CODE CHOICES BY THE TWO MAIN CHARACTERS
IN THE MOVIE ENTITLED “RUSH HOUR 2“
(Based on Socio-Pragmatics Approach)
THESIS
Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Sarjana Sastra Degree in the English Department
By
WINDA ISTRINA
C0305060
English Department Faculty of Letters and Fine Arts Sebelas Maret University Surakarta 2010
i
CODE CHOICES BY THE TWO MAIN CHARACTERS
IN THE MOVIE ENTITLED “RUSH HOUR 2”
(Based on Socio-Pragmatics Approach)
By
Winda Istrina
C0305060
Approved to be examined before the Broad of Examiners Faculty of Letters and Fine Arts Sebelas Maret University
Thesis Consultant
Drs. Sri. Marmanto, M. Hum NIP. 195009011986011001
The Head of English Department
of Regular Program
Dr. Djatmika, M. A NIP. 196707261993021001
ii
CODE CHOICES BY THE TWO MAIN CHARACTERS
IN THE MOVIE ENTITLED “RUSH HOUR 2”
(Based on Socio-Pragmatics Approach)
By
Winda Istrina
C0305060
Accepted and Approved by the board of examiners of Broad of Examiners Faculty of Letters and Fine Arts Sebelas Maret University on January 2010
Position Name Signature
Chairman Dr. Tri Wiratno, M. A ( ) NIP. 196109141987031001
Secretary Dr. Djatmika, M. A ( ) NIP. 196707261993021001
First examiner Dr. Sri Marmanto, M. Hum ( ) NIP. 195009011986011001
Second examiner Drs. Sugiyarto Budi Waskito, M. Pd ( ) NIP. 195211081983031001
The Dean of Faculty of Letters and Fine Arts Sebelas Maret University
Drs. Sudarno, M. A NIP. 195303141985061001
iii
PRONOUNCEMENT
Name : Winda Istrina
NIM : C0305060
Stated wholeheartedly of the thesis entitled Code Choices by the Two
Main Characters in the Movie Entitled “Rush Hour 2” (Based on Socio-
Pragmatics Approach) is originally made by the researcher. It is not a plagiarism nor made by others. The things related to other people’s works are written in quotation and included in the bibliography.
If it is then proved that the research cheats, the researcher is ready to take the responsibilities.
Surakarta, January 2010
Winda Istrina
iv
MOTTO
“… surely with difficulty is ease. With difficulty is surely ease. So, when you are free,
nominated. And make your Lord your exclusive object.”
(Holy Qur’an, 94: 7-8)
What do we live for
if it is not to make less difficult for each other?
(George Eliot)
Don’t be worried about tomorrow
because tomorrow has not come,
AND
Don’t be afraid of today
because today will be end.
v
DEDICATION
This thesis is dedicated to:
My beloved “babe”and “ibuk”
My lovely ‘brother’ in heaven, my sister and my little cute nephew, Ichal
My future groom
My lovely friends
My self
vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Alhamdulillahi rabbil ‘alamiin
All praises are just for the Almighty God, Allah SWT and the prophet
Muhammad SAW for the blessing so that I can have the capability to complete this thesis. Many sides had given a lot of assistance from the beginning to completion for this thesis. Therefore, I would like to express my gratitude to all people as follow:
1. The Dean of faculty of Letters and Fine Arts, Sebelas Maret University, Drs.
Sudarno, M.A.
2. The Head of English Regular Program, Dr. Djatmika, MA.
3. My thesis consultant, Drs. Sri Marmanto, M. Hum for the guidance, patience
and critical advice to finish this thesis.
4. My academic consultant, M. Taufiq Al Makmun, S.S for all the guidance
since last four wonderful years.
5. All lectures in English Department who have enriched my knowledge.
6. My beloved “Babe” and “Ibuk” for your never ending love, support, pray, and
patience, devotion, affection and everything.
7. My ‘brother’ in heaven and my sister Anis Setyaningsih for giving me such a
great love and support.
8. My future groom, Nit-Not (Insyaallah) for your support, care, and love.
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9. My lovely friends, Napiz, Epha, Peya,and Benk-benk thanks for the love, fun
time, and wonderful companionship. Thanks to you all who never stop to
remind and support me to finish this thesis. Love you so girls.
10. The Chomskies 2005 (Pitria, Ratih, Dini, Anggi, Arif, Hesti, Lilis, Melon,
Chemitz, Sari, Irena, Dian, and so on) thanks for the cooperation in
Linguistics Study and for the nice jacket.
11. All my friends in English Department 2005 (Sony, Nunik, Yogi, Alwi, Intan,
Joe, Astri, Hemi, Wunendro, Ebsy and everyone whom I cannot mention one
by one). Thanks for our wonderful togetherness and keep our spirit by yelling
“2005 SEMANGAT”
12. My Black English consultant, Miss Sarah, for all the guidance and nice
meeting.
13. My Chinese consultant, Dek Putri, for the assistance.
14. All sides who give support and assistance directly or indirectly.
I have tried my best in conducting this thesis. However, I realize this thesis is not perfect. Therefore, I expect some advices and supporting criticism to make this thesis give contribution for everyone.
Researcher
Winda Istrina
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE………………………………………………………………………..……i
APPROVAL OF THE THESIS CONSULTANT………………………….…..ii
APPROVAL OF THE BOARD OF THE EXAMINERS……………….……iii
PRONOUNCEMENT………………………………………………………..….iv
MOTTO…………………………………………………………………..………v
DEDICATION……………………………………………………………..…….vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENT……………………………………………………….vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………..……ix
LIST OF FIGURE………………………………………………………….….xiv
LIST OF TABLE…………………………………………………………..……xv
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………….…...….xvi
CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION
A. Research Background…………………………………………...…………1
B. Problem Statements………………………………………………………..6
C. Research Objectives……………………………………………………….6
D. Problem Limitations ………………………………………………………7
E. Research Benefits………………………………………….....……………7
F. Research Methodology………………………………………...…………..8
G. Thesis Organization…………………………………………….………….9
CHAPTER II : LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Sociolinguistics………………………………………….…………….…11
ix
a. Definition of Sociolinguistics…………………………………...……11
b. Scope of Sociolinguistics…………………………….……...…….…12
B. Pragmatics………………………………………………………….…….14
C. Socio-Pragmatics…………………………………………………………15
D. Dimension of Sociolinguistics…………………………………………...16
a. A social distance scale………………………………………….…….16
b. Status scale……………………………………………………….…..17
c. Formality scale…………………………………………………….…17
d. Functional scale………………………………………………………18
E. Language Variation…………………………………….………………...19
a. Dialect……………………………………………….……………….21
b. Accent……………………………………………….…………….….22
c. Style……………………………………………………………….….22
d. Register………………………………………………………….……23
e. Standard language………………………………………..…………..23
f. Non-standard language……………………………………………….25
F. Bilingualism and Diglossia………………………………………………26
a. Diglossia and bilingualism…………………………………………...27
b. Diglossia without bilingualism………………………………………27
c. Bilingualism without diglossia……………………………………….28
d. Neither diglossia and bilingualism…………………….……………..28
G. Language Choice……………………………………………..…………..28
H. Language and Code……………………………………………..………..29
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I. Domain of Language Use………………………………………..……….30
J. Code Switching and Code Mixing……………………………….………32
a. Code switching……………………………………………………….32
1. Situational code switching……………………………………….32
2. Metaphorical code switching…………………………………….33
b. Code mixing………………………………………………………….33
K. Ethnography of Communication…………………………………………34
a. Setting or scene (S)…………………………………………………..35
b. Participants (P)……………………………………………………….35
c. Ends (E)………………………………………………………………36
d. Act Sequence (A)…………………………………………………….36
e. Key (K)………………………………………………….……………36
f. Instrumentalities (I)…………………………………………………. 37
g. Norms (N)……………………………………………………………37
h. Genre (G)…………………………………………………….……….38
L. Communicative Competence……………………………………..….…..38
M. Rush Hour 2……………………………………………….……….…….39
a. Synopsis of the movie…………………………………………..……39
b. Character and characterizations……………………..………….……42
N. Review of Related Research…………………..…………………………43
CHAPTER III : RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Research Type……………………………………………………………44
B. Data and Source of Data…………………………………………….……44
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C. Sample and Technique of Sampling…………………………….………..45
D. Instrument of the Research……………………………………………….46
E. Technique of Collecting Data……………………………………………47
F. Technique of Analyzing Data……………………………………………48
CHAPTER IV : ANALYSIS
A. Introduction………………………………………………………………49
B. Data Analysis…………………………………………………………….49
a. The Code Choices by the Two Main Characters in the Movie
Entitled “Rush Hour 2”…………………………………………...….50
1. English……………………………………………………………50
a) Formal English……………………………………………….50
b) Colloquial English……………………………………………52
c) Black English………………………………………………...54
2. Chinese………………………………………………………...... 58
3. Switching between codes………………………………………...60
a) Switching from English into Chinese…………………..…….60
b) Switching from Chinese into English………………….……..62
4. Mixing between codes……………………………………………63
b. The Social Meanings in Choosing the Codes………………...………65
1. English……………………………………………………………66
a) Formal English……………………………………………….66
1) Showing respect……………………………….…………66
b) Colloquial English……………………………………………67
xii
1) Showing intimacy………………………………………...67
2) To avoid misunderstanding………………………………68
c) Black English………………………………………………...69
1) Showing intimacy………………………………………...69
2) Showing anger……………………………………………71
3) Showing surprise…………………………………………71
2. Chinese…………………………………………………………...72
1) Showing respect……………………………………………...72
2) Showing solidarity…………………………………………...73
3) To avoid misunderstanding…………………………………..74
3. Switching between codes………………………………………...75
1) To emphasize the message…………………………………...75
2) To avoid misunderstanding…………………………………..76
4. Mixing between codes……………………………………………78
1) Showing joke…………………………………………………78
2) Showing incompetence………………………………………79
C. Discussion………………………………………………………………..79
CHAPTER V : CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Conclusions………………………………………………………………85
B. Suggestions………………………………………………………………86
BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDICES
xiii
LIST OF FIGURE
Figure 1 Social Distance Scale………………………………………………...16
Figure 2 Status Scale ………………………………………………………….17
Figure 3 Formality Scale………………………………………………………18
Figure 4 Referential and Affective Functional Scale………………………….18
xiv
LIST OF TABLE
Table 1 Some Examples of Syntactic Differences between Standard and Non-
Standard English……………………………………………...……….…………25
Table 2 The Types of Code Choices and the Social Meanings in Choosing the
Codes Employed by the Two Main Characters in the Movie Entitled “Rush Hour
2”…………………………………………………………………………………80
xv
ABSTRACT
Winda Istrina. C0305060. 2010. Code Choices by the Two Main Characters in the Movie Entitled “RushHour2” (Based on Socio-Pragmatics Approach). Thesis: English Department. Faculty of Letters and Fine Arts. Sebelas Maret University. Surakarta
The research focused on the code choices by the two main characters in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”. It was conducted to find out the code choices by the two main characters in “Rush Hour 2” and reveal the reasons in choosing the codes which relate to the social meanings.
The research was a case study of sociolinguistics-pragmatics which employed descriptive qualitative method. In taking the data, the researcher used total sampling technique. The researcher took the whole part of dialogue containing codes used by the main characters in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”. The researcher found two results in this research.
The first result is that there are four codes used by the main characters in “Rush Hour 2”. The first code is English which is classified into three, Formal English used in formal situation, Colloquial English used in informal situation, and Black English used by a Black American people. The second code is Chinese. The researcher found Chinese Hanyu (Hanyu Sa) used in formal situation. The third code is Switching between codes which consists of two, namely Switching from English into Chinese and Switching from Chinese into English. The last code is Mixing between codes, i.e. Mixing between English and Chinese
The second result is the social meanings in choosing the codes employed by the two main characters in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”. Formal English has one social meaning, namely to show respect. Colloquial English interprets two social meanings, i.e. to show intimacy and avoid misunderstanding. There are three social meanings which are involved in Black English; they are to show intimacy, anger, and surprise. Chinese describes three social meanings, namely: to show respect, solidarity, and avoid misunderstanding. Switching between codes has three meanings, i.e. to show respect, emphasize the message, and avoid misunderstanding. Mixing between codes reveals two social meanings, namely to show joke and incompetence.
xvi
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Research Background
Language is the most important means of communication among people in social interaction. No human can live without language and language cannot be used without society. The society depends upon and is shaped by language, and vice versa (Chaika, 1982). Through language, people can express ideas, opinions, feelings, experiences, messages, and so on easily. Thus, language in use has an integral relationship with the society.
In a social interaction, the contact between one language and other languages may happen. People in bilingual and multilingual society may choose different languages which are used appropriately when they are communicating each others. Chaika argues that “bilingualism is the term used to mention people who speak more than one language. They may have different levels of proficiency in each of language and they use both languages for very different social purposes and in different social situations” (1994: 34). Multilingualism is a sociolinguistic situation in which more than one language involved (Trudgill, 1992:53). It means that in a multilingual nation one must choose between two or more different languages. United States of America is one example of many countries where the residents speak more than one language.
In America, there are many people who live as immigrants, such as Chinese and African. These immigrants will try to make some adaptations to the new condition of the new country. They have to learn new things like rules, customs, social matters and especially languages. When the immigrants are in an adaptation process, they sometimes still bring their own specific backgrounds
1 which come up in their daily conversation with their society. This combination of differences then possibly creates such an interesting phenomenon.
