THE ANALYSIS OF SPEECH ACTS IN MEDICAL CONSULTATIONS BETWEEN MIDWIVES AND PATIENTS IN BPS S.MIRANINGSIH, AMD.KEB GELURAN TAMAN SIDOARJO A THESIS
THE ANALYSIS OF SPEECH ACTS IN MEDICAL CONSULTATIONS BETWEEN MIDWIVES AND PATIENTS
IN BPS S.MIRANINGSIH, AMD.KEB GELURAN TAMAN SIDOARJO A THESIS By : Rukhoiyah Swandani St. Number : 121112057 ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF HUMANITIES UNIVERSITAS AIRLANGGA SURABAYA 2015
THE ANALYSIS OF SPEECH ACTS IN MEDICAL CONSULTATIONS BETWEEN MIDWIVES AND PATIENTS
IN BPS S.MIRANINGSIH, AMD.KEB GELURAN TAMAN SIDOARJO A THESIS By : Rukhoiyah Swandani St. Number : 121112057 ENGLISH DEPARTEMENT FACULTY OF HUMANITIES UNIVERSITAS AIRLANGGA SURABAYA 2015 i
THE ANALYSIS OF SPEECH ACTS IN MEDICAL CONSULTATIONS BETWEEN MIDWIVES AND PATIENTS
IN BPS S.MIRANINGSIH, AMD.KEB GELURAN TAMAN SIDOARJO A THESIS Submitted as Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for the Sarjana Degree of English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Airlangga Surabaya By : Rukhoiyah Swandani St. Number : 121112057 ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF HUMANITIES UNIVERSITAS AIRLANGGA SURABAYA 2015 ii iii DECLARATION
This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. And to the best of this candidate‘s knowledge and believe, it contains no material previously published or written by other person except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis.
Surabaya, 16 June 2015 Writer, Rukhoiyah Swandani The writer dedicates this thesis to her beloved mother and father for the love and sacrifice they always give iv
vApproved to be examined Surabaya, 16 June, 2015
Thesis Advisor, Dra. Lilla Musyahda, M.Pd.
NIP. 196612102007012001 Head of English Department, Dra. Lilla Musyahda, M.Pd.
NIP. 196612102007012001
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF HUMANITIES UNIVERSITAS AIRLANGGA SURABAYA 2015
vi This thesis has been approved and accepted by the Board of Examiners,English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Airlangga on 30June 2015
The Board of Examiners are: Noerhayati Ika Putri, M.A.
NIP. 197807162005012002 Dra. Lilla Musyahda, M.Pd. NIP. 196612102007012001 Ema Faiza, M.Hum. NIP. 197410142003122001
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Allah SWT who always blesses my life and especially helps to strengthen me finishing this thesis.
Deepest gratitude is also expressed to Prophet Muhammad SAW who influences me to have great spirit for finishing this thesis with his inspiring and enlightening way of life.
I would like to express the deepest appreciation to my thesis advisor, Dra. LillaMusyahda, M.Pd, a genius who is filled with excellent idea. Without her supervision and constant helps, this thesis would not have been possible. I am grateful to be one of her pupils. It is an honor for me.
Deep appreciation is also given for the lecturers of English Department, Faculty of HumanitiesUniversitas Airlangga, for the knowledge they have shared, especially linguistics lecturers who inspire me a lot. I learn from them how to be a ‗real human‘, not only excellent in hardskill, but also softskill.
My endless love will always be sent for my mother, Mami, and my father, Suwani, for all your support, motivation and prayers. You are the greatest parents I have. For my four young sisters, thank you so much for always making me smile.
My deep gratitude is also for my grandparents, Munarah and Suyono, who always support and pray for me. I would like to thank my aunt, Indah, for all her supports and helps whenever I need. I also feel grateful for Yuli‘s help. Thank you for lending me your laptop when mine is broken.For Mbak Nicky who does not mind helping and accompanying me taking the data, thank you so much. For my big
vii family members who I cannot mention all, thank you for all support you have given to me.
