This category of speech act becomes the focus of this research. The writer tries to analyze the directive speech acts used by Miranda Priestly in order to
know the leadership style of Miranda. All about directives speech acts theory will be discussed after this classification of speech acts.
e. Commissives
Commissives is defined by Searle in Huang’s book 2007:107 as the speech acts that commit the speaker to some future course of action. They express
the speaker’s intention to do something. It indicates the speaker will do something in the future. These are the examples of commisives:
i. I’ll be back in five minutes. Huang, 2007:107 ii. We will not do that. Yule, 1996:54
3. Directive Speech Act
Searle in Huang’s book defines directives as that kind of speech act that represent attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do something 2007:107.
This kind of speech act expresses the desire of the speaker for the hearer to do something or to do certain action. This definition is also supported by Yule. He
states that directives are speech acts which the speaker uses to get someone else to do something 1996:54. Based on its function, directive is differentiated into
some types as follows:
a. Command
Commands are sentences which normally have no overt grammatical subject, and whose verb is in the imperative mood Quirk, 1972:386. Commands
are also used to instruct somebody to do something. It tends to be demanding, means that the order must be fulfilled.
Example: Speak to the boss today. Quirk, 1972:386
b. Request
A request is the way of ordering something from the hearer. Request is not like command, it is generally less demanding. The example is ‘could you lend me
a pen, please?’ Yule, 1996:54 In some cases, a speaker tends to use hints to produces a request. Searle in
Cole’s book 1975:59 states that sometimes a speaker may utter the sentence I want you to do it
by way of requesting the hearer to do something. Here, the utterance is incidentally meant as a statement, but actually it is also meant
primarily as a request made by way of making a statement.
c. Prohibition
Prohibition means to prevent the hearer from doing something. Example: Don’t touch that. Yule, 1996:54
d. Question
Searle 1974:11 classifies question as a kind of directives speech act since they are attempts by speaker to get hearer to answer that question. It means that a
question is also performing a speech act. According to Quirk, questions are primarily used to express lack of
information on a specific point, and usually to request the listener to supply this information verbally 1972:386. Question can be divided into three major classes
based on the type of answer they expect. First is yes or no question such as have
you been to Paris? Second are wh-questions such as what is your name? and the
third is the alternative question such as would you like steak or chicken? When people perform directives, sometimes they may say in declarative,
imperative, or interrogative. Holmes in Richards and Schmidt 1984:98 divides the directives speech acts into three major classifications based on their form:
a. Imperatives