The differences bring demands for two or more languages which make the speakers need to use different codes in different situation. In choosing the codes, people should choose which codes are appropriate used in certain occasion. Therefore, they should pay attention to the important elements formulated in speaking by Dell Hymes, they are setting, participants, ends, act sequence, key, instrumentalities, norms, and genre (Hymes, 1992: 23). In addition, Janet Holmes (1992: 26) states that there is a very general concept which draws on three important social factors in code choice, namely participant, setting, and topic. It is useful for capturing broad generalizations about any speech community. This is often particularly useful for bilingual and multilingual speech communities.
According to Ralph Fasold, there are three possibilities in language choice. The first possibility is to choose between two languages. It involves code switching. The second one, more subtle than the previous one, is code mixing where pieces of language are used while a speaker is using another language. The last one is variation within the same language (1984: 180-181).
Related to all the explanation, the researcher is interested in exploring the choice of codes. The researcher does a research on code choices employed by the two main characters in “Rush Hour 2”. The movie tells about two personal agents who work for America. They are inspector Lee (Chinese) and detective Carter (Black American). It is started in Hong Kong where Carter wants a relaxing vacation but Lee just wants to do police work. This contrast causes a dispute between them. But in the end, they work together to raise the truth. Lee and Carter are handling a case of American embassy bombing that kills two American agents. Ricky Tan (Chinese) is the suspected. He plays an instrumental role in Lee’s father death, who is now the leader of the Triads, the most deadly gang in all of China. Ricky Tan not only involves in bombing case, but also gets
2 conspirator with Steven Reign who is rich man in L.A in money counterfeiting. Lee and Carter are successful in clearing up this case.
This movie is very interesting because of the difference code choices applied by the characters. There are several codes used in this movie, such as English, Black English, and Chinese. The utterance employed by Carter is one the example of code choices. Carter uses different code when he is speaking to different participants in different social context. He chooses Chinese code to address Chinese people. While he speaks in Black English code when he is expressing his feeling, such as anger, joke, and surprise. Carter is Black man, therefore, Black English code as his mother tongue includes in his speech spontaneously. Another example is code choices employed by Lee. He uses different codes when he is talking in different social context. It occurs since Lee has his own reason in choosing the codes, for instance to show respect.
To give a little description of what the researcher put forward, some examples as follows:
1. Hong Kong, on driving at night. Superintendent Chin gives information to Lee about a bombing case.
Lee : Wei….! [Hallo….!]
Superintendent Chin : Lee, zai mei guo das hi guan you zha dan.
[There was a bombing at American Embassy]
Liang ge mei guo fan yi yuan shou hai.
[Two American translators were killed.]
Lee : You qi ta bao gao?
[Any leads]
Superintendent Chin : Wo men ren wei na shi Ricky Tan.
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[We think it’s Ricky Tan]
Ta he qi ta zai zhe ye zong hui de hei dang cheng
yuan.
[His entire of gang Triads is at the club tonight]
Ru guo ni bu yao jing shou zhe ge an jian
wo neng gou li jie.
[If you don’t want to take the case, I’ll understand]
Lee : Pu mei kuan si.
[No, it’s okay.]
2. Hong Kong, at day in the police office. Superintendent Chin introduces Agent Sterling to Lee.
Lee : Good afternoon, Sir!
Superintendent Chin : Lee…..
Lee : Yes, Sir!
Superintendent Chin : This is Special Agent Sterling from the
United States Secret Service.
Lee : The Secret Service? Why?
In the first example, the conversation takes place in Hong Kong at day in the police office. The dialogue above shows that there are two participants, Lee and Superintendent Chin. Lee is on driving with his friend, Carter. They are on vacation in Hong Kong. When Lee and Carter sing a song, Lee’s cellular is ring. It
4 is from his Superintendent, namely Chin. Superintendent Chin gives information about an American embassy bombing case to Lee by phone.
While in the second example, the conversation takes place in the Hong Kong police station. Superintendent Chin introduces Agent Sterling to Lee. Agent Sterling wants to discuss about the American embassy bombing case that kills two American agents.
The two examples above show that the same addressor (Lee) uses different codes when he is talking to the same addressee (Superintendent Chin). Besides that, he has similar reason in delivering the message, i.e. Lee interprets a social meaning to show respect. In the first example, Lee chooses Chinese code when he is talking to Superintendent Chin. He wants to give respect to Superintendent Chin since Chin has higher position than Lee. Chinese code which is used by Lee is Chinese Hanyu (Hanyu Sa). Hanyu Sa is a variety of Chinese code employed in formal situation. Therefore, the conversation between Lee and Superintendent Chin is in formal situation since talk about the important case about American embassy bombing. While, the second example identifies that Lee chooses Formal English code. Lee, here, wants to show his respect to Superintendent Chin by giving greeting Good afternoon and addressing Sir. He likes to choose Formal English code better than Chinese code when Lee is speaking to Superintendent Chin. It is caused by the existence of 3rd participant, namely Agent Sterling who is a White man.
The different codes applied by Lee above reflect that a speaker has to consider not only the structure of the language but also the context of situation or the structure of the society. In other words, the code choices always correlate with communicative competence of the speaker.
Based on the phenomenon above, the researcher is interested in analyzing the code choices employed by the two main characters in “Rush Hour 2”. The research’s aim is to find out the types of code choices and to reveal the social meanings in choosing the codes used by the two main characters in “Rush Hour
5
2”. Hence the study going to be conducted is entitled CODE CHOICES BY THE TWO MAIN CHARACTERS IN THE MOVIE ENTITLED “RUSH HOUR 2”
B. Problem Statements Based on the research background, the researcher proposes some problem statements as follows:
1. What are the types of code choices employed by the two main characters found in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”? 2. Why do the two main characters choose the codes in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”?
C. Research Objectives
The research objectives are to:
1. Find out the types of code choices employed by the two main characters found in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”. 2. Reveal the social meanings in choosing the codes used by the two main characters in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”.
D. Problem Limitations
In doing the research, the researcher does not analyze code choices by the all characters in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”. The problems in this research will be limited to the code choices by the two main characters in “Rush Hour 2” by using socio-pragmatics approach. This is because not all characters speak in different codes and it will too large to be analyzed. It, therefore will discuss about the types of code choices and the social meanings in choosing the codes by the two main characters found in “Rush Hour 2”.
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E. Research Benefits
There are two kinds of benefits that can be achieved in this research, they are: theoretical benefits and practical benefits.
1. Theoretical benefits: a. This research can describe the varieties of English code, namely Formal English, Colloquial English, and Black English. b. This research will give additional contributions to the development of sociolinguistics and pragmatics especially code choices phenomenon in the movie. 2. Practical benefits: a. Film directors in comprehending the code choices in movie, especially the movie which involved characters from different social backgrounds. b. All movie lovers to know further about the code choices in movie. c. Sociolinguistics researchers in getting evidences or references for further research about code choices. d. Students of Sociolinguistics in comprehending code choices analysis. e. Sociolinguistics lecturers in getting further evidence in code choices study.
F. Research Methodology This research will be a descriptive qualitative research. By using this method, this research will be conducted by collecting, classifying, analyzing data, and then drawing the conclusion. The data source of this research is movie entitled “Rush Hour 2". The researcher analyzes all code choices employed by the two main characters; therefore, this research applies total sampling technique. Further explanation about the research method of this analysis will be discussed in Chapter III.
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G. Thesis Organization
CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION that consists of Research Background, Problem Statements, Research Objectives, Problem Limitations, Research Benefits, Research Methodology, and Thesis Organization.
CHAPTER II : LITERATURE REVIEW that covers the Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Socio-Pragmatics, Dimension of Sociolinguistics Analysis, Language Variation, Bilingualism and Diglossia, Language Choice, Language and Code, Code Switching and Code Mixing, Ethnography of Communication, Speech Community, Communicative Competence, Rush Hour 2, and Review of Related Research.
CHAPTER III : RESEARCH METHODOLOGY that consists of Research Type, Data and Source of Data, Sample and Technique of Sampling, Instrument of the Research, Technique of Collecting Data, and Technique of Analyzing Data.
CHAPTER IV : ANALYSIS that covers Introduction, Data Analysis, and Discussion.
CHAPTER V : CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS that consists of Conclusions and Suggestions.
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CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, the researcher tries to study the background knowledge from Sociolinguistics and Pragmatics to provide a clearer understanding about Sociolinguistics-Pragmatics especially related to code choice. Here, the researcher often quotes many Sociolinguists’ and Pragmatists’ arguments to keep its originality. This chapter is composed into some subchapters namely Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Socio-Pragmatics, Dimension of Sociolinguistics Analysis, Language Variation, Bilingualism and Diglossia, Language Choice, Language and Code, Domain of Language Use, Code Switching and Code Mixing, Ethnography of Communication, Communicative Competence, Rush Hour 2, and Review of Related Researches.
A. Sociolinguistics a. Definition of Sociolinguistics Hudson defines that sociolinguistics is the study of language in relation to the society, implying (intentionally) that sociolinguistics is a part of the study of language (1996: 4). Moreover, Holmes says that sociolinguists study the relationship between language and society. They are interested in explaining why we speak differently in different social contexts and they are concerned with identifying the social functions of language and the ways it is used to convey social meaning (1992: 1).
Sociolinguistics is a term used to describe all areas of the study of the relationship between language and society other than these, such as ethnometodology, which are purely social scientific in their objectives. Sociolinguistics research is thus work which is intended to achieve a better understanding of the nature of human language by studying language in its
9
social context and or to achieve a better understanding of the relationship and interaction between language and society. (Trudgill, 1992: 68)
Chaika (1994) defines that sociolinguistics as the study of the ways people use language in social interaction of all kinds. It means that sociolinguistics concerns with how people use language when they interact in any kinds of situation.
It can be concluded that sociolinguistics is concerned with the relationship between language and context in which it is used. It means that sociolinguistics does not only discuss about the relationship between language and society but also considers to who is talking to whom, the situation (the context), the purpose of the interaction and the topic of conversation.
b. Scope of Sociolinguistics
According to Trudgill (1992: 52), sociolinguistics is divided into two studies, namely: macro sociolinguistics and micro sociolinguistics. Macro
sociolinguistics refers to sociolinguistics areas involving the study of relatively large groups of speakers. It concerns with the study of language history and development in the scope of society in general.
Micro sociolinguistics is a term used to cover the study of face to face interaction, discourse analysis, conversational analysis, and other areas which involves a small group of speaker study. Moreover, micro sociolinguistics concerns with the study of language in specific speech community with the scope of discussion such as the behavior towards language, style of speech, domains of language use, register, speech act, etc.
Fishman in Chaklader (1990) divides sociolinguistics into subdivisions: descriptive, dynamics, and applied sociolinguistics. Descriptive sociolinguistics seeks to answer question “who speaks, what language, to
10
whom, when, and what end?” It deals with language and norms. Dynamics sociolinguistics seeks to answer question “what account to different rates of change in the social organization of language use and behavior toward language?”. While applied sociolinguistics is concerned with significance of the application of language in social setting. It studies the significance of nature language teaching or second language teaching, language policy decision, language planning, etc.
This research involves micro sociolinguistics since discusses the study of conversation analysis in small group of speakers. It is about code choices employed by the two main characters in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”. It also uses descriptive linguistics since this research analyzes code choice study which relates to the codes, participants, setting, and ends.
B. Pragmatics Sometimes, people do not say what they mean explicitly. In interpreting the meaning of utterances, the hearer should consider the situation in which the utterances occur. The relation between context and meaning of utterances is under the study of pragmatics. There are several definitions of pragmatics.
According to Yule (1996: 4), pragmatics is a branch of linguistics study that focuses in meaning utterances. The study of meaning as communicated by a speaker (or writer) and interpreted by listener (or reader) is known as pragmatics. Thus, when people deal with pragmatics, they deal with utterances’ meaning. This is a study that can help people to be able to figure out the meaning of particular utterances.
Meanwhile, Levinson (1997: 24) states that pragmatics is the study of the role of context that focuses in meaning of utterances. It means that this type of study involves the interpretation of what people mean in a particular context and how the context influences what is said. The context takes important position due
11 to its possibility to give influence to the utterances’ meaning. Therefore, in order to know and understand the meaning of speaker’s utterance, the hearer needs to concern about the context of the conversation.
From those definitions, it can be concluded that pragmatics is a study that discusses meaning of language by regarding the relation between language and context. Thus, it can be clearly understood that the interaction between the context and language becomes the main study in pragmatics.
C. Socio-Pragmatics Socio-Pragmatics is the combination study between Sociolinguistics and Pragmatics. Therefore, from several definitions of Sociolinguistics and Pragmatics explained previously, it can be said that Socio-Pragmatics deals with the analysis of significant patterns of interaction in particular social context. For example, choice of codes may be realized differently in different social contexts. Sometimes, people use the same code in their utterances to speak to different participants. On the other hand, they speak in different code to the same participants. This phenomenon is caused by the strategies used by the participants. It is called dynamic feature. They have their own reasons which relate to social meaning of the utterances.
Leech in www.jalt-publications.org/tlt/articles/200305kawate_mierzejewska states that Socio-Pragmatics is “the sociological interface of Pragmatics” involving speakers’ and hearers’ beliefs built on relevant social and cultural values.
