policy is another example of refusing by showing gratitude. Statement I appreciate you for speaking up your idea
shows the refuser‘s gratitude toward the refusee‘s idea. However, the idea opposes the company‘s policy. Hence, the
refuser must refuse it. The statement following the expression of gratitude is used to refuse the suggestion.
b. The Functions of Refusals
Chen, Ye, and Zhang 1995: 121 state that refusals are responses to an initiating act and they are considered as speech acts by which a speaker fails
to engage in an action proposed by the interlocutor. Edmonson in Amy Lynne VonCanon‘s Just Saying no: Refusing Requests in Spanish as a First and Second
Language 2006: 9 also states that the action proposed by the interlocutor is called initiating act and it typically takes the form of one of the followings:
request, invitation, offer, suggestion. Furthermore, Sadler and Eroz 2002: 56-68 mention that refusals are responses to refuse the request, invitation, suggestion,
and offer. An example of initiating acts presented in the conversation below:
A: This bag is for you. B: This is too expensive for me.
The conversation above is an example of an offer. A offers B a gift which he has bought. However, B thinks that she should not accept the gift because it is too
expensive. Therefore, B‘s refusal is used to refuse an offer. Another example is in the following conversation:
A: Could you tell me where Jane is?
B: I can‘t tell you where she is.
The conversation above is an example of a request for informationadvice. In the example, A asks for information about Jane. However, B refuses to tell A where
Jane is. Hence, B‘s refusal is used to refuse a request. However, the functions of refusals have not been specifically mentioned by
the previous research on refusals. Therefore, this research analyzes the functions of refusals. An example of the functions of refusals can be seen in the
conversation below: A: Please buy me a cup of coffee now
B: But, you just asked me to buy a bottle of juice.
B‘s response of A‘s request is classified as indirect type of refusals. He performs an indirect refusal in order to show an unfairness in A‘s request. B thinks that it is
so unfair if A forces him to buy him a coffee since A already asked him to buy a bottle of juice.
5. Movie
Movie communicates the way people‘s life in other places. As stated by Bordwell and Thompson 2008: 2, movies communicate information and ideas.
They portray the places and the ways of live which the audiences might not know. In analyzing a movie, the researcher has to comprehend the element of a movie.
Pratista, 2008: 29 proposes five elements of a movie. The elements of movie include:
a. Scene
: a section of a movie or film usually made up of a number
of shots, which is unified by time, setting, character, etc.,
b. Plot
: the unified structure of incidents in a movie or film,
c. Character
: an imaginary person in a movie or film,
d. Point of View : the angle of vision from which a story is narrate
e. Conflict
: a struggle between opposing force in a movie or film,
usually resolved by the end of the story.
6. 12 Years a Slave
12 Years a Slave is a 2013 narrative memoir based movie which is directed by Steve McQueen. The setting of the movie is in New Orleans during the 18
th
century. It is starred by Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup Platt, Lupita Nyong‘o as Patsey, Michael Fassbender as Epps, Benedict Cumberbatch as Ford,
Brad Pitt as Bass, Paul Dano as Tibeats, and Sarah Paulson as Mary Epps.
Figure 1. The Official Poster of 12 Years a Slave
The movie was about Solomon Northup‘s slavery. In 1841, a free African- American man named Solomon Northup was kidnapped from his hometown in
Saratoga. He was forced to be a slave. Then, he was shipped to New Orleans and was given a new name, Platt.
Platt or Solomon was bought by William Ford. He managed to have a good relationship with him because of his cleverness and skill. He pleased Ford for his
success in transporting the logs through the swamp which cost more effective than manual transporting through the wood. Unfortunately, Platt was sold to Epps due
to his conflict with Tibeats, Ford‘s plantation overseer. Platt told Ford that he was a free man in order to get his help. He asked Ford to save him. However, Ford
refu sed Platt‘s request because he has debt to take care of. When Platt was sold to
Epps, Ford also transferred his debt to Epps. Unlike William Ford, Epps was crueler. He required all his slaves to pick
cotton at least 200 pounds each day. All the slaves would be punished if they could not accomplish the target. A young female slave named Patsey became
Epps‘s favorite slave because she managed to pick cotton as much as 500 pounds each day. However, Epps treated her rudely and even raped her. Mrs. Epps‘
jealousy made Patsey more suffered. One day, Platt asked a former overseer, Armbsy, to send him a letter.
However, Armbsy reneged on the deal he has made with Platt. He took Platt‘s money but he reported Platt to Epps. Platt managed to escape from Epps‘
punishment after ensuring Epps that he was innocent. One day, Platt helped a Canadian worker named Bass to build a gazebo for
Epps. He also asked Bass to send him a letter. Bass agreed to help him because he believed that every man has freedom.
When working in the field, Platt was called over by the local sheriff who arrived in a carriage with a man. The sheriff asked Northup or Platt a series of
questions in order to confirm that he was Solomon Northup. Then, Platt recognized the sheriffs companion as a shopkeeper he knew from Saratoga.
Finally, after living as a slave for 12 years, Solomon Northup was freed and could reunite with his family.