Last but not least, I would like to say thank you to all my friends. They are my friends in genk NERO : Nabilah ‗qubil‘ and Kartika ‗cungkring‘, who are full with brilliant idea, Desi ‗wiwik‘ who cares me so much, Putri ‗siomay‘, and Ariel
‗upiels‘) who always cheer me up with their ‗harsh joke‘. We study hard and play hard together. I also want to say thank you to all of my friends in EDSA 2K11. We have been together and have shared many unforgettable moments. I also want to thank my friends in UKM Taekwondo Universitas Airlangga who strengthen me with their spirit and support. I love you all.
Surabaya, 16 June 2015 Rukhoiyah Swandani
viii
“ If they give you ruled paper, write the other way”
- Juan Ramon Jimenez-
ix x TABLE OF CONTENTS
Inside Cover Page i
2.2.1.3 Verdictive
12
2.2.1Illocutionary Act
14
2.2.1.1 Assertive
15
2.2.1.2 Performative
16
17
10
2.2.1.4 Expressive
18
2.2.1.5 Directive
18
2.2.1.6 Commissive
20
2.2.1.7 Phatic
2.2 Speech Acts
2.1 Types of Utterances and Speech Events
Inside Title Page ii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
Declaration Page iii
Dedication Page iv
Thesis Advisor‘s Approval Page v
Thesis Examiners‘ Approval Page vi Acknowledgements vii
Epigraph ix
Table of Contents x
Abstract xii
1.1 Background of the Study
8 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
1
1.2 Statement of the Problem
7
1.3 Objective of the Study
8
1.4 Significance of the Study
8
1.5 Definition of Key Terms
20 xi
2.3 Positioning Theory
40
4.1.2 Performative
34
4.1.3 Verdictive
36
4.1.4 Expressive
38
4.1.5 Directive
4.1.6 Commissive
4.1.1 Assertive
47
4.1.7 Phatic
49
4.2 Discussion
51 CHAPTER V CONCLUSION Conclusion
60 REFERENCES
63 APPENDIX
31
30
21
27
2.4 Review of Related Studies
22 CHAPTER III METHOD OF THE STUDY
3.1 Research Approach
25
3.2 Participants and Setting
26
3.2.1 Participants
3.2.2 Setting
4.1 Data Presentation
27
3.3 Instrument
28
3.4 Technique of Data Collection
28
3.5 Technique of Data Analysis
29 CHAPTER IV DISCUSSION
65 x TABLE OF CONTENTS
Inside Cover Page i
2.2.1.3 Verdictive
12
2.2.1Illocutionary Act
14
2.2.1.1 Assertive
15
2.2.1.2 Performative
16
17
10
2.2.1.4 Expressive
18
2.2.1.5 Directive
18
2.2.1.6 Commissive
20
2.2.1.7 Phatic
2.2 Speech Acts
2.1 Types of Utterances and Speech Events
Inside Title Page ii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
Declaration Page iii
Dedication Page iv
Thesis Advisor‘s Approval Page v
Thesis Examiners‘ Approval Page vi Acknowledgements vii
Epigraph ix
Table of Contents x
Abstract xii
1.1 Background of the Study
8 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
1
1.2 Statement of the Problem
7
1.3 Objective of the Study
8
1.4 Significance of the Study
8
1.5 Definition of Key Terms
20 xi
2.3 Positioning Theory
40
4.1.2 Performative
34
4.1.3 Verdictive
36
4.1.4 Expressive
38
4.1.5 Directive
4.1.6 Commissive
4.1.1 Assertive
47
4.1.7 Phatic
49
4.2 Discussion
51 CHAPTER V CONCLUSION Conclusion
60 REFERENCES
63 APPENDIX
31
30
21
27
2.4 Review of Related Studies
22 CHAPTER III METHOD OF THE STUDY
3.1 Research Approach
25
3.2 Participants and Setting
26
3.2.1 Participants
3.2.2 Setting
4.1 Data Presentation
27
3.3 Instrument
28
3.4 Technique of Data Collection
28
3.5 Technique of Data Analysis
29 CHAPTER IV DISCUSSION
65
Swandani, Rukhoiyah. 2015. The Analysis of Speech Acts in Medical Consultations between Midwives and Patients in BPS S.Miraningsih, Amd.Keb Geluran Taman Sidoarjo.