From the definition above, it can be concluded that Socio-Pragmatics studies the meaning of language used in relation to social and cultural values. This research uses Socio-Pragmatics approach since it discusses the code choices applied in a particular social interaction in which it considers the social relation between speakers and hearers and the meaning intended by the speaker.
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D. Dimension of Sociolinguistics The subject matter of Sociolinguistics is linguistic diversity or variation. It is also related to the social factors. It includes the participants, setting, topic, and function. According to Holmes, there are four social dimensions reflected during the communication, they are: a social distance concerning with participant relationship, a status scale concerning with participant relationship, a formality scale related to the setting or type of interaction, and the last one is two functional scales related to the purposes or topic of interaction. (1992: 12) a. A social distance scale This scale is useful in emphasizing to know that someone is relevant factor in linguistic choice. This scale concerns with participants’ relationship. The intimate relationship will have higher solidarity and distance relationship causes lower solidarity. This scale below may give a clearer understanding.
Figure 1
Social Distance Scale
Intimate Distant
High Solidarity Low Solidarity
Source: Holmes, 1992: 12 b. Status scale This scale points to the relevance of relative status in some linguistic choices. The other name for this dimension is the power scale of participants. Participants communicate in such a way signal their status or power in society.
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This dimension accounts for a variety of linguistic differences in the way people speak. When people of lower status address to the higher status people, it is often used Sir, Madame, Mrs., Mr., etc. In short, the linguistic choice is relevant with the relative status of addressee.
Figure 2
Status Scale
Superior High Status Standard English
Sub-ordinate Low Status Non Standard
Source: Holmes, 1992: 13 c. Formality scale
This scale is useful in assessing the influence of the social setting or type of interaction on language choice (Holmes, 1992: 13). It accounts for speech variation in different setting or context. The language choice is in accordance with the setting where communication takes place. In a formal situation such as the communication between the employee and the boss in the office, or at a ritual service in church, the language used will be influenced by the formality of the setting.
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Figure 3
Formality Scale
Formal High Formality
Informal Low Formality
Source: Holmes, 1992: 13 d. Functional scale This scale is classified into two, namely referential and affective function scale (Holmes, 1992: 14). In these scales language are particularly pervasive and basic. Language does not only convey the objective information of a referential kind but it also expresses someone’s feeling. Referential and affective meaning influences the kinds of information carried on interaction. Because of these two functions, the information may be given in different emphasize.
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Figure 4
Referential and Affective Function Scale
Referential
High Information Low Information
Content Content
Low Affective High Affective
Content Content
Affective
Source: Holmes, 1992: 14
E. Language Variation A variety is a broad term including different accents, different linguistics styles, different dialects, and even different languages which contrast with other for social reasons. Sociolinguistics talks about variation and searches social relevant for regular patterns of variation in language use. Sociolinguistics studies the connection between the variation within language and variation in the society.
In learning language research, having a well comprehension on the acquisition language varieties is important. Slosberg (1992) explains that language varieties consist of social class, ethnic, gender, and acquisition of register. Labov in his research (in Downes, 1984: 113) explains that the occurrence of features
16 such as postvocalic / r / (as in far, worm), unstressed – ing (as in sleepi [n] as opposed to sleepi [ ]), and substitution of a stop for fricative (e.g. realization of medial / o / as / t / in nothing) differ the social and economic index of the speakers. He also argues that a person from lower social status is less likely use standard form. Thus, language varieties are across social classes such as upper middle class, lower class, upper working class, and lower working class. Dealing with ethnic variations, one of the examples is language use of Black people in United States. They have a certain variety which is used only with their community called Black Vernacular English (BEV).
Trudgill (1992:14) defines BEV as the name used by American sociolinguists to refer to the dialect of English spoken, with relatively little regional variation, by lower-class Black in the United States. In its phonological and especially grammatical characteristics, such as copula deletion, this variety differs from Standard English. Waren-Leubecker and Bohannan (Slosberg 1992: 39) give example of this, while speakers of Standard English mark negation only once in a sentence, either on the verb or else by an indefinite pronoun as in “She has said nothing”, speakers of Black English will doubly mark the negative as in “She ain’t said nothing”. Another example is copula deletion; speakers of Standard English say “He is angry” but speakers of Black English say “He angry”.
The research finding in accordance with gender-related variations states that women are more likely to use standard phonetic forms than men. Women will pronounce the final –ing in a word like ‘talking’, whereas men will pronounce it as in ‘talkin’ (Slosberg, 1992: 41). Women also often use more polite forms like tag question or request, while men are more likely to use commands. Moreover, men tend to initiate a conversation whereas women tend to react it. Based on those findings above, it can be said that the different characteristic between man and women can emerge language varieties among them.
As a social being, many roles have to be done by human as a member of family (a wife, a mother, or a daughter), a member of office community (an
17 employee or an employer), etc. the varieties occur when a speaker with his role communicates with other speakers in different role in certain situation. An employer commonly uses standard variety in an office. However, he will use a different variety when he talks to his son at home. Here, register variation emerges caused by the changing of speaker’s role, the characteristics of the addressee and the situational of communication.
A variety of languages is a set of linguistic items (lexical items, sounds, and constructions) with similar social distributions. Hudson (1996: 23) argues that it includes languages, dialects, registers, and styles. Whereas, other Sociolinguist, Trudgill (1992: 24) argues that a variety refers to any kind of language, dialect, accent, sociolect, style, and register. a. Dialect Dialect is the varieties that initially and basically represent divergent geographic origins (Ferguson and Gumperz 1960; Halliday 1964 in Fishman, 1972: 16). This dialect can be dialectology and dialect geography and also social variety or sociolect. Hudson (1996: 38-41) also classifies dialects into almost in the same way, namely regional (geographical) dialect and social dialect.
Trudgill (1992: 23) explains that dialect as a variety of language is differentiated grammatically, phonologically and lexically from others, and associated with a particular geographical area and or with a particular social class or status group. According to him, regional (geographical) dialect is variety or dialect which is thought of as being related to geographical background rather than its speakers’ social background. While, sociolect is a variety or dialect thought of as being related to its speakers’ social background.
From the definition above, the researcher concludes that everybody has own dialect based on where he/she is classified socially or geographically.
18 b. Accent Trudgill defines accent as “the way in which people pronounce when they speak” (1992: 7). Then, Yule in The Study of Language says that accent when used technically is restricted to the description of aspects of pronunciation which identify where an individual speaker is from, regionally or socially (1996: 227). This definition is also supported by Chaika. She states that accent refers to the way in which a speaker pronounces (1994: 7). All of the definitions emphasize on the aspect of pronunciation of speaking that gives identify for the speakers. c. Style Chaika (1994: 81) defines style as the selection of linguistic form to convey social or artistic effects. It determines how social interactions will proceed and continue, whether formally or informally. The situation of use gives the impact to the conversation, whether the participants speak seriously, ironically, humorously, angrily, lovingly, dubiously or other ways.
Trudgill (1992: 72) proposes style as a variety of language is associated with social context and differentiated from others in terms of its formality. Yule also states that style influenced by the situation of use. It can be ranged from the very formal to the very informal (1996: 227).
From the definition above, the researcher concludes that style is a variety of languages in terms of its formality. It can be contrasted into formal style and colloquial style. d. Register Register is variation according to use in specific situations. It is used to describe the specific vocabulary associated with different occupational groups (Yule, 1996: 245). Trudgill (1992: 62) defines that register is a language variety that is associated with particular topic, subject or activity. While Holmes states that register tends to be associated with particular group of people or specific situations of use. The language of airline pilots, journalists,
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sport commentators, disc jockeys, and politicians are the examples of it (1992: 276).
Those three definitions about register are almost the same, that register is related with specific situation of speaking. Hence, register is to express shared meanings concisely and precisely. Therefore, it is not easy for outsiders to understand and to use them. e. Standard language Trudgill (1992: 70-71) defines Standard English as “the variety of English that is usually used in print, and which is normally taught in school and to non-native speakers learning the language. It is also the variety, which is normally spoken by educated people and used in news broadcasts, and other similar situation”. Then Hudson (1980: 32-33) proposes that the only kind of variety, which would count as a proper language, is standard language. The language as the result of a direct and deliberate intervention by society is named standard language.
To become a standard language, it passes through the following processes:
1. Selection: the particular variety must be selected as the one to be developed into a standard language. The choice of a variety relates to social and political importance since it gets prestige and also the speaker who share it in prestige. It affects many sectors of life. 2. Codification: The codification is done by some agency such as an academy; they must have written grammar books and dictionaries to ‘fix’ the chosen variety, so that everyone can use the correct norms of that. 3. Elaboration of function: the selected variety is applied in all the functions dealing with central government and with writing. But adding other technical words and developing new conventions is still need. 4. Acceptance: the relevant population should accept the variety as the variety of the community, deeply as the national language. Thus, the
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standard language functions as a strong unifying force for the state, as a symbol of its independence of other states and also as the marker of its difference from other states. (Hudson, 1980: 32-33)
Fishman (1972: 19) stresses that are not all languages have standard varieties. However, where a standard variety exists it does not mean that it displaces the non-standard variety from the linguistic repertoires of certain speech community. Only the functions are different but non-standard variety is a complementary to the standard variety. In other words, standard language is a variety that is accepted, admitted, and used by everyone in many sectors of life. Its functions are as the identity of the speakers, as a symbol of the community, and even as the national language. f. Non-standard language Non standard language based on Trudgill (1992: 56) is widely different from standard language at level of grammar. Non standard language is often considered to be wrong, ugly, corrupt or lazy, different from standard language that is held to be correct, beautiful, nice, pure, and so on. Non standard language has lower status and prestige than standard language since it mostly does not follow the language norms that are accepted and admitted in standard language. It is variety used in informal situation and mostly spoken by uneducated and lower class people. Slang is non-standard vocabulary used in informal situation. The table below shows the syntactic differences between standard and non-standard English.
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Table1
Some Examples of Syntactic Differences between
Standard and Non- Standard English
VARIABLE STANDARD BLACK ENGLISH NON STANDARD ENGLISH
Linking Verb (copula) He is going He………goin’
Possessive Marker John’s cousin John…….cousin
Plural Marker I have five cents I got five cent
Third Person Singular He lives in N.Y. He live in N.Y. (Verb Agreement)
Past Marker Yesterday he walked Yesterday, he walk home home
“If ” Construction Statement: I asked if he Statement: I ask did he did it do it
Negation I don’t have any I don’t got none
Use of ‘be’ He is here all the time He be here
Subject Expression John moved John, he move
Verb Form I drank the milk I drunk the milk
Future I will go home I’ma go home
Indefinite Article I want an apple I want a apple
Pronoun Form We have to do it Us got to do it
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Pronoun expressing His book He book Possession
Preposition He is over at John’s He over to John house
He teaches at Francis He teach Francis pool pool
Use of ‘do’ Contradiction: No he Contradiction: No, he isn’t don’t
Source: Hall and Freedle 1973 in Bolinger & Sears, 1981: 199
F. Bilingualism and Diglossia Diglossia was firstly introduced by a professor of English in Texas 1930’s, Stanford Charles Ferguson. Ferguson in Fasold (1984: 34) argues that diglossia is a phenomenon of situation when two distinct varieties of the same language are used interchangeably for different sets of functions. In this word, its users in defined circumstances only use diglossia in two or more varieties of the same language.
Diglossia is not only exists on the use of two language varieties of a language in a certain society, but it also includes the use of more than one language or two language varieties in a society for certain purposes. In digossic group, people tend to occupy more than one language as means of communication. In this group, the term “High” language and “Low” language present (Sridhar in McKay & Hornberg, 1996: 55). As the social value, high language is usually utilized to represent high status class or it is employed for formal occasion by educated people and middle- high class to show their social background or profession claim. Middle-low class or common people for non- formal circumstance in common affairs, by contrast, apply Low language.
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In discussing diglossia, there are many relationships between diglossia and bilingualism. Fishman (1972: 93-106) alludes the relationship between diglossia and bilingualism, which evokes community characterized by diglossia and bilingualism, diglosia without bilingualism, bilingualism without diglossia, and neither diglossia and bilingualism. a. Diglossia and bilingualism
It happens in Paraguay for example where two languages are spoken. The distribution is distinguished according to its social function such as Indonesian (High Language) and Javanese (Low language). b. Diglossia without bilingualism
It is characterized by Fishman as an instance of political or governmental diglossia in which two or more differently monolingual entities are brought together under one political roof. Modern states such as Switzerland, Belgium and Canada are included as the category. c. Bilingualism without diglossia
It can be indicated in a country where the two languages are used in the same function. d. Neither diglossia and bilingualism
It is the rarest category since all members of the community use one language for all domains, they are all monolingual. So, there is no distribution of social functions for the language. It exists in isolated speech community.
G. Language Choice Holmes (1992: 1) argues that “sociolinguists study the relationship between language and society. They are interested in explaining why we speak differently in different social contexts, and they are concerned with identifying the
24 social functions of language and the ways it is used to convey social meaning”. In a social interaction, different people in different social contexts should make them use certain appropriate code. Fortunately, linguistic variation within the linguistic levels (sounds, word structure (morphology), grammar (syntax), and vocabulary) offers the speaker a choice of ways of expression.
