An Analysis of the Main Character’s Speech Acts in Jumanji: The Next Level Movie

Abstract

This research analyses the speech acts expressed by the main characters in Jumanji: The Next Level movie based on Searle’s theory of speech acts. This research is a qualitative research which means that the data are in the form of sentences (spoken or written) and visual images (observed or creatively produced). Jumanji: The Next Level is action-adventure comedy sequel directed by Jake Kasdan. The story continues the adventure of the four friends, Spencer, Martha, Bethany, and Fridge. When Spencer goes missing after attempting to repair the video game, the rest of the group decide to re-enter Jumanji to save him. At the same time, Spencer’s grandfather, Eddie, and his friend, Milo Walker, inadvertently get sucked into the game too. As the group re-enter the game, they discover that the game has changed, and that is not as they expected. The players should be brave to know the unknown and unexplored parts, from the arid deserts to the snowy mountains, in order to escape the world’s most dangerous game. From the total number of 50 utterances, the researcher found four kinds of illocutionary acts identified from the main character’s speech acts in Jumanji: The Next Level movie. They are representative acts (30%), directive acts (26%), commissive acts (8%), and expressive acts (36%). This research found that the main characters produce locutionary and illocutionary acts in Jumanji: The Next Level movie is used to tell somebody information about something, to make a situation clear to someone, to describe somebody look like, to willing someone about something happened, to express opinion, to express friendliness, to persuade someone in a conversation, to predict something in the future, to give someone an order, to advise people about something, and to express pleasure