Chinese Ethnic Branding Strategies and the Roles of Language in the Movie Crazy Rich Asians
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI CHINESE ETHNIC BRANDING STRATEGIES AND THE ROLES OF LANGUAGE IN THE MOVIE CRAZY RICH ASIANS A Thesis Presented to The Graduate Program in English Language Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Magister Humaniora (M.Hum) in English Language Studies By Fennie Karline Rosario Tenau Student Number: 186332004 THE GRADUATE PROGRAM OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2020 i PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI “ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can find out what God has done from beginning to end.” - Ecclesiastes 3:11- I dedicated this Thesis to My angel mother, Margaretha Warayaan. iv PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI ABSTRACT Tenau, Fennie Karline Rosario. 2020. Chinese Ethnic Branding Strategies and The Roles of Language in The Movie Crazy Rich Asians. Yogyakarta: English Language Studies. Graduate Program. Sanata Dharma University. Chinese attempt to show their existence in the world‘s eyes can be seen in their branding. Branding is important in the aspect of ethnicity because it creates certain assumptions about an ethnic group. They try to show their identity by using several strategies both in explicit and implicit ways. However, Chinese themselves barely participate in Hollywood movies as the main characters. Crazy Rich Asians then appears as a movie that highlights the real-life portrayal of Chinese and diaspora in real life. Much of the plot conflict focuses on the Eastern- educated family welcoming Rachel, a Chinese-American as a part of them. Most of the main characters classify themselves as culturally Chinese, so they are playing Chinese ethnicity characters. This study explores what branding strategies are portrayed by the major characters in showing their identity in the movie Crazy Rich Asian. It focuses on the distribution of material and non-material culture in the movie. There were value, belief, language, etiquette, furniture, architecture, traditional food, clothing, traditional musical instrument, traditional medicine, and traditional game. This study also examines the roles of language in showing their Chinese identity as a part of non-material culture. This is a discourse analysis studied by using the sociolinguistics viewpoint. Sociolinguistics is applied as the main approach to identify the roles of language in the transmission of Chinese culture. Ethnicity is applied as the subsidiary theory to observe the forms of cultures that are used by Chinese in demonstrating their identity. The data documentation was taken from the movie Crazy Rich Asians which consists of 68 cultural phenomena. The results reveal that Chinese utilize two kinds of branding strategies that are reflected in material and non-material culture. The lowest percentage of the strategy was 42.6 percent in material culture whereas the highest percentage of the strategy was 57.4 percent in non-material culture. It indicates Chinese interest in showing the public about their characteristics through their traditional lifestyles which affect their use of language. It reveals that language is one of the significant cultural identities of the diaspora. The roles of language are a symbol of ethnic identity and as an instrument of intra-ethnic communication. Future research is expected to focus on more types of cultural phenomena in both forms of material and non-material cultures. The related research might also be done to investigate other significant issues in different scopes of life as interesting topics to be discussed. Keywords: Ethnic branding strategies, Material culture, Non-material culture, Crazy Rich Asians, Sociolinguistics study vii PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI ABSTRAK Tenau, Fennie Karline Rosario. 2020. Chinese Ethnic Branding Strategies and The Roles of Language in The Movie Crazy Rich Asians. Yogyakarta: English Language Studies. Graduate Program. Sanata Dharma University. Upaya orang Tionghoa untuk menunjukkan keberadaan mereka di mata dunia bisa dilihat dari branding mereka. Branding penting dalam aspek etnisitas karena menciptakan asumsi tertentu tentang sebuah kelompok etnis. Orang Tionghoa mencoba menunjukkan identitas mereka dengan menggunakan beberapa strategi baik secara eksplisit maupun implisit. Namun, orang Tionghoa sendiri jarang berpartisipasi dalam film-film Hollywood sebagai karakter utama. Crazy Rich Asians kemudian muncul sebagai film yang menyoroti penggambaran kehidupan nyata orang Tionghoa dan diaspora dalam kehidupan nyata. Sebagian besar plot permasalahannya berfokus pada keluarga berpendidikan Timur yang menyambut Rachel, seorang Cina-Amerika sebagai bagian dari mereka. Sebagian