AN ANALYSIS ON REPRESENTATIVE ACTS IN FILM “HARRY POTTER

AND THE PHILOSHOPER’S STONE” BY J.K. ROWLING

By:

Dewi Lutfiatun Nikmah

IAIN Tulungagung

Abstract: Actions performed via utterances are generally called speech

acts and, in English, are commonly given more specific labels, such as

apology, complaint, argue, promise, or request. A representative act is

kind of act that state what the speaker believe to be the case or not. The

aim of this research is to know what types of representative acts are

found and how are formal patterns of the request strategy as employed

in the conversations occurring in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s

Stone movie subtitles along with their frequency each types and its

formal patterns. This research applied quantitative approach because

the researcher analyzed types of representative act and counted the

frequency of the representative act found in conversational fragments

of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher‟s Stone” movie. The research

finding showed that the most used type is arguing act and the least used

is claiming act. The reason is that the speakers in this movie tend to use

arguing because the speakers always have different arguments. So, it

makes them showing what was in their mind. The speakers also tend to

use informing in order to inform the hearer about something that the

hearer does not yet know what the speaker will inform.

Keywords: Representative Acts, Illocutionary Acts, Conversational Fragments,

Speech Acts, Pragmatics.

A language is a signaling system which operates with symbolic vocal sound,

and which is used by group of people for the purpose of communication (Susanto,

2007:2). Language is as purely human and non instinctive method of communicating

ideas, emotions, and desire by means of systems of voluntarily produced symbol

(Sapir, 1931:7). Langauge is a system of sounds, words, pattern used by human to

communicate thoughts and feeling (Hornby, 1989:700). From many theories above, it

can be concluded that language is the main key or way to communicate with other

people, either symbolic, written or orally. Without language we cannot communicate,

express feeling and convey the meaning with others. On any account, communication

not only depends on recognizing the meaning of words in every utterance, but also

recognizing what speakers mean by their utterance. Then, the meaning of each

utterance itself is not only seen from lexical meaning but also from the situation and

context. Context is very important to be understood, because the meaning of each

utterance will be different if the speaker and the situation is different too. That why

every language produced is not as simple as its lexical meaning but also depends on

the context. The study about contextual meaning is called pragmatics.

This study analyzed about representative acts in Harry Potter and the

Philoshoper’s Stone Movie. A representative act is a kind of act that state what the

speaker believes to be the case or not. A representative act is very important to be

studied. By studying representative acts, we will know many utterances in informing,

asserting, claiming, assuring, arguing, predicting, complaining and etc that are taken

from Native in this movie. There are various types in representative act that can be

analyzed from its sentence pattern too. The researcher is interested to analyze the

structure of conversational fragments containing representative in Harry Potter and

the Philoshoper’s Stone. Behind nine types of representative, there are different

analyses on the pattern of sentences. Like the example “The boy will be famous” as

predicting type that uses “will be” to show what will happen in the future. Besides,

the sentence “I think she heard you” uses verb “think” to predict something. The

different is indicated on the word after the subject. The first example used modal that

followed by “to be” and it is make strong prediction. The speaker believes about

his/her prediction will be the case. From the second example, we can see that verb

“think” only predicts but does not make strong prediction. The speaker is only

predicting.

This study was conducted because the language of the native speaker film is

an ideal manifestation of language use. By knowing and studying the realization of

representative act of the language used in “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s

Stone” film, we can have good model on how to realize English whenever we want to

make some expressions and the teachers can take some samples to teach their

students in having communication based on its situational context. Moreover, the

reader can enrich their knowledge about pragmatic especially representative act in

having communication and the result of this study can be used as source in studying

pragmatic deeply. On the other hand, the variation of pattern in representative acts

will make students learn more about uttering English especially in representative

naturally.

In this research, the subject analyzed by the researcher was some

representative speech act in conversational fragment of the “Harry Potter and the

Philosopher’s Stone” film. This film was chosen for its contextual characteristic‟s

with today‟s setting which can be suitable to be used as language model and this

movie includes fantacy, so it can be watched by all people although the children.

