The Background of the Study

1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of the Study

Communication is one of the inevitably salient parts of human social life. By communicating with others, people socialize in their daily life. To achieve the purpose of socialization, people indisputably need an effective communication. However, an effective communication will not be achieved without communicative competence. According to Hymes via Simpson, 2004: 38, the knowledge of what, when, and where to say something is called communicative competence. He further states that communicative competence is the skill involved in matching an utterance to the appropriate context of use or, in other words, knowing when to be familiar and when to be formal, knowing when to be direct and when to be indirect, or knowing when to talk and when to keep quiet. Moreover, the effective communication is impossible to be attained without the assist of language. Language comprises a combination of words to communicate ideas in a meaningful way. Furthermore, language can be both realized in the spoken form and depicted in the written form which varies in many realizations. One of them is literary work. Literary work is the evidence that language has infinity of meaning since the author has unlimited freedom to express his idea in his works. An author can freely use his creativity to communicate his message toward the readers by employing his own style. A successful writer uses language creatively, that is he uses the language differently from the conventional and everyday language. By using his creativity, a writer can give the readers unexpected surprise or twist in the story and also build strong impression in their mind to captivate their hearts. This kind of creative use of language is called linguistic deviation. It is created by deviating the norms of literary convention or everyday language of an original language. As sometimes it makes an absurdity or ambiguity in literary works, linguistic deviation is worth investigating further. Linguistic deviation in literary works is analyzed under the study of stylistics. Simpson 2004: 2 states that stylistics is an approach of textual explication which is assigned to language. Language is very substantial since the various forms, patterns, and levels that constitute linguistic structure are the significant index of the function of the text. The goal of stylistics is to explore language, specifically the creativity in language use. As observed, it enriches people’s ways of thinking about language. Moreover, exploring language offers a substantial purchase on understanding literary texts. Understanding literary texts cannot be separated from analyzing linguistic deviation as it is commonly found in literary works. According to Leech 1969: 37, there are eight types of linguistic deviation. They are lexical deviation, grammatical deviation, phonological deviation, graphological deviation, dialectal deviation, deviation of register, deviation of historical period, and semantic deviation. Moreover, semantic deviation can be divided into three types which are semantic oddity, honest deception, and transference of meaning. Semantic oddity means semantic bizarreness of expression and comprises pleonasm, tautology, oxymoron, paradox, and periphrasis. Meanwhile, honest deception can be classified into hyperbole exaggeration, litotes understatement, and irony. Furthermore, transference of meaning covers four tropes of figurative languages, i.e. synecdoche, metaphor, metonymy, and simile. However, this research only focuses on analyzing transference of meaning found in Rebecca Stead’s novel, Liar and Spy . It is an example of compelling story that is very suitable to children and young adults to learn the ups and downs of life. The excellent problem management that arises in this book has inspired the researcher to choose this work. In addition, Liar and Spy was also awarded School Library Journal’s Best Books List, Publishers Weekly Best Books List, and Kirkus Review Best Children ’s Books List in 2012. Those awards support that Liar and Spy is a good quality book and it is also worth reading. The intriguing storyline of the novel has captivated the readers by the style of the author in employing figurative language. Moreover, Liar and Spy contains many semantic deviations that make it special and memorable. Semantic deviation, particularly transference of meaning employed in the story, is one of the salient and critical aspects of the style of a literary work. The style used by the writer is closely bound to a story as it will differentiate literary works in the different styles as in their functions, elements, and readers’ responses. Style differentiates literary works in terms of how successfully the story conveys the message to the readers and how it affects them.

B. The Research Focus