ABSTRACT Every utterances are speech act because humans utter their utterances with intentions behind their utterances (Robinson, 2006). One of speech community which employ speech acts in their communication is midwives and patients. This study aims to find what speech acts are mostly used by the midwives and patients and why those speech acts are used. Qualitative research approach through a case study inquiry is implemented in this study. The conversation between midwives and patients were recorded for the data. In analyzing the data, the writer uses speech acts theory proposed by Charles W. Kreidler (1998). The result shows that assertive utterances are mostly used, especially by the midwives. Since it is a consultation, the midwives frequently give information to the patient based on the empirical fact while the patients frequently use assertive to report their experience. While speech act appears the least is performative type for the patients and expressive type for the midwives. The analysis leads to a conclusion that the position of the speakers are also related to the types of speech acts and the speech functions they employ.
Keywords: midwives; patients; position theory; speech act theory xii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Humans are dependable creature and in order to fulfill their needs, they communicate their thoughts and feelings. Communication, generally, is understood as the processes in which humans construct and make meaning together, whether it is verbal or nonverbal, spoken or written, cooperation or conflict, and face-to-face or not (Stewart, 2002). One of elements in a communication is language which makes a communication successful. It denotes everything in this world, concrete and abstract things. Humans use language for many purposes since language seems to have many different functions as there are occasions for using language, therefore, humans call it as speech functions (Kreidler, 1998); humans use language to tell others what they know or what they feel, to ask questions, to thank, to say hello and goodbye, and so on. Those speech functions will also affect its form, why they select one way rather than another to convey their message. The form of an utterance does not necessarily coincide with the speaker's real intention. A speaker may produce an utterance that is just the opposite of the message he wants to convey. What makes those utterances understandable is the context or the people being involved (Kreidler, 1998).
There are a lot of examples on how humans employ the speech functions to interact and fulfill their needs in daily speech community, how humans convey their message in many different ways, for example in medical consultation in
1 order to get health service. Based on Fischer and Ereaut (2012), medical consultations can be defined differently according to their organizing principles of purpose. In narrower sense, they might be organized around the achievement of a diagnosis, a transaction involving the transfer of knowledge, whereas in a complex sense means they might be organized around the development of complex shared understanding: the creation of new knowledge for both participants, unique to that patient. Medical profession who has right to deliver medical consultation is a midwife, for example.
A midwife is a woman who attends women in confinement (The American Medical Association, 1989) or she can be considered as a woman who is educated and trained to help delivering babies and to advise pregnant women.
In Indonesia until 2013, the number of midwives is ranked at the top position with 136.489 persons compared to other medical professions (BKKBN, 2014).
Midwives outnumber doctors (42.189 persons), dentists (13.022 persons), and specialist (38.210 persons). This is also supported with the data from Badan
Kependudukan dan Keluarga Berencana Nasional or BKKBN (National Family
Planning Coordination Board) in 2014 which claimed that in East Java the ratio for doctors/people is 7,43 : 100.000, while the ratio for midwives/people is 33,48 : 100.000.
The number above is also equivalent to health problems in Indonesia because health problems in Indonesia are dominated with maternal and children health problems which are the focus of midwives care (Wang et al., 2009). In addition, Indonesia is one of developed countries involved in United Nations Development Program which established eight goals named as Millenium Development Goals. Millenium Development Goals are eight international development goals as the result of United Nations summit in 2000 (UNICEF, 2012). Two of the eight goals are to reduce child mortality and to improve maternal health. Those two issues are pertinent to midw ife‘s scope of activity.
Those are the reason why midwives outnumber doctors in Indonesia and are still needed in health service according to dominant health problem in Indonesia.
Interaction between a midwife and a patient includes the process of examination and consultation. In this communication, the midwife differs from the patient because of her roles, one of them is as a medical consultant. According to Cohn (2003) the role of the medical consultant is to identify and evaluate a patient‘s medical status and provide a clinical risk profile, to decide whether further tests are indicated prior to surgery, and to optimize the patient‘s medical condition in an attempt to reduce the risk of complications. Based on the roles (explained by Cohn above), it can be considered that a midwife, as medical consultant, positions herself as a person who knows and gives the information while a patient positions herself as a client who needs and receives the information.
All of conversation characteristics of midwives are shaped in midwifery. In the midwifery, they are taught on how to do medical conversation with their colleagues and their patients. They practice to communicate in accordance with the foundation of professional conversation called as Positioning Theory proposed by Rom Harre (1990). Three key components of positioning theory include
position, storylines, and determinate speech acts, developing from the everyday social interactions of professional conversations (Davies and Harre, 1990).
