep on telling the hearer about it. Therefore Wayne might be hearing the noise again and trying to point out what it sounded like. The preparatory condition for describing was the hearer pointed out where the thing or what it looked like to the hearer. It was also not obvious whether the hearer knew the propositional content. Therefore, Kathy might be aware that Wayne was trying to show her what he believed he heard. In the conclusion, the primary illocution which was made by Wayne was describing the thing he believed.