i

LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS USED BY THE MAIN

CHARACTERS OF THE MARRIAGE STORY MOVIE

A THESIS

In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for

the Bachelor Degree Majoring in Linguistic in English Department

Faculty of Humanities Diponegoro University

Submitted by:

Shely Martha Sanastia

13020116130052

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES

DIPONEGORO UNIVERSITY

SEMARANG

2020

ii

PRONOUNCEMENT

I state truthfully that this thesis is compiled by me without taking the results

from other research in any university, in S-1, S-2, and S-3 degree and in

diploma. I ascertain that I do not quote any material from other publications or

someone else’s work except from the references mentioned.

Semarang, October 2020

Shely Martha Sanastia

iii

APPROVAL

iv

VALIDATION

Approved by:

Strata 1 Thesis Examination Committee

Faculty of Humanity Diponegoro University

On 18th November, 2020

Chair Person

Dr. Deli Nirmala, M.Hum

NIP. 196111091987032001

First Member

Drs. Mualimin, M.Hum.

NIP. 196111101987101001

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MOTTO AND DEDICATION

“And He found you lost and guided you”

(Surah Al Kahf, 18:23)

“In order to become who you most want to be, you need to let go of who you

think you are.”

(Hunter Fogarty)

I sincerely dedicate this thesis to my family

as my support system, and everyone

who helped me in finishing this thesis.

Thank You.

vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Praise to Allah S.W.T, the Entirely Merciful, for his guidance, strength,

opportunity, and blessing so this thesis entitled Language Function Used by The

Main Characters of The Marriage Story movie is finally completed. On this

opportunity, I want to thank everyone who have contributed and given endless

supports in the progress of this thesis.

The deepest gratitude and appreciation is given to Mytha Candria, S.S,

M.A.,M.A., as my thesis advisor, for her continous guidance, advice, correction,

moral support, and especially her time and patience, so this thesis can be completed.

I would also address my deepest gratitude to:

1. Dr. Nurhayati, M.Hum., as the Dean of Faculty of Humanities of

Diponegoro University.

2. Dr. Agus Subiyanto, M. A., as the Head of English Department of Faculty

of Humanities, Diponegoro University.

3. All of the lecturers in English Department, particularly in Linguistic section,

Faculty of Humanities, Diponegoro University for their sincere dedication,

valuable knowledge and experiences during my study at English

Department.

4. My beloved parents, Mr. Kuat Santoso and Mrs. Nana Septiana, for giving

endless support and love and being the main reason and motivation for me

to finish my thesis.

vii

5. My brother, Keenan Rassya, for giving me support and laughter. I am so

lucky to have you.

6. My best friend, Adhisty, Saskia, Mella, Bella, Dania, Ovie, Jen, Nisa,

Wildan, thank you for always being there, help me through thick and thin,

and still making me laugh in a hard time.

7. All fellow students of English Department batch 2016 who have given

unforgetabble days and stories.

8. To all the person I can not mention one by one. Thank you for being a part

of my journey.

This thesis is far from perfections. So, I will be grateful to receive some

suggestions and constructive critism to make this thesis better. Finally, I expect that

this thesis will be useful for the readers who want to do the same research on

language functions.

Semarang, October 2020

Shely Martha Sanastia

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PRONOUNCEMENT ....................................................................................................... ii

APPROVAL ..................................................................................................................... iii

VALIDATION.................................................................................................................. iv

MOTTO AND DEDICATION ......................................................................................... v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................................... vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. viii

TABLE OF FIGURE ........................................................................................................ x

ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... xi

CHAPTER I ...................................................................................................................... 1

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1

1.1 Background of the Study......................................................................................... 1

1.2 Research Question .................................................................................................. 3

1.3 Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................... 4

1.4 Previous Studies ...................................................................................................... 4

1.5 Scope and Limitation .............................................................................................. 6

1.6 Significance of the Study ........................................................................................ 7

1.7 Organization of the Writing .................................................................................... 7

CHAPTER II ..................................................................................................................... 9

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................................. 9

2.1 Context .................................................................................................................... 9

2.1.1 Physical Context ......................................................................................... 9

2.1.2 Social Context ........................................................................................... 10

2.2 Language Functions .............................................................................................. 10

2.2.1 Referential Function .................................................................................. 11

2.2.2 Emotive Function ...................................................................................... 11

2.2.3 Conative Function ..................................................................................... 12

2.2.4 Phatic Function ......................................................................................... 13

2.2.5 Metalingual Function ................................................................................ 13

2.2.6 Poetic Function ......................................................................................... 14

2.3 Social Factors ........................................................................................................ 15

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2.3.1 Settings ...................................................................................................... 15

2.3.2 Participants of the Interaction ................................................................... 16

2.3.3 Topic of the Interaction ............................................................................. 16

2.3.4 Function of the Interaction ........................................................................ 16

2.4 Social Dimensions ................................................................................................ 17

2.3.1 A Social Distance Scale ............................................................................ 17

2.3.2 A Status Scale ........................................................................................... 17

2.3.3 A Formality Scale ..................................................................................... 18

2.3.4 A Functional Scale: Referential and Affective ......................................... 18

CHAPTER III ................................................................................................................. 20

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................................................. 20

3.1 Type of Research .................................................................................................. 20

3.2 Data and Sources ................................................................................................... 20

3.3 Population, Sampling Technique and Sample ...................................................... 21

3.4 Method of Collecting Data .................................................................................... 21

3.5 Method of Analysing Data .................................................................................... 22

CHAPTER IV.................................................................................................................. 24

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .................................................................................... 24

4.1 Function of Language Used by Nicole and Charlie .............................................. 24

4.2 Social Factor and Social Dimensions Influencing the Use of Language Function

by Nicole and Charlie ........................................................................................... 25

4.2.1 Emotive function ....................................................................................... 26

4.2.2 Referential Function .................................................................................. 33

4.2.3 Conative Function ..................................................................................... 41

4.2.4 Metalingual Function ................................................................................ 50

4.2.5 Phatic Function ......................................................................................... 57

4.2.6 Poetic Function ......................................................................................... 65

CHAPTER V ................................................................................................................... 67

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 67

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 69

APPENDIX ...................................................................................................................... 71

x

TABLE OF FIGURE

Figure 4. 1 Functions of Language spoken by Nicole and Charlie ................................... 25

1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter is a presentation of seven sub-chapters. i.e. background of the

study (1.1), research questions (1.2), purpose of the study (1.3), previous studies

(1.4), scope and limitation (1.5), significance of the study (1.6), and writing

organization (1.7).

1.1 Background of the Study

Marriage Story is a comedy-drama movie written, directed, and produced

by Noah Baumbach, a New York writer-director. After its release on 29th August

2019 at Venice Film Festival, Marriage Story was transformed into digital

streaming on 6th December 2019, chosen as one of nine best pictures of the year by

the Academy Awards, receiving additional nods for best actor, actress, original

screenplay, and original score. Marriage Story was starred by Scarlett Johansson

and Adam Driver as the main characters and other actors and actresses in supporting

roles. Johansson starred as Nicole Barber and Driver starred as Charlie Barber.

Nicole is an actress, while Charlie is a New York theatre director. They have been

married for eight years. Unfortunately, their marriage is not a beautiful and

harmonious one; instead, it is a story that is on the verge of ending. They are facing

a long divorce process, in which every one of them fight for the custody of their

son.

I choose the Marriage Story movie as the object of research because the

movie depicts different language usage, delivered by the main characters depending

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ABSTRACT

People tend to use different utterances considering the social context in

which communication takes place. One utterance may have more than one meaning

and function depending on social context and other factors. This study aims to

describe the spoken language functions of the main characters, Charlie and Nicole,

in the Marriage Story movie. This descriptive qualitative research used Roman

Jakobson’s language function classification to categorize the selected utterances

found in Marriage Story movie into one of the six functions (emotive, conative,

referential, metalingual, phatic, and poetic). To interpret the classified data and the

contexts or situations, I related the language functions to social factors and social

dimensions based on Holmes’ categorization. The results show that all the six

language functions appeared in 118 of Nicole and Charlie’s utterances. The data

analysis depicts that 35 utterances contained emotive function which meant that

emotive is predominantly used by the main characters throughout the whole movie.

This is because the two main characters tend to fully express their personal feelings,

thoughts, ideas, and opinion towards the other characters. Besides, I found out that

the language functions are influenced by the social factors and social dimensions.

Social factors consist of the participant, setting, topic, and function. In contrast,

social dimensions consist of social distance scale, status scale, formality scale, and

two functional scales.

Keywords: language function, social factor, social dimension, Marriage Story

1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter is a presentation of seven sub-chapters. i.e. background of the

study (1.1), research questions (1.2), purpose of the study (1.3), previous studies

(1.4), scope and limitation (1.5), significance of the study (1.6), and writing

organization (1.7).

1.1 Background of the Study

Marriage Story is a comedy-drama movie written, directed, and produced

by Noah Baumbach, a New York writer-director. After its release on 29th August

2019 at Venice Film Festival, Marriage Story was transformed into digital

streaming on 6th December 2019, chosen as one of nine best pictures of the year by

the Academy Awards, receiving additional nods for best actor, actress, original

screenplay, and original score. Marriage Story was starred by Scarlett Johansson

and Adam Driver as the main characters and other actors and actresses in supporting

roles. Johansson starred as Nicole Barber and Driver starred as Charlie Barber.

Nicole is an actress, while Charlie is a New York theatre director. They have been

married for eight years. Unfortunately, their marriage is not a beautiful and

harmonious one; instead, it is a story that is on the verge of ending. They are facing

a long divorce process, in which every one of them fight for the custody of their

son.

I choose the Marriage Story movie as the object of research because the

movie depicts different language usage, delivered by the main characters depending

2

on the purpose or situation. The main characters in the movie tend to use verbal

expressions to help them communicate their thoughts, ideas, feelings, and needs.

They usually use language to both intentionally and unintentionally express

thoughts as what and how they feel; they also consider how, why, when, where and

to whom they deliver their utterances.

In this movie, language as a verbal communication is used not only as

positive reinforcements, such as to praise or show empathy, but also as negative

reinforcements, such as critical or hateful speech. When having conversation with

other characters, both Nicole and Charlie tend to combine communication with

supportive language, which are language communicated in an open, honest, sincere

and non-confrontational way. However, in some other situations, they also use

unsupportive language, including sarcasm, curse, labels and judgmental language.

In addition, this movie contains the function of language in almost every utterance,

such as when the main characters produce command, share information, or maintain

close relationships with other characters.

When we talk about a language as a means of communication, we cannot

disregard human beings as the speakers. The speakers of a language will be

influenced by the social context. Language can show the speaker’s social classes,

educational background, and the relation between the speakers and the participants.

It is interesting to analyse the functions of language spoken by Nicole and

Charlie in Marriage Story movie affected by different contexts, meanings, and other

factors of communication. I will employ Roman Jakobson’s theory of language

function classification to analyze the functions of the language appearing in the

3

movie. Jakobson divides language functions into referential, emotive, phatic,

conative, metalingual, and poetic. Furthermore, the categorization by Janet Holmes

is applied to find out factors that influence language functions and to investigate the

relationship between language functions, social factors and social dimensions. This

study aims to describe what are the functions of language spoken by Nicole and

Charlie by identifying the context, meaning, and the differences between their

utterances.

Marriage Story tells about Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole’s (Scarlett

Johansson) cumbersome marriage. Chalie is a theater stage director who lives in

New York with his wife Nicole, a film actress. They finally get a son named Henry.

At the beginning of the story, Charlie and Nicole attempt to not giving up on their

marriage with the help of a counselor. Nicole however seems to be not so

cooperative and makes the counseling process failed. They finally agree to split up

and not live together anymore. In consequence, both of them still take care of Henry

who still sits in primary school. Nicole and Charlie end up having an amicable

divorce and each looks for a private lawyer to help the divorce process. During the

process of divorce, they have to go through a lot of conflicts, struggles, and

heartbreaks that make the process even more complicated for both of them.

1.2 Research Question

Based on the background of the study above, I formulated two research

question as follows:

1. What are the functions of language spoken by Nicole and Charlie in

Marriage Story movie?

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2. What are the social factors and social dimensions that influence the

functions of language spoken by Nicole and Charlie in Marriage Story

movie?

1.3 Purpose of the Study

By following the research questions above, I have two purposes in

conducting this research namely:

1. To describe the functions of language spoken by Nicole and Charlie in

Marriage Story movie.

2. To describe the social factors and social dimensions that influence the

functions of language spoken by Nicole and Charlie in Marriage Story

movie.

1.4 Previous Studies

There has been no research on Marriage Story movie so far. However, there

are four previous studies related to language function and social factors in the

movie. First, research by Kurniarini (2012) analyses the social factors and social

dimensions of the character’s language reflecting racism in Freedom Writers

movie. She analysed the character’s language using Searle’s theory of speech act.

