The Realization of the Management of Face in the Dialogues of the Novel Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne (PBING-38)

Pragmatics isa branch of linguistics which studies the way in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics deals with utterances, by which we will mean specific events, the intentional acts of speakers at times and places, typically involving language. One of well known theories in Pragmatics is the Theory of Politeness. The most influential politeness theory in Pragmatics is the Management of Face by Brown and Levinson. This study focuses on the realization of the Management of Face in the dialogues of a novel.

Dialogues of a novel are good data for pragmatics study since they represent thought, feeling, and desire of the characters of the novel. The dialogues are completed with the narration as the context which explains the situation and condition of the dialogues. The aim of this study is to know the realization of the Management of Face in the dialogues of the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne.

Based of the background above, the research problem are formulated as follows:(1) What strategies of the Management of Face are used in the dialogues of the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea?; (2) What illocutionary acts are found in the dialogues containing the strategies of the Management of Face in the novelTwenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea?

The purposes of the study are: (1) To know the strategies of the Management of Face which are used in the dialogues the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea; (2) To know the illocutionary acts which are found in the dialogues containing the strategies of the Management of Face in the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea.

      This study uses descriptive qualitative research design so the writer is the key instrument of the study in collecting and analyzing the data. The data of the study are taken from the dialogues of the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. To collect the data, the writer takes the following stages: (1) Readingand understanding the novel; (2) Selecting the dialogue containing the strategies of the Management of Face and Speech Acts. As the key instrument, the writer constructs the data and examines its parts in order to make the data intelligible. After the data have been collected, the writer analyzes the data in the following steps: (1) Elaborating the theories related to the problems and anything needed which establishes it as the key of the analysis based on the purpose of study; (2) Taking the dialogue as the pragmatic phenomenon and the narration as the context; (3) Analyzing the dialogue based on the Management of Face and Speech Acts theory in order to know the strategies of the Management of Face and the illocutionary acts which are found in the dialogues containing the Management of Face; (5) Making conclusion.

The management of face is the most influential politeness theory in Pragmatics by Brown and Levinson. Brown and Levinson explained politeness as strategies to save or maintain other’s ‘face’ in order to avoid face-threatening acts (FTA).

There are three factors to measure the degree of the politeness of the utterance: 1) power rating (P); 2) social distance (D); and 3) rating of imposition (R). Those factors lead the use of the strategies to avoid face-threatening acts (FTA). And the strategies are: 1) bald-on-record; 2) positive politeness; 3) negative politeness; 4) off record; and 5) do not do FTA (be silent).

 Speech Acts are words with which to do things, which introduced by John Langsaw Austin and developed by John. R. Searle. According to Searle, speech acts are classified into: (1) Representatives (assertives), (2) Directives, (3) Commissives, (4) Expressives, and (5) Declarations.

            The findings of the study are (1) The dialogues of the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea contains all strategies of the Management of Face, those are bald-on-record, positive politeness, negative politeness, off record, and do not do FTA (be silent). The characters use a single strategy of the Management of Face or combine more than one of the strategies in the dialogue. (2) The illocutionary acts found in the dialogues containing the Management of Face are representatives (assertives), directives, commissives, and expressive. Declaration is not found in the dialogues. (3) The strategies of the Management of Face which are used by the speakers are related to the intention of the speaker. Thus, each strategy represents th illocutionary acts of their utterances.

            Finally the writer suggest the readers, students, and researcher who are interested in Pragmatics, especially in politeness theories, to study more related references and to conduct a study about politeness from various point of view so the study about politeness will be developed.   

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