Journal of English Education and Teaching (JEET) Vol.2.No.1.2018 Page 59 of 85
AN ANALYSIS OF DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS PERFORMED BY
MAIN CHARACTER IN THE MOVIE REVENANT SCRIPT
Fyngky Oktadistio
Bengkulu University
Mazrul Aziz
Bengkulu University
Zahrida
Bengkulu University
Abstract
This Research Entitled “An Analysis Of Direct And Indirect Speech Acts Performed By
Main Character In The Movie Revenant Script”. This research was a descriptive analysis
that discusses about direct and indirect speech acts in movie script entitled ‘The Revenant.’
In analyzing the script, there was used theory by Yule (1996).The data in this research
based on main characters’ utterances. The purpose of this analysis was to find out the
types, and functions of speech acts whether it is direct speech act or indirect speech act in
the movie script entitled ‘The Revenant.’ From the analysis, it was found that both direct
speech acts and indirect speech acts are used by main characters in this movie. The most
dominant type of speech act used in the movie script was direct speech act (13 utterances)
and then followed by indirect speech act (9 utterances). The direct speech act was
classified again into declarative type (2 utterances) imperative type (5 utterances) and
interrogative type (6 utterances). Indirect speech acts was also classified again into
declarative type (8 utterances) and Interrogative (1 utterance). For the functions, direct
speech acts are classified into statement (2 utterances), order/request (5 utterances), and the
last function of question (6 utterances). Indirect speech act also classified into question (9
utterances), and no functions of statement and order. Based on the result, the researcher
found that Felicity Conditions and genre were the factors affected main characters in
producing direct speech acts more than indirect speech acts.
Key words: Direct Speech Acts, Indirect Speech Acts, Movie.
Journal of English Education and Teaching (JEET) Vol.2.No.1.2018 Page 60 of 85
Abstrak
Penelitian ini berjudul "Analisis tindak tutur langsung dan tidak langsung yang dilakukan
karakter utama dalam skenario film berjudul Revenant ". Penelitian ini menggunakan
analisis deskriptif yang membahas tentang tindakan langsung dan tidak langsung dalam
naskah film berjudul 'The Revenant'. Dalam menganalisis naskah, ada Teori yang
digunakan oleh Yule (1996). Metode yang digunakan dalam penulisan ini adalah metode
deskriptif kualitatif. Data yang dianalisis dalam penelitian ini didasarkan pada ujaran
karakter utama. Tujuan dari analisis ini adalah untuk mengetahui jenis, dan fungsi dari
tindak tutur apakah itu tindak tutur langsung atau tindakan tidak langsung dalam naskah
film berjudul 'Revenant'. Dari analisis tersebut, ditemukan bahwa tindak tutur langsung
langsung maupun tindak tutur tidak langsung digunakan oleh karakter utama dalam film
ini. Jenis tindak tutur yang paling dominan yang digunakan dalam naskah film adalah tidak
tutur langsung (13 ujaran) dan kemudian dilanjutkan dengan tindak tutur tidak langsung (9
ujaran). Tindakan ujaran langsung diklasifikasikan kembali menjadi tipe deklaratif (2
ujaran) tipe imperatif (5 ujaran) dan tipe interogatif (6 ujaran). Untuk tindak tutur tidak
langsung juga diklasifikasikan kembali menjadi tipe deklaratif (8 ujaran) dan Interogatif (1
ujaran). Untuk fungsi, tindak tutur langsung dikelompokkan menjadi pernyataan (2
ucapan), perintah / permintaan (5 ujaran), dan fungsi terakhir yaitu pertanyaan (6 ujaran).
Tindakan tidak langsung juga dikelompokkan menjadi pertanyaan (9 ujaran), dan tidak ada
fungsi pernyataan dan perintah. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian, peneliti menemukan bahwa
kondisi kepuasan dan genre adalah faktor yang mempengaruhi karakter utama dalam
menghasilkan tindak tutur langsung lebih banyak daripada tindak tutur tidak langsung.