Fassold in The Sociolinguistics of Society proposes three kinds of language choices, namely code switching, code mixing, and variation within the same language. In code switching, speakers should choose between two or more languages. Code mixing occurs when they mix pieces of one language with another language. While, variation within the same language is related to dialect, register or accent. The speakers have to choose the appropriate variations to use in a certain social situation. (1984:180)
There are certain social factors have been relevant in accounting for the particular variety used. The first one is participants (the users of language), considering who is talking to whom (e.g. wife-husband, customer-shop keeper, boss-worker, etc). The second one is the setting or social context (e.g. home, market, office, so on). The third one is the aim or purpose of the interactions (social, informative). The last one is the topic (e.g. home affair, bargaining, job affair, and so forth). In other way, all social factors cover some questions as follows:
1. The participants: who is speaking and who are they speaking to?
2. The setting or social context of interaction: where are they speaking?
3. The topic: what is being talked about?
4. The function: why are they speaking? (Holmes, 1992: 12)
Fassold in his definition gives classification of language choices. He does not mention the factors influencing the choice of the languages, whereas, Holmes
25 reveals its social factors. In studying language choices, all of the definitions can be used because they support each other.
H. Language and Code Code, according to Rahardi (2001: 21) is the use of a speech system related to the background of the speaker and the hearer and also the speech situation. Poedjosudarmo (1978) in Rahadi (2001: 22) states that code as a variety of language used by the person for interaction with the society. Wardaugh (1988 in Rahadi 2001: 22) also gives a definition of code that code is a kind of system used by two people or more for communication.
Trudgill (1992: 85) argues that language likes other forms of social activity which the speakers have to use appropriately. This is why, in many communities, man and woman speeches are different. He also states that language needs appropriate occasions and situations. In other words, language varies not only according to the social characteristics of speakers (such as social class, ethnic group, age, and sex) but also according to the social context.
Therefore, it can be said that code is different from language since code has wider term than language. Code has varieties, for example Javanese code classifies into three, namely Krama Inggil, Ngoko Alus, and Ngoko. While language is different system used by different people for communication (e.g. English is different from Indonesian language).
I. Domain of Language Use Domain, according to Fishman who is also the first person and has developed the notion of a domain of language use, is a sociocultural construct abstracted from topics of communication relationship in accordance with the institution of a society and the spheres of activity of speech community on such a way that individual behavioral and social pattern can be distinguished from each other and yet related to each other (Fishman, 1972: 43).
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This definition is also developed by Downes (1984: 49). He defines domain as a grouping together of recurring situation types in such a way that one of the languages or varieties in a repertoire, as opposed to the others, normally occurs in that class of situations. The member of the speech community judge that the use of that variety, and not the others, is appropriate to that domain. In short, a domain involves typical interactions between typical participants in typical setting.
Holmes states that domain is clearly a very general concept which draws on three important social factors in code choice, namely participant, setting, and topic. It is useful for capturing broad generalizations about any speech community. The use of the domains in a community is possible to draw a very simple model of the norms of language use for a community. For instance, the information identifies four domains and describes the variety or code appropriate to each. This is often particularly useful for bilingual and multilingual speech communities (1992: 26).
Fishman (in Holmes, 1992: 24) mentions five domains, which can be identified in many communities namely family, friendship, religion, education, and employment. The use of a code of a language is different in every domain because the situation in every domains also different. For instance, if the setting is family domain, the participants will use vernacular language or non-standard language because the situation is informal.
J. Code Switching and Code Mixing a. Code switching In a communication, speakers may change their language used if they it to or need to. In that process of that changing, switching will occur. That phenomenon is usually called code switching.
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Code switching is the process whereby bilinguals or bidialectals switch back and forth between one language or dialect and another within the same conversation. Sridard (in McKay and Hornberg, 1996: 56) suggest that people frequently switch from one language to another, when two or more languages exist in a community.
Wardaugh (1976: 103) states that there are two kinds of code switching, namely situational code switching and metaphorical code switching.
1. Situational Code Switching
According to Hudson (1996: 52), situational code switching occurs when the code change is caused by the change of topics or participants. The switch of code follows the situational code switching, the change of participants and also atmosphere.
Situational code switching usually has new persons or participants in conversation so the situational code switching can change the choice of language. It is also used for temporary need or immediate need.
2. Metaphorical Code Switching
Holmes states that each of codes represents a set of social meaning, and the speaker draws on the association of each, just as people use metaphors to represent complex meaning. The term also reflects the fact that this kind of switching involves rhetorical skill. Skillful code switching operates like metaphor to enrich communication (1992: 49).
Metaphorical code switching has an affective dimension to it: the code as you redefine the situation—formal to informal, official to personal, serious to humorous, and politeness to solidarity (Wardaugh, 1976: 103).
28 b. Code mixing
The other term related to code switching is code mixing. It is a part of language dependency in bilingual or multilingual society. It is the process whereby speakers indulge in code switching between languages of such rapidity and density, even within sentences and phases, that is not really possible to say at any given time which language they are speaking (Trudgill, 1992: 16).
According to Sridhar (in McKay & Hornberg, 1996), code mixing implies quite in multilingual communities around the world. People often use and mix their languages. Therefore, it reflects sociocultural and textual functions as an expression of certain types of complex personalities and communities.
Code mixing implies the speaker’s incompetence. On the other hand, the switches always relate to the symbolic or social meanings of two codes (Holmes, 1992: 50).
K. Ethnography of Communication Trudgill defines ethnography of communication as the study of the norms and rules for using language in social situations in different culture and is thus important for cross-cultural communication (1992: 31).
Meanwhile, Fassold states that the essential concepts of ethnography of communication are the speech community and the units of interaction, which consist of speech situation, speech event, and speech act (1990: 39).
Speech community is a community of speakers who share the same verbal repertoire and share the same norms for linguistic behavior. In this sense, a group of people belongs to the same speech community if they speak the same language and share the same norms of interaction and interpretation (Trudgill, 1992: 69).
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The three units are a nested hierarchy in the sense that speech acts are part of speech events which are in turn part of speech situations. Hymes (in Fassold, 1990: 42) describes speech situation as “situations associated with or marked by the absence of speech”. It may be composed of both communicative and other kinds of events, for instance in ceremonies, fights, hunts, and lovemaking.
Speech event, on the other hand, are both communicative and governed by rules for the use of speech (Hymes in Fassold, 1990: 42). A speech event consists of one or more speech acts. Several speech events can occur successively or even simultaneously in the same situation, for example: a joke might be a speech act that is part of conversation (speech event) which takes place at a party (speech situation).
Whereas, speech acts are minimal term of the set. A speech act can have forms ranging from a complex sentence or words (Hymes in Fasold 1990: 42)
There are certain components are strongly relates to three units of speech that are proposed by Hymes. Those components are abbreviated in the form of SPEAKING (Setting or Scene, Participants, Ends, Acts Sequence, Key, Instrumentalities, Norms of Interaction, and Genre) (Hymes in Fasold, 1990: 44- 45). a. Setting or Scene (S)
The setting refers to the aspect of place and time of the speech. It is closely related to its psychological aspect. Setting can be a cultural definition of an occasion as a certain type of scene. Therefore, setting is different with scene. Setting is connected to the physical condition of a speech, while scene is related to the psychological and cultural condition (Hymes in Fassold, 1990: 44). b. Participants (P)
Participants relate to speaker/addressor, hearer/addressee, the subjects who are present in a speech event and whose presence may have an influence
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on what is said and how it is said. Speaker or addressor means the person who transmits a message. Hearer or addressee means the person to whom the message is transmitted (ibid: 44). c. Ends (E)
The purpose of an event is called ends. It consists of outcome and goal. Outcome is explained as the purpose of the event from a cultural point of view. While, goal explained as the purpose of the individual participant (ibid: 44). d. Act Sequence (A)
Act sequence is about the message of event content. It comprises message form and message content. Message form describes how something is said. While, message content describes what is said in that speech event. Both of them involve communicative skills that vary from one culture to another (ibid: 44). e. Key (K)
Key refers to the tone and manner in which an action is done (Fishman 1972: 52). Tone alludes to the general spirit of the scene, such as brave, fierce, fearful, etc. Manner refers to the participants’ way of behaving toward others, whether it is polite, impolite, intimate, formal, relax, serious, etc. It also refers to the feeling, atmosphere, and attitude (Hymes in Fasold 1990: 44-45). Feeling means the emotions that indicating happiness, terror, anxiety, anger, shock, etc. While atmosphere brings up the feeling that affects the mind in a place or condition such as good, evil, solemn, etc. Whereas attitude points to the participants’ ways of thinking and behaving toward a situation whether it is sympathetic, serious, optimistic, etc (ibid: 45).
The signaling of key may be non-verbal, for instance with a gesture, style or dress, wink, posture, musical accompaniment, smile, and also may be
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conventional units of speech such as English aspiration and vowel length to signal emphasis and also intonation (verbal) (ibid: 45). f. Instrumentalities (I)
Instrumentalities are the comparisons of channels and forms of speech. According to Hymes, channel is the way a message travels from one person to another. Therefore, it implies the means or medium of speech transmissions. Channel can be oral or transmitted by such means such as telegraph, semaphore, smoke signal, drumming, etc. whereas, form of speech are described by Hymes as language and their subdivisions, such as varieties, codes, dialects, and registers (ibid: 45). g. Norms (N)
Hymes divides norms of communication into: norms of interaction and norms of interpretation. They are determined by the cultural background of the community. Thus, it can be said that each community has certain norms of interaction that different from other community. Every speech community has certain rules for interpreting the messages conveyed verbally or nonverbally. Hymes states that norms of interpretation implicate the belief system of communication (ibid: 45). h. Genre (G)
Genre includes some categories such as prayer, lecture, poem, proverbs, myth, riddle, commercial, curse, editorial, form letter, and so on. They often coincide with speech events since a speech genre can occur in more than one kind of speech events (Hymes in Fassold, 1990: 46).
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L. Communicative Competence One significant aspect within the ethnography of communication is communicative competence. It was firstly proposed by Hymes in 1966, and defined as “what a speaker needs to know to communicate effectively in culturally significant setting”. Thus, it involves knowing not only the language code but also what to say to whom, and how to say it appropriately in any given situation. Hymes (in Trudgill 1990: 17) points out that knowing the grammar, phonology, and lexicon of a language is not enough. The speakers have to know how to use the language appropriately in the society in which they live. They have to know when to speak and when not to, which greeting formula to use when, which style to use in which situation, and so on.
The socio and cultural knowledge are needed which enables them to use and interpret linguistic forms (Saville-Troike in McKay and Hornberg, 1996). Moreover, it relates to both knowledge and expectation of who may not speak in certain setting, when to speak and when to remain silent, whom one may speak to, how one may talk to persons of different statuses and roles., what nonverbal behavior are appropriate in various context, what the routines for turn taking are in conversation, how to ask for and give information, how to give commands, how to offer or decline assistance or cooperation, how to enforce discipline, how to request and so forth, everything involving the use of language and other communicative dimensions in certain social settings.
Therefore, the speaker needs to know about how to communicate effectively in cultural significant settings with not only use the language code but also what to say to whom and how to say it appropriately in any given situation.
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M. Rush Hour 2 a. Synopsis of the Movie Title : Rush Hour 2 Director : Brett Ratner Producers : Roger Birnbaum Jonathan Glickman Arthur Sarkissian Jay Stern Writers : Jeff Nathanson (Screenplay) Ross LaManna (Original Story) Starring : Jackie Chan as Chief Inspector Lee Chris Tucker as Detective James Carter John Lone as Ricky Tan Zhang Ziyi as Hu Li Kenneth Tsang as Superintendent Chin Alan King as Steven Reign Roselyn Sánchez as Isabella Molina Harris Yulin as Agent Sterling Genre : Action, Comedy, Crime, Thriller Distribution : New Line Cinema Release date(s) : August 3, 2001 Awards : 10 wins & 17 nominations “Rush Hour 2” is a 2001 martial arts film. This is the second installment in the Rush Hour film series .A sequel to the 1998 film Rush Hour, the film stars Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker who respectively reprise their roles as Inspector Lee and Los Angeles police detective James Carter. The film finds Carter and Lee embroiled in a counterfeit scam involving the triads.
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Rush Hour 2 was released in August 3, 2001 and grossed $347,325,802 at the world-wide box-office, becoming the 11th top grossing film of 2001 worldwide, and the highest-grossing martial arts film of all time.
‘Rush Hour 2” tells about two personal agents who work for America in a bombing case, they are Inspector Lee and Detective Carter. The story is started when L.A.P.D. Detective James Carter (Chris Tucker) is on vacation in Hong Kong, visiting his good friend Hong Kong Police Force Chief Inspector Lee (Jackie Chan). Carter is interested in having a good time, however, soon after he arrives, a bomb explodes in the American Embassy. Inspector Lee is assigned to the case, which becomes personal when it is discovered that it somehow involves Ricky Tan (John Lone), his late police officer father's former partner. Tan, who was suspected, but never proven, of having a role in Lee's father's death, is now a leader of the Triads.
The United States Secret Service, led by Agent Sterling (Harris Yulin), and the Hong Kong Police Force soon get into a fight over the jurisdiction of the case. Ricky Tan is not only involved in bombing case, but also conspirator with Steven Reign who is the rich man in L.A in money counterfeiting. In getting rid Lee and Carter, Tan is helped by Hu Li (Zhang Ziyi). She is a Chinese girl who is working for Ricky Tan. She helps Ricky Tan in criminality, includes counterfeiting of money.