Furthermore, individuals manifest the concept of positioning by a certain set of right, duties, and obligations through the story line within speech acts of the conversation (Phillips & Hayes, 2007). Therefore, a midwife also uses different ways to express particular speech functions to fit the context of communication she is in and her position while she delivers medical consultation.
From the phenomenon above, the writer presumes there are some intentions and act performed differently by the midwives and the patients through their speech since they are involved in different role or position. In those speech functions, several different kinds of utterances, or speech acts, will be recognized then classified according to their general purpose. Smith et al. argued that ―the notion of speech acts is a valuable contribution to health communication research because of the positive and negative affect certain acts can have‖ (2009, p.2). Therefore, the writer is interested in analyzing the speech acts mostly used in medical conversation or consultation between a midwife and a patient since this topic is valuable. The writer chooses midwives and patients as the research object because linguistic research on medical conversation delivered by midwife has not been conducted extensively, especially in Indonesia. In addition, it fits with Indonesian people health need phenomenon as mentioned above.
The writer conducts this research at a private clinic or Bidan Praktek
Swasta in Geluran, Sidoarjo named BPS S. Miraningsih, Amd.Keb to be the
research place. Private clinic is chosen because almost Indonesian people prefer health facility of private sector to health facility of state sector for health cases such as maternity (birth), childhood diarrhea, and Acute Respiratory Infection.
Moreover, a private clinic is chosen because the number of state clinic, such as
Puskesmas (Public Health Centre), is still low only 9.599 unit compared to private
clinic such as Bidan Praktik Swasta or BPS (Midwives in Private Practice) which is 47.000 unit. Considering this number, the needs for getting health service from midwives especially Midwives in Private Practice are high enough.
BPS is a Midwife who has Surat Ijin Praktek Bidan or SIPB (Midwives Practice License) in compliance with medical laws, registered legally to have private practice (Ikatan Bidan Indonesia, 2004). Therefore, BPS is always named with the BPS owner‘s name itself because BPS refers to the midwife as the individual. In addition, BPS S. Miraningsih, Amd.Keb is one member of Bidan
Delima. Bidan Delima is a midwife system standardization program launched by Ikatan Bidan Indonesia or IBI (Indonesian Midwives Association) in 2003, to
educate and incentives Indonesian private midwives to meet and maintain the standard of care. In contrast, there is still a major barrier in providing and maintaining quality maternal health services in Indonesia because of the lack of supervision, monitoring and evaluation of compliance with best practices of private midwives. Thus, this clinic is trusted because it has been accredited with Bidan Delima.
There have been many studies discussing speech acts. First is Ohtaki S, Ohtaki. T, and Fetters MD‘s study (2003) about doctor-patient communication in the USA compared to Japan. Ohtaki et al. found that ratios of questions and other speech acts in the USA and Japan were similar. Syaifana (2007) conducted a study titled Speech Act in Military Conversations Performed by the Indonesian
Navy’s Personnel at KRI Lambung Mangkurat. She found that performative
utterances that are found in each data contain order, question, request, advising, and warning. In addition, Amelia (2008) discussed the functions of speech acts used by male and female preachers in a church in Surabaya and drew to a conclusion that personal character, culture, and power-relation are determinant factors in the use of direct or indirect language style.
Another study was conducted by Arifin (2008) who analyzed the speech acts used by non-Madurese police officer and Madurese victims and witnesses and revealed that representative act is the act most frequently used by police officers and victims or witnesses and Indonesian is the chosen language in the process of interrogation. Smith et al. (2009) conducted a research on memorable messages about breast cancer and their speech acts (purposes of the messages). They found that individuals who had personal and friend or relative experience with breast cancer were significantly more possible to recall memorable messages than other respondents and the most frequently perceived speech acts were providing facts, providing advice, and giving hope. Hayati (2011) did an observation about speech acts analysis of public service advertisement and found that directive function was most frequently used. The last is Ismail (2013) who analyzed the illocutionary act used in Jokowi‘s campaign speech using John Searle‘s speech acts theory and found that Jokowi mostly used representative act in his campaign speech.