The formulation of the research problem were (1) what types of representative

acts are found in conversational fragments in film Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s

Stone?(2) how are the formal patterns of those representative acts? (3) what is the

frequency of each type of representative act found and its formal patterns in

conversational fragments in film Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone? The

purpose of this study were (1) to know what type of representative acts found in

conversational fragments in film „Harry Potter and the Philoshoper‟s Stone‟ (2) to

know the formal patterns of representative acts in the conversational fragments in

film “Harry Potter andthe Philoshoper‟s Stone” (3) to find out the frequency of the

type of representative acts and its formal pattern as found in conversational fragments

in film “Harry Potter and the Philosopher‟s Stone.

The research method applied in this research were: 1) the research design in

this study was descriptive with quantitative approach, 2) the population of this study

were utterances in conversational fragments found in Harry Potter and the

Philosopher’s Stone movie containing representative acts with population 424

utterances and 72 samples taken by purposive sampling, 3) the research instrument

was documentation, and 5) the data analysis method were making matrix,

categorizing the data, analyzing the dialogue, determining the percentage, and making

conclusion.

Related to the objectives of the study, this analysis is intended to see some

advantages as elaborated in three major significances that this study wants to

contribute. For the English teacher, by understanding the illocution can motivate the

English teacher to create various learning based on context, especially in speaking

class. It is because the teacher will know the use of illocution and can relate it with

the context, so it will be helpful to the teacher in the class especially speaking. On the

other hand, the teacher will have a new standard of English learning in order to create

pragmatic competence of the students. For the English learner, this study will lead the

learners to speak based on the context. It is because by knowing and understanding

the illocution expecially representatives‟ acts can make the English learners will

improve their ability in using English, especially speaking. On the other hand, the

learners will get the good example took from native speaker through movie when

express representative act. The last for the reader, the reader can learn the illocution

especially representative acts and how to realize or apply it in daily life. Later, they

will know that knowing representative act is important to speak based on the context

and avoid misunderstanding each other.

METHODOLOGY

In this study, the writer had to analyze the Representative act found in film

“Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”. The writer used descriptive with

quantitative approach since the purpose in this research was to verify the certain

theory. Cohen (2007:205) explain that descriptive research is concern with how/what

is or what exist is related or event. This study used descriptive because the researcher

describe trend about syntactic structure in the analysis types of representative act.

This research used quantitative approach because the researcher analyzed

types of representative act and counted the frequency of the representative act found

in conversational fragments of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher‟s Stone” movie.

Since the researcher used sample to be analyzed and the result of the sample analysis

was used for generalization.

The technique in collecting data used by the researcher was documentary

method. This method was intended to obtain data directly from the research such as

script, book, or other documents. In this study, the document used was movie

transcript of The Harry Potter and The Philosopher‟s Stone which contains

conversational fragments that including the representative inside. The method of

data collection included watching the movie, understanding the context,

transcripting the movie script, and selecting the conversational fragments containing

representative acts.

In analyzing the data, the researcher carried out in some steps, such as making

matrix/ mapping table which set the criteria of representative act, categorizing the

data because not all conversational fragments consist of representative act, analyzing

the dialogue based on the representative act in order to know the used of

representative act found in the dialogue based on theoretical framework of Searle

(1979) found in the dialogue, determining the percentage form by using statistical

analysis, and drawing conclusion.

The formula of statistical analysis was described as follow:

Note:

a. P is the symbol of percentage

b. f is the frequency of the occurrences of each representative acts

c. N is the total number of the representative acts

FINDINGS

In order to know what types of representative acts are found in Harry Potter

and the Philosopher’s Stone movie subtitles, the researcher analyzed the subtitles

excerpts with considering the pattern occurred in each excerpts. Here was the table

presented the frequency of request strategy used by the characters in Harry Potter

and the Philosopher’s Stone movie subtitles.

Table 4.1 Frequency of Representative Acts in Conversational Fragments of

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Movie.