In handling Tan’s case, Lee and Carter are helped by American Agent Isabella Molina (Roselyn Sánchez) who is under covering as Steven Reign’s women. All about Ricky Tan are informed by her and Superintendent Chin (Kenneth Tsang). After passing the hard fighting, finally Lee and Carter are successful in proving the truth that Ricky Tan and his people is the suspected. b. Characters and Characterizations There are many characters in “Rush Hour 2”. However, in this research, the researcher gives limitation in analyzing only the two main characters. Therefore, in characterization point, the researcher only takes the
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characterizations of the two main characters, namely Inspector Lee and Detective James Carter.
1. Inspector Lee Lee is the main character in “Rush Hour 2”. He acts as an inspector in Hong Kong. Lee is a hard worker. He prefers to handle a case than enjoy his vacation with his friend, Carter. In this movie, Lee with Carter try to investigate a case about American embassy bombing that killed two American agents. Lee is faced to Ricky Tan who is the suspected and also has a role in Lee’s father death. Lee and Tucker are successful in opening up the criminality of Ricky Tan and his gang.
2. Detective James Carter Carter is Lee’s friend. In this movie, he acts as an American agent. Carter has a big mouth and always acts rashly. What is in his mind is only woman. He is a Black American who is on vacation in Hong Kong with Lee. Carter has a terrible vacation in Hong Kong because he has to help Lee to solve the case. At first, Carter feels disappointed in Lee because Lee involves Carter in his case. However, at last, Carter wants to help Lee catch Ricky Tan and his people.
N. Review of Related Research
There are two related researchers discussing about code choices from different points of views. All the previous researchers complete one another, they are:
One research done by Fitriana Hapsari (2002) is entitled An Analysis of Language choice in The Novel “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” by Jimmy Breslin. She tries to analyze language choice deeply in the novel. It deals with the analysis of domains, the social factors affecting one’s choice of codes and the social meaning of codes.
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Another research conducted by Supiani (2006), entitled An Analysis of Code Used by the Cross Married Couple, Banjar-Java Ethnic Group (A Case Study in Pelaihari Regency, South Kalimantan). This research classifies the types of language code employed by the main participant in some domains, explains the factors influencing the choice of code and finds out the social meanings of language used.
Based on the related research, this research also tries to analyze the types of code choices and the social meanings which interpret in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”. The difference of this research with those two researches is the object used. Fitriana Hapsari uses a novel as her main data and Supiani uses recorded data of the participants’ conversations, while the data of this research is taken from the dialogues of the two main characters in the movie.
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CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Research Type
This research is a qualitative research. The qualitative research is a type that does not include any calculation or numeration (Moleong, 2001: 6).
Then Bodgar and Taylor (in Moleong, 2001: 6) state that qualitative methodology as the research procedure which brings about descriptive data in the form of written or spoken words and behavior available to be examined.
Therefore, the researcher uses the qualitative because this research refers to the descriptive data in the form of spoken words that are available to be examined. The data is taken from the dialogues that occur in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”.
Meanwhile, this research uses a descriptive method. Surakhmad states that descriptive method is a kind of research method using technique of searching, collecting, classifying, analyzing the data, interpreting them, and finally drawing the conclusion (1990: 147).
38
B. Data and Source of Data
Arikunto states that “yang dimaksud dengan sumber data dalam penelitian adalah subyek darimana data diperoleh” (1997: 129). So, the data source is the subject from which the data are obtained. The source of data of this research is the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”, while the data of this research are the dialogues or conversations employing code choices by the two main characters. Those are the primary data of this research. The script of the movie and the informants (Sarah and Putri) are the secondary data which have a function to support the primary data.
There is a reason why the researcher chooses this movie as the source of data. In the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”, there are more than one codes involved. The characters frequently use more than one code in their speeches.
This is an interesting phenomenon because the characters speak different codes in different social context. Therefore, this movie provides reasons in choosing the codes which relate to its social meanings.
C. Sample and Technique of Sampling
Sample is a part of representation of the data being observed, while technique of sampling is a technique of choosing samples out of data (Hadi,
1986: 22).
In this research, the researcher employs a purposive sampling technique. In purposive sampling technique, sample is chosen based on certain considerations, whereas the considerations are taken based on the aim of the
39
research. This aim of this research is not to make generalization of the
characteristics of the population but to describe specific things found in data
(Moleong, 2001: 165). Sample of this research are the dialogues or
conversations containing code choices employed by the two main characters
in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”.
D. Instrument of the Research
The instruments of the research are all devices that are used by the researcher to collect the data in order to get suitable data so that the data can be analyzed well (Arikunto, 1997: 149).
The instrument of this research is the researcher herself. In a qualitative research, the researcher herself or himself either by help of another person or not is the main instrument of the research (Moleong, 2001: 4). In this research, the researcher becomes the main instrument of the research because the researcher selected and determined which data from the data source that can be used as the data of the research. Moreover, the researcher is the analyzed of the research data.
In conducting the research, the researcher is supported by some equipment, i.e.: a. VCD of the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”
The researcher used VCD “Rush Hour 2” as the source of data. b. Computer set
40
The researcher used computer set to watch the movie and to replay the
movie. Besides that, it is used to print the script of the dialogue of the movie. c. Internet
The researcher used internet connection to find out the script of the
dialogue of the movie and the additional information relates to the theory, i.e.
http://www.rushhour2/rush%20hour%202/rush-hour-scripttranscriptchan.html
and http://www.jalt-publications.org/tlt/articles/200305kawate_mierzejewska.
E. Technique of Collecting Data
The data of the research were collected by doing the following steps: a. Playing the VCD of the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2” by using windows
media player program of the computer set. b. Searching the transcript of the movie on the internet. c. Printing the transcript by using computer set. d. Replaying the movie until gets the idea of the dialogues by using computer
set. e. Comparing the transcript taken from the internet with the dialogues in the
movie.
41 f. Selecting the data, i.e. the dialogues containing code choices by the two main
characters. g. Giving codes to the dialogues containing code choices by the two main
characters. For examples:
01/B.E/RH2
01 : The number of datum.
B.E : The types of code choices (Black English)
RH2 : The title of the movie (Rush Hour 2)
Some abbreviations refer to:
F.E : Formal English
C.E : Colloquial English
Ch : Chinese
Sw : Switching between codes
Mx : Mixing between codes
F. Technique of Analyzing Data
The data of the research were analyzed by doing the following steps: a. Classifying the data in accordance with the types of code choices applied by
the two main characters. The researcher refers to Fasold theory in classifying
the codes.
42 b. Describing the social meanings in choosing the codes employed the two main
characters by interpreting the data. To reveal the social meanings, the
researcher refers to the theories of Janet Holmes. c. Drawing conclusions from the data analysis and providing some suggestions.
43
44
CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
A. Introduction
This chapter consists of the analysis of the research which will be conducted according to the related theory in the second chapter. It will discover the answer to the problem statements stated in the first chapter. The researcher refers to Fasold theory in classifying the types of code choices employed by the main characters in “Rush Hour 2”. Besides that, the researcher also uses Janet
Holmes’s theory to know the social meanings in choosing the codes by the two main characters in “Rush Hour 2”. Both of their theories are used by the researcher as guidance to answer the problem statements and so are other theories which stated in Chapter II.
The analysis is divided into two purposes. They are to find out the types of code choices employed by the two main characters occurring in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2” and reveal the social meanings in choosing the codes.
Therefore the researcher divides them into two sub chapter, namely Data Analysis and Discussion
B. Data Analysis
In data analysis, the researcher divided into two parts, namely The Types of Code Choices Employed by the Two Main Characters in the Movie Entitled
‘Rush Hour 2” and The Social Meanings in Choosing the Codes.
44 45
a. The Types of Code Choices Employed by the Two Main Characters in the
Movie Entitled ‘Rush Hour 2”
Fasold (1984:180) in The Sociolinguistics of Society proposes three
kinds of language choices, namely code switching, code mixing, and variation
within the same language. Relates to the Fasold theory, the researcher
identifies that the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2” involves four types of code
choices applied by the two main characters, i.e. English, Chinese, Switching
between Codes, and Mixing between Codes.
1. English
In “Rush Hour 2”, the main characters use English code as one of
the code when they speak. There are twenty four data containing English
code. These are:
01/B.E/RH2, 04/C.E/RH2, 07/B.E/RH2, 08/B.E/RH2, 09/B.E/RH2,
13/B.E/RH2, 15/B.E/RH2, 17/B.E/RH2, 18/F.E/RH2, 20/F.E/RH2,
21/B.E/RH2, 22/B.E/RH2, 23/B.E/RH2, 24/C.E/RH2, 25/C.E/RH2,
26/C.E/RH2, 27/C.E/RH2, 28/C.E/RH2, 29/B.E/RH2, 30/C.E/RH2,
31/B.E/RH2, 34/C.E/RH2, 35/B.E/RH2, and 36/B.E/RH2.
All data above consist of four variants; they are Formal English,
Colloquial English, and Black English.
a) Formal English
There are two data of formal English, namely: 18/F.E/RH2 and
20/F.E/RH2
45 46
Example:
18/F.E/RH2
There are three participants in this datum, namely
Superintendent Chin, Lee and Agent Sterling. Superintendent Chin is the Head of Hong Kong Police and Lee is one of his men. Lee is the Chinese main character who has a position as a Chief Inspector in Hong Kong Police. Superintendent Chin and Lee are Chinese.
Agent Sterling is Special Agent from United States Secret Service who is coming to Hong Kong Police to discuss a case about
American embassy bombing that killed two American agents. The conversation takes place in the Superintendent Chin’s office in
Hong Kong Police. Lee walks in and sees Sterling is sitting at
Chin's desk while Chin standing in the back. Superintendent Chin introduces Agent Sterling to Lee.
Lee : Good afternoon, Sir!
Superintendent Chin : Lee…..
Lee : Yes, Sir!
Superintendent Chin : This is Special Agent Sterling from the
United States Secret Service.
Lee : The Secret Service? Why?
Sterling : Have a sit, please!
What I'm about to tell you cannot leave
this room. The men who were killed
46 47
yesterday were not American translators.
They were undercover U.S. customs
agents trying to break a Triad smuggling
ring.
The dialogue above takes place in the office, so the
participants are in a formal situation. They use formal style of
English. It is proven in greeting and addressing used by Lee. Lee
says Good Afternoon, Sir! to Chin who has higher position than
Lee. Moreover, Agent Sterling gives politeness expression by
saying please to Lee.
b) Colloquial
Colloquial language is known as variation within language
segmented as non-formal use. It is quite different from standard
language, especially in terms of time and situation. It is obvious that
colloquial languages that mostly appear in the form of words or idioms
are the most suitable forms of language used in informal situation.
Language at this level is proper when someone is speaking to his
friends or close members of his family, either in spoken or written.
The researcher found eight data of English Colloquial in “Rush
Hour 2”, i.e. 04/C.E/RH2, 24/C.E/RH2, 25/C.E/RH2, 26/C.E/RH2,
27/C.E/RH2, 28/C.E/RH2, 30/C.E/RH2 and 34/C.E/RH2.
47 48
Examples:
1) 30/C.E/RH2
The conversation bellow takes place in L.A, in the hotel
room. The participants are Lee and Carter. Using binoculars, they
are watching Isabella and Steven Reign’s movement from the
opposite room hotel. Isabella is one of American agent who is
under covering as Steven Reign’s woman. Steven Reign is Ricky
Tan’s conspirator in running their illegal business, such as in
money counterfeiting. Carter gives the binoculars to Lee then lays
his body on the bad. Lee starts to work like spy.
Carter : What is she doing man?
Lee's eyes go wide as Isabella drops her coat and starts to unbutton her blouse.
Lee : She's just standing around -- not doing much.
Carter : Just don't fall asleep. Sooner or later something's gonna
happen.
Lee : I'll try to stay awake. It's so boring.
Isabella starts to remove her blouse.
Lee : Slow down, baby.
Carter : What did you say?
48 49
Lee : Nothing. I said nothing.
Carter : I heard you say something.
Lee : No no no…..nothing.
Lee starts to sweat as he watches her undress.
Carter : What’s going on, man?
Lee looks dazed.
Lee : She's getting undressed.
Carter : Gimme the binoculars.
Lee : No. It's not right.
Carter : Gimme the binoculars or I will shoot you.
From the dialogue above can be seen that Carter employs
several colloquial style, such as gonna and gimme.
2) 33/C.E/RH2
This datum consists of two participants, namely Lee and
Carter. They wear dark sunglasses, walk through the street and try
their best to look like Secret Service Agents.
Carter : Secret Service Agent Carter. This is my calling, Lee.
49 50
Gimme six months and I'll be in Washington protecting
a white guy.
Lee : We both know you would never take a bullet for
someone else.
Carter : They don't know that. What are they gonna do, try and
shoot the President during the interview? I'll bet Isabella
can pull some strings. You saw the way she was staring
at me.
Lee : She never even looked at you.
Carter : You're just jealous 'cos the girl picked me. I'm tall, dark
and handsome, you're third world ugly.
Lee : I am not third world ugly. Women like me, they think
I'm cute. Like Snoopy.