Almost all of studies above use the same theory that is five types of speech acts proposed by John Searle (1969) and different participants such as between doctors and patients in different culture, police and victim or witness, preachers, and so on. The present study, by contrast, utilizes Kreid ler‘s theory, which proposes seven kinds of speech acts as analytic tool to examine the utterances in the medical conversation between a midwife and a patient. This study is conducted to examine what speech act frequently appears and why it appears most.
The information about the most common used speech acts and whether those speech acts are effective and understandable is the importance of this study. By knowing this information, what speech acts frequently appear in the consultation between midwives and patients, the writer hopes this study could help the midwives to use effective speech acts for improving their service in their clinics better.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
According to position and role, a midwife and a patient will use different ways to express particular speech acts. To know more about speech acts used in consultation between midwives and patients and the relationship between speech acts and role, problems are discussed in this study as follow:
1. What kinds of speech acts used dominantly by both midwives and patients in consultation BPS S Miraningsih, Amd. Keb Geluran Taman Sidoarjo?
2. Why are those speech acts used in the consultation at BPS S Miraningsih,
Amd. Keb Geluran Taman Sidoarjo?
1.3 Objective of the Study
Based on the statement of the problem mentioned above, the objectives of this study are:
1. To find the speech acts used dominantly by midwives and patients in BPS S Miraningsih, Amd. Keb., Geluran Taman Sidoarjo
2. To find the reasons why those speech acts are used in the consultation
1.4 Significance of the Study
The result of this study is expected to give both theoretical and practical significance to the society. The writer hopes it will give new insights to linguistic studies, especially pragmatics, since it concerns speech acts. Moreover, this study is expected to make linguistics readers, especially linguistics students, understand about speech acts theory as important in analyzing verbal communication uttered by each person with different role or position. Since this study is related health service, this study can be used as references to improve a better service in medical centers by using right speech acts to avoid redundancy and gain an effective consultation. It is also expected to be further reading or reference for other researchers who plan to conduct pragmatics studies, especially related to speech act theory.
1.5 Definition of Key Terms
Medical : pertaining to medicine or to the treatment of disease (The American Medical Association, 1989).
Consultation : a consultation with a doctor or other expert is a meeting with them to discuss a particular problem and get their advice (Collins COBUILD Dictionary on CD-ROM 2006, 2006). Midwife : a woman who attends women in confinement (The American
Medical Association, 1989) Speech Act : an action performed through an utterance (Kreidler, 1998)
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW This section presents the theory applied in analyzing the intentions of
midwives and patients in their communication and the relation between their speech and their position in a determined situation, in the context of medical consultation. The main theory used for this study is the theory proposed by Kreidler (1998) who categorized the speech act based on the utterances characteristic. Furthermore, Kreidler also provides the explanation about speech act and its categorization. Therefore, the writer uses the theory proposed by Kreidler as the main theory for categorizing the speech acts because Kreidler gives more specific speech acts categorization and more understandable explanation about speech act. To gain more understanding about speech act, the writer prefaces Kreidler‘s theory with the theory of speech acts proposed by Austin and Searle. The last but not least positioning theory proposed by Rom Harre which has relation with communication and position is used to see the correlation between speech act and position.
2.1 Types of Utterances and Speech Events
Pragmatics would serve as the linguistic approach for this study, since pragmatics is one of the major fields in linguistic that could reveal meaning in language use or simply as a systematic way of explaining the language used in context and situation. Leech (1983) stated that pragmatics aims to explain aspects of meaning from the way in which utterances are used and how they relate to the
10 context in which they are uttered. Therefore, the writer confines her attention to language utterances. There are two types of utterances proposed by Austin as cited in Lyons (1977), constative utterances and performative utterances. Constative
utterances are statements which functions to describe some event, process or state
of affairs, and they have the property being either true or false while performative
utterances attempts to study people doing things with words rather than saying something is true or not.
According to Robinson (2006), performativist see a language as a drama. All participants involved in this drama have collaborated on a group of speech act. Austin in 1962 (as cited in Robinson, 2006) also suggested that performativist see language as made up of speech acts. The speech acts can form a speech event (Yule‘s term) or speech situation (Robinson‘s term), and every speech event is a little drama. Speech event is a set of speech generated from social situations involving participants who need to have social relationships and may have a special purpose on certain circumstance (Yule, 1996) or it is simply the circumstances surrounding the utterance. In a speech event, it often includes a central speech act accompanied by other utterances reacting to that central action, but it can also exclude a central speech act. An example to explain speech event without central speech act is proposed by George Yule (1996, p.57) as the following: Him: Oh,Mary.I’m glad you’re here.