No. Types of Representative Acts F N

1. Informing acts 103 24%

2. Asserting acts 80 19%

3. Claiming acts 9 2%

4. Assuring acts 58 14%

5. Arguing acts 107 25%

6. Complaining acts 12 3%

7. Concluding acts 18 4%

8. Describing acts 15 4%

9. Predicting acts 22 5%

N 424 100%

Based on the findings above, the researcher found 107 utterances containing

arguing type in delivering representative acts. Arguing type is the most frequently

used by the characters in Harry Potter and the Philosopher‟s Stone. The next type of

representative acts that mostly used by the speakers of Harry potter‟s movie is

informing type. The researcher found 103 utterances that used by the speaker in the

movie to state representative acts.

The researcher found 80 utterances that containing asserting type of

representative acts in film “Harry Potter and the Philosopher‟s Stone. The researcher

also found 58 that consist of assuring acts in order to express representative acts.

Next, the researcher found 22 utterances that were containing predicting type of

representative acts.

For the concluding type, the researcher found 18 utterances in delivering

representative acts. Then, the researcher found 15 utterances containing describing in

order to show the representative acts. The next one, the researcher found 12

utterances included complaining as the way to express representative acts. The last,

the researcher found 9 utterances that is contained claiming type in harry potter and

the Philosopher‟s Stone movie.

Then, for the second research problem, to know how the formal patterns of

those representative acts are used by are the characters in Harry Potter and the

Philosopher’s Stone movie subtitles, the researcher analyzed the utterances

containing representative acts. The researcher described the part of speech of the

utterances. Here were the tables containing the pattern in request strategy found in

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone movie subtitles.

Table 4.2: Frequency of Formal Patterns in Informing

No. Formal Patterns F %

1. Positive verbal 55 53,39%

2. Negative verbal 3 2,92%

3. Question tag 1 0,97%

4. Positive nominal 43 41,75%

5. Negative nominal 1 0,97%

N 103 100%

Based on the finding above, the researcher found 55 utterances that applying

positive verbal pattern. In second position is positive nominal with 43 utterance. The

next is 3 utterances that is applying negative verbal, 1 utterance applyed question tag

pattern, and the last 1 utterance with negative nominal pattern.

Table 4.3: Frequency of Formal Patterns in Asserting

No. Formal Patterns F %

1. Positive verbal 44 55%

2. Negative verbal 7 8,75%

3. Question tag 2 2,5%

4. Positive nominal 24 30%

5. Negative nominal 3 3,75%

N 80 100%

For asserting, the researcher found 44 formal patterns applying positive verbal

sentence, 7 utterances with negative verbal pattern, 2 utterances with question tag

pattern, 24 utterances with positive nominal formal pattern, and 3 utterances with

negative nominal pattern. The utterances above included in asserting of representative

acts.

Table 4.4: Frequency of Formal Patterns in Claiming.

No. Formal Patterns F %

1. WH-Question 1 11,11%

2. Positive nominal 3 33,33%

3. Positive verbal 5 55,56%

N 9 100%

In Claiming, the researcher found 1 utterance with WH-Question, 3 utterances

with positive nominal pattern, and 5 utterances with positive verbal.

Table 4.5: Frequency of Formal Patterns in Assuring

No. Formal Patterns f %

1. Positive verbal 27 47%

2. Negative verbal 6 10%

3. Question tag 2 4%

4. Positive nominal 17 29%

5. Negative nominal 6 10%

N 58 100%

The researcher found five kinds of formal patterns in assuring type in

representative. The first is positive verbal pattern with 27 utterances. The second is

negative verbal pattern with 6 utterances. The third is question tag pattern with 2

utterances. The fourth is positive nominal with 17 utterances. The last is negative

nominal with 6 utterances. The mostly pattern that appears is positive verbal pattern.