From the data, she found three functions, i.e. expressive, directives and

representative in the utterances reflecting racism in the movie. The findings also

showed that there are four kinds of social dimensions in Freedom Writers, i.e

solidarity scale, status or power scale, formality scale, and functional scales and

four kinds of social factors that are used in the film, i.e. participants, setting, topics

and function of the interaction.

5

The second study is conducted by Irrisa (2009) who presents social factors

and social dimensions in terms of language style in Sherlock Holmes – The Game

of Shadow movie. She analysed the data based on Martin Joos’s categorization. The

findings show there are three types of language style occurring in Sherlock

Holmes’s utterances in Sherlock Holmes – The Game of Shadow movie. Those are

formal style, consultative style and casual style. She found casual style as the most

language style that occurred in Sherlock Holmes – The Game of Shadow movie. In

addition, she found out that Sherlock Holmes’s utterances influence by the social

context when he chooses his type of speech, such as setting, participants, topic, and

situation. Her analysis is very detailed because she analysed the data one by one.

She also explained the factors that influence the use of language style. However,

she just analysed 5 examples of conversation, so it is not enough to get the variations

of language style on the data.

The third study elaborate social factors with language functions. Hasits

(2007) analysed language functions used by Marcuss Burnett in Bad Boys II movie

and what are the factors that influence the language functions. He used Janet

Holmes’s classification to analysed the data. From his study he found out the most

dominant language function used by Marcuss Burnett, which is expressive function

and the language used by Marcuss Burnett in the conversations are most influenced

by social factors, such as participants, setting, topic and functions. However, he did

not provide a deep analysis of language functions and only analyses social factors

in his study.

6

The last study is conducted by Adi (2018) who analysed slang words based

on social dimensions uttered by the characters in Little Man movie. The study used

a descriptive qualitative method because he interpreted the data by his own

knowledge and described the result of the analysis. He found four scales in social

dimensions using Janet Holmes categorization. From his study, he found 18 slang

words and social distance scale as the most influential scale in using slang words.

The result of their research concerns the relationship between the slang words and

social dimensions. He focused on describing the context of slang words that appear

in the conversation, but he did not discuss further the social dimensions on specific

explanation.

The differences between this study and the previous study are the object of

the study, the aspect that will be analysed, and the theory used to explain the

language functions. I want to examine the functions of language spoken by the main

character in Marriage Story movie by using Roman Jakobson (1987) classification.

I will also describe the social factors and social dimension that influence the

language function by using Janet Holmes (2013) categorization.

1.5 Scope and Limitation

This study focuses on the functions of language spoken by the main

characters of Marriage Story and the social factors and social dimensions that

influence the functions of language. The source of the data is from Marriage Story

movie script. The data in this study were taken from the utterances by Nicole Barber

and Charlie Barber, as the main characters in the movie. The selection of the data

based on the frequent conversations of those characters and the important roles

7

within the movie plot. The characters have the most portions of the dialogs. I take

four to five conversation fragments as the sample to represent every language

function.

This study mainly focuses on two theories. First, language functions

classification from Roman Jakobson (1987), they are expressive, conative,

metalingual, phatic, referential and poetic function. Second, the categorization of

social factors and social dimensions by Janet Holmes (2013). The correlation

between social factors and social dimensions are important in describing and

analyzing all kinds of interaction.

1.6 Significance of the Study

This study is expected to be an insight and could give a meaningful

contribution to studies in the linguistic field, especially about language functions,

which is a part of sociolinguistics. This research is also conducted to understand the

influence of social factors and social dimensions of language functions in Marriage

Story movie. I expect that these research findings can make other researchers

interested in exploring the interrelated theory of two or more collaboration studies.

Hopefully, this research will give benefit to all students, especially at English

Department Student.

1.7 Organization of the Writing

In this thesis, I divide the parts into five following chapters:

Chapter 1 Introduction

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This chapter includes background of the study, research question,

purpose of the study, scope and limitation of the study, significance

of the study, previous studies, and writing organization as well.

Chapter 2 Theoretical Framework

This chapter explains the theory used to analysed the data. The

theory consists of the major field in which language functions, kinds

of language functions, kinds of social factors and social dimensions.

Chapter 3 Research Method

This chapter includes the type of research, data source, population

and sample, method of collecting data, and method of analyzing

data.

Chapter 4 Finding and Discussion

This chapter explains the finding and discussion based on the

obtained data.

Chapter 5 Conclusion

This chapter provides a summary of the whole study.

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CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This chapter is a presentation of the theories used to support the topic of the

research. This chapter is divided into three sub-chapters, i.e. context (2.1), language

functions (2.2), social factors (2.3), and social dimensions (2.4).

2.1 Context

Context has a vital role to play in communication; provides meaning and

clarity to the intended message. Context clue in an human interaction create a

relationship between the speaker and the listener, giving a deeper understanding

of the intent and direction of the interaction. A context must be understood to be

a set of propositions, describing the beliefs, knowledge, commitments and so on of

the participants in a discourse (Levinson, 1983). Context cannot be meant simply

as the place or where and when the speaker states, but also including the identity of

the speaker, identity of the listener, also the objects being discussed based on the

fact.

2.1.1 Physical Context

The physical context is a term used to refer to the general physical conditions

of a particular environment where the communication process takes place. These

particular areas can however come in the form of school, public rooms, or an office.

Nevertheless, the physical context aids individuals to distinguish which messages

are appropriate in different environments. Yule (2013) also added that to interpret

words or sentences, the relevant physical context is our mental representation of

10

what is out of our physical states. We need to have a clear understanding of what we

read, hear, or learn to process the aspects of the physical context.

2.1.2 Social Context

The social context, on the other hand, refers to the general environment or

circumstances that the communal framework of interpersonal and individual

behavior takes place. Social context is generally used to describe the types of

settings in which people are engaged, including the groups with whom they interact

and the culture in how they live. Furthermore, in a social context, the roles,

relationships, general society normalities, cultural values, and customs of

individuals affect the way they communicate and engage with each other (DeVito,

2010). For example, the way a teacher requests or commands her students will be

different from the way she communicates the request to her spouse.

2.2 Language Functions

Language is central to all our lives since it fulfills a symbolic or

communicative function among us. This study uses the classification of language

function proposed by Roman Jakobson (1987). Jakobson declares six essential

elements of communication. The first is the context that refers to the setting of

communication. It is influenced by the form and content of the message which may

intersect with physical, cultural, social-psychological, and temporal aspects. The

second is the addresser (sender), a person who initiates the conversation and

develops the idea to be conveyed to others. The third is the addressee (receiver), a

person who receives, reads, and listens to the message delivered by the sender

through a communication channel. The fourth is contact or the psychological and

11

physical connections used to decode the message. The fifth is a common code that

includes the language with all its symbols and arrangements. The last is a verbal or

nonverbal communication form that can trigger the receiver to give a response.

Furthermore, Jakobson (1987) divides language functions into six functions

(referential, emotive, conative, phatic, metalingual and poetic) in which each of

those functions has its own characteristics and purposes.

2.2.1 Referential Function

Referential function reveals the condition of the speakers who need to

convey their knowledge or information toward the hearer. Referential function

corresponds to any statements with numerous definite descriptions or information

(Jakobson, 1987). For example, “At the third stroke, it will be three o’clock

precisely” (Holmes, 2013, p. 275).

Referential function is the most common one in communication, it is

concerned by a reference to the context of the discussion, it can be a person, a

situation, an object, or an action. Referential function must constitute a reference to

something that the audience is familiar with (Nord, 2006). Referential function can

be express by a declarative statement ‘Trump won the election’, or by interrogative

statement ‘Where are you come from?’.

2.2.2 Emotive Function

Emotive function comes out when we express our emotions and do not

intend to give a piece of information. Emotive aims to direct the expression of the

speaker's attitude toward what he is speaking about. The message can be perceived

as conveying emotional feelings, such as joy, anger and sadness. For example,

12

“Wow, what a beautiful scenery!”. We can also put a simple interjection expression,

such as ‘woah!’ ‘yuck!’ ‘shit!’ that are effective and natural ways to express

amazement, disgust, and aggravation without an explicit statement or complex

description.

According to Tribus (2017), another way to present emotive function is in

the empathic prolongation of vowels. In emotive, the statement “your room is so

cold” might be referred to as referential. However, if the speaker puts extra

emphasis such as “your room is so cooooold”, it is more likely to become involved

in the emotive language function indicated by the prolonged vowel.

2.2.3 Conative Function

Conative function is used when the message or utterance has an orientation

toward the addressee (Jakobson, 1987). It shows a language function that makes

addressee, to respond to what the addresser says or wants the listener to do.

Conative function finds its analytical expression in imperative sentences, and it

helps to make people do something through the addresser’s utterance.

Tribus (2017) adds that conative function generally assesses the effects of

the message on the behavior of addressee. For example, the utterance “Let’s get out

of here!” implies the addresser’s expectation of the addressee’s compliance with

the command. The hearer’s reaction is more essential than the speaker’s intention

since this function determines whether such a phrase reaches the target.

According to Holmes (2013), there are many ways to express the conative

function, for instance, using imperative, declarative, and interrogative sentences.

Imperative sentences may be expressed by giving a conative command (e.g. Sit

13

down), the declarative sentence may be expressed by giving a less demanding but

more polite command (e.g. Sit down, please), and the interrogative sentence has a

particular function to request information or give an indirect order (e.g. Could you

sit down?).

2.2.4 Phatic Function

The phatic function of language keeps the channels of communication open.

Poetic function serves the purpose to establish, to prolong, or to discontinue

communication, to attract the attention of the interlocutor or to confirm continued

attention. (Jakobson, 1987). The examples are “Hello, do you hear me?” and “Are

you listening?”.

The phatic function also shows how the speakers reveal their sociability

toward the hearer and it usually appears in everyday interactions, such as greeting,

gossiping, and complementing. Holmes (2013) also adds that phatic function is an

utterance that expresses solidarity and empathy with others. For example, when we

meet someone we haven’t seen for a long time, we say “Hi, how are you, lovely

day isn’t it!”.

2.2.5 Metalingual Function

Metalingual function deals with language or linguistic nature. Moreover,

metalingual function is associated with the same code of the language that the

addresser and/or the addressee use (Jakobson, 1987). In other words, metalingual

function aims to convey information about the lexical code of languages, such as

explaining the item with synonyms, acronyms, definitions, paraphrases, or

examples.

14

Furthermore, the metalingual function works to discuss or describe

language itself (Holmes, 2013). It means to give an opinion on the language or the

function of language. Metalingual pays attention to the language codes to clarify or

negotiate the meanings. The use of standard lexical phrases, such as “I don’t follow

you – what do you mean?” will allow the speaker to ask for clarification for unclear

communication (Jakobson, 1987).

Jakobson (in Tribus, 2017) breaks down the metalingual function into four

possible relationships: (1) message to message, in the form of a direct quote or

reported speech (“I didn’t hear him, what did he say?”, “He said turn left!”), (2)

code to code, for example, New York City is the place that bears that name, (3)

message to code, such as “A foal is a young horse” or “Foal is a four-letter noun”,

(4) code to message via shifters.

2.2.6 Poetic Function

Poetic function focuses on the aesthetic features of language. It carries a

variety of linguistic features, such as a poem, an ear-catching motto, and a rhyme

(Holmes, 2013). For example, “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers”.

Poetic function also deals with the artistry of a language. The word poetic is not

about how good we are at composing poetry, but how we can creatively manipulate

language. Thus, we can say that the poetic function aims to convey pleasure.

This function embraces wider than just poetry and linguistics cannot only

limit itself to the field of poetry. Besides, a poetic function connects to artistic nature

that is signalized by dynamic diction, rhyme, alliteration, figurative language, and

15

others. The poetic function can reinforce the impressiveness and efficacy of the

language.

2.3 Social Factors

According to Holmes (2013) the way people talk is influenced by the

surrounding social context. It relies on who can hear us, where we are talking, and

how our feelings toward the interlocutor. Simply put, social factors are about the

participant, setting, topic, and function that intervene someone to talk to another

person. Participants mean whom you speak to and the kind of relationship you have

with him or her. Settings mean where the conversation takes place that would

influence the conversation formality, for example in the market, hall, office room,

house, and university. The topic is about what is being talked about. The function

is the purpose of a conversation that would influence the way a person speaks.

2.3.1 Settings

` Holmes (2013) states that setting influences the way people select an

appropriate language code or variety by considering the time and place of the

interaction. The appropriate variety during a sacred ceremony in the church will be

different from the variety used in the porch of the church. The teacher’s style in a

formal lecture will differ from her everyday style outside the school. Thus,

determined by the social context, speakers need to choose the appropriate language

when uttering. They should perceive the proper language functions to comply with

the situations.