Her: What’s up? Him: I can’t get my computer to work. Her: Is it broken? Him: I don’t think so. Her: What’s it doing?
Him: I don’t know. I’m useless with computers. Her: What kind is it? Him: It’s a Mac. Do you use them? Her: Yeah.
Him: Do you have a minute? Her: Sure. Him: Oh, great. The dialogue above is about ‗request‘. The request above is not made up with obvious speech act of request such as can you fix my computer? or I need you to
fix my computer
. The dialogue above can be called as a ‗request‘ speech event without the presence of a central speech act of request.
2.2 Speech acts
Because of the fact that people perform some actions through the use of words, the theory of speech acts would serve as a tool for analysis of the selected speeches in this study. Speech act makes the writer able to discover the intention of the utterances of midwives and patients when they are communicating.
When people speak, they use language to achieve several functions like expressing uncomforted situation, offering an apology, greeting, request, complaint, compliment, invitation, or refusal. Thus, all things can be done through process of speaking (Saddock, 1974). The speech acts theory was firstly proposed by Austin in 1962 and further developed by Searle in 1969. Austin (as cited in Robinson, 2006, p. 76) assumed that every utterance does something, performs an action and according to Searle, speaking a language is performing speech acts, acts such as making statements, giving commands, asking questions or making promises (as cited in Kreidler, 1998). Searle also stated that all linguistic communication involves linguistic (speech) acts. In addition, speech acts are the fundamental units of linguistic communication because the principal of communication is to construct meanings together between the speaker and the addressee. By ―knowing‖ what speech act in every utterance is, both speaker and hearer are able to understand the meaning or the intention of their counterpart.
There are three levels of speech act introduced by Austin (as cited in Archer, Aijmer, and Wichmann, 2012), those three levels are: locution, illocution, and
perlocution. Locution refers to the actual words uttered, so this level concerns
with the meaning of the words themselves. Illocution refers to what is performed in saying som ething, the speaker‘s intention to communicate to the addressee.
Illocution is discussed in the next subchapter for further explanation. Perlocution refers to the result of taking the hearer‘s perspective, his interpretation of what the speaker says. Perlo cutionary act is the actual effect of speaker‘s utterance to the addressee, so this act happens after the locution and illocution act are produced.
Since this study is primarily focused on the meaning and act performed of midwives and patients speech, so the writer continues to the illocutionary act which is also considered as speech act itself. It is not necessary to discuss locution act because This study does not concern with semantic level of the utterances.
Communication in a determined situation does not ask how languages organize and express meanings, but rather the participants‘ utterances are success or not in accomplishing their intentions or aims (Kreidler, 1998). In addition, it is a pragmatics study which emphasizes the speaker‘s intended meanings, meaning in use and meaning in context (Thomas, 1995). Moreover, because it has no purpose to find the effects to the hearer or the addressee and the effects are difficult to be evaluated especially the effects on the patients it takes deeper research with prolonged time, so this study excludes perlocutionary act as a tool for analyzing the data.
2.2.1 Illocutionary Act
The illocutionary act is one of sub levels of speech act proposed firstly by Austin. Illocutionary act is the central concept of the speech act theory which functions as analyzing tool the use of language in communication. It is employed to understand the meaning of someone‘s utterance. It is in accordance of the statement that illocutionary acts are important because they are basic units of meaning in the use and comprehension of language (Vanderveken, 1990). Austin also classified speech acts into expositives, verdictives, commissives, exercitives, and
behabitive, but then, Ballmer and Brennenstuhl in 1981 argued that
Austin‘s approach is far too limited, only five categories (as cited in Robinson, 2006).