Carter : Snoopy is about six inches taller than you. I'm sorry,
Lee, you never had a chance.
The setting is on the street. They are talking about their new
status as Secret Service Agents for America. Carter, in the dialogue
above chooses English in colloquial style. It can be identified from
the words gimme, gonna, and ‘cos.
c) Black English
One of the main characters in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”
is Black American, names Carter who acts as American Detective. In
50 51
this movie, Carter is Lee’s friend and they will work together to solve
Ricky Tan’s case about bombing and counterfeiting. Since Carter is
Black American, so Black English is a code that is often used in this movie. The researcher found fourteen data of Black English. These are: 01/B.E/RH2, 07/B.E/RH2, 08/B.E/RH2, 09/B.E/RH2,
13/B.E/RH2, 15/B.E/RH2, 17/B.E/RH2, 21/B.E/RH2, 22/B.E/RH2,
23/B.E/RH2, 29/B.E/RH2, 31/B.E/RH2, 35/B.E/RH2,and36/B.E/RH2.
All data above based on Sarah’s identification. (Sarah. 2009.
English Department Native Teacher. Sebelas Maret University)
Examples:
1) 01/B.E/RH2
The datum involves the conversation between Lee and
Carter. Carter is Lee’s Black American friend. Later, Lee and
Carter are two American agents who succeed in uncovering Ricky
Tan’s case about bombing, smuggling, and counterfeiting of
money. Carter is on vacation with Lee in Hong Kong. Lee and
Carter are on driving and singing a song. Suddenly, there are two
Chinese girls drive beside them. Carter opens his Chinese
dictionary and starts to tempt the girls in Chinese. Those Chinese
girls, however, laugh for him and drive off. Looking Lee sings and
does not care with him, Carter is annoyed and takes the CD off.
51 52
The conversation below talks about the Chinese girls who drive off and ignore Carter. Woman is very interesting subject for
Carter. Carter feels fail to approach those Chinese girls. He asks to
Lee why the girls were laugh for him and drove off. Calmly, Lee answers and gives statement that the girls drove off because Carter delivered different meaning.
Lee and Carter are singing a song
Carter : This one is good
Lee : I love this part
The passenger window rolls down. Carter is holding a Chinese- English dictionary, leaning out the window and looking to two girls in a convertible.
Carter : Hey lady, what are you doin’? Wait a minute.
Carter : Deng wa lu yun cai-shen wu……….do masa do me.
Carter : Hey……lady where will you go? Let’s go to Susy.
Hey….hey cuty.
The horrified girls speed off. Carter turns to Lee who is driving and singing.
Lee : (singing)
52 53
…..wish they all could be California...
Wish they all could be California girls...
Carter ejects the Beach Boys CD from the stereo and tosses it out of the sunroof.
Lee : That was my CD. Don't you ever touch a Chinese man's
CD.!
Carter : Did you see the way those girls drove off? I did you a
favor.
Lee : Those girls drove off because of you.
Carter : All I did was invite them for a drink.
Lee : You invited them to get naked and sacrifice, so they go.
Carter : Which way we go?
Lee : You owe me a copy of the Beach Boys Greatest Hits.
Carter : Don't be giving me attitude, Lee.
I've been here three days and we haven't done work a
case. Now, my reason here is my uncle said that you’ll
help me spend the time. I'm on vacation, man and I want
some Bu-shu.
According to Trudgill (Black English Vernacular) BEV is the name used by American sociolinguists to refer to the dialect of
English spoken, with relatively little regional variation, by lower- class Black in the United States. In its phonological and especially
53 54
grammatical characteristics, such as copula deletion, this variety
differs from Standard English (1992:14).
Carter in the dialogue above employs Black English. It can
be seen from the bold sentences, such as Hey lady…., Which way
we go?, Don't be giving me attitude, Lee, and ….we haven't
done work a case.
2) 31/B.E/RH2
This datum takes place in the Red Dragon Casino lounge,
Los Angeles. There are two participants, namely Carter and Lee.
They run off from Hu Li through underground aqueduct pipe. Hu
Li is the Chinese girl who helps Ricky Tan. Lee and Carter coming
up from the manhole while standing together in stunned disbelief
as they look out at the Las Vegas Strip. They cover their eyes,
blinded by the greatest light show in the world. Fire balls blow out
over the strip as Lee and Carter look up at the Red Dragon Hotel
and Casino. They enter the casino and unfortunately, met Steven
Reign who is making speech in his Grand Opening. In lounge, Lee
is surprised by Isabella who grabs Lee and pulls him onto the
dance floor. Isabella says that she needs a help since Ricky Tan is
suspicious to her. Seeing Carter walks up, Isabella goes away.
Carter walks up and sees Lee is standing alone on the dance floor.
54 55
Carter : (Grimacing)
Lee, what the hell are you doing?
Lee : Dancing?
Carter : Dancing? I'm out here trying to strong arm Steven
Reign, putting my life on the line, and you're up here
dancing with some bimbo. Did she have a friend?
Lee : It was Isabella. She said the plates are in the soft count
room.
Carter : Isabella? Are you crazy, man? She almost got us killed.
She's setting you up again!
Lee : No. I'm going to find out.
Carter : Wait a second. There's guards all over the place. You'll
need a distraction.
The dialogue above identifies that Carter uses Black
English. It can be seen from the Carter’s statement “There's
guards all over the place” that shows the characteristic of Black
English.
2. Chinese
Chinese is one of codes used by main characters in “Rush Hour 2”.
It is because the movie takes one of settings in Hong Kong and some of
the characters are Chinese. Chinese used in this movie is Chinese Hanyu
55 56
(Hanyu Sa). Chinese Hanyu is used in formal situation, like Indonesian language used in Indonesia (Putri, 2007). There are four data containing
Chinese in this movie, namely 05/Ch/RH2, 10/Ch/RH2, 16/Ch/RH2, and
19/Ch/RH2.
Examples:
1) 16/Ch/RH2
This datum takes place in the massage parlor in Hong Kong.
There are two participants, i.e. Lee and Ricky Tan. Lee goes to the
massage parlor to investigate Ricky Tan in secrecy. He wants to know
the further information about a bombing case. Unfortunately, Tan
knows the existence of Lee and addresses Lee politely.
Ricky Tan : Lee, wei, pengyou, ni hao ma?
[Hi, Lee, my friend, how are you]
(Getting up, giving Lee a hug)
Lee : Wo xu yao gen ni jiang hua.
[I need to talk to you]
Ricky Tan : Shenme shir?
[What about]
Lee : Liang shou hai de mai guo ren.
[The two Americans that were killed]
Gen wo qu jing cha ji.
[Come to the police station]
Ricky Tan : Jing cha ji?
56 57
[Police station]
The dialogue above shows that Lee and Ricky Tan choose
Chinese code in their utterances since they have similar background as
Chinese people.
2) 19/Ch/RH2
The conversation below takes place in Hong Kong. It is a
phone dialogue between Lee and Superintendent Chin. Superintendent
Chin is Lee’s head in Hong Kong Police. They are handling a bombing
case in American Embassy that kills two Americans and the suspected
is Ricky Tan. Lee is on driving while moving his head to the rap music
slowly. Superintendent Chin calls to inform Lee about the Ricky Tan’s
existence.
Lee : Wei…! [Hallo…!]
Superintendent Chin : Wo men gang ting shuo Ricky Tan jin wan
yao qu ta de you ting yan hui.
[We just heard Ricky Tan is throwing a party
on his boat tonight]
Lee : Ni dui Sterling shuo ma?
[Did you tell Sterling?]
Superintendent Chin : Rang ta zi ji zhi dao.
[Let him find out on his own]
57 58
Wo yao xiang gang de jing cha lai ban zhe
jian shi.
[I want the Hong Kong police handling this]
Both Lee and Superintendent Chin choose Chinese Hanyu
(Hanyu Sa) in making conversation. The bold type shows that they are
speaking in Chinese. The reason is the participants have the similar
background as Chinese.
3. Switching between Codes
Some of characters in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2” are able to
speak more than one language, such as the main characters. Therefore,
they may switch from one language to another language. The researcher
found five data of switching code in this movie. These are: 02/Sw/RH2
(Eng-Ch), 06/Sw/RH2 (Ch-Eng), 11/Sw/RH2 (Eng-Ch), 32/Sw/RH2 (Eng-
Ch), and 33/Sw/RH2 (Eng-Ch). Those data consist of two switching code,
namely Switching from English into Chinese and Switching from Chinese
into English.
a) Switching from English into Chinese
There four data identifying that the two main participants in
“Rush Hour 2” switch codes from English into Chinese, namely
02/Sw/RH2 (Eng-Ch), 11/Sw/RH2 (Eng-Ch), 32/Sw/RH2 (Eng-Ch),
and 33/Sw/RH2 (Eng-Ch).
58 59
Example:
02/Sw/RH2 (English – Chinese)
This datum has two participants, namely Carter and two unknown Chinese girls. Carter is on driving at night in Hong Kong with his friend, Lee. There is a car with two Chinese girls in it. That car is driving at the left side of Lee’s car. Seeing the Chinese girls,
Carter opens a Chinese dictionary book and starts to seduce by inviting them for drink using Chinese.
Carter : Hey lady, what are you doin’? Wait a minute.
(Open Chinese dictionary)
Carter : Deng wa lu yun cai-shen wu……….do masa do
me. [Let’s get naked and……do it with me]
From the dialogue above shows that Carter switch from Black
English into Chinese. It can be seen when Carter speaks to unknown
Chinese girls who never meets before. Use of Black English is marked by addressing Hey lady to the Chinese girls. Then he switches into
Chinese Deng wa lu yun cai-shen wu……….do masa do me [Let’s get naked and……do it with me]
Carter switches into Chinese to invite the Chinese girls who just he met. He wants to respect their ethnicity as Chinese by switching into Chinese code. Instead, Carter has hurt them because he transfers different message, as the result the Chinese girls drive off. Conditional
59 60
changing from informal to formal shows that this switching includes
metaphorical switching since there is no new participants.
b) Switching from Chinese into English
There is only one datum shows that the participant switches
from Chinese into English, namely 06/Sw/RH2 (Chinese – English).
Example:
06/Sw/RH2 (Chinese – English)
This datum consists of three participants, namely Lee,
Superintendent Chin, and Carter. The conversation takes place in Hong
Kong. Lee is on driving with Carter to enjoy their vacation. They are
singing a song and having a joke. Then, Lee has a call from
Superintendent Chin to give some information about bombing case in
American Embassy. Carter looks at Lee seriously and opens the
Chinese dictionary to translate what Lee’s talking about. Carter knows
that Lee will take a case so immediately he warns to Lee to not take the
case in their vacation. Lee decides to lie and says to Carter that his
superintendent invites them in a big party.
Lee : Wei….! [Hallo….!]
Superintendent Chin : Lee, zai mei guo das hi guan you zha dan.
60 61
[There was a bombing at American
Embassy]
Liang ge mei guo fan yi yuan shou hai.
[Two American translators were killed.]
Lee : You qi ta bao gao?
[Any leads]
Superintendent Chin : Wo men ren wei na shi Ricky Tan.
[We think it’s Ricky Tan]
Ta he qi ta zai zhe ye zong hui de hei dang
cheng yuan.
[His entire of gang Triads is at the club
tonight]
Ru guo ni bu yao jing shou zhe ge an jian
wo neng gou li jie.
[If you don’t want to take the case, I’ll
understand]
Lee : Pu mei kuan si.
[No, it’s okay.]
Lee hangs up the cell phone
Carter : What was that? Did you just pick up a case?
Did we just take another damn case on my
61 62
vacation?
Lee smiles at Carter
Lee : Of course not. My Superintendent invited
us to a club tonight. Big party tonight.
Lee uses different code in the dialogue above. He speaks in
Chinese Hanyu to Superintendent Chin and switches in Colloquial
English when speaks to Carter. The underline word Big party tonight
shows that Lee switches into Colloquial English. Lee, immediately,
switches Chinese to colloquial English since there is another
participant, i.e. Carter. This switching is called situational switching.
4. Mixing between Codes
It is possible for the main characters in “Rush Hour 2” to mix
different codes they use. There are four data contain of mixing code
(English and Chinese), i.e. 03/Mx/RH2, 12/Mx/RH2, 14/Mx/RH2, and
37/Mx/RH2.
Examples:
1) 03/Mx/RH2 (English & Chinese)
62 63
There are two participants in this datum, i.e. Lee and Carter.
The conversation below takes place in Hong Kong, on driving. Firstly,
Carter is angry because Lee does not care to him and the result is
Carter takes Lee’s CD off and throws it away. Lee and Carter are opposite partner. They have different point of view in their live. Lee always focuses on his job while Carter wants to have a good time in his life. In Carter’s thought only woman. Carter is on vacation in
Hong Kong with Lee and he asks Lee to bring him to somewhere that many women on there.
Carter : Which way we go?
Lee : You owe me a copy of the Beach Boys Greatest Hits.
Carter : Don't be giving me attitude, Lee! I've been here three days
and we haven't done work a case. Now, my reason here is
my uncle said that you’ll help me spend the time. I'm on
vacation, man and I want some Mu-shu.
Lee : (Confussing)
Bu-shu? You're hungry?
Carter : (Smiling and joking)
Not Bu-shu. Mu-shu. I want to see some women. Now stop
playing dumb and show me the shu!