16

2.3.2 Participants of the Interaction

The participant alludes to who is speaking and with whom he is speaking

(Holmes, 2013). People will talk differently from one to another considering the

interlocutor’s specific backgrounds, such as age, sex, relationship, and personal

characteristics. The social status of participants also determines the variety of

languages. For example, a child will use a more polite and formal language variety

or style when talking to the teachers than when she talks to her peers. There are

many kinds of participants, for instance, family participants (husband-wife),

professional participants (boss-worker), and social participants (customer-

shopkeeper). According to Hymes (in Johnstone, 2010), speakers of a language in

a particular community must be able to communicate with each other in the right

manner and appropriate socio-cultural context.

2.3.3 Topic of the Interaction

Holmes (2013) notes that, “the topic of the interaction related to what is

being talked about or discussed” (p.12). In other words, the topic limits the speaker

to not speak out of the context of the discussion and guarantees the integrity of the

conversation. Holmes (2013) also argues that people may select a particular variety

or code because it puts them at ease to discuss a particular topic, regardless of where

they are speaking. People sometimes attempt to establish one main topic to create

smooth and focused communication.

2.3.4 Function of the Interaction

Holmes (2013) initiates several ways of categorizing the functions of speech

that includes expressive function (expressing the speaker’s feelings) and referential

17

function (providing the information). The speech functions represent what the

speaker wants to achieve in the interaction. The forms of speech always take into

consideration the intention and purpose of the conversation.

2.4 Social Dimensions

According to Holmes (2013), all social factors may be relevant to the choice

of variety or code in a particular situation. When both participants share more than

one variety, other factors will contribute to the appropriate selection. The following

types of social dimensions should also be taken into consideration in the process of

language choice.

2.3.1 A Social Distance Scale

Holmes (2013) states that the social distance scale is useful to identify the

relationship between the speaker and hearer. Many different groups in society result

in increasingly diverse linguistic features. In the social distance scale, the

relationship between participants is divided into two, namely high solidarity or

intimate relationship and low solidarity or distant relationship. The communication

between people with high solidarity often reflects their intimacy and the regular

interactions they have. In contrast, two strangers tend to use a more formal and

straightforward speaking style when talking to each other.

2.3.2 A Status Scale

A status scale, according to Holmes (2013), justifies the participants’

relationship. This scale depicts whether the speaker is superior or has a higher status

than the interlocutor or inferior and has a lower status than the interlocutor. Besides,

18

Holmes (2013) mentions that a social role is important and often becomes the

determinant of people’s social status. The typical relationships are teacher-pupil,

doctor-patient, soldier-civilian, priest-parishioner, official-citizen. The same person

may speak in different codes depending on their duty or role at the moment, such

as a teacher, parent, or customer in the market-place. Status can also be used to

express respect to someone.

2.3.3 A Formality Scale

According to Holmes (2013), the formal scale can assess the influence of

the social settings or types of interaction on language choice. For example, people

will speak formally when attending a sacred ceremony in the church and the

language variety may be different when the ceremony is over or they are leaving

the church. The language variety used by a news anchor on TV differs from a radio

announcer. The speaker may change her speech style either to increase or decrease

the formality of the context within a particular setting or situation.

2.3.4 A Functional Scale: Referential and Affective

Language conveys objective information of a reference and it expresses

someone’s feelings (Holmes, 2013). In the referential scale, there are high

information content and low information content. In the affective scale, there are

low affective content and high affective content. Information-oriented interactions

do not require the expression of feelings. Otherwise, interactions that prioritize the

expression of feelings usually provide little new information. All speech

communities have linguistic means of expressing basic speech function since every

language particularly has social and referential meanings. These dimensions must

19

be taken into account when choosing an alternative to ways of saying. Holmes

(2013) declares that different cultural groups might emphasize the affective

functions while the other considers referential information as the primary focus.

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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, I describe about the methodology of the research, which is

consists of five sub-chapters, i.e. type of research (3.1), data and sources (3.2),

population, sample, and sampling technique (3.3), method of collecting data (3.4),

and method of analysing data (3.5).

3.1 Type of Research

I employ a qualitative descriptive method as the research methodology. This

method aims to thoroughly describe social phenomena in certain matters relating to

the problem and area study. According to Creswell (2007) “qualitative research

involved the researcher in interpreting what they see, hear, and understand” (p.39).

The researcher’s interpretations cannot be separated from their own background,

history, context, and prior understandings. I use a literature review from books,

journals, and articles as references to analyze the data descriptively. Instead of being

presented statistically, the result was spelled out in the form of explanations

supported by the conversation data.

3.2 Data and Sources

The material object of this research is a movie entitled Marriage Story taken

from the website. The data in this research were taken from the utterances by Nicole

and Charlie, as the main characters in the movie. The source of the data is from

Marriage Story movie script. As stated by Wahidmurni (2017) “data resources refer

to the origin of research data obtained and collected by the researcher” (p. 8). In

21

answering research problems, one might be needed more data sources, this however

depends on the needs and sufficiency of the data to answer research questions.

3.3 Population, Sampling Technique and Sample

Sugiyono (2010) states that “the population is a generalization area

consisting of objects or subjects that have certain quantities and characteristics

determined by researchers to be studied and then drawn conclusions” (p.61). The

population of this study is all the utterances of both of the main characters in the

movie. Meanwhile, the sample of this study is the utterances containing language

functions used by the main characters. I take four to five conversation fragments as

the sample to represent every language function.

In this study, the sampling technique used is non-probability sampling with

a purposive sampling technique. According to Sugiyono (2010), “Purposive

sampling is a data source sampling technique with certain considerations” (p. 85).

Purposive sampling technique is used in order to choose the data that had particular

language functions spoken by Nicole and Charlie in the movie. Hence, I took 25%

of the population or 25% x 118 conversation fragments as the research data. In other

words, the research samples were 30 conversations.

3.4 Method of Collecting Data

The data collection method in this research was a non-participant

observation method. As said by Sudaryanto (1993) “non-participatory observation

is a data collection method where the researcher is not involved or not actively

participating in the conversation.” (p.134). The method was chosen because the film

22

had been published and uploaded on many platforms and I only analysed the written

data (transcript) of the film. To collect the data, I downloaded the movie then

watched it to observe the characters’ conversations. After that, I put the

conversations between Nicole and Charlie that included language functions on the

list. Furthermore, I analysed the language functions appearing in the movie with

Jacobson’s classification and determined what social factors and social dimensions

influencing the language function.

3.5 Method of Analysing Data

In analyzing the data, I use the identical method and have a sub-method

suitable for this research. The data from this study were analysed in these following

steps:

1. Analyzing the Script

I watched the movie while reading the script to ensure its reliability and

authenticity before being used as one of the research data. Afterward, I took

note of the dialogues between the two main characters containing language

functions to answer the research questions.

2. Classifying and Analyzing Data Indicating the Types of Language

Functions

After gathering the data, I classified the data based on Jacobson’s language

function theory that was divided into six types: expressive, conative, referential,

metalingual, phatic, and poetic functions.

3. Analyzing the Social Factors and Social Dimensions Affecting the Use of

Language Function in the Main Characters’s Dialogues

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After classifying and analyzing the types of language function, I analysed and

interpreted the data contextually using Holmes’s theory to figure out the social

factors and social dimensions affecting the characters to speak in different

language functions.

4. Drawing a Conclusion

The last step in the data analysis method was to draw a conclusion. Here, I

summed up the results of the study.

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CHAPTER IV

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, I will give a brief explanation and analysis of language

function in Nicole and Charlie’s utterances. Using related theories, I will also

describe the social factors and social dimensions that influence language function.

From the analysis, I find six types of language functions proposed by Roman

Jakobson. Afterward, I will discuss the social factors and social dimensions that

influence the use of language function in those conversations. Thus, the chapter is

divided into two main sub-sections: (1) types of language functions used by Nicole

and Charlie, and (2) social factors and social dimensions influencing the use of

language function.

4.1 Function of Language Used by Nicole and Charlie

This section is to answer the first research question about the types of

language function from Roman Jakobson’s categorization applied by Nicole and

Charlie in the Marriage Story movie. Jakobson categorizes the language function

into six functions, namely expressive, conative, referential, metalingual, poetic, and

phatic.

Based on the analysis, those six types of language functions found in Nicole

and Charlie’s utterances are displayed in the form of a chart as followed:

25

Figure 4. 1 Functions of Language spoken by Nicole and Charlie

I find six language functions, namely emotive function, referential function,

metalingual function, conative function, phatic function and poetic function in

Nicole and Charlie’s utterances. From 118 data, emotive function is predominantly

used by the main characters with thirty-five utterances (30%). The rest includes

referential function with thirty utterances (25%), metalingual function with eight

utterances (7%), conative function with twenty-six utterances (22%), phatic

function with eight-teen utterances (15%), and poetic function with one utterance

(1%).

4.2 Social Factor and Social Dimensions Influencing the Use of Language

Function by Nicole and Charlie

Someone’s utterances are influenced by the social contexts and formality of

the situations. This happens because speech function belongs to language variation

which is related to the term ‘social factors’ and ‘social dimensions’. Those are

factors that influence the way people produce utterances and use appropriate

language when having an interaction. In this section, I would like to analyse the

30%

25%7%

22%

15%1%

Functions of Language Spoken by Nicole

and Charlie

Emotive Referential Metalingual

Conative Phatic Poetic

26

social factors and social dimensions and their interconnection with the language

function. I would categorize the social factors and social dimensions and

synchronize them with types of language functions spoken by Nicole and Charlie.

4.2.1 Emotive function

Emotive is used when the speaker wants to express a message or feeling.

Emotive focuses on the expressions of emotion, thoughts, attitudes, and opinions of

the speaker which are delivered in different word choices and intonations. These

following utterances in bold are examples of emotive taken from Nicole and

Charlie’s utterances:

Datum 1

Time (00:25:15 – 00:25:35)

Context:

Nicole in this situation sees her lawyer Nora for the first time. She attempts

to tell her about her problems of marriage.

Nora : Now, can you tell me a little bit more about what’s going on? Because

part of what we’re going to do together is tell your story.

Nicole : It’s difficult to articulate. Sorry. It’s like I know why I’m doing

this but I don’t know too. It’s not as simple as not being in love

anymore.

Nora : I understand. Why don’t you start at the beginning, wherever that is for

you.

This dialogue between Nicole and her lawyer Nora takes place in Nora’s

office. The situation is quite formal because this is their very first meeting and the

conversation takes place in an office (setting). Nicole needs to see Nora because

she wants to file a divorce and they need to discuss the matter together. The topic

27

of the conversation, as can be seen from datum 1, is the reason Nicole wants to file

a divorce against her husband Charlie.

Nicole finds it hard to explain the reasons she wants a divorce. She therefore

uses the utterance “It’s difficult to articulate. Sorry. It’s like I know why I’ m doing

this but I don’t know too. It’s not as simple as not being in love anymore” to express

her feeling or emotion towards Nora. The tone of her statement is slightly worried

and her facial expression also shows confusion. In relation to Holmes’s social

factor, the participant and the setting equally affect how Nicole expresses her

feeling. She tends to use formal language because the conversation occurs in the

office. Moreover, Nicole does not spill the entire emotion considering that she does

not know Nora very well yet.

In this point, it can be seen that Nicole’s utterance is highly affective rather

than referential because Nicole tends to show her feeling than to provide

information. In Holmes’s referential and affective functions scales, the utterance is

thus more of the low information content and high affective content. The use of the

word “articulate”, instead of “say” or “explain”, indicates higher formality and

distant, rather than low formality and high solidarity. In conclusion, Nicole’s

utterance is emotive as she expresses her individual feeling and emotion to Nora.

Datum 2

Time (01:11:35 – 01:11:59)

Context:

Nicole visits Charlie’s new house to make sure of his condition and talk

about the root cause of their marriage problems but they end up in a big quarrel.

28

Nicole : I can’t believe I have to know you forever!

Charlie : You’re fucking insane! And you’re fucking winning!

Nicole : Are you kidding? I wanted to be married. I’d already lost. You didn’t

love me as much as I loved you. You’re so merged with your own

selfishness that you don’t even identify it as selfishness anymore.

You’re such a dick!

Charlie : Every day I wake up and hope you’re dead.. dead like – If I could guarantee

Henry would be ok, I’d hope you get an illness and then get hit by a car

and die!

Nicole : I know.

Charlie : I’m sorry

Nicole : Me too.

The conversation above takes place in Charlie’s house. The participants of

the conversation are Charlie and Nicole. Emotive function emerge in this

conversation. In this scene, Nicole visits Charlie's new house after they have gone

through their first divorce proceeding. Nicole intends to discuss their marriage

again because they have never talked about their feelings thoroughly. The initially

light conversation becomes tense when both characters pour out all their long-

hidden feelings and emotions to each other.

In this conversation, the participant’s relationship appears to be the pivotal

social factor that gives an impact on the language function in Nicole’s utterance.

As a married couple, they have completely known each other’s characters so they

can talk freely with all emotions, for instance, both Nicole and Charlie use swear

words to express anger. This proves that there is also a connection between

language function and social dimension, such as a social distance scale. They have

high solidarity since they speak straight forward towards each other. In terms of the

formality scale, the location of the conversation has shown that it has a low

formality scale. Besides, in this dialogue, Charlie and Nicole tend to show their

29

expression more than information. Therefore, the conversation lowers the

referential scale and brings up the affective function scales. By the explanation

above, it is clear that emotive function is spoken by Nicole and Charlie to show

their emotional feeling towards each other.

