Directives in the movie green book

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

ĐỖ VŨ HOÀNG TÂM

DIRECTIVES IN THE MOVIE
“GREEN BOOK”

MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

BINH DINH, 2020



MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

ĐỖ VŨ HOÀNG TÂM

DIRECTIVES IN THE MOVIE
“GREEN BOOK”

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 8.22.02.01

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN



BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

ĐỖ VŨ HOÀNG TÂM

HÀNH VI CẦU KHIẾN TRONG BỘ PHIM
“GREEN BOOK”

Ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh
Mã số: 8.22.02.01

Người hướng dẫn: PGS.TS. NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN



i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

The thesis is accomplished by my own work and due acknowledgement is produced
whenever information is derived from other sources. No part of this thesis has or is
being simultaneously submitted for any other qualification at any university.
Quy Nhon, 2020

DO VU HOANG TAM


ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to Assoc. Prof. Nguyen
Quang Ngoan, my supervisor, who kindly provides me with appropriate direction,
useful suggestions and critical comments so that I can accomplish this thesis in
time.
Secondly, I would like to owe the completion of this thesis to all the lecturers of the
Department of Foreign Languages in specific and to Quy Nhon University in
general who have provided precious materials and support for me not only in
English major but also in other fields of knowledge.
Last but not least, my big thank is credited to my family, my friends and my
colleagues who have provided me a host of favorable conditions and materials
during this period so that I can successfully finish the thesis.


iii

ABSTRACT

This thesis demonstrates the results of a research into structural and functional
features of directives produced by the two main characters in the movie “Green
Book” on the basis of prominent characteristics on each type. A combination of
analytic, synthetic, descriptive, and contrastive methods is employed for data
analysis. The theoretical framework is adapted from the those from three leading
linguistics. For structural features of directives, the researcher has her thesis based
on theoretical framework of Ervin – Tripp (1976). Similarly, for functional features
of directives, Bach and Harnish’s (1979) framework is considered as the most
fundamental basis for data analysis. In terms of the direct/ indirect analysis, the
researcher mainly focuses on the George Yule’s (1996) basis. The data source of
this study is the transcript of the movie “Green Book” with 398 samples of
directives selected in the conversations of the two main characters. The results
unfold typical structural and functional features of directives and level of frequency

they are used in the movie “Green Book”, which could provide a profound insight
into structures and functions of directives. The results of the study are expected to
contribute to the teaching and learning of speech acts in English in particular and
the success of communication in English conversations in general.


iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ................................................................ i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .............................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................... iii
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................ vii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................... 1
1.1. Rationale ................................................................................................ 1
1.2. Research Aim and Objectives .............................................................. 2
1.2.1. Research Aim .................................................................................. 2
1.2.2. Research Objectives ....................................................................... 2
1.3. Research Questions ............................................................................... 3
1.4. Scope of the Study ................................................................................. 3
1.5. Significance of the Study ...................................................................... 3
1.6. The Organization of the thesis ............................................................. 4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................... 5
2.1. An Overview of the Speech Act theory ............................................... 5
2.1.1. Definition of Speech Act ................................................................. 5
2.1.2. Levels of Speech Act ....................................................................... 6
2.1.3. Classification of speech acts ........................................................... 7
2.2. An Overview of English directives .................................................... 12
2.2.1. Structural features of English directives .................................... 12
2.2.2. Functional features of English directives ................................... 18

2.3. Indirect Speech Acts ........................................................................... 20
2.3.1. Definition of indirect speech acts ................................................ 20


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2.3.2. Characteristics of indirect speech acts ....................................... 20
2.3.3. Indirect Directives ........................................................................ 23
2.4. A Review of Previous Relevant Studies ............................................ 23
CHAPTER 3: METHODS AND PROCEDURES ..................................... 26
3.1. Research Design .................................................................................. 26
3.2. Research Methods ............................................................................... 26
3.3. Data Collection .................................................................................... 27
3.4. Data Analysis ....................................................................................... 28
3.4.1. Analytical Framework ................................................................. 28
3.4.2. Analytical Methods ....................................................................... 30
3.5. Reliability and Validity ...................................................................... 30
3.6. Summary .............................................................................................. 30
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ......................................... 31
4.1. Structural features of Directives in “Green Book” ......................... 31
4.1.1. Structural features of Directives uttered by Tony Lip ............. 31
4.1.2. Structural features of directives uttered by Dr. Donald Shirley42
4.1.3. Similarities and differences in structural features of directives
uttered by Tony Lip and Dr. Shirley .................................................... 52
4.2. Functional features of Directives in “Green Book” ......................... 54
4.2.1. Functional features of directives uttered by Tony Lip ............. 55
4.2.2. Functional features of directives uttered by Dr. Shirley .......... 62
4.2.3. Similarities and differences in functional features of directives
uttered by Tony Lip and Dr. Shirley .................................................... 68
4.3. Direct and indirect directives in “Green Book” .............................. 70