The dialogue above shows that the participants mix codes
(English and Chinese). The mixing codes emerge misunderstanding on what carter says. Carter inserts Chinese word to mention woman.
63 64
Because Carter is Black American, so he cannot pronounce the
Chinese word well. At first Carter says “woman” in Chinese with
“Mu-shu”, but Lee catch it as “Bu-shu”. Between Mu-shu and Bu-shu
is very different meaning. Mu-shu means woman and Bu-shu means
kind of food in Chinese. As the result, they do not understand one
another.
2) 12/Mx/RH2 (Chinese & English)
There is a participant named Carter in this datum. The dialogue
below occurs in the Raven club in Hong Kong. Carter is surprised
when he knows that he is deceived by her friend Lee. At first Lee says
that he will go to a big party with Lee, but actually Lee wants to get
information about the existence of Ricky Tan relates to American
embassy bombing. Knowing the fact, Carter is disappointed and angry
at Lee. He gets on the stage and speaks to everybody in the club.
Carter : Okey, listen up!
Mei ge ren lai ba, wo men quan bu du shu jian wo men rang
peng you hai xiu, right now!
[Let’s pick up the summer and see me your bottom, right
now]
64 65
From the dialogue above can be seen that Carter mixes Chinese
and English in his utterance. He chooses Chinese since the hearer are
Chinese people but he switch to English by saying right now.
b. The Social Meanings in Choosing the Codes
In interpreting the social meaning of each choice of codes, Janet
Holmes (1992: 49) states that the social interaction between many different
people in different social context makes people use certain codes. In other
words, every code choice conveys its own social meanings.
In this sub chapter, the researcher will describe the relationship
between code choices employed by the two main characters in “Rush Hour 2”
and its social meanings.
1. English
a) Formal English
There is only one social meaning found relates to the choice of
Formal English in “Rush Hour 2” used by the main characters, i.e.
showing respect.
There are two data of showing respect, i.e. 18/F.E/RH2 and
20/F.E/RH2.
The example was taken from datum 18/F.E/RH2.
Lee : Good afternoon, Sir!
65 66
Superintendent Chin : Lee…..
Lee : Yes, Sir!
Superintendent Chin : This is Special Agent Sterling from the
United States Secret Service.
There are three participants, namely Superintendent Chin, Lee
and Agent Sterling. All of participants use English in the dialogue
above even though they are in Hong Kong. This datum shows that
participant is the factor influencing the code choices. It is proved by
the existence of third participant, i.e. Agent Sterling (White American),
therefore they choose English. The conversation takes place in the
Superintendent Chin’s office in Hong Kong Police., so the participants
are in formal situation. Lee uses formal style of English. It is proven in
greeting and addressing Good Afternoon, Sir!. This formal style
shows that he wants to give respect to Superintendent Chin who has
higher position.
b) Colloquial English
The researcher found three social meanings which are
interpreted in Colloquial code used by the main characters in “Rush
Hour 2”, namely: showing intimacy, disrespect and to avoid
misunderstanding in delivering the speech.
1) Showing Intimacy
66 67
There are seven data showing intimacy, i.e. 04/C.E/RH2,
24/C.E/RH2, 26/C.E/RH2, 27/C.E/RH2, 28/C.E/RH2, 30/C.E/RH2 and 34/C.E/RH2.
The example was taken from datum 27/C.E/RH2
Carter : Secret Service Agent Carter. This is my calling, Lee.
Gimme six months and I'll be in Washington protecting
a white guy.
Lee : We both know you would never take a bullet for
someone else.
Carter : They don't know that. What are they gonna do, try and
shoot the President during the interview? I'll bet Isabella
can pull some strings. You saw the way she was staring
at me.
Lee : She never even looked at you.
Carter : You're just jealous 'cos the girl picked me. I'm tall, dark
and handsome, you're third world ugly.
Lee : I am not third world ugly. Women like me, they think
I'm cute. Like Snoopy.
Carter : Snoopy is about six inches taller than you. I'm sorry,
Lee, you never had a chance.
The setting of this datum is on the street. It consists of two participants, namely Lee and Carter. They are talking about their
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new status as Secret Service Agents for America. They are partner
now.
From the dialogue above determines that Carter speaks to
Lee in colloquial style. It can be seen from the words gimme,
gonna, and ‘coz. He chooses Colloquial English to show that
between Carter and Lee has intimate relation as friend.
2) Avoid Misunderstanding
Datum 25/C.E/RH2 identifies that the participants choose
Colloquial English to avoid misunderstanding in delivering the
message.
Isabella : Friends. No bomb, nothing. Now stay away before
I throw you both in jail for obstruction.
Carter : Throw us in jail? I'm about to bust you right now.
Isabella : I'm an undercover agent for the United States Secret
Service.
Carter : How do we know you're not lying? Let me see your
badge.
There are two participants in this datum, i.e. Carter and
Isabella. The conversation takes place in L.A, in the Reign Hotel.
Lee and Carter think that a package which Isabella accepted is a
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bomb. They try to grab the package from Isabella and bring it
outside. While they are panic, Isabella approaches them and stops
it angrily. She takes, opens, and shows her package in which
content of much money. She also talks to them about her
undercover.
All the participants in the dialogue above use Colloquial
English in their utterances. It can be seen from Isabella’s addressee
by calling friends to Carter and the slang word bust (hit). In
choosing Colloquial English, it is influenced by the attendance of
3rd participant, a White American, Isabella. Isabella chooses
colloquial English code in her utterances to avoid
misunderstanding because the outcome of the dialogue above is
misunderstanding in guessing the package is bomb. Therefore,
Isabella tries to explain and prove that her package is not bomb by
using English.
c) Black English
Use Black English in “Rush Hour 2” identifies three social
meanings, they are: showing intimacy, anger, and surprise.
1) Showing Intimacy
There are nine data determining the main character chooses
Black English to show intimacy, i.e. 01/B.E/RH2, 07/B.E/RH2,
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09/B.E/RH2, 13/B.E/RH2, 15/B.E/RH2, 23/B.E/RH2,
29/B.E/RH2, 35/B.E/RH2, and 36/B.E/RH2.
The following example was taken from datum 35/B.E/RH2
Ricky Tan : He never begged for his life.
Carter : Put the gun down, Lee!!
Ricky Tan : Or tried to make a deal. All that he asked me, just
seconds before I pulled the trigger, was that I
promise not to kill you.
(Laughing)
Ohhh…. It’s so tragic!
Carter : He don’t know, he don’t know too far, shoot him
right now! Shoot his head!
The conversation below takes place in the penthouse suite of Red Dragon Casino, L.A. There are three participants, namely:
Ricky Tan, Lee and Carter. Lee is pushing Ricky Tan against the wall and threatening Tan’s head with the gun. The tension rises when Tan is trying to evoke Lee’s emotion by telling about his father. Seeing Tan’s action, Carter speaks up and commands Lee to shoot Ricky Tan immediately.
The dialogue above shows that Carter uses Black English.
It can be seen from the utterance “He don’t know, he don’t know
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too far, shoot him right now”. This is influenced by the setting,
i.e. where the conversation takes place and how the psychological
condition of the speech. It has been mentioned in the previous that
the conversation above takes place in the penthouse suite of Red
Dragon Casino, L.A. on the other hand, they are in informal
situation, when emotion and tension be one.
Carter’s utterance in Black English refers to a command.
He commands to Lee to shoot Tan’s head uses Black English. It
occurs since the setting is in high tension which pressures Carter to
command Lee uses his mother tongue, i.e. Black English since
Carter is a Black American. This command shows that Carter has
intimate relation with Lee, as a friend.
2) Showing Anger
There are four data of showing anger in choosing Black
English, namely: 08/B.E/RH2, 17/B.E/RH2, 22/B.E/RH2, and
25/B.E/RH2,
The example was taken from datum 22/B.E/RH2
Lee : Carter, you don’t understand.
Carter : I understand, all right….
I got nothing, I fired, I naked on the street, and you
didn’t join in me, man. I’ll get off from here.
Lee : Carter, Ricky Tan framed my father.
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Carter : What…?
The datum is a conversation between Lee and Carter. Carter
in the dialogue above uses Black English. The conversation above
takes place on driving, at night. It identifies that they are in
informal situation. The bold words or sentences show that Carter
employs Black English in his utterances. He says “I got nothing, I
fired, I naked on the street……” Carter chooses this code to
express his feeling, such as disappointment by saying “I got
nothing, I fired, I naked on the street……” because Lee does not
tell the fact to Carter that there is a relation between Ricky Tan’s
case and Lee’s father death. On the other words, Carter uses Black
English to interpret a social meaning, namely showing anger.
3) Showing Surprise
There is only one datum showing surprise, i.e. 31/B.E/RH2.
Carter : Wait a second. There's guards all over the place. You'll
need a distraction.
Carter looks around the casino
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Carter : I'll go to the craps table, make a big scene. When
security comes over, you make your move.
Lee : Try to keep them busy for five minutes.
Carter : I'll give it my best shot.
This datum takes place in the Red Dragon Casino lounge,
Los Angeles. There are two participants, namely Carter and Lee.
They are surprised since there are many guards in the lounge. They
make a plan to get information about it.
In the dialogue above identifies that Carter uses Black
English. It can be seen from the Carter’s statement “There's
guards all over the place” which shows the characteristic of
Black English. Carter says in Black English since he is surprised
that there are guards all over the casino. Therefore, the social
meaning revealed is to show surprise.
2. Chinese
There are three social meanings of choosing Chinese in “Rush
Hour 2”, namely: showing respect, showing solidarity and to avoid
misunderstanding.
1) Showing Respect
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The researcher found two data determining a social meaning of showing respect in “Rush Hour 2”. They are 05/Ch/RH2 and
19/Ch/RH2.
The example was taken from datum 19/Ch/RH2.
Lee : Wei…! [Hallo…!]
Superintendent Chin : Wo men gang ting shuo Ricky Tan jin wan
yao qu ta de you ting yan hui.
[We just heard Ricky Tan is throwing a party
on his boat tonight]
Lee : Ni dui Sterling shuo ma?
[Did you tell Sterling?]
Superintendent Chin : Rang ta zi ji zhi dao.
[Let him find out on his own]
Wo yao xiang gang de jing cha lai ban zhe
jian shi.
[I want the Hong Kong police handling this]
The conversation above takes place in Hong Kong. It is a phone dialogue between Lee and Superintendent Chin. Both Lee and
Superintendent Chin choose Chinese Hanyu (Hanyu Sa) in making conversation since logically the participants have the similar background as Chinese. Even though the way they deliver the message by phone, it does not mean they are in informal situation. They are in
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formal situation since they are talking about an important case of
Ricky Tan. Besides that, Lee chooses Chinese Hanyu code to show his
respect since the relation between Lee and Superintendent Chin is
employee and employer. Superintendent Chin has higher position than
Lee.
2) Showing solidarity
The researcher found one datum determines that the main
character chooses Chinese to show solidarity, i.e. 16/Ch/RH2.
Ricky Tan : Lee, wei, pengyou, ni hao ma?
[Hi, Lee, my friend, how are you]
(Getting up, giving Lee a hug)
Lee : Wo xu yao gen ni jiang hua.
[I need to talk to you]
Ricky Tan : Shenme shir?
[What about]
Lee : Liang shou hai de mai guo ren.
[The two Americans that were killed]
Gen wo qu jing cha ji.
[Come to the police station]
Ricky Tan : Jing cha ji?
[Police station]
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There are two participants, namely Ricky Tan and Lee. Ricky
Tan is surprised to see Lee in the quiet room massage parlor with
Carter. Ricky starts to address Lee in Chinese since they have similar
background as Chinese. Both of them choose Chinese code to show
their solidarity. It is described from Tan’s non verbal expression by
giving Lee a huge as the Chinese manner in greeting.
3) Avoid Misunderstanding
There is one datum showing of avoid misunderstanding, i.e.
10/Ch/RH2.
Carter : Okay, all the Triads and ugly women go to that side, all fine
ass women on this side. Translate this!
Lee : Ta yao, nan de quan bu zai you bian, nu de zai zuo bian.
[He wants the men on the right and the women on the left]
Nobody moves. Carter fires two more shots in the ceiling.
Carter : Let's tries this again.
Who here knows Ricky Tan, raise your hand. Translate this
again!
Lee : Yuan liang, yin wei wo pengyou zheng zai da zui.
[I apologize, my friend is very drunk]
76 77
The conversation above takes place in the Raven Club, Hong
Kong. It consists of two participants, namely Carter and Lee. Carter is
angry at Lee since Lee has lied about the party. In fact, Lee invites
Carter to a mission of undercover to get some information about the
existence of Ricky Tan who guesses as the suspect of an American
embassy bombing. Being annoyed, Carter decides to get on the stage
and gives command to everybody in the club who mostly are Chinese
people. Carter speaks in Chinese in order to the hearer can catch easily.
Instead, the fact is they laugh at Carter since he delivers different
meaning. Finally, he asks Lee to translate his utterances.
Therefore, it can be identifies that Lee chooses Chinese code to
avoid misunderstanding by translating Carter’s speeches into Chinese.
3. Switching between Codes
The main characters in “Rush Hour 2” switch codes to show
certain reasons. There are two causes found, namely to emphasize the
message and avoid misunderstanding.