Datum 3

Time (01:35:47 – 01:35:58)

Context:

Charlie and Nicole meet right after their first divorce trial. They discuss

what they need to do afterward following both lawyers’ suggestions. However, they

are pissed off with what their lawyers say.

Nicole : Nora says there’s no coming back from this.

Charlie : Fuck Nora. I hate fucking Nora telling me I always lived in LA. Even

though I never lived in LA. How could you have her say those things

about me?

Nicole : Jay said them about me too!

Charlie : I needed my own asshole!

The participants of the dialogue above are Charlie and Nicole. They reflect

a low formality scale because the setting is at Nicole’s house. In this dialogue they

are talking about their lawyer’s behaviour. Charlie’s first utterance in the dialogue

indicates emotive function because he intends to express his annoyance towards

Nicole’s lawyer, Nora. Responding to Charlie’s arguments, Nicole claims that

Charlie’s lawyer, Jay, is also doing what Nora has done. They come to the

conclusion that both lawyers give untruthful information about them. Nora’s

attitude triggers Charlie to reveal his feeling of annoyed and hateful towards Nora.

30

He says, “Fuck Nora. I hate fucking Nora telling me I always lived in LA. Even

though I never lived in LA. How could you have her say those things about me?”.

Charlie’s trying to emphasize his annoyance and dejection towards Nora by saying

a swear word in his utterance.

Concerning Charlie’s utterance, the participant and the topic of the

conversation determine the emotive function that Charlie would use. He exactly

knows Nicole’s characters so that he frankly spills the guts over Nora to her. Based

on Holmes’s social distance scale, those swear words and the way he tells Nicole

about Nora shows that they have high solidarity that makes them express any

emotion outspokenly and comfortably. The dialogue also has high affective scale

since they prioritize to show their feeling and underrate information. In conclusion,

Charlie’s utterance is emotive because he expresses his feeling of annoyance and

hateful towards Nora.

Datum 4

Time (01:11:38 – 01:11:56)

Context:

Charlie and Nicole are arguing over the phone. Charlie takes issue with

Nicole who hacks into his account, while Nicole finds out her husband is having an

affair with someone else.

Charlie : How did you read my emails?

Nicole : I hacked into your account you dumb fuck!

Charlie : I think that’s illegal.

Nicole : About a week ago, so don’t give me this shit about being surprised about

LA. Surprise! I have opinions. Surprise! I want things that aren’t what

you want because surprise you were fucking another lady!

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Charlie : How do you even know how to do something like that? I think you’re

conflating two different things. Mary Ann has nothing to do with LA.

Nicole : I’m conflating motherfucker! Watch me conflate!

The conversation above shows that Nicole expresses her anger against

Charlie. The participants of the conversation are Charlie and Nicole. The situation

is informal because the conversation is on the phone and they are discussing about

their personal problem. At this moment, both Charlie and Nicole are arguing about

the fact that Nicole hacked into Charlie’s email and found out that Charlie had an

affair. Their close relationship as husband and wife leads them to have informal

language choices and swearing words. Additionally, the topic in this conversation

is his husband’s affair that makes Nicole irritated and use swear words over him.

This proves how social factors, such as participants and topics, can influence the

way people speak.

At first, Charlie asks Nicole to discuss their divorce but Nicole refuses to do

so. Charlie thinks that Nicole takes their problem for granted and it makes him get

mad with her. Nicole subsequently asserts that she has hacked Charlie’s email

account and finds out that her husband is having an affair with another woman.

Here, Nicole also uses curse word such as “dumb fuck” and “motherfucker” to

emphasize her feeling of disappointment and resentment regarding Charlie’s

disloyalty. In terms of functional scales by Holmes, their conversation shows

expression-oriented interaction that requires the expression of feelings rather than

to bring the information. Thus, it brings up the affective function scale. By the

explanation above, I can say that emotive function is spoken by Nicole to show her

emotional feeling of disbelief and disappointment towards Charlie.

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Datum 5

Time (01:58:25 – 01:58:46)

Context:

Nora is visiting Nicole’s new house in Los Angeles. She also intends to

share the good news with Nicole that they win the divorce trial.

Nora : So, because Charlie dropped his claim to New York, we’re mostly done.

Jay’s lost interest and Ted, his associate, is doing the paper work.

Nicole : And we’re not taking any money, right?

Nora : We withdrew the claim for the MacArthur, which I think we could have

gotten by the way, and they’re not asking for any of the show.

Nicole : Oh good.. Thank you for everything Nora..

Nora : You’re welcome, doll.

The dialogue above shows Nicole’s gratefulness to Nora for all the help for

finally winning the divorce. The setting causes informal situation because the

conversation takes place in Nicole’s house. This conversation starts with Nicole

who invites Nora to celebrate her new house in Los Angeles. One moment at the

party, Nora approaches Nicole to let her know two exhilarating news; they almost

win the divorce after a long complicated process, and Nora does not take any cent

from Charlie. By saying “Oh good.. Thank you for everything, Nora”, Nicole shows

her gratitude to Nora who has helped her a lot throughout the divorce process. In

this conversation, the topic and participant as the social factors influence the

language function used by Nicole. Nicole wants to express her gratitude to Nora for

all her help during the trial.

Nicole’s utterance is categorized as emotive because she not only thanks

Nora but also expresses her happiness for finally winning the divorce. This is also

33

supported by her facial expression and blurry eyes when hearing the good

news. Concerning the social distance scale, Nicole and Nora have frequently met

each other and discussed their problems together which indicate a close relationship

between the two of them. Nicole’s utterance is highly affective rather than

referential because she tends to show her feeling rather than providing information.

In conclusion, Nicole’s utterance is emotive, as the utterance is used to show her

feeling of happiness and gratitude towards Nora.

4.2.2 Referential Function

Referential function focuses on the context and provides information. It can

be used to inform a report, description, statement, confirmation, and explanation of

something. These following utterances in bold are examples of referential taken

from Nicole and Charlie’s utterances:

Datum 6

Time (00:13:44 – 00:14:41)

Context:

Charlie and Nicole arrive at home after enjoying their theatre show. When

both of them are about to rest, Nicole thinks that Charlie wants to give feedback on

her performance during the show. Charlie admits and then reveals it.

Nicole : I can tell you want to give me a note.

Charlie : No, I don’t... Yeah, I mean, yes I do. But I guess, I guess it doesn’t matter

now. You won’t be with the show anymore. It’s stupid.

Nicole : You’re not going to be able to go to sleep until you tell me.

Charlie : Maybe not.

Nicole : Okay then.

Charlie : Well, yes, okay, but just because saying it out loud might help me

remember it for later.

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Nicole : Sure.

Charlie : So, there were two things, I thought your posture at the top of scene

seven was still too dignified.

Nicole : Okay

Charlie : And then at the end, I could tell that you were pushing for the emotion.

Nicole : You know I can’t cry on stage and I know you don’t like it when I fake it,

but I thought maybe it would come tonight. But it didn’t...

Charlie : That’s all I had. Thanks for indulging me.

Nicole : Good night Charlie.

The dialogue above shows that Charlie’s utterance indicates referential. The

main purpose of referential is to provides information to the hearer at the moment.

The dialogue takes place in the living room at night so this dialogue is low in

formality scale. The topic, as we can see from the datum above, is about Nicole’s

performance last night. In this scene, after arriving at home Nicole guesses that

Charlie would give her a note about her acting performance. Charlie initially refuses

but then admits that he needs to tell something to Nicole regarding her performance

last night. Charlie conveys that Nicole must be concerned about two things: her

posture and emotion. He suggests Nicole to practice expressing her emotion more

naturally. Here, the topic and the function of the interaction becomes the social

factors that influence the language function. By giving such a suggestion, Charlie

implicitly has a purpose to help Nicole to make an improvement in her next

performance.

In terms of social distance scale, Nicole and Charlie as a married couple feel

somewhat distant and estranged from one another indicating that they are in a

struggle to maintain a happy relationship. Moreover, they show a high referential

scale and low affective scale because they prioritize new information and ignore

35

their feelings. In conclusion, Charlie’s utterance indicates referential function

because he uses language to share his thoughts and information with Nicole.

Datum 7

Time (00:16:13 – 00:16:28)

Context:

Nicole and her son Henry spend the night together in Nicole’s mom’s house

in Los Angeles. Nicole’s mom Sandra is surprised and asked if Nicole and Henry

are still in the same room. Nicole then denies it.

Sandra : Do you always sleep together? Even in New York?

Nicole : It’s just for now, while we go through this transition. Shit, don’t tell

Charlie when he gets here -- he hates co-sleeping.

Sandra : Well, I have to say, I agree with Charlie.

Nicole : Surprise, surprise

This informal interaction involves Nicole and her mother Sandra as the

participant and takes place in the Nicole’s room. The topic of the conversation is

about Nicole and her child Henry who often spend the night together. From the

dialogue above, referential function appears in Nicole’s utterance because she

wants to explain something to Sandra. In this situation, Sandra, who was wake up

first, entered Nicole’s room and saw that Nicole had just woke up with Henry lying

next to her.

Sandra then asks Nicole if she always slept together with Henry even in

New York. Nicole counters by saying that she’s only slept with Henry while they

were in transition, not every day. From the statement, I can assume that Nicole as a

speaker using referential function to provides information to her mother.

36

In relation to the formality scale, they use informal language choice because

they are inside Nicole’s room. The spontaneous swear word ‘Shit’ in her utterance

indicates that she has a close relationship with her mother and she uses those

expressions to express surprise. This proves that the participant’s relationship as a

social factor influences the way Nicole speaks to her mother. Another reason

concerns their close relationship, is confirmed by Sandra’s response that implies

she does not get irritated nor bothered by Nicole’s utterance. Nicole here more often

delivers information and does not express her feeling and emotion to her mother in

which indicates a high information content. In conclusion, Nicole’s utterance is

referential, as the utterance is used to convey information to her mother.

Datum 8

Time (00:43:23 – 00:43:44)

Context:

When Charlie is in Nicole’s house, she indirectly asks Charlie not to stay at

her house and suggests a new, comfortable, affordable hotel for him as an option to

stay while in Los Angeles.

Nicole : Where are you staying?

Charlie : Oh, um...I hadn’t...I guess I’ll...

Nicole : There’s a new hotel over on Highland that’s supposedly not too

expensive and pretty nice

Charlie : Oh.. ok, I’ll check it out

The participants of the conversation were Nicole as speaker and Charlie as

hearer. The scene takes place in Nicole’s house at night. The conversation topic is

about Charlie’s place to spend the night while staying in Los Angeles. In this scene,

37

Charlie thinks that he can stay at Nicole’s house that night. Nicole however asks

Charlie where he would stay, and indirectly asks him to look for an other place to

stay. Nicole then gives a recommendation to Charlie about the new hotel on

Highland that can be an option to stay. In this conversation, the role of the

participant influences how Nicole composes an utterance. Nicole does not feel

reluctant to let Charlie stay in another place because of their tenuous marriage

relationship.

The low formality scale brings them to use their daily interaction. In terms

of Holmes’s social distance scale, the dialogue above shows low solidarity due to

the unhealthy relationship between Nicole and Charlie. Nicole asks Charlie to not

stay at her house and suggests him to look for another homestay to stay. Moreover,

the dialogue also shows low affective content and high referential content because

Nicole delivers information about the new hotel to Charlie and avoids expressing

emotions. As a result, Nicole’s utterance is categorized as referential, since she

purposefully provides information about the new hotel where Charlie can stay.

Datum 9

Time (00:46:20 – 00:46:26)

Context:

Charlie comes to the office of Jay’s, a lawyer. He intends to talk about his

divorce and attorney fees. Jay subsequently reads through Charlie’s document and

asks about the Exit Ghost.

Jay : What’s Exit Goat?

Charlie : Exit Ghost. It’s the name of my theatre company.

38

Jay : You’re a director?

Charlie : Theatre director, yeah.

The scene that occurs at Jay’s office above involves Charlie and Charlie’s

lawyer candidate Jay as participants. As we can see from the datum above, they are

talking about Charlie’s theatre company. In that dialogue, Charlie produces a

referential function since he uses language to convey new information about his

theatre to Jay. The topic and the function of the interaction relatively have close

connection with language function spoken by Charlie. Jay at the time is reading

Charlie’s document and then asking him for a confirmation about the meaning of

Exit Ghost. Charlie replies that Exit Ghost is the name of his theatre company.

Hence, he shares new information with Jay about his job and the theatre’s name.

Referring to Holmes’s formality and social distance scale, the situation is

quite formal and they have high distant relationship and low solidarity because this

is their very first meeting and the conversation takes place in office. Social scale

does not have a quite important influence in this situation, because they share the

same age. Moreover, this conversation is marked as high referential content and

low affective content due to the presence of information exchange. Thus, by the

explanation above, I can say that Charlie’s utterance can be categorized as

referential because he describes about his theatre company to Jay.