Kata Kunci: Tindak tutur langsung, Tindak tutur tidak langsung, Film
INTRODUCTION
Communication deals with social activity
which involves more than one person. It
usually occurs between the speaker and
the hearer (receiver). The words they utter
are known as forms of language.
Linguistics is one of disciplines about
language. There are some fields of
linguistics like phonology, morphology,
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. One of
the important linguistic fields is
pragmatics. Pragmatics studies the use of
language by humans as determined by the
condition of a society (Mey, 2006:6). It
means the language that people use
depends on the social condition where
they live. The study of pragmatics
includes context, deictic, presupposition,
implicature, and speech acts. The speech
act becomes the central points of
pragmatics in this research.
According to Yule (1996:47), a
speech act is generally defined as “an
action via utterances”. The utterances do
not only contain the grammatical
structures and words, but also contain the
actions in the utterances.
According to Austin (1962: 94),
speech act is everything which we do at
the time of conversing or set of verbal
discussion. Speech acts are not
descriptive, instead they are pronounced
to affect an actual situation. Speech acts
usually do not refer to the past events.
Speech act is the action performed by
language to modify the state of the object
on which the action performed. Speech
act analysis can be applied in linguistics
and literary works like poems, short
stories, novels, movie and song. The
dialogues in the literature can be analyzed
by speech act, because we know that the
Journal of English Education and Teaching (JEET) Vol.2.No.1.2018 Page 61 of 85
main point of speech acts is the utterance
or conversation. From this reason this
research tries to find out some of speech
acts analysis in a movie. In the movie of
course it will be found in the
conversation.
Speech acts can be classified into
Direct Speech Act and Indirect Speech
Act. Futhermore, Yule (1996) state that
Direct Speech Act will happen if there is
direct relationship between the structure
and the function of the utterance.
Meanwhile, Indirect Speech Acts will
happen if there is indirect relationship
between the structure and the function of
the utterance. Relationship between the
structure and the function of the
utterances. For example,when someone
says “it’s cold outside”, the direct speech
act of this utterance is to inform the
hearer about the real conditions outside,
but the indirect speech act of this
utterance is to request or to give
command to close the door, so the cold
will not affect the speaker.
When speaking every day, of
course people will use different ways to
express what are on their minds.
Sometimes when they request something
or produce utterance, they do not use a
command expression or the purpose of
what they say to each other and to the
other is not clear. Besides in the real
world, this phenomenon also occurs in
literary works like movie.
Movie is a mass entertainment medium. It
reflects the desires, needs, fears, and
aspirations of a society (Allen and
Gomery, 1985:154). As a social
representation, movie derives its images,
sounds, themes, and stories ultimately
from their social environment. This
research chooses a literary work of a
movie The Revenant. In this year The
Revenant become the most popular movie
and wins Best Drama Category in Golden
Globe Award 2016. The revenant is
chosen by researcher because this movie
is adapted from the real novel story by
Michael Punke and the last sequel of two
films before.
The aims of this study are to
investigate the the types and function of
direct and indirect speech acts performed
by main characters in The Revenant
Movie Script.
METHOD
The method used in this research is a
qualitative method in terms of descriptive
qualitative. This method can be applied
because the writer observes the script of
the Revenant movie and subtitle in
collecting the data. Futhermore Hancock
(2002:2) states that the qualitative method
is concerned with developing explanation
of a social phenomenon. This research
describes the social phenomenon in
understanding the meaning based on
utterances. The main data in this research
are the movie script in the The Revenant
movie in which in form of the English
subtitle. The data source or script taken
from website (subscene.com). Besides,
this research also uses the pictures of the
movie when they are talking to describe
the situation from the dialogue as the
supporting of the main data. The
researcher in this research hold roles in all
of the activities of the research such as
selecting the source of data, collecting the
data, analyzing the data collected, and
describing the findings of the research.
Meanwhile, a observation in to
form of table checklist also needed as the
secondary instrument. The researcher was
helped by two experts to judge the
instrument to gain a valid data.
Journal of English Education and Teaching (JEET) Vol.2.No.1.2018
RESULTS
The first research question was what
types of direct and indirect speech acts by
the main characters.