7. Previous Studies
There have been many researches on the speech acts of refusals. One of the researches was A Contrastive Pragmatic Study on American English and
Mandarin Refusal Strategies by Chao-chih Liao and Mary I. Bresnahan. Their research finding showed that Chinese people generally do not express positive
opinions first because the expression of wo hen le-yi ‗I’d love to…‘ was not a
formulaic expression in refusals. In contrast, most of Americans refused by stating their principle. Moreover, the most common mode of refusals in Chinese was an
address form and apology followed by the reason of refusals. Otherwise, Americans would say
I’d love to followed by the reasons of refusing. A Pragmatic Analysis of Refusal Expressions Used by the Characters in
Orphan Movie by Arum Sari was another research on refusals. The research focused on analyzing refusals performed by the family in Orphan. The first
objective was to analyze the types of refusals. The finding revealed that there were two types of performed refusals, namely direct and indirect type. Indirect
type, especially avoidance, had the highest frequency in the occurrence of refusals. Most of the family characters in the movie used avoidance in order to
avoid the conflict with the interlocutor. Arum Sari discussed the strategies of refusals in her second objectives. The
finding revealed that the occurrence of negative politeness strategy was higher
than positive politeness, bald on-record, and off-record strategy. Indicating reluctance, being indirectness, using hedge, and using question were negative
politeness strategies which were employed by the family members to express their refusals.
The last objective of Arum Sari‘s research was to describe the functions of refusals. The finding showed that refusals expressed by the family members had
functions to refuse suggestion, request, and offer. This research is different
from Arum Sari‘s research. The difference lies on the second objective, the third objective, and the object of the research. The
second objective of Arum Sari‘s research was to describe the strategies in refusals by employing politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson. Meanwhile,
the second objective in this research is to describe the realizations of refusals by using Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss-
Weltz‘s classification of refusals. The third objective in Arum Sari‘s research was to describe the functions
of refusals. In analyzing the data, she employed a theory proposed by Edmonson. On the other hand, this research analyzes the functions of refusals by examining
the contexts, the types, and the realizations of refusals. The object of this research is a movie entitled 12 Years a Slave.
Meanwhile, Arum Sari used Orphan as her research‘s object. Since both of the
researches have different object, the findings will be different from one another.
B. Conceptual Framework
In this research, the resear cher analyzes the character‘s utterances in Steve
McQueen‘s 12 Years a Slave movie through pragmatic approach. Pragmatics is the most appropriate approach to support this research due to its concerns about
the inseparable relationship between language and context. This research concerns with analyzing refusals within the domain of pragmatics. The researcher focuses
on the types, realizations, and refusals performed by the characters in 12 Years A Slave.
Refusals are expressions which contradict the interloc utor‘s expectation.
Searle in Felix-Brasdefer 2008: 42 explains that refusals belong to the category of commisives because they commit the refuser to perform an action. Beebe,
Takahashi, and Uliss-Welz 1990: 72-73 have classified refusals into 3 types. The types of refusals are direct type, indirect type, and adjuncts to refusals.
Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss-Welz 1990: 72-73 also distinguish the realizations of each type of refusals. Direct type can be realized in the form of
performative and non-performative statement. Meanwhile, indirect type can be realized in the form of the statement of an alternative, avoidance,
excusereasonexplanation, promise to the future acceptance, the attempt to dissuade the interlocutor, the statement of a principlephilosophy, set a condition
for future or past acceptance, wish, and the acceptance that functions as a refusal. Then, adjuncts to refusals are realized in the form of the statement of
opinionfeeling of agreement, the statement of empathy, pause fillers, and gratitudeappreciation.
The researcher also analyzes the functions of refusals performed by the characters since every type of refusals has different functions. The functions of
refusals include showing a determination in refusing; showing unwillingness to comply with the request, offer, suggestion, or invitation; negotiating the request,
offer, suggestion, or invitation; avoiding a conflict or ending an argument with the refusee; demanding understanding from the refusee; mocking the refusee or the
request, offer, suggestion, or invitation; implying the unfairness of the request, offer, suggestion, or invitation, and showing gratitude to the refusee.
Then, the researcher makes an analytical construct based on the explanation above. The analytical construct is made on the basis of the conceptual
framework as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Analytical Construct
35
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD
A. Types of the Research
Descriptive-qualitative method was employed in this research. The method was used to describe the types, realizations, and functions of refusals. Wiersma
1995: 12 defines descriptive-qualitative research as a research that describes phenomenon in the form of word instead of number or measure. Moreover,
Bogdan and Biklen 1982: 28 suggest that qualitative research is descriptive since the collected data is in the form of word or picture rather than number.
Furthermore, Vanderstoep and Johnson 2008: 7 state that qualitative research produces narrative or textual description of the phenomena under study.
In other words, the finding in the qualitative research is presented in a narrative form or textual description rather than in a statistical from. Therefore, the result of
data analysis in this research was presented in the form of word rather than number since descriptive-qualitative research provided a richer and deeper
understanding of the object being analyzed.
B. Forms, Contexts, and Sources of Data
The data of this research were in the form of utterances which were uttered by the characters in 12 Years a Slave. Bungin 2007: 103 suggests that the data in
the qualitative research are in the form of sentences, utterances, and short stories. The contexts of the data were the dialogues among the characters since the data