Datum 10

Time (01:01:59 – 01:03:20)

Context:

39

Charlie comes upon another lawyer’s office, Bert. He gets the vibe with this

lawyer and finally tells her everything about Nicole. Bert gives an abundance of

advice to him afterward.

Charlie : So.. What do I do?

Bert : I recommend you try to spend as much time with your child as possible.

Many people fight to get the time and then they don’t even use it. They just

want to win.

Charlie : This shouldn’t be that complicated, right? I mean, we’re a New York

family. I think it’s all pretty straight-forward.

Bert : I hope so, yes. I see no reason-- you both love your son, you respect

each other--why this shouldn’t be relatively pain-free?

Charlie : Yes. Right.

Bert : I want you to know that eventually this will all be over and whatever we

win or lose, it’ll be the two of you having to figure this out together.

Charlie : Thank you, Sir. You’re the first person in this process who has spoken

to me like a human.

The participants of this conversation are Charlie and Charlie’s lawyer Bert.

The situation above takes place in Bert’s office. Charlie meets his lawyer Bert to

ask recommendations for winning the child custody case. In this conversation,

Charlie tells Bert the background story of his divorce with Nicole and gives the

reason for what brings him to Bert. Bert then listens to Charlie carefully and gives

some advices. After listening to Bert’s advice, Charlie feels beyond lucky to have

met Bert. Bert is the one who completely understands his currect condition. In this

conversation, the setting, participant, and topic of the interaction influence the

language function used by Charlie. Because they talk about the divorce issues in

Bert’s office and it is their first time to meet as a lawyer and client, they show a

distant relationship and high formality scale.

40

Concerning the content of the conversation, the dialogue above categorized

as referential because both Charlie and Bert are sharing their thought and

knowledge. Moreover, based on the functional scale, this conversation is marked as

high referential content and low affective content because they do not show

emotional expressiveness nor feeling. The status scale indicates that Bert has a

higher status because he is a senior lawyer makes Charlie use more polite language

to keep the balance of their statuses. Based on the analysis above, the conversation

indicates referential because both Charlie and Bert give information and suggestion

to each other.

Datum 11

Time (01:48:01 – 01:48:09)

Context:

An evaluator comes to Charlie’s house to evaluate Charlie and Henry's

relationship as father and son. During the interview session, the evaluator asks why

Charlie could not pick up Henry at school.

Evaluator : What prevents you from picking him up?

Charlie : Um, you know, work. I’m preparing a play I’m directing in a few

months.

Evaluator : Oh, what is that?

Charlie : Kasimir and Karoline by Odon von Horvath? We’re doing it

at the Barrow in New York.

The analysis above shows that Charlie’s utterance categorized as referential.

The participants are Charlie and the evaluator and the conversation takes place at

Charlie’s apartment. The topic of the conversation is about Charlie’s play in New

41

York. In this point, the evaluator asks many questions about Charlie’s daily life and

how his relationship with Henry is. The evaluator then raises a question about what

prevents Charlie from taking and picking up Henry from school. Charlie then

answers the evaluator’s question and explains that he cannot pick Henry up from

school because he is preparing a Kasimir and Karoline play by Odon von Horvath

in New York.

In terms of participant relationship, since Charlie and the evaluator have

never met before and this is their first meeting, the dialogue shows a high distant

relationship. They discuss a quite serious matter which makes them use semi-formal

language. They also share the same age, so the status scale does not have a quite

important influence in this situation. Moreover, the evaluator has important roles

to collect as much data for the divorce proceedings later, so this conversation is

marked as high referential content and low affective content because they requires

a lot of information. As a result, Charlie’s utterance indicates referential because he

describes information about the play to the evaluator.

4.2.3 Conative Function

Conative function concerns the use of language to influence and manage the

participant’s behaviour or attitudes ranging from a rather polite or request to a more

forceful command or order. These following utterancess in bold are examples of

conative function:

Datum 12

Time (00:55:36 – 00:55:44)

Context:

42

Charlie picks Henry up at Nicole’s house to spend the weekend together.

By the time Charlie arrives, Henry is engrossed in playing with Nicole. Charlie asks

Henry to hurry up and get going.

Charlie : Henry! Come on!

Henry : Can’t I stay with Mom?

Charlie : No—

Henry : Why not?

Charlie : It’s my time with you. I just flew three thousand miles.

Henry : I don’t want to—

Charlie : Henry, get in the fucking car! I’m sorry, but Jesus, get in the fucking

car.

This informal conversation happens in front of Nicole’s house and the

participants are Henry and Charlie. They must have a high intimacy because they

are father and son. This conversation contains conative function since Charlie gives

a command to Henry. In this situation, Charlie, who has just arrived in Los Angeles

from New York, wants to pick Henry up from Nicole’s house to have some quality

time with him. Arriving at Nicole’s house, Henry is playing treasure hunt with

Nicole and busily running around to look for treasure instead of approaching

Charlie. Consequently, Charlie shouts at Henry to get him ready to go quickly but

Henry asks him whether he can stay with Nicole instead of going out with Charlie.

Charlie says no because he has set the plan but Henry still refuses. Charlie is mad

and shouts in a loud, “Henry, get in the fucking car! I’m sorry, but Jesus, get in the

fucking car”.

Those imperative sentences prove that the social factor and social dimension

affects the use of the swear word. The close relationship between the participant;

Henry and Charlie is shown from the use of swear words when Charlie talks to his

43

son. Charlie may not use swear words if he talks to a person that he does not know

well. To emphasize his superiority, Charlie uses swear words to force Henry to get

in the car. Thus, by the explanation above, Charlie’s utterance is categorized as a

conative because he implies the expectation of Henry compliance with the

command.

Datum 13

Time (00:32:32 – 00:32:41)

Context:

Nicole is making a scenario on how to hand the divorce paper to Charlie.

She wants to tell him in a casual way and does not want to make it awkward. She

finally asks Cassie, his sister, to hand over the divorce paper to Charlie.

Nicole : So, Cassie, you’re going to hand him the envelope.

Cassie : Why do I have to do it?

Sandra : Because Nicole is very good at getting people to do things for her.

Nicole : That’s not what this is.

The participants of the conversation above are Nicole, her sister Cassie and

her mother Sandra. The conversation happens at Nicole’s house and the topic of

conversation is about Cassie who has to give an envelope to Charlie. Here, Nicole

asks Cassie to give an envelope containing divorce letters to Charlie. Nicole does

that way because legally she can’t be the one who hand the envelope. Without

further ado, Nicole straightforwardly appoints Cassie to hand the envelope to

Charlie. Nicole’s utterance can be categorized as conative because her command

should be fulfilled by Cassie.

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A social factor that influences the language function in Nicole’s utterance

is the participant because she directly gives an order and expresses her command in

an imperative statement since Cassie is her sister and they have an intimate

relationship. Moreover, because the dialogue occurs at the house, they tend to use

informal conversation or low formality scale. The dialogue is marked as low

affective content or high information content since Nicole uses language to give a

direct command to Cassie. Thus, Nicole’s utterance is categorized as a conative

since the utterance is used to ask someone to do an action.

Datum 14

Time (00:33:26 – 00:33:37)

Context:

Sandra, Nicole’s mom, doubts Nicole's plan to divorce Charlie. Nicole then

tries to understand her mom’s feelings and asks Sandra to trust her and always be

by her side during the divorce process.

Nicole : Now you’re both just making me feel bad about it, ok.

Cassie : Sorry... Sorry. I’m nervous.

Sandra : We all are. And we love Charlie.

Nicole : You have to stop loving him, Mom. You can’t be his friend anymore.

Sandra: Charlie and I have our own relationship independent of your marriage

just like I’m friends with Cassie’s ex, Jeff--

Cassie : Are you still seeing Jeff?

Sandra : An occasional lunch.

Cassie : I can’t believe you!

Nicole : Listen, nothing can be independent of our marriage right now. I

can’t believe I have to explain this to you. Just be on my side. Ok?

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The utterance spoken by Nicole above indicates that Nicole as the speaker

wants her mother Sandra, to do something. The participants of the conversation are

Nicole, Cassie, and Sandra and the setting of the conversation is in the living room.

Their conversation topic, as we can see from datum above, is about Nicole's

pretension to see her mother and sister to be on her side at such a crucial time instead

of Charlie's. As shown at the datum above, the conversation shows how Cassie and

Sandra love Charlie so much and feel too bad for him. Thus, they try to induce

Nicole with the expectation of changing Nicole’s mind to divorce Charlie.

However, Nicole insists on her decision and commands her mother to stop

loving Charlie. Nicole cannot blame her mother for still loving Charlie, but she

hopes that her mother understands her arduous circumstances and is on her side

instead of Charlie’s. Social factors that influence the language function used by

Nicole here are the topic and participant. She noticeably has an intimate relationship

with her mother and sister since she gives a straightforward command. Because the

topic of this conversation is her divorce, Nicole firmly believes that it is the right

and best decision for her life. Therefore, Nicole only begs for support from her

family to stay on her side. Based on the functional scale, the dialogue shows low

referential content and high affective content because Charlie delivers his saying

with full of emotion and frantic feelings. In conclusion, Nicole’s utterance is

conative as she gets Sandra to comply with her request.

Datum 15

Time (01:06:34 – 01:06:39)

Context:

46

Charlie and Henry arrive at the hotel where Charlie stays at. By the time

they enter the room, Charlie immediately asks Henry to go to the bathroom because

they will be leaving for Halloween.

Henry : This is a nice house.

Charlie : Go pee and then we’re going back out!

Henry : I’m too tired!

Charlie : Go pee and then we’re going to go drive to Halloween!

The dialogue between Charlie as the addresser and Henry as the addressee

takes place in a hotel room. The topic of the dialogue is about Charlie who asks

Henry to pee. In the dialogue above, Charlie produces two utterances that contain

conative function in an imperative commands. In this scene, Charlie is going to

take Henry for a Halloween party but they stop by the hotel first because Henry

wants to pee. Arriving at the hotel, Henry does not go right away to the toilet.

Instead, he lays down on the floor while sorting his candies. Looking at that, Charlie

hurries his son to go pee, but Henry refuses because he feels too tired. Charlie then

produces the second imperative sentence to get his son to go to the toilet right away

so that they can immediately go to the party.

In terms of the social scale, their relationship as father and son reflects an

intimate relationship that makes them to use informal language choice. Besides, to

emphasize his superiority as a father, Charlie uses a direct and imperative command

to force Henry to pee. This also shows an interconnectedness between language

functions and the influence of participants as social factors. The dialogue shows a

low affective scale since no emotion is involved. In conclusion, Charlie’s utterance

is conative, as the utterance is used to get Henry to do an action.

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Datum 16

Time (01:03:48 – 01:04:05)

Context:

Charlie worries that Henry will forget about their plan to go to a Halloween

party together. To anticipate that, Charlie asks Nicole a favor to persuade Henry to

wear the costume Charlie and Henry have agreed on together.

Charlie : You know I had Donna build him this whole Frankenstein thing with the

plugs and –

Nicole : The cousins are ninjas so he wanted to do that too.

Charlie : But he and I had decided together—

Nicole : I can’t make him be Frankenstein.

Charlie : I’m not asking you to. But maybe you could help me out a little? I’ll

leave the Frankenstein here and maybe you can nudge him in that

direction—

Nicole : I’ll try.

The scene occurring at a backyard shows Charlie and Nicole who are

arguing about a Halloween costume that Henry will wear. In this situation, after

knowing that Henry wants to wear a Ninja costume, Charlie worries if Henry forgets

their plan. He expects Nicole to induce Henry to wear the Frankenstein costume

that he made. Charlie, using a conative function, urges Nicole to nudge Henry to

wear the Frankenstein costume. By leaving the costume at Nicole’s house, Charlie

terribly hopes that Nicole is willing to persuade Henry to wear the costume. In this

case, the participant as the social factor influences the way Charlie produces

language function. Due to an unharmonious relationship, Charlie will be more

careful about asking Nicole for help and more likely to use the declarative or

imperative forms instead of an interrogative one.

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The conflicted conversation and how Nicole responses to Charlie indicate

the low solidarity scale between them. Meanwhile, in terms of the formality scale,

the location of the conversation represents the low formality scale. They also exhibit

low affective content since they use language to provide information. Based on the

explanation above, Charlie’s utterance contains conative function in the

interrogative form, and Charlie used the utterance to persuade Nicole to do his

instruction.

Datum 17

Time (01:50:42 – 01:50:58)

Context:

Charlie is preparing some food in the kitchen, while Henry is playing in his

room. Because Charlie is busy cooking, he then asks Henry to tidy up the dining

table.

Charlie : Sweetheart, do you want to help me set the table?

Henry : Do I have to?

Charlie : Just come in here and grab a plate.

Henry : I’m playing.