Here the briefly
amount of types found from the data.
Table 1
shows there are three
types of direct and indirect speech acts
employed by the main characters. They
are declarative, i
nterrogative, and
imperative. Furthermore,
in
speech acts, interrogative
was t
dominant type used by the main
characte
rs with 6 instances throughout the
movie.
In process of analyzing the data, question
mark became a hint used by researcher to
identify this type. T
his type was used by
main characters in order to get the
information, or to know the state of a
thing. Imperative occupies
place among the other types.
this type,
main characters' utterance leads
more to a directive or command
addressed for the listener.
declarative was
the least type of
speech a
cts produced by the main
characters. They are
revealed only in 2
utterances out of total data utterances.
The use of this type is related to utterance
that contains lot
of information
other words,
main character produces this
utterance to give a
fact or opinion.
above data were concluded
speech because the relation
of types
not violate the rules of direct speech acts.
Journal of English Education and Teaching (JEET) Vol.2.No.1.2018
The first research question was what
types of direct and indirect speech acts by
Here the briefly
amount of types found from the data.
shows there are three
types of direct and indirect speech acts
employed by the main characters. They
nterrogative, and
in
the direct
was t
he most
dominant type used by the main
rs with 6 instances throughout the
In process of analyzing the data, question
mark became a hint used by researcher to
his type was used by
main characters in order to get the
information, or to know the state of a
the second
place among the other types.
When using
main characters' utterance leads
more to a directive or command
Meanwhile,
the least type of
direct
cts produced by the main
revealed only in 2
utterances out of total data utterances.
The use of this type is related to utterance
of information
. On the
main character produces this
fact or opinion.
All the
as a direct
of types
does
not violate the rules of direct speech acts.
Next,
there are only two types of
indirect speech a
cts performed by the
main characters. They are d
eclarative, and
interrogative.
Furthermore, the table
presents that declarative
was
dominant type used by the main
characters with 8
utterances throughout
the movie. I
n this type, even though the
speaker's utterance is informative, but the
real aim is not just to declare someth
but also to give a command, or request
For the last type of indirect speech acts
expressed by main characters in
Revenant movie
script was interrogative
with only one time.
In total, there were 9
utterances classified as indirect speech
acts. Al
l of the utterances above break the
rule of direct speech acts, so it moved into
indirect speech acts form.
For the functions, h
amount of types found from the data.
The table above shows the
three
of direct and indirect speech acts
employed by the main characters. They
were statement,
question
order/request
. In the direct speech act tab
number 1, when
producing the utterances,
the main characters have
some function
which consist of 2 statement
questions, and 5 orders/
request
is the most function
appeared in the data
with 6 utterances.
This function
the speaker to get inf
ormation or desire.
There were 6
data from main characters’
utterances categorized as
next is function of order
/request
refers to speaker instruction or desire at
that time in producing the words. Then,
Journal of English Education and Teaching (JEET) Vol.2.No.1.2018
Page 62 of 85
there are only two types of
cts performed by the
eclarative, and
Furthermore, the table
was
the most
dominant type used by the main
utterances throughout
n this type, even though the
speaker's utterance is informative, but the
real aim is not just to declare someth
ing,
but also to give a command, or request
.
For the last type of indirect speech acts
expressed by main characters in
The
script was interrogative
In total, there were 9
utterances classified as indirect speech
l of the utterances above break the
rule of direct speech acts, so it moved into
ere the briefly
amount of types found from the data.
three
functions
of direct and indirect speech acts
employed by the main characters. They
question
and
. In the direct speech act tab
producing the utterances,
some function
which consist of 2 statement
s, 6
request
. Question
appeared in the data
This function
refers to
ormation or desire.
data from main characters’
utterances categorized as
question. The
/request
which
refers to speaker instruction or desire at
that time in producing the words. Then,
Journal of English Education and Teaching (JEET) Vol.2.No.1.2018 Page 63 of 85
the utterance of main characters which is
categorized as statement consists of two
data.
However, the number of functions
of indirect speech is quite different.