besar karakter utama mengklasifikasikan diri mereka sebagai orang dengan budaya Tionghoa sehingga mereka memainkan karakter beretnis Tionghoa. Penelitian ini mengeksplorasi apa strategi branding yang digambarkan oleh karakter utama dalam menunjukkan identitas mereka di film. Ini berfokus pada distribusi budaya material dan non-material dalam film. Ada nilai, kepercayaan, bahasa, etiket, furnitur, arsitektur, makanan tradisional, pakaian dan tata rias, alat musik tradisional, obat tradisional, dan permainan tradisional. Penelitian ini juga meneliti peran bahasa dalam menunjukkan identitas Tionghoa mereka, yang merupakan bagian dari budaya non-material. Ini adalah analisis wacana yang dipelajari dengan menggunakan sudut pandang sosiolinguistik. Sosiolinguistik diterapkan sebagai pendekatan utama untuk mengidentifikasi peran bahasa dalam transmisi budaya Cina. Etnisitas diterapkan sebagai teori tambahan untuk mengamati bentuk-bentuk budaya yang digunakan oleh orang Tionghoa dalam menunjukkan identitas mereka. Dokumentasi data diambil dari film Crazy Rich Asians yang terdiri dari 68 fenomena budaya. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa orang Tionghoa menggunakan dua strategi branding yang tercermin dalam budaya material dan non-material. Persentase terendah dari strategi branding adalah 42,6 persen dalam budaya material sedangkan persentase tertinggi dari strategi branding adalah 57,4 persen dalam budaya non-material. Ini menunjukkan minat orang Tionghoa untuk menunjukkan karakteristik mereka kepada publik melalui gaya hidup tradisional yang memengaruhi penggunaan bahasa mereka. Ini menunjukkan bahwa bahasa adalah salah satu identitas budaya diaspora yang signifikan. Peran bahasa adalah sebagai simbol identitas etnis dan sebagai instrumen komunikasi dalam etnis yang sama. viii PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Penelitian selanjutnya diharapkan untuk fokus pada lebih banyak jenis fenomena budaya baik dalam bentuk budaya material maupun non-material. Penelitian terkait mungkin juga dapat dilakukan untuk meneliti tentang isu-isu penting lainnya dalam berbagai bidang kehidupan sebagai topik yang menarik untuk dibahas. Kata Kunci: Strategi branding etnis, Budaya material, Budaya non-material, Crazy Rich Asians, Penelitian Sosiolinguistik. ix PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to give my biggest gratitude to Jesus Christ and Mother Mary for their blessings along this journey. The situation might be challenging, but I believe They want to increase my capacity through this process so that I could accept bigger things in life. Secondly, I want to express my big appreciation to Dr. B.B. Dwijatmoko, M.A., my thesis advisor, who is willing to give his time and feedback during my while I am working on this thesis. I would like to thank him for being a kind advisor and a good listener. His understanding and patience guide me in the completion of my thesis. My biggest gratitude goes to Dr. E. Sunarto, M.Hum., Prof. Novita Dewi, Ph.D., and Dr. Fr. Borgias Alip, M.Pd., M.A., as my thesis reviewers and examiners. I am gratefully indebted to their guidance, comments, and suggestions on my thesis. I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Soepomo Poedjosoedarmo, Paulus Sarwoto, M.A., Ph.D., Dr. J. Bismoko, F.X. Mukarto, Ph.D., for the valuable knowledge, experiences, and help that I received throughout my master‘s degree program. I also want to thank Mbak Marnie for the help in the process of submitting this thesis. I would like to express my profound gratitude to Drs. Athanasius Y.S Tenau and Margaretha Warayaan for their never-ending prayers to me. My profound gratitude also goes to Drs. Paskalis Kocu, M.Si., and Paulina Maria x PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Wafom for their never-ending faith in me. All that I am and I hope to be, I owe it to my angel parents. I thank my brothers, Ronaldo, Robertho, Reynaldo, and Reinhard for being the supportive bodyguards for me. I also want to thank Faith and Citra, for brighten up my days. I want to thank my best friends, Astri, Yeccika, Shinta, Renata, Liza, Juan, Ndolu, Neles, Yopi, Gitta, and Tity, for their hands to hug me, for their ears to listen to me, and for showing the real definition of ―being there‖ for me. I also want to thank Slavian for his extra patience and caring for accompanying me since I started my undergraduate degree until I finished my master‘s degree. I thank him for believing in me even when I do not believe in myself. I could not ask for a better company. I would like to thank all my fellow in ELS, especially Vania, Indah, Raras, Desy, Taqwa, Joice, Indri, Claudia, Yunda, Nanda, and Aurelia for the long talks, the midnight chats, and the gojekan every time we met. Graduate school was not so bad because of you. Last, I thank