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4.3.1. Distribution of direct directives uttered by Tony Lip and Dr.
Shirley ...................................................................................................... 70
4.3.2. Distribution of indirect directives uttered by Tony Lip and Dr.
Shirley ...................................................................................................... 75
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS ......................... 80
5.1. Conclusions .......................................................................................... 80
5.1.1. Conclusions concerning structural features of directives uttered
by the two main characters .................................................................... 80
5.1.2. Conclusions concerning functional features of directives uttered
by the two main characters .................................................................... 81
5.1.3. Conclusions concerning direct/indirect directives uttered by the
two main characters ............................................................................... 82
5.2. Implications ......................................................................................... 83
5.3. Limitations of the study...................................................................... 84
5.4. Suggestions for Further Research ..................................................... 85
REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 86
APPENDIX .................................................................................................... 89


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LIST OF TABLES

Table
Number

Title

Page
Number

Table 3.1

Framework for the analysis of indirect
speech acts

29

Table 4.1

Distribution of structural features of
directives uttered by Tony Lip

31

Table 4.2

Distribution of structural features of
directives uttered by Dr. Shirley

42

Table 4.3

Comparison of structural features of
directives uttered by Tony Lip and Dr.

Shirley

52

Table 4.4

Distribution of functional features of
directives uttered by Tony Lip

55

Table 4.5

Distribution of functional features of
directives uttered by Dr. Shirley

63

Table 4.6

Comparison of functional features of
directives uttered by Tony Lip and Dr.
Shirley

69

Table 4.7

Distribution of direct directives uttered by
Tony Lip and Dr. Shirley

71

Table 4.8

Distribution of indirect directives uttered
by Tony Lip and Dr. Shirley

75


1

CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION

This chapter is to present all the preliminaries of the thesis. It starts with the
rationale, followed by the aims of the study, research questions, scope of the
study, significance of the study, and the organization of the thesis.

1.1. Rationale
It is widely-held that speech acts have always assured a prominent-andleading place in the study of pragmatics in particular and in the field of
language in use in general. That is to say, speech acts are believed to be one
of the most representative features regarding pragmatics aspect, which are of
great importance during the process of communication in daily contexts as
well as the procedure of language teaching and learning.
Indeed, among the five types of speech acts by Searle (1976), it is directives
that emerge as one of the most strikingly typical pragmatics characteristics,
especially gaining their popularity in real-life social contexts. However,

despite the fact that directives have occupied an importantly irreplaceable
position in terms of speech act studies, there has been a lack of research
putting much emphasis on such directive-related issues under the umbrella of
pragmatics perspective.
As regards the movie “Green book”, which is the main source of data for the
study, it is noteworthy for research. To illustrate, it is indisputable that this
Oscar award-winning film has proven its extraordinarily conspicuous success
with an incredible plot criticizing racism as well as the mastery of the
linguistic feature utilization of the two main characters, resulting in the
overall excellence in acting accompanied with conveying emotions.


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Last but not least, one of the most research-provoking motivations which
evoke a high level of interests is the main characters’ ways of linguistic
manipulations. Indeed, the fact that the two main characters’ backgrounds can
be traced back to the discrepancies in socio-cultural origin and living
environment is claimed to be the paramount factor leading to the skillful
divergence in the characters’ linguistic strategies and politeness markers.
In addition, as far as I know, there has been no research on directives in the
movie “Green book” so this thesis is hopefully a more complete and relevant
source of indirect speech acts, especially directives for teaching, learning as
well as daily communicating. The research will also help people comprehend
directives and be proficient in applying them in the real-life context according
to corresponding status and living environment.
All these factors have triggered a great extent of tremendous motivation for
me to conduct this research.

