Revealing Individualism in The Adjustment Bureau Movie: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This thesis is conducted to reveal individualism through the clauses of the selected characters in The Adjustment Bureau movie. To do the analysis, it applies critical discourse analysis proposed by Fairclough (1995). There are three stages in analyzing the data; describing the text analysis by using systemic functional linguistics focused on transitivity and interpersonal function proposed by Halliday (2004); interpreting the relation between the text analysis and the discourse practice based on theory of power and ideology by Fairclough (1989); and explaining the socio cultural context of the movie. Further, this thesis employs qualitative study since the data of this study are in the form of clauses. The data are taken from the subtitle of the movie. Then, purposive sampling is applied to gather the clauses from the selected characters in the movie which contain individualism and contrasting to individualism. The result of the study shows that the main character which brings individualism in the movie is portrayed as the powerful participant which opposes to the absolutism. In early modern Europe, individualism emerges to oppose the absolutism and it exists until now. The director of the movie puts the character of David Norris as the character who delivers individualism to state that the individual needs a freedom to live the life without the interference from the authority. As the powerful participant, David Norris can defend and share his ideology of individualism to influence the other characters. It can be concluded that individualism is conveyed through the employment of the cognitive process in the main character’s mental clause.