Information Structure Language Features

20 functional word p. 141. An example of substitution can be seen in this utterance: ‘White Coffee? It’i io yeiterday’, where white coffee is substituted by it so that there is no repetition that will be awkward to be heard in a daily expression like that. Substitution can also be in the form of replacing noun words with nominal words, for example: ‘The red velvet cakei look delicioui. I want one of thoie pleaie’. The noun phrase red velvet cakei is replaced by thoie since it is clear for both the speaker and the listener that the subject of the utterance is the ‘red velvet cakes’. Ellipsis is the omission of some elements in a language structure. In the context of sentence, it means omitting words that do not give significant change in the meaning. Carter et al. 2001 define ellipsis as “omission of words unnecessary in everyday discourse” p. 197. Ellipsis occurs mostly in daily conversation such as when talking to friends and family or in public places where everyone have understood the unspoken rules of the speaking style there. An example is when people say ‘Two eipreiioi’ instead of ‘I would like two cups of espresso please.’, as usually occurs in a coffee shop. It makes an impression that the sentences are incomplete yet show closer and stronger relationship between or among the speakers.

c. Information Structure

A text certainly carries information as its main message for a certain purpose. Information structure is the presentation of delivering the message intended by the writer through the text. This feature focuses on the text-context relationship, especially by also looking at the genre of the text. Carter et al. 2001 21 state that “different texts follow different rules which dictates to a certain extent the shape of the text produced” p. 146. It means that language practices have different genres one to another that distinguish their characteristics apart from others, therefore the information structure is also different based on the type of the text. In spoken texts like conversation or speech, it could also depends on the context or situation in which the speaker is in. Finegan 2004 notes that information structure can be seen by how speakers using various ways of creating sentences p. 261. Context indeed plays an important role for speakers or writers to deliver their message through spoken or written texts. There are several things to consider in distinguishing the genres of discourse texts and speeches such as sentence functions, verbs, and theme. 1 Sentence Functions There are four main forms of sentences based on their functions in a text. The first form is question sentence, which has the function of asking information directly. There are several different examples of question sentences: ‘What are you eating?’ ‘Ii that a cupcake?’ ‘It ii delicioui, iin’t it?’ The first example is a question that asks for information, which the answer will be a certain object or topic. The second example is a simple yes-no question to confirm the state of the object being referred to. The third example is also asking for confirmation with a slightly different sentence structure which is called question tag, a type of question that is actually rather rhetorical. 22 The second form of sentence is statement, which is for explaining or describing information. This form is generally used in daily conversation and writing, for examples: ‘I read linguiitic booki everyday.’, ‘The ihop ii cloied at night.’, and ‘There are penguini at the zoo now.’. More than one kind of information can be delivered in one sentence of statement. The third is imperative or command sentence, which is used to command information or action. Imperative sentences do not need to be exclamative because the main function is to ask others to do something, for examples: ‘Buy thii now.’, ‘Try thii new recipe.’, ‘Get thoie paperi pleaie.’. As seen in those examples, there is no need to put a subject at the beginning of the sentence or put an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence. Exclamation mark can be used in the last form of sentence, exclamation, which its function is expressing emotion directly. Some examples of this sentence function are: ‘Firit in Indoneiia’, ‘New flavor’, and ‘Perfect’. Based on those examples, a single word and a simple phrase can be a meaningful sentence since it carries the emotion expressed by the speaker or writer. 2 Verbs Beside the functions of sentences, another element to understand the information structure of a text or speech is by looking at the verbs used in its sentences. Tense and voice are used in analyzing the verbs in sentences because they depend on the genre of the text and they give significant meaning of the information they carry. According to Carter et al. 2001, “tense refers to the way verbs are used to signal time”, which means that the verb of a sentence can show a past, present, or future information. Some examples to see the difference among 23 the three main tenses are as follows: ‘One Pirection performed a ipectacular itage lait night.’ ‘One Pirection performi in front of thouiandi of fani.’ ‘One Pirection ii performing their lateit iingle thii weekend.’ The first sentence shows an information that an action has been done, seen by the use of ‘-ed’ form for the verb. The second sentence indicates that the information is in present tense. The last sentence indicates that the information is about an upcoming action that is expected to definitely happen in the near future. Voice is the way a verb deliver the information, either in active or passive sentence structure. An information delivered in active voice can be changed into passive voice, with the same essence of the meaning. Yet, there are several certain verbs that cannot be conversed into passive voice, such as cry, rain, walk, which are called intransitive verbs. Here are some examples of active and passive voice: ‘He watched a movie.’ active voice, past tense ‘A movie wai watched by him.’ passive voice, past tense ‘The ticketi are iold out.’ passive voice, present tense ‘They iell out the ticketi.’ active voice, present tense ‘She runi away from home.’ active voice, present tense, intransitive verb The first and second example show how the difference and conversion of active and passive voice. Both active and passive voice sentences from each example have the same information, the difference between them is that the form of the sentence structure brings different perspectives or points of view. While in active form the object is following after the verb, in passive form the object is moved in 24 front of the sentence, then followed by the verb which is added by a ‘to be’. On the other hand, the third example shows a type of sentence with intransitive verb that cannot be conversed into passive voice. Some passive forms omit the original subject of the active form because they make the sentence shorter and more effective to use. 3 Theme Theme is also a part of the information structure to understand a text. What is meant by theme is the main idea of the information of a text or speech. Theme can be analyzed by looking at the links between clauses or sentences that usually exist at the beginning and at the end of a sentence. The links have similar function as conjunction but they are connecting the context of the text, not just a part of sentence structure. Carter et al. 2001 explain the work of theme in a text clearly as follows: Theme refers to the first part of a sentence, which is where the subject matter of the sentence is usually laid out for the reader. It covers all the material before the main verb. When sentences are woven tightly together, the end of one sentence called the ‘focus’ can become the theme of the next. But themes have to have some continuity across sentences, otherwise a text that looki tightly knit can make complete nonsense p. 152. An example that can describe the use and work of theme in a text is presented as follows: ‘A driver delivered a package to your room thii afternoon. The package ieemi big and heavy, and on the top of it ii the gift card from your iender. I think it’i one of your admireri.’ The expression ‘on the top of it’ connects the main information of the sentence which are ‘the package’ and ‘the gift card’. 25

B. Review of Related Studies

There are several studies that are related to the topic of this research. Those studies are similar in some ways to this research, and the researcher finds them helpful to support this research. The first related study is “Stylistic Analysis of the Magazine Advertisement: Atkins Chocolate Chip Granola Bar”, written by Min Li 2009. The study aims to analyze the language style of specified advertisements based on the linguistic description, textual analysis, and contextual analysis aspects p. 63. Some parts of the three aspects used in the particular study are similar to this research, therefore they are used as references that help the researcher understands the concept of language features and text and context. The second related study is “An Analysis on the Language Style of Utterances in Magnum Advertisements”, written by Permatasari 2014. The related study focuses on analyzing the language style of Magnum advertisements and the power relation they have based on the language features such as lexical features and syntactical features. Those two features are used as the ground in categorizing and conducting the data analysis. It is a reference for this research, which uses three categories of language features based on different theories. While Permatasari uses Grey’s theory of language style of advertisement, this research uses Carter’s et al. and Halliday’s theory of language features of discourse, which are applied to advertisement. The particular study’s subject is similar to this research, the commercial videos that are transcribed for the data analysis. While the Magnum advertisements are taken from international television commercials that use English as the main language of its native, Kopiko