1.2. Research Aim and Objectives

1.2.1. Research Aim
This study is aimed to examine linguistic features of directives in the movie
“Green Book”.
1.2.2. Research Objectives
To attain the research aim involving linguistic features of directives, the
following objectives are aimed:
1. To examine structural features in directives in the movie “Green Book”
2. To examine functional features in directives in the movie “Green Book”
3. To examine the direct and indirect directives in the movie “Green Book”


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1.3. Research Questions
Based on the aims of the study, the following research questions are expected
to be answered:
1. Which structural features of directives are realized in the Movie “Green
Book” and how often are they realized?
2. Which functional features of directives are realized in the Movie “Green
Book” and how often are they realized?
3. How often are indirect and direct directives used and how are they realized
in the conversations in the Movie “Green Book”?

1.4. Scope of the Study
This study is expected to identify and analyze directives in the Movie “Green
Book” which is considered to be the main source of research data.
Specifically, it focuses on the directives produced by the two main characters’
directives in the movie. The study involves identifying and analyzing the
main character’s directives on the basis of structural features, functional
features and directness/indirectness. This is to uncover the mastery of

linguistic features and prominent discrepancies between socio-cultural
backgrounds of the two main characters in this resound film.

1.5. Significance of the Study
Theoretically, the study is expected to contribute to the field of pragmatics
studies, especially directives in speech act research which still receives little
attention from researchers in the field. Besides, with results from analyses on
how to identify and investigate the prominence of directives as a speech act
type, it is proven to acclaim its noteworthiness in pragmatics field in
particular as well as language in use in general.


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Practically, the manipulation of directive types in the movie into real-life
contexts to reinforce the effectiveness and efficiency of communication and
language teaching-learning process is worth considering.

1.6. The Organization of the thesis
The thesis is divided into five chapters as follows:
Chapter one, introduction, is the first chapter of the study where the rationale,
aims and objectives, research questions, scope of the study, and significance
of the study are all clarified.
Chapter two, literature review and theoretical background, is where previous
relevant studies and basic theoretical aspects are presented and discussed with
the author’s critical comments.
Chapter three, research methodology, reveals the research methods, data
collection, data analysis, research procedures, and clarification of validity and
reliability.
Chapter four, findings and discussion, is the major part in which the research

findings are presented with illustration, interpretation, and comment, based on
the theoretical background and frameworks presented in chapter two and
chapter three.
Chapter five, conclusions and implications, is the final part of the main text
where the major study results are summarized implications are suggested,
limitations are discussed and suggestions for further research are made.


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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter is to present an overview of speech act theory including
definitions, levels, and classification of speech acts, followed by a brief
introduction of English directives in terms of structural and functional
features as well as direct and indirect speech acts, especially directives.

2.1. An Overview of the Speech Act theory
2.1.1. Definition of Speech Act
The issue of speech acts, as stated, was pioneered by Austin (1962).
According to him, all utterances should be viewed as actions of the speakers.
He pointed out that the declarative sentences are used not only to say things or
describe states of affairs but also to do things. Austin (1962) defined speech
acts as the actions performed in saying something. When people produce
utterances, they often perform actions via those utterances. These actions are
called speech acts such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation,
promise or request.
Yule (1997) defined that "in attempting to express themselves, people do not
only produce utterances containing grammatical structures and words, they
perform actions via those utterances". According to him, actions performed

via utterances are speech acts.
To a certain extent, both well-known linguists agreed that speech acts are
actions intended to do by a speaker through utterances he performs in
conversations with others.