According to the table 2, It is found that
main characters dominantly performed
function of order/command than
statement and question. It can be seen
from the number of utterance that occur
order/request is 9 utterances while no
utterances consist of function of statement
and question. The function of
order/command in indirect speech act
showed in the data 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14,
15, 21. From the table above, there was
no utterance that is categorized as a
statement and question, because The
Revenant is an action movie, so the
utterances of command and request were
more effective and easy to understand by
other characters. For more detail about
functions, can be seen in the following
table below.
EXAMPLES OF TYPES AND
FUNCTIONS FOUND IN THE DATA.
a. Direct Speech Acts
a.1 Direct Speech Acts in Imperative
Sentence Type as an
Order/Request.
Data Number 3 (03/00:08:15)
Context : Hawk and Glass are prepare
to hunt a bear in forest, then suddenly
hear a very loud voice from a distance.
Hawk : Pa ? What was that?
Glass : Lets go ! Get to the boat
son!
Based on the conversation
between protagonist main character
named Glass and his son named Hawk.
Hawk asked to his father what was
going on, then Glass replied by saying
“Lest go! Get to the boat!” Glass’s
bold utterance is a direct speech in
types of imperative because the
utterance directly commands hearer or
Hawk to move and get to the boat.
Based from Glass utterance, the
function is order, Glass wanted his son
to do what his said.
a.2 Direct Speech Acts in Interrogative
Sentence Type as an
quesion.
Data Number 1 (01/00:04:47)
Context : In the day first of hunting
Fitzgerald asked to Trapper about his
friend that he cannot find that
morning
Fitzgerald : You see Coulter ?
Trapper : Nope
The dialogue occurred in the
middle of forest. Fitzgerald asked to
Trapper about Coulter. Fitzgerald’s
bold utterance is a direct speech act in
types of Interrogative because the
utterance directly asking to the hearer.
It is has a function of question because
the utterance that is conveyed by
Fitzgerald aims to get information.
b. Indirect Speech Acts
b.1 Indirect Speech Acts in
Declarative
Sentence Type as an Order /
Request.
Data Number 2 (02/00:05:06)
Context : After the war ends against
the Ree tribe, captain join to the
wounded Fitzgerald and asked about
his condition, thendiscussing what to
do next.
Journal of English Education and Teaching (JEET) Vol.2.No.1.2018 Page 64 of 85
Captain : What are you thinking ?
Fitzgerald : I hope, I dont need
another shoot.
Captain : So, make sure we’re
ready to head out by
dawn.
In the dialogue beside which is
stated by Fitzgerald and captain,
happened after a short clash with Ree
tribe. Fitzgerald said to the captain that
he did not need another shot. It showed
by Fitzgerald’s bold utterance. The
strategy used in his or Fitzgerald’s
utterance is an indirect speech act,
because this utterance known as
declarative types but the function of
this utterance is request. Fitzgerald
stated something to captain, the
utterance is not used to receive a
comment by captain but it is a request
for captain to stop clashing with Ree
tribe.
b.2 Indirect Speech Acts in
Interrogative Sentence Type as an
Order/Request.
Data Number 15 (15/00:43:47)
Context : Two men, they are Jim and
Fitzgerald which taken a job to keep
the
Glass that was badly wounded. After a
few minutes Fitzgerald was distracted
by the noise made by Jim.
Fitzgerald : Will you quit that noise
now ? Will you ?
Jim : Oh sorry
The bold sentence uttered by
Fitzgerald to Jim is an indirect speech
act. Fitzgerald asked to Jim to stop
making a noise. This is a type of
interrogative sentence and has a
function of order. The purpose of the
utterance is not related with the types
of the utterance. Fitzgerald’s bold
utterance is about asking the question,
but the purpose of Fitzgerald is to
order Jim to quit the noise. A word
"you" in this utterance indicates the
type of interrogative, but the word
“quit” shows the function of order or
command.