Another theory of speech acts and its categorization was proposed by John Searle in 1969. It is a wide and helpful theory because he gives a great explanation about speech act, but still a narrow taxonomy. According to Searle there are just five basic kinds of action that one can perform in saying utterance. Five basic kinds of action are: declaration,
representatives, expressive, directives, and commissives (as cited in Archer,
Aijmer, and Wichmann, 2012), but the writer thinks those five macro classes are still limited as Ballmer and Brennenstuhl said before. Both of two big theories of speech act above are lack of categories. Both of them do not include the polite formulas such as chitchat about weather, asking for someone‘s health and so on. However, those utterances are equally important from linguistic perspective (Holmes, 2008). So, the writer considers another profound and newest taxonomy of speech acts which is proposed by Kreidler, but it still has the correlation with the theory proposed by Austin and Searle. Kreidler (1998) grouped the speech acts into more specific categorization. According to Kreidler, the categories of illocutionary acts are assertive, performative, verdictive, expressive,
directive, commissive, and phatic (Kreidler, 1998). The following are the explanation of each illocutionary act categories proposed by Kreidler.
2.2.1.1 Assertive
Assertive is an utterance which functions to tell what the speakers or the writers believe or know. Assertive concerns with facts and its purpose is to inform. Generally, assertive can be verified or falsified, not necessarily at the moment the speaker utter them or by the addressee hear them. The form of the utterances can be either direct or indirect assertive. Direct assertive starts with the subject I or we and an assertive verb, whereas indirect assertive no need those all. Here are the examples: a. We declare that most plastics are made from soy beans. (direct
assertive)
b. Most plastics are made from soy beans. (indirect assertive)
Shortly, the use of assertive is for stating, claiming, denying, concluding, and deducing in our daily life. There are certain conditions to make an assertive appropriate such as what is reported must be possible, the speaker commits himself to the truth of what is reported, and the addressee also receive it as a truth (Kreidler, 1998).
2.2.1.2. Performative Performative is an utterance that brings the state of affairs.
Performative changes the world by uttering something and it makes things happen just by being uttered. Performative utterances are appropriate if those are spoken by someone who has authority to make them accepted and in appropriate circumstance. Performative functions can be found in the daily life such as for firing, marrying, and arresting. It also includes things said in ceremonies and official acts which affect the people as the addressee.
There are some qualifications for utterance can be a performative. First of all, the performative verb must be in the present tense which means that the speaker utters performative utterances in the present time in accordance with the performance of actions. The most important is that the speaker must be appropriate; he must have the authority to utter those performatives. Performative utterances are valid only if spoken by an appropriate person in socially determined situations. The success of this speech act depends on the speaker being approved by the social community or the addressee. Therefore, performatives usually take place in formal settings.
The last, the subject of the sentence must be I or we. However, it is necessary to distinguish between explicit or direct and implicit or indirect performative. Here are the examples:
a. I declare this meeting adjourned. (direct performative)
b. This meeting is adjourned. (indirect performative) The example ―I declare this meeting is adjourned‖ is a direct performative while ―This meeting is adjourned‖ is an indirect performative when it is spoken by the same person (Kreidler, 1998).
2.2.1.3 Verdictive
Verdictive is an utterance which the speaker makes an assessment or judgement about the previous action of the addressee or their present results. Verdictive utterances include congratulation, accusation, appraising, and blaming.
The action of the addressee also can be viewed as positive or negative by the speaker. Verdictive verbs used to judge the addressee‘s previous action as positive or as negative. Verdictives are considered as positive when the speaker honors, compliments or praises the addressee.
Verdictives are viewed as negative when the speaker accuses, blames or criticizes the addressee.
Felicity conditions for verdictive are the act was feasible, the addressee was capable to perform it, the speaker is sincere in making the utterance, and the addressee believes that the speaker is sincere (Kreidler, 1998).
2.2.1.4 Expressive
Expressive is similar with verdictive. Whereas verdictives assess the
addressee’s previous actions or the failure of those actions, expressive
utterances assess the
speaker’s previous actions or the failure of those
actions, and even the present results of those actions or failures Therefore, expressive is retrospective (concerns with something happened or has happened) same as verdictive. Here are the examples: a. We admit that we were mistaken.
b. I apologize for having disturbed you.
Felicity conditions of expressive are: the possibility of the act, the ability of the speaker to perform it, the sincerity of the speaker in making the utterance, and the addressee‘s belief that the speaker is sincere (Kreidler, 1998).
2.2.1.5 Directive
Directive is an utterance used by the speaker to get the addressee to do something or refrain from doing something. Therefore, directive has pronoun you as the object or the doer of an action the speaker means, whether the pronoun is shown in the utterance or not.