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2.1.2. Levels of Speech Act
Suggested by Austin (1962), clarified by Searle (1976), Richards et al. (1992),
Geis (1995) and Yule (1997), a speech act consists of three related acts
including locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act.
The first level of speech act is locution, which is the act of uttering something
having a complete meaning. To be more specific, when a speaker produces a
meaningful utterance regarding lexis, grammar, and pronunciation, he/she
performs a locutionary act. In other words, it is concerned with what is made
by a speaker.
Illocutionary act is defined as the second level, lying in what is intended by
the speaker, or specifically, the intended meaning of the utterance. Therefore,
one utterance can be resorted to convey different illocutionary forces.
Consequently, the result of the words is expected to be the last level of
analysis. This is widely acclaimed as the perlocutionary act, clarifying what is
done by uttering words. In detail, it is the effect of an utterance on the hearer
or the hearer’s reaction to an utterance.
The three above-mentioned levels of speech act are closely related because
according to Bach & Harnish, 1979: 3, “S says something to H; in saying
something to H, S does something; and by doing something, S affects H”.
It is totally agreed with the critical comment made by Clyne (1996: 11) that
locution, illocution, and perlocution act are defined as the actual form of an
utterance, the communicative force of the utterance, and the communicative

effect of the utterance successively.
Of the three dimensions, as stated by Yule (1996: 52), the most fundamental
act that matters is the illocutionary act due to the fact that the same utterance


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can potentially have quite different illocutionary forces. For instance, the
utterance, “I’ll go to the US soon” can count as a prediction, a promise, a
statement, or a warning in different contexts. At the same time, the same
illocutionary force can be performed with various utterances. Take directives
for example. If you want to ask somebody to open a door, you may say
“Open the door, please!”, “Could you please open the door?”, “Would you
mind opening the door?”, and so on. Therefore, Yule (1997: 52) stated that
the term “speech act” is “generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean only
the illocutionary force of an utterance”.
2.1.3. Classification of speech acts
2.1.3.1. Classification of speech acts as speech act types
One general classification system lists five types of general functions performed
by speech acts. They are: declarations, representatives, expressives, directives,
and commissives (Searle, 1976: 1-15, Levinson, 1983: 240).
• Declarations are those kinds of speech acts that change the world via their
utterance and via words. They affect immediate changes in the institutional
state of affairs and tend to rely on elaborate extra-linguistic institutions
(declaring war, firing from employment) (Levinson 1983: 240). The given
examples below illustrate that the speaker has to have a special institutional
role, in a specific context, in order to perform a declaration appropriately:
(1) Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife.
(2) Referee: You’re out!
(3) Jury Foreman: We find the defendant guilty.

• Representatives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker
believes to be the state or not. Statements of fact, assertions, conclusions, and


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descriptions are all examples of the speaker representing the world as he or
she believes it is. Typical functions of this category are describing, claiming,
hypothesizing, insisting and disagreeing. The following examples illustrate
what are mentioned above.
(5) The earth is flat.
(6) Chomsky didn’t write about peanuts.
(7) It was a warm sunny day.
• Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to commit
themselves to doing something with words. They express what the speaker
intends. Representatives of this group include promising, offering,
threatening, refusing, vowing and volunteering. They can be performed by the
speaker alone, or by the speaker as a member of a group, e. g. “I’ll be back”,
“I’m going to get it right next time”, “We will not do that”.
• Directives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to get someone
else to do something. They express what the speaker wants. Typical functions
of this group are commanding, ordering, requesting, suggesting, inviting,
advising, and questioning. They can be positive or negative, as illustrated in
these examples:
(8) Give me a cup of coffee. Make it black.
(9) Could you lend me a pen, please?
(10) Don’t touch that.
• Expressives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker feels.
They express psychological states and can be statements of pleasure, pain,
likes,

dislikes,

joy

or

sorrow.

Typical

ones

are:

complimenting,


9

congratulating, thanking, and welcoming. As illustrated in the examples
below, they can be caused by something the speaker does or the hearer does,
but they are about the speaker’s experience.
(11) I’m really sorry.
(12) Congratulations!
(13) Oh, yes, great, mmmm, ssahh!
This above classification is viewed as one of the most influential and widelyaccepted of speech acts.
Bach and Harnish (1979: 41) proved to be more specific when they classify
illocutionary acts into six categories. Two of them, the effectives and
verdictives, are conventional, not communicative. The four communicative

ones are constatives, directives, commisives, and acknowledgements which
are more or less similar to Austin’s expositives, exercitives, commissives, and
behabitives, and closely related to Searle’s representatives, directives,
commissives, and expressives, respectively. However, their classification
system is a bit different from Searle’s. For instance, while suggestions belong
to the constatives in Bach and Harnish, they are classified as directives in
Searle’s.
According to Bach and Harnish (1979: 41), classification of communicative
illocutionary acts is divided into four prominent types including constatives,
directives, commissives and acknowledgements. In detail, it is directives that
are the fundamentally primary emphasis of this thesis.
To be more specific, directives are acclaimed to perform six leading
communicative illocutionary acts consisting of requestives, questions,
requirements, prohibitives, permissives, and advisories (Bach and Harnish,
1979: 41).