DISCUSSION
According to Yule in his book Pragmatics
(1996:55) direct speech acts will happen
if there is direct relationship between the
structure and the function of the
utterance, while indirect speech acts will
happen if there is no relationship between
the structure and the function of the
utterance. Yule also proposed 3 types of
direct and indirect speech acts:
Declarative, Imperative, and
Interrogative. For the functions there are
3 functions: Statement, Question, and
Order/Command. The results shows,
direct speech acts with a frequency of 13
utterances appeared more than indirect
speech acts that only have 9 utterances.
For the detail, 13 utterances were
included into direct speech acts with 2
Declaratives, 5 Imperatives, and 6
Interrogatives. Next, it was found 9
utterances were included into indirect
speech acts 8 Declaratives, and 1
Interrogative.
For the types, first type of direct
and indirect speech acts was imperative.
In the data 3, Glass said “Let’s go! Get to
the boat son! Move!”. In daily
conversation this utterance is easier to
understand because what is meant directly
expressed from utterance itself. The main
character shows an example of direct
Journal of English Education and Teaching (JEET) Vol.2.No.1.2018 Page 65 of 85
speech act in type of imperative, because
his utterance ends by the exclamation
mark. And the other sign that indicate for
imperative is the words Go! and Move!.
Another type of direct and indirect speech
acts are interrogative. In the data 1, when
main characters said “Do you see
Coulter?” the hearer quickly responded
by saying nope. This type ends by
question mark. The words “do you”
indicated the speaker wanted to
interrogate the listener. Declarative was
the last type performed by main
characters in this movie. In the data 17,
the main character, Glass said to
Captain.“This horse looks strong.” From
the dialogue, it happened after Glass
arrived in Fort Kiowa. Glass uttered a
declarative sentence and the actual
purpose of his utterance is stating that
horse looks strong. Although the captain
thinks that is not the purpose of what
Glass's statement. In this dialogue the
captain guesses that Glass wants to
pursue Fitzgerald in the forest. But
literally Glass only states his opinion
about the horse in stable.
For the functions, Order/Request
became the dominant function used by
main characters in this movie. This
function was referred to the speaker to get
the information. For example, in the data
number 4, the main characters said “We
got to get off this boat”. Literally Glass
gives the order, command, or instruction
to the captain that they have to get off the
boat. The aims/ or the function directly
expressed from his utterance. Another
function used in this movie was Question.
This function appeared in the data
number 5, Fitzgerald said to the Glass
“Oh, then what do we do? Huh?” From
the utterance, Fitzgerald interrogates
Glass by giving the question. The
function or the real aim is to get the
information from Glass. Statement was
the last function expressed by main
characters in the Revenant Movie Script.
In the data number 19, the main character,
Glass said, “I was wondering if we could
catch him in half a day.” The function of
this utterance was directly gave a
statement about how long it takes to catch
the Fitzgerald.
In this movie the main characters
have dominantly expressed an example of
direct speech acts. For example, when he
said “Let’s go! Get to the boat son!
Move!” In daily conversation this
utterance is easier to understand because
what is meant directly expressed from
utterance itself. In the form of Direct
Speech Acts, this utterance does not
violate the rules of the Speech Acts itself,
because there is a synchronous
relationship between the type and
function. If the type is imperative, so the
function should be order. Moreover, the
listener is easier to understand the
purposes by looking at this sign. In
different way, this utterance can be
difficult to understand if the speaker or
main character change it into indirect
speech like “Do you feel something
dangerous here?” at that time, maybe the
hearer have another interpretation about
the utterance, while the speaker or main
character waits for the hearer to respond
the command to move from the area. So,
this type is changed from imperative into
interrogative. For the function the
utterance above has a function of order.
This utterance can be classified as an
Indirect Sentence because the
interrogative type should not have any
relation with the function of order. So, the
relationship between type and function is
the key in determining whether the
utterance is a direct category or an
indirect category,
Journal of English Education and Teaching (JEET) Vol.2.No.1.2018 Page 66 of 85
Based on the result, the researcher
found that the three types and function of
direct and indirect speech Acts proposed
by Yule were used by main characters as
their strategy in producing the utterance.