1) Emphasize the Message
The researcher found one datum that signifies of emphasizing
the message, i.e. 33/Sw/RH2.
Ricky Tan : (Talking to Lee and insulting again)
The trouble partner so they will die.
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(Moving the eyebrow up)
Ye xiang ni yi yang.
[As will you]
This datum takes place in the monitor room, Red Dragon
Casino, L.A. This setting interprets that the participant is in informal
situation. In addition, the Ricky Tan’s expressions, such as insulting at
Lee and moving his eyebrow up show that the dialogue above is
informal situation. Therefore, Ricky Tan choose colloquial English
before he switch into Chinese.
Ricky Tan switches the codes from Colloquial English into
Chinese when he is speaking to Lee. Tan speaks to Lee uses colloquial
English to give illustration about a good partner. While, he mixes with
Chinese to threaten at Lee by using non verbal expression, such as
moving his eyebrow up. This mixing code occurs because Tan wants to
emphasize the message by his satire utterances in Chinese.
2) Avoid Misunderstanding
Another reason found in switching codes is to avoid
misunderstanding. There are four data of it, they are: 02/Sw/RH2,
06/Sw/RH2, 11/Sw/RH2, and 32/Sw/RH2.
The example was taken from datum 06/Sw/RH2.
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Lee : Wei….! [Hallo….!]
Superintendent Chin : Lee, zai mei guo das hi guan you zha dan.
[There was a bombing at American
Embassy]
Liang ge mei guo fan yi yuan shou hai.
[Two American translators were killed.]
Lee : You qi ta bao gao?
[Any leads]
Superintendent Chin : Wo men ren wei na shi Ricky Tan.
[We think it’s Ricky Tan]
Ta he qi ta zai zhe ye zong hui de hei dang
cheng yuan.
[His entire of gang Triads is at the club
tonight]
Ru guo ni bu yao jing shou zhe ge an jian
wo neng gou li jie.
[If you don’t want to take the case, I’ll
understand]
Lee : Pu mei kuan si.
[No, it’s okay.]
Lee hangs up the cell phone
Carter : What was that? Did you just pick up a case?
Did we just take another damn case on my
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vacation?
Lee : Of course not. My Superintendent invited us
to a club tonight. Big party tonight.
This datum consists of three participants, namely Lee,
Superintendent Chin, and Carter. The conversation takes place in Hong
Kong. Lee uses different code in the dialogue above. He speaks in
Chinese Hanyu to Superintendent Chin and switches in colloquial
English when speaks to Carter. It can be seen in Lee’s utterance Big
party tonight to determine that he uses colloquial English. This switch
code identifies that Lee wants to avoid misunderstanding when he is
speaking to Carter. It is because Carter does not understand what Lee
is talking about with Superintendent Chin. He asks to Lee by saying
“What was that?”
4. Mixing between Codes
There are three reasons relate to the choice of mixing codes in
“Rush Hour 2” used by the main characters, i.e. showing joke,
incompetence, and to emphasize the message.
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1) Showing Joke
In showing joke, the researcher found three data, namely
03/Mx/RH2, 14/Mx/RH2, and 37/Mx/RH2.
The following example was taken from datum 03/Mx/RH2.
Carter : Which way we go?
Lee : You owe me a copy of the Beach Boys Greatest Hits.
Carter : Don't be giving me attitude, Lee! I've been here three days
and we haven't done work a case. Now, my reason here is
my uncle said that you’ll help me spend the time. I'm on
vacation, man and I want some Mu-shu.
Lee : (Confussing)
Bu-shu? You're hungry?
Carter : (Smiling and joking)
Not Bu-shu. Mu-shu. I want to see some women. Now stop
playing dumb and show me the shu!
The conversation above consists of two participants, i.e. Lee
and Carter and takes place in Hong Kong. Carter mixes codes (English
and Chinese) when he is talking to Lee. The mixing codes emerge
misunderstanding on what carter says. Carter inserts Chinese word to
mention woman. Because Carter is Black American, so he cannot
pronounce the Chinese word well. At first Carter says “woman” in
Chinese with “Mu-shu”, but Lee catch it as “Bu-shu”. Between Mu-
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shu and Bu-shu is very different meaning. Mu-shu means woman and
Bu-shu means kind of food in Chinese. As the result, they do not
understand one another. Carter mentions Chinese word to make a joke.
It can be seen from the Carter’s non verbal expression in his mixing;
he is smiling and joking.
2) Showing Incompetence
There is only one datum identifying of showing incompetence,
namely 12/Mx/RH2.
Carter : (to Chinese people)
Okey, listen up!
Mei ge ren lai ba, wo men quan bu du shu jian wo men
rang peng you hai xiu, right now!
The dialogue above shows that Carter mixes Chinese and
English code in his utterance when he is talking to Chinese people in
the club. It is because he is not able to continue his utterance in
Chinese so he mixes in English by putting right now. This case shows
that Carter mixes code since he is incompetence to speak in Chinese.
C. DISCUSSION
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“Rush Hour 2” is the movie by Brett Ratner in 2001. It is about two secret service agent who handling a case about money counterfeiting. This movie takes two general setting, namely Hong Kong and Los Angeles. In addition, the characters come from different background, e.g. Lee, Ricky Tan, Hu Li, and
Superintendent Chin are Chinese, Carter is Black American, and Isabella and
Agent Sterling are White American. This differences make this movie is interesting related to the language choice.
In discussion, the researcher makes a description of some findings obtained from the data analysis which is described in the following table. The table shows some findings based on the problem statements of the research. They cover what codes used and the reasons in choosing the codes by the main characters in “Rush Hour 2”.
Table 2
The types of code choices and the social meanings in choosing the codes
Employed by the two main characters in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”
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REASONS
LANGUAGE CHOICE NO DATUM
Intimacy Respect Anger Joke Surprise Incompetence Solidarity Emphasize the message Avoid misunderstanding
1 18/F.E/RH2 V
FORMAL 2 20/F.E/RH2 V ENGLISH
3 04/C.E/RH2 V
E
N 4 24/C.E/RH2 V G LI 5 25/C.E/RH2 V S H 6 26/C.E/RH2 V COLLOQUIAL ENGLISH 7 27/C.E/RH2 V
8 28/C.E/RH2 V
9 30/C.E/RH2 V
10 34/C.E/RH2 V
BLACK ENGLISH 11 01/B.E/RH2 V
12 07/B.E/RH2 V
13 08/B.E/RH2 V
14 09/B.E/RH2 V
15 13/B.E/RH2 V
16 15/B.E/RH2 V
84 85
17 17/B.E/RH2 V
18 21/B.E/RH2 V
19 22/B.E/RH2 V
20 23/B.E/RH2 V
21 29/B.E/RH2 V
22 31/B.E/RH2 V
23 35/B.E/RH2 V
24 36/B.E/RH2 V
25 05/Ch/RH2 V
26 10/Ch/RH2 V CHINESE 27 16/Ch/RH2 V
28 19/Ch/RH2 V
02/Sw /RH2 29 V (Eng-Ch)
06/Sw/RH2 30 V (Ch-Eng)
SWITCHING 11/Sw/RH2 31 V BETWEEN CODES (Eng-Ch)
32/Sw/RH2 32 V (Eng-Ch)
33/Sw/RH2 33 V (Eng-Ch)
03/Mx/RH2 34 V MIXING (Eng & Ch)
BETWEEN CODES
85 86
12/Mx/RH2 35 V (Eng & Ch)
14/Mx/RH2 36 V (Eng & Ch)
37/Mx/RH2 37 V (Eng & Ch)
The table above shows that the researcher found four types of code choices applied by the two main characters in “Rush Hour 2”. They are English, Chinese,
Switching between Codes and Mixing between Codes. English is classified into three, namely Formal English, Colloquial English, and Black English. Formal
English is used in formal situation, such as in the office which contains the conversation between participants have higher status/position and participants in lower status. It can be identified by using address Sir and Mr, or greeting Good
Morning (in telephone). The example can be seen from datum 18/F.E/RH2.
Colloquial English tends to in informal situation. Gonna and Gimme shows that they are colloquial. Datum 27/C.E/RH2 is the example of it. The last variation of
English is Black English. There is only one character using Black English, i.e.
Carter. Based on his background, he is Black American so in playing the character he is more often using Black English than others. There are many ungrammatical utterances found, such as …. I would took, I would did anything and There's guards ….. determine that they are Black English. The example can be seen from datum 31/B.E/RH2.
Chinese used in “Rush Hour 2” is Chinese Hanyu (Hanyu Sa). Hanyu Sa applies in formal situation, for example datum 19/Ch/RH2. The participants
86 87
choose Hanyu Sa when they are in formal situation, the participants are superintendent and his subordinate.
All the main characters in “Rush Hour 2” are able to speak more than one language. It is possible for them to switch or mix the codes. From the data analysis, the researcher found two kinds of switching, namely situational code switching and metaphorical code switching. Situational code switching occurs when the code change is caused by the change of topics or participants, for instance datum 06/Sw/RH2. While, metaphorical code switching has an affective dimension in redefining the situation, such as from formal to informal situation or in other words there is no changing of participants in metaphorical code switching, for example in datum 02/Sw/RH2. The main characters mix the codes in “Rush Hour 2”. The researcher only found one kind of code mixing, namely mixing between English and Chinese. The participants insert several Chinese words such as Bu-Shu, Mu-Shu, Su-Shi, etc. The example can be seen from datum 03/Mx/RH2.
The table also shows that there are several social meanings interpreted in choosing codes by the two main characters in “Rush Hour 2”. Formal English only has one social meaning, namely showing respect. Colloquial English interprets intimacy and to avoid misunderstanding. Black English determines intimacy, anger, and surprise. Chinese, from the previous analysis, reveals three social meanings, i.e. showing respect, showing solidarity and to avoid misunderstanding. The participants switch the codes since they want to show their
87 88
respect, emphasize the message, and avoid misunderstanding. Showing joke and incompetence are delivered by the participants when they are mixing the codes.
From the data analysis, the researcher found an extraordinary phenomenon. It can be seen in the previous datum, i.e. 02/Sw/RH2. The datum shows that the participant switches from English into Chinese. It is extraordinary since the participant is Black American named Carter.
02/Sw/RH2
Carter : Hey lady, what are you doin’? Wait a minute.
(Open Chinese dictionary)
Carter : Deng wa lu yun cai-shen wu……….do masa do
me.
[Let’s get naked and……do it with me]
The datum describes that Carter speaks to two unknown Chinese girls.
Carter is on driving at night in Hong Kong with his friend, Lee. There is a car with two Chinese girls in it. That car is driving at the left side of Lee’s car. Seeing the Chinese girls, Carter opens a Chinese dictionary book and starts to seduce by inviting them for drink using Chinese. From the dialogue above, shows that Carter switch from Black English into Chinese. It can be seen when Carter speaks to unknown Chinese girls who never meets before. Use of Black English is marked by addressing Hey Lady to the Chinese girls. Then he switches into Chinese Deng wa lu yun cai-shen wu……….do masa do me [Let’s get naked and……do it
88 89
with me]. Carter switches into Chinese to avoid misunderstanding in inviting the
Chinese girls to drink. He wants to get an attention from them. Instead, Carter has hurt them because he transfers different message, as the result the Chinese girls drive off.
Therefore, datum 02/Sw/RH2 is a unique finding. A Black American speaks in Chinese, whereas, according to the story Carter do not have Chinese background or he never studies Chinese. It can be seen that Carter uses Chinese dictionary when is talking to Chinese girls in datum 02/Sw/RH2 and he always delivers different meaning. From the data above shows that there is a certain reason influencing Carter to switch into Chinese.
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. CONCLUSSIONS
Based on the analysis in Chapter IV which is conducted to reveal the answer of the problem statements stated in Chapter I, some conclusions could be drawn.
1. The types of code choices codes employed by the two main characters found
in the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”
The researcher has found four types of code choices used by the two
main characters in “Rush Hour 2”. They are: English which is classified into
three, namely Formal English, Colloquial English, and Black English,
Chinese, Switching between codes which consists of Switching from English
into Chinese and Switching from Chinese into English, and Mixing between
codes (English and Chinese).
2. The social meanings in choosing the codes used by the two main characters in
the movie entitled “Rush Hour 2”.
There are certain social meanings in each code choices applied by the
two main characters in “Rush Hour 2”. Formal English is used by the
participants to show respect. Colloquial English determines two social
meanings, namely: showing intimacy and to avoid misunderstanding. The use
of Black English interprets three social meanings, i.e. showing intimacy,
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showing anger, and showing surprise. Chinese reveals three social meanings,
those are showing respect, showing solidarity, and to avoid misunderstanding.
Switching between codes describes three social meanings, namely: showing
respect, to emphasize the message, and to avoid misunderstanding. Mixing
between codes has two social meanings, i.e. showing joke and showing
incompetence
B. SUGGESTIONS
According to the result of the previous chapter as has been described before, the paper can draw the suggestion as follow:
1. Students
It is suggested that the students should understand and study further
about the codes used and their usage in society. It is important because
language plays important role in our lives in communication.
2. Other researchers
The other researchers can develop this research by analyzing codes
used in certain event from different point of view, such as do research on
codes used in a certain community. Codes used in English Department of
Sebelas Maret University which involves certain students from different social
and cultural background as participants could be analyzed.
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