Charlie : Henry!

In the conversation above, the participants are Charlie as the addresser and

Henry as the addressee. The setting of the conversation is at Charlie’s house. The

topic of the conversation is about Charlie who asks for help from Henry. The

conversation presents the conative function when Henry refuses to help his Dad

when preparing for dinner. In this situation, Charlie makes a lot of burners and mess

of the kitchen while Henry is playing with the toys in another room. Charlie asks

49

for help from Henry by yelling, “Sweetheart, do you want to help me set the table?”.

He calls Henry to help him set the dining table. However, Henry refuses to move

and keep playing. Charlie rises his intonation in the second utterance to make Henry

follow his instruction. He shouts, “Just come in here and grab a plate!”.

Based on the social distance scale, their relationship as father and son

reflects high solidarity. Charlie’s rising intonation only aims to get an immediate

response from Henry. Moreover, in terms of status scale, it is normal for Charlie as

a father to raise his intonation when asking help from his little son to set the dining

table. This scale is connected with a social factor, such as participants of an

interaction. They also use informal language choice because they are at home. The

low affective scale is also implied from the dialog that does not involve any

expression of feeling. Based on the explanation above, Charlie’s utterance is

conative, as the utterance is used to get Henry to follow his instructions.

Datum 18

Time (01:52:29 – 01:52:43)

Context:

Charlie is helping Henry doing his homework. He helps his son who finds

difficulty in spelling a word.

Henry : Dime, rime, lime, pime, sime—

Charlie : Honey, stop guessing. You’re so close, stay with it.

Henry : Ugh, I don’t want to do it.

Charlie : What’s the first letter?

Henry : I don’t want to do it. Can I do the iPad?

Charlie : No. Just look, what’s the first letter?

Henry : I don’t want to.

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The analysis above shows that Charlie’s utterance indicates conative

function because he asks the addresse to follow his command. The scene occurring

in the living room shows Henry and Charlie discussing about the assignment that

Henry is working on. In this situation, Charlie helps Henry to do his homework by

spelling some words. Henry continuously guesses the answer to a question that

makes Charlie interrupts him, “Honey, stop guessing. You’re so close, stay with it”.

Here, the participant and topic of the dialogue influence the language function used

by Charlie. Charlie asks Henry to focus on the word in the book and stop guessing

the answer. He gently asks Henry not to be lazy to read.

Based on Holmes’s social distance scale, the conversation shows that

Charlie possesses a high intimacy with Henry. Moreover, his role as a father makes

Charlie know when he needs to be casual and assertive with Henry. The

conversation gets more casual because it happens at home which leads the

participants to use informal language. On the other hand, they do not show much

feeling because they are in a learning activity. Thus, this conversation causes low

affective and high information content. In conclusion, the analysis above shows that

Charlie’s utterance indicates conative function because he asks Henry to follow his

command.

4.2.4 Metalingual Function

Metalingual function aims to check up the code of the language or to convey

information about the lexical code of languages, such as explaining an item with

synonyms, definitions, paraphrases, or examples. These following utterances in

bold are examples of metalingual function:

51

Datum 19

Time (00:33:15 – 00:33:23)

Context:

Nicole is making a plan on how to give Charlie the divorce paper. However,

Cassie and Sandra are doubtful about her plan and ask her to make sure of that

again.

Cassie : OK, I just get nervous—

Sandra : Can you un-serve?

Nicole : What do you mean, like take it back?

Sandra : Yeah.

Nicole : I think so.

Cassie : You should check.

Sandra : In case we change our minds.

Nicole : I’m not going to change my mind

The dialogue takes place in Nicole’s house in the daytime. The participants

in the dialogue are Cassie, Sandra, and Nicole. They are discussing a divorce letter

to be given to Charlie. In this situation, Cassie, Sandra, and Nicole are waiting for

Charlie to come home. To avoid suspicion, Nicole has prepared a scenario for

handing over the envelope containing a divorce letter to Charlie in a natural way.

However, Sandra is unsure about Nicole’s plan and asks what if she un-serves the

envelope to anticipate that Nicole could change her mind. As Nicole does not get

Sandra’s intention, she confirms whether she should cancel her plan or not. Her

intonation also indicates a curiosity toward her mother’s utterance. Nicole’s

utterance is metalingual since Nicole uses language to recheck Sandra’s utterance.

Regarding to the social factor (participant), as a family, they must have a

close relationship with one another. This can be seen from how Nicole’s mother

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and sister suggest Nicole. They also use informal language choice since the

dialogue occurs at the house. The dialogue reflects a low affective content because

Nicole here intends to both ask and provide information. In conclusion, Nicole’s

utterance contains metalingual function because she uses language to ask for

clarification in Sandra’s utterance.

Datum 20

Time (02:09:05 – 02:09:33)

Context:

Charlie finds Henry confused about a word in a letter. Then he comes over

and helps Henry to understand it.

Charlie : “He’s brilliant at creating family out of whoever is around. With the

theatre company he cast a spell that made everyone feel included. No

one, not even an intern was unimportant.”

Henry : What’s an intern?

Charlie : It’s like a helper. But who isn’t paid.

Henry : Why aren’t they paid?

Charlie : They’re young. They’re learning.. hmm I don’t know, maybe if they

do a good job, they get paid later?

Henry : Ok, keep going.

The participants of the dialogue above are Charlie and Henry. This father-

and-son interaction is low in formality scale because the conversation occurs in

Henry’s room. In this situation, Charlie is about to help Henry, who has a reading

difficulty read Nicole’s letter about Charlie. When Charlie mentions “intern”,

Henry looks confused about it. Charlie then explains what the word means by

saying that an intern it’s like a helper but who isn’t paid. By saying so, Charlie has

used the metalingual function because he explains the meaning of “intern” to

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Henry. In this conversation, the participant and topic of the interaction become the

factors that influence the language function used by Charlie. In this context, Henry

does not understand what ‘intern’ means; therefore, Charlie tries to explain using

clear and informal language to make Henry get it easily.

Their close relationship as father and son reflects high solidarity because

they choose to use the regular interactions they have. In terms of the functional

scale, they have high information content and low affective content because Charlie

uses language to provide information to Henry instead of expressing a certain

feeling. Thus, by the explanation above, the dialogue between Henry and Charlie

represents the metalingual function because Charlie explains the definition of

‘intern’ to Henry.

Datum 21

Time (00:18:26 – 00:18:39)

Context:

In the middle of the shooting, the director asks Nicole to change her body

movement. However, Nicole is confused with the direction and then decides to

confirm what she should do to the director.

Male producer : Can you move your hand further down the baby?

Nicole : What do you mean? Like down here?

Director : Off his head entirely—

Nicole : I’d need to support his head.

Director : No, no, support the head, of course, just try to do it from the

shoulders?

54

The conversation between the male producer, director, and Nicole takes

place at the TV studio on Nicole’s first day of work. The topic of the conversation

is about the properties that Nicole carries. In this scene, Nicole is standing in front

of a camera carrying a baby doll made of a blue foamy ball. In the middle of the

shooting process, the male producer gives Nicole direction to move her hand further

down the baby. Nicole doubts upon his request since she needs to support the baby’s

head and confirms, “What do you mean? Like down here?” in order to recheck the

male producer language.

Based on Holmes’s social dimension scale, this dialogue shows a distant

relationship between Nicole, the producer, and the director because it is Nicole's

first day of working in the TV studio. She does not make friends with many

colleagues yet. This also shows the relationship between language function and

social factors such as participant and setting. Nicole uses a formal language when

she is talking to her director in the office. Moreover, they show a low affective scale

and high referential content because Nicole asks for direction and the director give

a suggestion to Nicole. By the explanation above, Nicole’s utterance is metalingual

because the utterance is used to comment on the addresser’s word choices

Datum 22

Time (00:52:05 – 00:52:21)

Context:

Charlie and Nora are discussing default judgment on the phone. While

they are talking, Charlie’s assistant, Frank, suddenly approaches him and makes

him not focus on what Nora says.

55

Nora : If you don’t file your response, we’re going to file a request for default

judgement against you.

Charlie : (to Frank) You can’t just tuck it in tighter or get Donna to safety pin it?

Frank : I also have a thing about tucking in things-- It’s a hold-over from

childhood. Insecurities about my figure.

Nora : Charlie?

Charlie : Yes, sorry— A default judgement. What does that mean?

Nora : We’ll be able to lay claim to whatever we want.

Charlie : What do you mean? Whatever you want of what?

Nora : Your apartment, your things--well, everything you own.

From the datum above, Nora and Charlie are involve in a phone

conversation about a default judgment for Charlie. Here Charlie presents two

utterances containing metalingual function. In this scene, Charlie’s assistant, Frank,

suddenly approaches Charlie to ask about the play costume when he is having a

phone call with Nora. This situation makes him miss some parts of Nora’s talks.

Charlie interrupts the dialogue with a confirmation question regarding the meaning

of ‘default judgment’. After listening to Nora’s explanation, Charlie still does not

get the idea and reconfirms the information for the second time.

Charlie’s utterances above present the metalingual function because he asks

for clarification of some missing points from Nora. The influence of the topic and

the participant interaction as social factors are identifiable in this dialogue. The

conversation shows a distant relationship between Nora and Charlie because they

have never interacted before while considering that Nora is Nicole's lawyer. They

also use formal language because they both do not know each other well and the

topic they talk about is considered serious. Regarding to Holmes’s functional scale,

the dialogue is categorized as high information content as they share a lot of

56

information. In conclusion, Charlie’s utterances is metalingual, as the utterances are

used to ask for clarification of some points from Nora’s utterance.

Datum 23

Time (01:19:00 – 01:19:21)

Context:

After meeting with Nicole and Nora, Charlie and Bert decide to have a brief

discussion about what decisions they would make at the divorce trial later.

Bert : Listen, if I were representing you—

Charlie :You are representing me.

Bert : Right, no, of course. I don’t see a judge moving this child from LA-- I

think we try to settle today—

Charlie : Settle meaning... what?

Bert : She gets LA, but—

Charlie : No, Bert... just no. I mean, we have to win this?

Bert : Remember, the win is what’s best for Henry. And if you guys go to court,

he’ll get pulled into it.

The scene shows Charlie and his first representative lawyer, Bert, having a

very private conversation in a small conference room. As shown in the conversation

above, they discuss child custody. In this scene, both Charlie and Nicole decide to

invite their own representative into the internal meeting. After having a long and

tense discussion, Bert asks Charlie to have an in-person discussion privately. They

discuss a decision they should take. While Bert is explaining, Charlie utters “Settle

meaning.. what?” in order to recheck Bert’s suggestion. Bert then tells Charlie what

settle meaning is. Based on the conversation between Bert and Charlie above,

Charlie presents a metalingual function because he uses language to ask for an

assurance from Bert.

57

According to the participants as one of the social factors, Bert and Charlie

have interacted a lot beforehand and those intense interaction make them have a

quite close relationship which also influence their status and formality scale. Their

speaking style looks more casual and they also use a more informal language even

though Bert is older than Charlie. Based on the functional scale, the dialogue shows

high information content because they exchange a lot of ideas and show less

emotion. Based on the explanation above, it is obvious that metalingual function is

spoken by Charlie to ask for clarification in Bert’s utterance.

4.2.5 Phatic Function

Phatic function is used when the speaker wants to achieve an optimal level

of relevance because of the speaker’s communicative intention, for instance, an

intention to speak with the interlocutor, to establish, prolong, or discontinue

communication or to expresses solidarity with others. These following utterances

in bold are examples of phatic function:

Datum 24

Time (00:35:17 – 00:35:29)

Context:

Charlie tells Nicole the good news that he has won the MacArthur grant.

Hearing this, Nicole feels blissful and gives compliments to Charlie for his

achievement.

Charlie : I won a MacArthur grant.

Nicole : Oh, Charlie, that’s so great. Congratulations!

Charlie : Thank you

Nicole : I’ll say it because you can’t, it’s the genius grant. You’re a genius.

58

Charlie : Well..

Nicole : I’m really happy for you. You deserve it.

The dialogue between Nicole and Charlie above takes place in Nicole’s

house in Los Angeles. The topic of the conversation is about Charlie who won a

MacArthur grant. From the dialogue between Nicole and Charlie above, Nicole’s

utterance represents the phatic function. In this scene, Charlie is informing Nicole

that he wins a MacArthur grant. It is a prize awarded by MacArthur Foundation to

anyone who works in any field and shows his/her extraordinary originality and

dedication in his/her creative pursuits. Nicole is totally amazed by Charlie’s

prestigious winning. She spontaneously expresses her joy by complimenting and

congratulating him. Nicole wants to share her feeling of happiness and proudness

toward Charlie because he finally wins a MacArthur grant. This proves that the way

people speak is influenced by the participant and the topic of interaction. Charlie

tells Nicole about his achievement, and Nicole responds to it with an appreciation

for feeling the same joy.