Table 4.6: Frequency of Formal Patterns in Arguing

No. Formal Patterns f %

1. Positive verbal 45 44,06%

2. Negative verbal 14 13,09%

3. WH-Question 10 9,35%

4. Question tag 5 4,68%

5. Positive verbal (embedded if clause) 2 1,86%

6. Negative verbal ( embedded if clause) 1 0,93%

7. Positive nominal 23 21,49%

8. Negative nominal 7 6,54%

N 107 100%

The researcher found eight kinds of formal pattern in arguing in representative

acts. The first pattern is consisting of 45 sentences for positive verbal pattern. The

second pattern is consisting of 14 utterances in negative verbal. The third pattern is

containing 10 utterances in WH-Question. The fourth pattern is consisting of 5

utterances in question tag. The fifth pattern is containing 2 utterances in positive

verbal pattern that uses if clause. The sixth pattern is containing 1 utterance in

negative verbal pattern that uses if clause too. The seventh pattern is containing 23

utterances in positive nominal. The last pattern is consisting of 7 utterances in

negative nominal.

Table 4.7: Frequency of Formal Patterns in Complaining

No. Formal Patterns f %

1. Positive verbal 4 33,33%

2. Negative verbal 1 8,33%

3. WH-Question 2 16,66%

4. Question tag 1 8,33%

5. Negative verbal (embedded if clause) 1 8,33%

6. Positive nominal 3 25%

N 12 100%

In complaining, the researcher found six kinds of formal pattern. The first

pattern mostly used in complaining is positive verbal pattern that employed on 4

utterances. The second pattern in complaining is negative verbal pattern that

employed on 1 utterance. The third pattern is WH-question pattern with 2 utterances

inside. The fourth pattern is negative verbal pattern that embedded if clause. The last

pattern is positive nominal with 3 utterances.

Table 4.8: Frequency of Formal Patterns in Concluding

No. Formal Patterns F %

1. Positive verbal 10 55,55%

2. Question tag 1 5,55%

3. Positive nominal 6 33,33%

4. Negative nominal 1 5,55%

N 18 100%

The researcher found 10 utterances that consist of positive verbal pattern, 1

utterance contained question tag, 6 utterances is consisted of positive nominal, and

the last 1 utterance contained negative nominal.

Table 4.9: Frequency of Formal Patterns in Describing

No. Formal Patterns f %

1. Positive verbal 8 53,33%

2. Negative verbal 2 13,33%

3. Positive verbal (embedded if clause) 1 6,66%

4. Positive nominal 4 26,66%

N 15 100%

In describing, the researcher found 4 kinds of formal pattern. There are 8

utterances applying positive verbal pattern. Next, there are 2 utterances applying

negative verbal pattern. Then, I utterance applying positive verbal pattern that

followed by if clause. The last pattern is positive nominal sentence that belonging on

4 utterances.

Table 4.10: Frequency of Formal Patterns in predicting

No. Formal Patterns f %

1. Positive verbal 18 81,81%

2. Question tag 1 4,54%

3. Positive verbal (embedded if clause) 1 4,54%

4. Positive nominal 1 4,54%

5. Negative nominal 1 4,54%

N 22 100%

The researcher found 5 kinds of formal pattern of representative acts in

predicting type. The first pattern mostly used is positive verbal for 18 utterances. In

question tag, positive verbal that followed by if clause, positive nominal and negative

nominal pattern only has I utterance each pattern. Here the pattern mostly used is

positive verbal because in predicting type, the characters of the Harry potter and the

Philosophers‟ Stone movie always used verb in delivering prediction. In this movie,

they are consistently use verb “think”.

DISCUSSION

In this research, the researcher found the reason why the characters in Harry

Potter and the Philosopher‟s Stone tend to use more arguing and informing. The

reason is that the speakers in this movie tend to use arguing because the speakers

always have different arguments. So, it makes them showing what was in their mind.

The speakers also tend to use informing in order to inform the hearer about something

that the hearer does not yet know what the speaker will inform.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

Based on the result of the study, the researcher wants to give suggestion for

the students, teacher, and future researcher. The students should know how to express

representative acts properly, make sense and acceptable based on who the listener is.

This study also can help the students in getting the example of representative acts

that is taken from the native in the movie. The teacher may take some examples to

teach speaking, especially in the ways of representative act. The future research can

conduct the similar research but in different subject. The next researcher can use the

novel or students of university as the same of data, in conducting research that similar

with this topic. The future research are suggested to have the same study but in

different subject because this study is still being rarely to be analyzed.

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