AND II VIDEO GAME

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Research

Language as the part of communication becomes an important aspect in humans life. Humans use language as a medium to communicate with each other. Language could be in terms of sign or sound which contains meaning. According to Taylor 1990:5 language is a set of system of signs speech, sound, gestures, and letters which are used to communicate messages. People read, write, and speak through language. They share ideas and informations and build relationships in social interaction because humans are considered as social beings and cannot live solitarily. By using language people reveal their sense of identity, character, and background. They share their opinions, express their feelings, command someone, influence someone, ask for request, and etc. using language. To deliver their intentions, sometimes people use spoken language. In order for communication to function efficiently, both speakers and listeners have to share the same knowledge of the aspect they are talking about. Sometimes some utterances which are influenced by context or the intention of the speaker have wider meaning than what is being said. The uttera nce like “it’s really cold” is said by the speaker when the condition at the moment the speaker feels cold. The speaker is expressing hisher feeling. Furthermore, it could be considered differently as a request if it is said 2 by a speaker to a listener who sits near the window and the condition is unpleasant. It means that the speaker asks the listener to open the window. The utterance could be interpreted differently depends on the context. It becomes inseparable for language to be studied without the context of people as communicator or the users of language. In linguistics, there is a field of language that studies the language in context which is known as pragmatics. According to Mey 2001:6, pragmatics is the study of human language usage in communication as determined by the society conditions, which means it explores the language in communication and the context surrounds it. Because pragmatics does not only study about certain linguistic form, the social and the surrounding context are considered in pragmatics. It is possible for an utterance to mean differently, from different speakers, to different listeners, at different times, and places. According to Yule 1996:21, context means the physical environment or the situation surrounding the production of an utterance. It includes what is present around the speaker or the listener at the time of communication occurs, such as where the communictaion takes place, what is going on, and etc. Context is needed to understand the meaning of an utterance. The listener who has limited knowledge about the context of the utterance might find difficulties to interpret the correct message from the speaker. People communicate not only to share their ideas, but also to deliver their intentions to listeners. The embedded actions in the utterance are called as speech acts. According to Yule 1996:47, speech acts are actions which are performed via