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In this studyr, the researcher employed Searle’s and Bach and Harnish’s
classifications for the theoretical framework of the analysis of speech act
types, with Bach’s being the main one amended to meet the variety of speech
act types, especially for directives functions in the movie “Green Book”.
2.1.3.2. Classification of speech acts by the level of indirectness
Speech acts may be either direct or indirect speech acts depending on the
direct and indirect relationships between their structures and functions.
Discussing the aspect of direct and indirect speech act, Searle (1975) stated
that the simplest cases of meaning are those in which the speaker utters a
sentence and means exactly and literally what he says and defined indirect
speech acts as cases where an illocutionary act is performed indirectly by way

of performing another.
More simply, direct speech acts occur when the speaker says what he means,
while in indirect speech acts, the speaker means more than what is
communicated. Yule (1997) suggested the three structural forms (declarative,
interrogative and imperative) and the three corresponding communicative
functions (statement, question and command/request) to classify speech acts
as being direct or indirect. He stated: “Wherever there is a direct relationship
between a structure and a function, we have direct speech act. Whenever
there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function, we have
an indirect speech act”.
To make a direct speech act, there has to be a direct relationship between a
structure and a function. For example, the sentence “Fasten the seat belt!” is
an imperative sentence because the word used in this sentence begins with
verb and ends with exclamation mark. The function of the sentence is


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command/request because the speaker attempts the addressee to wear a seat
belt. So, there is a direct relationship between the sentence form and function.
2.1.3.3. Necessity of context in speech act studies
When one analyzes speech acts and their role in conversations, it is crucial
essence that the role of context is undoubted. The same utterance can be
employed to express different illocutionary acts in different contexts.
Therefore, context must be carefully considered whenever speech acts are
interpreted.
It is a universally prevailing notion that context plays a salient role in the
performance and interpretation of speech acts because it can determine the
meanings of utterances in three ways. First, context makes clear what a
sentence is uttered for. Second, context presents what proposition has been

exactly expressed. Finally, context offers us evidence for what kind of
illocutionary force has been intended by the speaker. Moreover, it is believed
that context is an integral part of speech act studies due to the fact that the
same utterance can be employed to express variant illocutionary acts in
different contexts.
As stated by Yule (1996: 21), context is referred to the physical environment
of a speech event including the participants, location, time, and other physical
respects. He also claimed that “our ability to identify intended referents has
actually depended on more than our understanding of the referring
expression. It has been aided by the linguistic material, or co-text,
accompanying the referring expression.” This means that co-text is a
linguistic part of the environment in which a referring expression is utilized,
according to Yule (1996: 21). However, Thomas (1996) stated that the sociocultural background, the physical environment and the linguistic parts


12

surrounding an utterance being investigated are three levels used to analyze
context.
As proved above, these views are expected to show an agreement with the
fact that context is deemed as a significantly pragmatic contribution to the
performance and interpretation of speech acts in particular as well as speech
act studies in general.

2.2. An Overview of English directives
2.2.1. Structural features of English directives
It is claimed that directives to hearers could be conveyed in a wide range of
syntactic forms. The social distribution of such forms shows them to occur
systematically, according to the social distance, relative power, and ranking of
imposition, among others.

(14) May I please speak with John?
(15) Is John there?
(16) John, please!
These above examples are all directives in spite of their various syntactic
forms. The formal diversity provided by languages has recently been the
focus of attention among linguists. It is the question that how the central
intent of the speaker can be conveyed when form is so varied. How can the
listener know that “Is John there?” is intended as a directive, when its
wording is the same as an information question?
It is observed that variations in expressions are systematically related to
social features (Brown & Gilman 1960; Ervin-Tripp 1968; Friedrich 1972;
Geohegan 1973; Gumperz 1971; Hymes 1971; Labov 1972; Soskin & John