Based on social dimension scale, their nonverbal language such as hugging

each other and their manner indicates that they have high solidarity. Their

relationship as husband and wife also indicates intimate relationship. Moreover, the

setting of place and the use of informal language show low formality scale in their

conversation. In conlusion, Nicole’s utterances are categorized as phatic since her

word choices purposefully shows empathy towards Charlie’s achievement.

Datum 25

Time (00:55:28 – 00:55:33)

59

Context:

Charlie is securing Henry’s car seat, but then something sharp cuts Charlie's

finger until it bleeds. It makes Nicole worry about him.

Nicole : Here, you have dig—

Charlie : Ow, fuck.

Henry : Why “fuck?”

Nicole : Are you ok?

Charlie : Something’s sharp—

This conversation takes place in Nicole’s yard at daylight involves Nicole,

Henry, and Charlie. The topic of the conversation is about Nicole who worries about

Charlie’s bleeding finger. In this situation, Charlie tries to connect the booster seat

in the car. While Charlie tries to connect the booster, his finger hit something sharp.

After knowing that Charlie’s finger is bleeding, Nicole checks if he is fine in

response to Charlie’s condition. By the explanation above, Nicole’s utterance

indicates phatic because she uses language to expresses her concern to Charlie.

Regarding to Holmes’s social distance scale, Charlie and Nicole noticeably

have a high intimacy because Nicole instantly shows her concern and worry to her

husband whose finger is injured. This also shows the connection between language

function and a social factor, namely the participant. They also use informal

language because the conversation occurs at the house yard. In this situation, Nicole

and Charlie do not share much information. Instead, Nicole expresses her attention

to Charlie that indicates an affective content. In conclusion, Nicole’s utterance is

phatic, as the utterance is used to express her attention and concern to Charlie.

Datum 26

60

Time (01:12:04 – 01:12:36)

Context:

Nicole is arguing with Charlie on the phone while she is still at a new year’s

eve party. Feeling very annoyed, she stomps her foot so hard and it draws the

attention of a man nearby.

Pablo : Did you just stamp your foot?

Nicole : I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. I’m sorry I’m just so ANGRY.

Pablo : You look like you need one.

Nicole : I do. Thanks.

Pablo : You know the Japanese are making really interesting tequila right

now.

Nicole : That’s exciting! I guess.

Pablo : What are you so angry about?

Nicole : Ugh, my fucking ex-husband. I spend so much time feeling guilty, but he’s

so self-absorbed it’s pointless. It’s a game I’m playing with myself.

Pablo : Oh, hey, Pablo. We met at the—

Nicole : You held the bounce board!

Pablo : The flirty grip!

Based on the conversation above, Pablo and Nicole engage in an accidental

conversation at a Halloween party. In this scene, Nicole resentfully hangs up her

cellphone after having a long quarrel with Charlie by phone. A stranger suddenly

approaches and tries to break the ice by obliquely inviting Nicole to enjoy tequila.

Nicole responses to the invitation enthusiastically. After talking quite a lot, the

stranger introduces himself as Pablo. Nicole realizes something quickly that he’s

the one who held the bounce board. Then she finally recognizes Pablo, a man who

helps her hold the property in the TV studio where Nicole works.

The function of language used in this dialogue is phatic because they use

language to establish and prolong their very first conversation. Nicole specifically

61

uses language to build the nuance and keep up the communication with Pablo.

Factors that affected Nicole’s language function in this dialog are the setting and

participants. The dialogue implies low formality due to the setting of place and

situation and the use of informal language. Nicole and Pablo also show low

solidarity scale reflected from the unintimate way of speaking since it is their first

time speaking to each other. From the explanation above, I can say that Nicole’s

utterance is categorized as phatic, since she uses language to build the relationship

and keeping up the communication with Pablo.

Datum 27

Time (00:37:26 – 00:37:31)

Context:

Charlie finally meets Cassie after such a long time. He gives her a

compliment on her different hairstyle.

Cassie : Hey, Charlie.

Charlie : Cassie, I like your haircut.

Cassie : Oh, thanks.

The conversation between Cassie and Charlie above happens in the kitchen.

Charlie here talks about Cassie’s new haircut. The conversation above shows the

phatic function of language since Charlie uses an expression to give a compliment

to Cassie. In this case, Cassie with her new haircut enters the kitchen when Charlie

is drinking a glass of water. Charlie hasn’t seen Cassie in a long time, and he

decided to reconnect with her by giving a compliment to her haircut. By telling

Cassie that he loves her new haircut, Charlie produces the most common speech act

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in an everyday interaction consisting of a greeting and compliment to someone.

This also proves the connection between social factors and language functions, such

as the participant and the function of the interaction. Because Charlie has not seen

her sister in law for a long time, he intentionally says hello and tries to reconnect

with her.

In relation to the social dimensions scale, Charlie and Cassie have a close

relationship because Cassie is Nicole’s sister. Moreover, they tend to use informal

language as the conversation happens in the kitchen. They also show low affective

content because Charlie only gives a complement to Cassie and show less emotion

and feeling. Charlie’s utterance is phatic, for he does not really intend to express

his opinion about Cassie’s haircut, but he simply wants to reconnect with Cassie

and gives her a compliment. In conclusion, because the main function of Charlie’s

utterance is to keep social relationship, Charlie’s utterance is thus phatic, and not

referential.

Datum 28

Time (00:37:49 – 00:38:20)

Context:

Charlie and Cassie talking in the kitchen. In the middle of the conversation,

Cassie talks weirdly and nervously that she does not focus on what she says. Charlie

is confused and worries about her.

Charlie : What kind of pie is that?

Cassie : It’s... Pecan.

Charlie : Did you make it?

Cassie : I don’t know. No! It’s store bought. You know Joan’s on Third?

63

Charlie : Oh, yeah, that’s good, right?

Cassie : What? The store? Yeah! Jules and Molly love it.

Charlie: Are you ok?

Cassie : Yes. I’m just hot.

Charlie : I’ll pour you some water. Nicole says you’re doing a play?

The scene showing Charlie and Cassie here takes place in the kitchen when

they are having small talks. In this case, Charlie talks about the pie given by Cassie.

However, during the talk Cassie acts so strangely that she loses her focus. Charlie

then becomes worried and assures her condition. By the utterance “Are you ok?”,

this is clear that Charlie shows phatic function because he uses language to show

his empathy towards Cassie. Charlie subsequently offers her a glass of water and

tries to talk about something else to make sure Cassie is just fine. The topic of the

conversation here becomes one important thing. Charlie makes sure Cassie's

condition knowing that she is unfocused and off-topic. The topic in an interaction

serves to limit the context of the conversation.

According to the background of the conversation, the participants’

relationship, and the use of everyday conversation, both Charlie and Cassie reflect

high solidarity and low formality scales among them. The dialogue is also marked

as low affective content since it focuses more on giving and asking information than

expressing emotion and feeling. By the explanation above, I can say that phatic

function is spoken by Charlie to reveal his concern and sociability towards Cassie

by asking her condition.

Datum 29

Time (01:04:28 – 01:04:36)

64

Context:

When Charlie drives Henry to Nicole’s house, she has been waiting for them

on the terrace. Her face looks pale and she seems unhealthy. Arriving at Nicole’s

house, Charlie worries and makes sure of her condition.

Charlie : Is everything ok?

Nicole : Yeah, why?

Charlie : You seem...I don’t know like something is—

Nicole : Everything’s fine.

Charlie : Ok.

This short conversation between Charlie and Nicole takes place in Nicole’s

house at night. The topic of the conversation, as we can see from the datum above,

is about Nicole’s condition. From the conversation above, Charlie’s utterance

indicates phatic function of language. At this moment, Charlie drives Henry home

while Nicole has waited for them on the terrace. Arriving at home, Charlie is aware

that Nicole’s face looks pale and different. Thus, Charlie tries to show his caring

for Nicole by asking her condition. In this conversation, the function of the

interaction becomes an important factor because Charlie really worries and asks

about Nicole's condition.

Regarding the social distance scale, Nicole and Charlie’s relationship is not

yet harmonious so they feel somewhat distant and estranged from one another. This

is seen from Nicole’s short and intrusive answer. The location of the conversation

has shown that the conversation is low in formality scale. Moreover, the dialogue

is marked as low affective content due to the unhealthy relationship, Charlie can

only asks Nicole’s condition without showing too much emotion and feeling, so

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this conversation brings up referential content and affective content lower. In

conclusion, Charlie’s utterance can be categorized as phatic because Charlie put his

thought and attention towards Nicole.

4.2.6 Poetic Function

Poetic function is used when the speaker wants to produce utterances by using

playful diction to express their feeling, interest, or attitude and to draw the

addressee’s attention. This is an example of Charlie’s utterance categorized in

poetic function:

Datum 30

Time (00:35:55 – 00:37:04)

Context:

Upon arrival at Nicole's house in Los Angeles, Charlie meets his mother-in-

law, Sandra. They are extremely happy because they finally can meet and hug each

other tightly to release their longing.

Sandra : Hey there, Charlie-bird!

Charlie : Grandma! (Lifts Sandra up)

Sandra : Don’t! I’m so heavy!

Charlie : You’re light as a feather.

Sandra : Oh, God, I’m so huge!

Charlie : You didn’t respond to my email!

Sandra : Your emails are so articulate, I get intimidated!

This conversation taking place in Nicole’s house involves Charlie as the

addresser and his mother-in-law Sandra as the addressee. In this situation, Charlie

finally meets Sandra after a long time. Expressing his excitement, Charlie directly

lifts Sandra up with full of joy. Sandra shouts out to Charlie to not lift her up because

66

she is so heavy, but he says the opposite that she is light as a feather with a playful

intonation. This can be stated that Charlie’s utterance indicates poetic because he

uses an aesthetic feature making the statement beautiful. In relation to Holmes’s

social factor, the participant and function of the interaction play an important role

in Charlie's utterance. Due to their intimate relationship, Charlie has no hesitation

in expressing his feeling and complimenting Sandra using poetical language to

make her happy.

In relation to Holmes’s social distance scale, Charlie has a very close

relationship with his mother-in-law, Sandra. Sandra even called Charlie by his pet

name, ‘Charlie-bird’. This can be concluded that the dialogue above shows an

intimate relationship and high solidarity because Charlie also uses a beautiful

expression to praise Sandra. In terms of the formality scale, Charlie tends to use

informal language because the conversation takes place at Nicole's house.

Moreover, in this dialogue, Charlie shows a highly affective content than referential

because Charlie expresses both happiness and sadness to Sandra who does not meet

him for a long time. Thus, by the explanation above, Charlie produces one utterance

which refers to the poetic function because he uses aesthetic features such as

figurative language to praise Sandra.

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

The research analysis in the previous chapter has discussed: (1) the language

function used by Nicole and Charlie in the Marriage Story movie, and (2) the social

factors and dimensions influencing the main characters’ language function. After I

analyzed the language function (Jacobson: 1987) along with the social factor and

social dimension in the Marriage Story movie. I found that there are 118 data that

represent types of language function in the utterance employed by Nicole and

Charlie. The main characters oftentimes convey their feelings, thoughts, and

opinions resulting in emotional word choices, dynamic intonations, and

interjections. Those aspects put the emotive function into the most dominant

language function with thirty-five utterances (30%). Followed by referential with

thirty utterances (25%), the third is conative with twenty-six utterances (22%), the

fourth is metalingual with eight utterances (7%), the fifth is phatic with eight-teen

utterances (15%) and the least frequent language function is poetic with only 1

utterance (1%).

Social factors and dimensions intertwine with the function of language.

Concerning the social factors, participant interactions, such as an interaction among

family members or social participants, perpetually occur in every movie. As regards

setting or social context, the movie settings include public and private places. The

Marriage Story movie, however, involves many different topics and diverse

language functions in each conversation that rely on the places and occasions.

68

Solidarity, status, formality, and functional scales are identifiable social

dimensions in Nicole and Charlie’s utterances. Solidarity scale refers to the relative

intimacy among participants. The Marriage Story portrays not only high solidarity

through family dialogues including husband-wife, father-son, mother-son, mother-

daughter, and sister-sister intercourses but also low solidarity through conversations

between strange social participants, for example the main character with a

counselor or with an evaluator. Regarding the status or power scale, the high status

appears in the father to son, mother to son, mother to daughter, and lawyer to

participant conversations. Meanwhile, the low status that mostly emerges are from

husband to wife, relative to relative, and co-worker to co-worker.

Furthermore, the formality scale indicates formality and informality in the

speaking styles depending on the setting or social context. In this movie, high

formality exhibited in the formal setting, such as an office, is less dominant than

the low informal setting, such as a house, hotel room, and restaurant. It is because

many conversations occur in informal situations and involve participants who have

an intimate relationship. Lastly, the functional scale is comprise of referential and

affective functions. In this movie, affective function appears slightly more frequent

than referential faction since the typical interaction topics are marriage and divorce

making the participants tend to share their feelings.

In conclusion, the relationship of language functions and social contexts has

influenced the main characters’ language choices, while social factors and social

dimensions have modified their language production and language function.