One important point was the genre of this
movie. The Revenant movie has a genre
of action. This point gave an opportunity
for main characters to produce words that
are literally understood to the listener. In
other words, main character did not
express an utterance that made the hearer
difficult to understand. The sincerity
conditions also become another factor
why characters employ such kind of
direct speech acts. According to Yule in
his book Pragmatics (1996:72) there are
certain expected or appropriate
circumstances know as felicity
conditions, for the performance of speech
acts to be recognized as intended. In this
movie, the main characters expressed the
utterance in accordance to what actually
intended. When giving the question the
real aims is to get an answer, when giving
the command the real purpose is
expecting the listener to do something.
By affecting from this factor, they had
dominantly in given direct speech acts
rather that indirect speech acts. The
results shows, direct speech acts with a
frequency of 13 utterances appeared more
than indirect speech acts that only have 9
utterances.
Comparing the previous study by
Siti Zumaroh (2012) entitled “The
Analysis Of Speech Act Used In “Air
Force One Movie Script”. She tried to
find out what kinds of speech acts used in
the movie by using Searle’s theory in part
of Illocutionary Acts. Then, she used the
qualitative method. The result of the
utterances showed the speech acts used
were 53 representatives, 64 directives, 29
commisives, 17 expressives, and there
were no declarative categories at the “Air
Force One” movie script.
Similarly to the previous study
conducted by Nurhidayah Permata Nurani
(2015) with the title “A Pragmatic
Analysis of Classroom Speech Acts in the
English Teaching and Learning Process at
SMA N 1 Purworejo. She used pragmatic
theory that focuses on Illocutionary act
and found the types of speech acts by
Searle’s theory. The main subject of the
study was the English teacher of grade X
IBB (Ilmu Budaya dan Bahasa) of SMA
N 1 Purworejo. The result of the study
showed that the most frequent speech act
performed by the by the teacher was
Directives during the four meetings of
English teaching and learning activities
which occurred in 440 utterances
(62.77%). On the other hand,
commissives appeared to 116 be the least
speech acts used by the teacher which
only occurred in 7 utterances (0.99%).
The similarity between the
previous studies and this research is the
application of Speech Acts that occurs in
some subject like movie or daily
interaction. But there is the different
result in the analyzed data. The previous
researcher focuses in analyzing the
utterances in term of Illocutionary Acts
based on Searle’s Theory. While in this
research, it is only focused in analyzing
the utterances of direct and indirect
speech acts based on Yule’s theory. So,
the result has different variation to the
previous study even though the topic was
same.
CONCLUSION
Dealing with the research questions of
this research. The first question in this
research was what types of direct and
indirect speech acts found in The
Revenant movie script. This research
Journal of English Education and Teaching (JEET) Vol.2.No.1.2018 Page 67 of 85
focuses on the utterances containing in
direct and indirect speech acts. All the
types of direct and indirect speech act
were expressed by the main characters. It
was found that total 22 utterances were
included into types of direct and indirect
speech acts. For the detail, 13 utterances
were included into direct speech acts with
2 Declaratives, 5 Imperatives, and 6
Interrogatives. Next, it was found 9
utterances were included into indirect
speech acts 8 Declaratives, and 1
Interrogative.The second question of this
research was the functions of direct and
indirect speech acts performed by main
characters. From the results, the
frequency of each functions of direct and
indirect speech acts were 2 Statements, 6
questions, and 14 Orders/ Request.
In addition, the Felicity
Conditions was one of the factors why the
main characters in The Revenant Movie
employ such kind of direct speech acts
more than indirect speech acts. The other
factor that affected main characters in
producing direct speech acts was the
action genre of the movie.
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Allen. R.C and D. Gomery. 1985. Film
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Austin, J.L. (1962). How To Do Things
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Hancock, Beverly. (1998). Trent Focus
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Health Care: An Introduction to
Qualitative Research. Trent
Focus. Accessed 23 October
2013.
Nurhidayah Permata Nurani (2015). A
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Speech Acts In The English
Teaching And Learning Process
At Sma N 1 Purworejo.
Yogyakarta : Yogyakarta State
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J L Mey (2006), Pragmatics. Denmark:
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Zumaroh, Siti (2012) .The Analysis Of
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