A directive utterance is prospective which means it is oriented toward later happenings because someone cannot tell others to do something in the past. Three kinds of directive utterances are often found in daily communication: commands, request, and suggestions.
A command is effective if only the speaker has power, control, or even the authority to get the addressee to perform or refrain from the actions. Command is viewed as positive when the speaker orders, commands, tells the addressee to do something while it is viewed as negative when the speaker forbids the addressee to do something.
A request is the speaker‘s expression to get the addressee to fulfill the speaker‘s wants. Whereas a command needs the authority or the control power of the speaker toward the addressee, a request does not need all of those.
A suggestion is the utterance the speaker makes to give other persons his/her opinion what they should do or not. So, the addressee has a choice of performances and the speaker gives an opinion about it. Expression for suggestion can be viewed positively or negatively. Suggestion is viewed as positive when the speaker use ‗nice‘ verbs such as
recommend, advise and so on. Suggestion is viewed as negative when the speaker gives pressure by using verbs such as warn, caution and so on.
The felicity conditions for directive are the act is feasible and the addressee is capable to do it. There is addition for each subdivisions of directive speech act. A command to be felicitous, the addressee must ac cept the speaker‘s authority or power. A request to be felicitous, the addressee must accept the speaker‘s wishes or wants. The last, a suggestion will be felicitous if the addressee accepts the speaker‘s judgment (Kreidler, 1998).
2.2.1.6 Commissive
Kreidler (1998) explained that commissives are the utterances which can be used to commit or refuse to commit oneself to some future actions.
Therefore, commissive is retrospective because it concerns toward later happenings, it is yet to occur, and it is speaker-involved also since the utterance makes the speaker commits to some future actions. Commissives include promise, pledge, threat, and vow.
Commissive has the addresse whether the utterance shows it or not because the speaker must be making a commitment to somebody. Felicity conditions for commissive are the speaker intends to perform it, the ability of the speaker to perform that act, the addressee believes the speaker‘s ability and intention. Here are the examples: a. I promise to be on time.
b. We volunteer to put up the decorations for the dance.
2.2.1.7 Phatic
Kreidler (1998) stated that phatic is an utterance which expresses solidarity with others and its purpose is to maintain social bonds between members of the same society. Phatic utterances include greetings and farewells, the polite chitchat about weather, and whatever is expected in particular society. Phatic utterances are no less important compared to the previous six speech act although it has less obvious function. According to Holmes (2008), phatic utterances convey social message rather than a referential one because language is not only functioned to convey only referential information but also the information about social relationship.
Kreidler stated that phatic utterance is felicitous if the speaker and the addressee share the same social customs and recognize phatic utterances for what they are (1998, p.194). Finally, predicates used in those seven types of speech acts above can be described according to their relative ‗strength‘, politeness, and consequences.
Direct speech acts contain a first-person pronoun and a predicate that specifies what utterance it is, whereas indirect speech acts lack of these.
2.3 Positioning Theory
As mentioned above that we can see language as a drama. Analogically, in the dramaturgical model, people are seen as actors with lines already written and their roles determined in the play they are in, but they still have freedom as to how to play their roles in the play (Davies and Harre, 1990). This is what is called as positioning by Harre, how people position themselves or another in their conversation. Position, storylines and relatively determinate speech acts are three key factors inherent during conversations (Davies and Harre, 1990). By using this theory, the writer is going to be able to reveal the reason why specific speech acts are uttered by the midwives or patients in their conversation related to their position in the context of midwife-patient consultations.
Furthermore, individuals manifest the concept of positioning by a certain set of right, duties, and obligations through the story line within speech acts of the conversation (Phillips & Hayes, 2007). In the medical consultation context, midwives represent certain rights and duties because one of their roles as the medical consultant is to identify and evaluate a patient‘s medical status and provide a clinical risk profile, to decide whether further tests are indicated prior to surgery, and to optimize the p atient‘s medical condition in an attempt to reduce the risk of complications (Cohn, 2003).
By knowing what the participants‘ role in the consultation, the writer is able to identify participants‘ specific reason beyond their utterances or the functions of their utterances.
2.4 Review of Related Studies
There are a lot of works related to speech act in the recent years. First is the study conducted by Sachiko Ohtaki, Toshio Ohtaki and Michael D Fetters (2003) about doctor