69

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71

APPENDIX

Datum 1

Time (00:25:15 – 00:25:35)

Nora : Now, can you tell me a little bit more about what’s going on? Because

part of what we’re going to do together is tell your story.

Nicole : It’s difficult to articulate. Sorry. It’s like I know why I’m doing

this but I don’t know too. It’s not as simple as not being in love

anymore. EMOTIVE

Nora : I understand. Why don’t you start at the beginning, wherever that is for

you.

Datum 2

Time (01:11:35 – 01:11:59)

Nicole : I can’t believe I have to know you forever!

Charlie : You’re fucking insane! And you’re fucking winning!

Nicole : Are you kidding? I wanted to be married. I’d already lost. You didn’t

love me as much as I loved you. You’re so merged with your own

selfishness that you don’t even identify it as selfishness anymore.

You’re such a dick! EMOTIVE

Charlie : Every day I wake up and hope you’re dead.. dead like – If I could guarantee

Henry would be ok, I’d hope you get an illness and then get hit by a car

and die!

Nicole : I know.

Charlie : I’m sorry

Nicole : Me too.

Datum 3

Time (01:35:47 – 01:35:58)

Nicole : Nora says there’s no coming back from this.

Charlie : Fuck Nora. I hate fucking Nora telling me I always lived in LA. Even

though I never lived in LA. How could you have her say those things

about me? EMOTIVE

Nicole : Jay said them about me too!

Charlie : I needed my own asshole!

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Datum 4

Time (01:11:38 – 01:11:56)

Charlie : How did you read my emails?

Nicole : I hacked into your account you dumb fuck! EMOTIVE

Charlie : I think that’s illegal.

Nicole : About a week ago, so don’t give me this shit about being surprised about

LA. Surprise! I have opinions. Surprise! I want things that aren’t what

you want because surprise you were fucking another lady!

Charlie : How do you even know how to do something like that? I think you’re

conflating two different things. Mary Ann has nothing to do with LA.

Nicole : I’m conflating motherfucker! Watch me conflate! EMOTIVE

Datum 5

Time (01:58:25 – 01:58:46)

Nora : So, because Charlie dropped his claim to New York, we’re mostly done.

Jay’s lost interest and Ted, his associate, is doing the paper work.

Nicole : And we’re not taking any money, right?

Nora : We withdrew the claim for the MacArthur, which I think we could have

gotten by the way, and they’re not asking for any of the show.

Nicole : Oh good.. Thank you for everything Nora.. EMOTIVE

Nora : You’re welcome, doll.

Datum 6

Time (00:13:44 – 00:14:41)

Nicole : I can tell you want to give me a note.

Charlie : No, I don’t... Yeah, I mean, yes I do. But I guess, I guess it doesn’t matter

now. You won’t be with the show anymore. It’s stupid.

Nicole : You’re not going to be able to go to sleep until you tell me.

Charlie : Maybe not.

Nicole : Okay then.

Charlie : Well, yes, okay, but just because saying it out loud might help me

remember it for later.

Nicole : Sure.

Charlie : So, there were two things, I thought your posture at the top of scene

seven was still too dignified. REFERENTIAL

Nicole : Okay

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Charlie : And then at the end, I could tell that you were pushing for the emotion.

Nicole : You know I can’t cry on stage and I know you don’t like it when I fake it,

but I thought maybe it would come tonight. But it didn’t...

Charlie : That’s all I had. Thanks for indulging me.

Nicole : Good night Charlie.

Datum 7

Time (00:43:23 – 00:43:44)

Nicole : Where are you staying?

Charlie : Oh, um...I hadn’t...I guess I’ll...

Nicole : There’s a new hotel over on Highland that’s supposedly not too

expensive and pretty nice. REFERENTIAL

Charlie : Oh.. ok, I’ll check it out

Datum 8

Time (00:16:13 – 00:16:28)

Sandra : Do you always sleep together? Even in New York?

Nicole : It’s just for now, while we go through this transition. Shit, don’t tell

Charlie when he gets here -- he hates co-sleeping. REFERENTIAL

Sandra : Well, I have to say, I agree with Charlie.

Nicole : Surprise, surprise.

Datum 9

Time (00:46:20 – 00:46:26)

Jay : What’s Exit Goat?

Charlie : Exit Ghost. It’s the name of my theatre company. REFERENTIAL

Jay : You’re a director?

Charlie : Theatre director, yeah.

Datum 10

Time (01:01:59 – 01:03:20)

Charlie : So.. What do I do?

Bert : I recommend you try to spend as much time with your child as possible.

Many people fight to get the time and then they don’t even use it. They just

want to win.

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Charlie : This shouldn’t be that complicated, right? I mean, we’re a New York

family. I think it’s all pretty straight-forward. REFERENTIAL

Bert : I hope so, yes. I see no reason-- you both love your son, you respect

each other--why this shouldn’t be relatively pain-free?

Charlie : Yes. Right.

Bert : I want you to know that eventually this will all be over and whatever we

win or lose, it’ll be the two of you having to figure this out together.

Charlie : Thank you, Sir. You’re the first person in this process who has spoken

to me like a human.

Datum 11

Time (01:48:01 – 01:48:09)

Evaluator : What prevents you from picking him up?

Charlie : Um, you know, work. I’m preparing a play I’m directing in a few

months.

Evaluator : Oh, what is that?

Charlie : Kasimir and Karoline by Odon von Horvath? We’re doing it

at the Barrow in New York. REFERENTIAL

Datum 12

Time (00:55:36 – 00:55:44)

Charlie : Henry! Come on!

Henry : Can’t I stay with Mom?

Charlie : No—

Henry : Why not?

Charlie : It’s my time with you. I just flew three thousand miles.

Henry : I don’t want to—

Charlie : Henry, get in the fucking car! I’m sorry, but Jesus, get in the fucking

car. CONATIVE

Datum 13

Time (00:32:32 – 00:32:41)

Nicole : So, Cassie, you’re going to hand him the envelope. CONATIVE

Cassie : Why do I have to do it?

Sandra : Because Nicole is very good at getting people to do things for her.

Nicole : That’s not what this is.

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Datum 14

Time (00:33:26 – 00:33:37)

Nicole : Now you’re both just making me feel bad about it, ok.

Cassie : Sorry... Sorry. I’m nervous.

Sandra : We all are. And we love Charlie.

Nicole : You have to stop loving him, Mom. You can’t be his friend anymore.

CONATIVE

Sandra: Charlie and I have our own relationship independent of your marriage

just like I’m friends with Cassie’s ex, Jeff--

Cassie : Are you still seeing Jeff?

Sandra : An occasional lunch.

Cassie : I can’t believe you!

Nicole : Listen, nothing can be independent of our marriage right now. I

can’t believe I have to explain this to you. Just be on my side. Ok?

CONATIVE

Datum 15

Time (01:06:34 – 01:06:39)

Henry : This is a nice house.

Charlie : Go pee and then we’re going back out! CONATIVE

Henry : I’m too tired!

Charlie : Go pee and then we’re going to go drive to Halloween! CONATIVE

Datum 16

Time (01:03:48 – 01:04:05)

Charlie : You know I had Donna build him this whole Frankenstein thing with the

plugs and –

Nicole : The cousins are ninjas so he wanted to do that too.

Charlie : But he and I had decided together—

Nicole : I can’t make him be Frankenstein.

Charlie : I’m not asking you to. But maybe you could help me out a little? I’ll

leave the Frankenstein here and maybe you can nudge him in that

direction— CONATIVE

Nicole : I’ll try.

Datum 17

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Time (01:50:42 – 01:50:58)

Charlie : Sweetheart, do you want to help me set the table?

Henry : Do I have to?

Charlie : Just come in here and grab a plate. CONATIVE

Henry : I’m playing.

Charlie : Henry!

Datum 18

Time (01:52:29 – 01:52:43)

Henry : Dime, rime, lime, pime, sime—

Charlie : Honey, stop guessing. You’re so close, stay with it. CONATIVE

Henry : Ugh, I don’t want to do it.

Charlie : What’s the first letter?

Henry : I don’t want to do it. Can I do the iPad?

Charlie : No. Just look, what’s the first letter?

Henry : I don’t want to.

Datum 19

Time (00:33:15 – 00:33:23)

Cassie : OK, I just get nervous—

Sandra : Can you un-serve?

Nicole : What do you mean, like take it back? METALINGUAL

Sandra : Yeah.

Nicole : I think so.

Cassie : You should check.

Sandra : In case we change our minds.

Nicole : I’m not going to change my mind

Datum 20

Time (00:18:26 – 00:18:39)

Male producer : Can you move your hand further down the baby?

Nicole : What do you mean? Like down here? METALINGUAL

Director : Off his head entirely—

Nicole : I’d need to support his head.

Director : No, no, support the head, of course, just try to do it from the

shoulders?

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Datum 21

Time (02:09:05 – 02:09:33)

Charlie : “He’s brilliant at creating family out of whoever is around. With the

theatre company he cast a spell that made everyone feel included. No

one, not even an intern was unimportant.”

Henry : What’s an intern?

Charlie : It’s like a helper. But who isn’t paid. METALINGUAL

Henry : Why aren’t they paid?

Charlie : They’re young. They’re learning.. hmm I don’t know, maybe if they

do a good job, they get paid later?

Henry : Ok, keep going.

Datum 22

Time (00:52:05 – 00:52:21)

Nora : If you don’t file your response, we’re going to file a request for default

judgement against you.

Charlie : (to Frank) You can’t just tuck it in tighter or get Donna to safety pin it?

Frank : I also have a thing about tucking in things-- It’s a hold-over from

childhood. Insecurities about my figure.

Nora : Charlie?

Charlie : Yes, sorry— A default judgement. What does that mean?

METALINGUAL

Nora : We’ll be able to lay claim to whatever we want.

Charlie : What do you mean? Whatever you want of what?

Nora : Your apartment, your things--well, everything you own.

Datum 23

Time (01:19:00 – 01:19:21)

Bert : Listen, if I were representing you—

Charlie :You are representing me.

Bert : Right, no, of course. I don’t see a judge moving this child from LA-- I

think we try to settle today—

Charlie : Settle meaning... what? METALINGUAL

Bert : She gets LA, but—

Charlie : No, Bert... just no. I mean, we have to win this?

Bert : Remember, the win is what’s best for Henry. And if you guys go to court,

78

he’ll get pulled into it.

Datum 24

Time (00:35:17 – 00:35:29)

Charlie : I won a MacArthur grant.

Nicole : Oh, Charlie, that’s so great. Congratulations!

Charlie : Thank you

Nicole : I’ll say it because you can’t, it’s the genius grant. You’re a genius.

Charlie : Well..

Nicole : I’m really happy for you. You deserve it. PHATIC

Datum 25

Time (00:55:28 – 00:55:33)

Nicole : Here, you have dig—

Charlie : Ow, fuck.

Henry : Why “fuck?”

Nicole : Are you ok? PHATIC

Charlie : Something’s sharp—

Datum 26

Time (01:12:04 – 01:12:36)

Pablo : Did you just stamp your foot?

Nicole : I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. I’m sorry I’m just so ANGRY.

Pablo : You look like you need one.

Nicole : I do. Thanks.

Pablo : You know the Japanese are making really interesting tequila right

now. PHATIC

Nicole : That’s exciting! I guess. PHATIC

Pablo : What are you so angry about?

Nicole : Ugh, my fucking ex-husband. I spend so much time feeling guilty, but he’s

so self-absorbed it’s pointless. It’s a game I’m playing with myself.

Pablo : Oh, hey, Pablo. We met at the—

Nicole : You held the bounce board!

Pablo : The flirty grip!

Datum 27

79

Time (00:37:26 – 00:37:31)

Cassie : Hey, Charlie.

Charlie : Cassie, I like your haircut. PHATIC

Cassie : Oh, thanks.

Datum 28

Time (00:37:49 – 00:38:20)

Charlie : What kind of pie is that?

Cassie : It’s... Pecan.

Charlie : Did you make it?

Cassie : I don’t know. No! It’s store bought. You know Joan’s on Third?

Charlie : Oh, yeah, that’s good, right?

Cassie : What? The store? Yeah! Jules and Molly love it.

Charlie: Are you ok? PHATIC

Cassie : Yes. I’m just hot.

Charlie : I’ll pour you some water. Nicole says you’re doing a play?

Datum 29

Time (01:04:28 – 01:04:36)

Charlie : Is everything ok? PHATIC

Nicole : Yeah, why?

Charlie : You seem...I don’t know like something is—

Nicole : Everything’s fine.

Charlie : OK.

Datum 30

Time (00:35:55 – 00:37:04)

Sandra : Hey there, Charlie-bird!

Charlie : Grandma! (Lifts Sandra up)

Sandra : Don’t! I’m so heavy!

Charlie : You’re light as a feather. POETIC

Sandra : Oh, God, I’m so huge!

Charlie : You didn’t respond to my email!

Sandra : Your emails are so articulate, I get intimidated!