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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1.Background of Study

The United States is one of many countries that use English as its national language. According to United States Census in 2011, the population in America is 311,587,816 people; white persons 78,1%, black persons 13,1%, and others 8,7%. Based on the census, it shows there are many ethnics live in The United States. It makes English has varieties, especially Standard American English and African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Normally, Standard American English is used by high educated people and it is supported by Gilsdorf (2002) that most United States business people say that they expect people who work for them to be highly competent in Standard English.

On the other hands, African American Vernacular English or also known as Black English Vernacular among Sociolinguists is English that developed from a pidgin resulted from the slavery trading era in early 1960. In that era, the black slavery, black people, or Negro tried to adapt their language to American English. According to Woodson (1933), many black people do not get good education in their school. The more they do not get the good education, the more discrimination that they will face as supported by Klenow (2012) that in 1960 black public schools were underfunded relative to white public schools. Nowadays, AAVE still exist and acceptable due to African American people who success in maintain the use of AAVE.

In this study, the intention of writer in doing the research is to show the differences between Standard American English and AAVE as English varieties that most applied by American since both of them are different based on their styles, especially the syntactical features. Moreover, to analyze them as the topic research, the writer use a literary work, such movie named The Help (2011) who directed by Tate Taylor. The title itself means a helper. The movie sets the situation in the 1960 – 1980 in Mississippi, North America that might become nightmares for Black people because of the racism or color discrimination. Labov in Diorio (2011) said that the physical gap between blacks and whites continued to grow. This situation is visualized in The Help where there were two main characters; Skeeter (white main character) and Aibileen (black main character) lived in two different backgrounds. In this movie, Skeeter struggled to help Aibileen and other black people to voice their feeling in facing color discrimination in their daily live in a book named The Help. Afterward, the movie shows some scenes that Skeeter and Aibileen doing some conversation frequently and they also interact with minor characters. From this movie, the writer wants to show the syntactical features of Standard American English and AAVE that applied by the main characters and to show that social factors have impact in influencing someone in changing language that happen between main and minor characters and also between both main characters when they are doing conversation.

In supporting to analyze this topic, there are two previous researches are suitable with this topic. First, Marliahadi (2007) analyzed African American vernacular English (AAVE) and Standard English (SE) used in the future father in-law and son in-law relationship in Guess Who. Furthermore, she said that the two main characters sometimes change their codes when they do some conversations because both of them have tolerance and willingness in their relationship. Another argument about AAVE is stated by Nurvini (2005) in the Nonstandard varieties (AAVE and working class) used by Walter, a black main character in Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun and those used by Stanley, a white main character in William's a streetcar named Desire, that social factors support the influence toward the language factors. Based on the two previous researches, social factor has a role in influencing someone in changing his/her language. It can be seen that social factors and social dimension have relationship with English varieties (Holmes, 2008).

Seeing from the previous research results, the writer wants to prove the accuracy of social factors in a media of research entitled The Help.

1.2.Problem Formulation

The main issue discussed in this thesis is the syntactical features in the conversation between Standard American English and AAVE used by two main characters in The Help and also the study discuss briefly about the minor characters that also interact with the main characters. Beside that, the writer wants to identify if the social factor influences someone in speaking (his/her language) in formal and informal situation. Therefore the problem formulations are:

  1. How are the syntactical features described in both Standard American English (SAE) and African American Vernacular English (AAVE) used by the main characters in The Help?
  2. What social factors influential in the use of both varieties between main – minor characters and both main characters when they are doing conversation?

1.3.Scope and Limitation

The scope of the research is English variants (SAE and AAVE) used in The Help. The analysis will be based on the dialogues in the movie. The limitation of this research is conversation of SAE and AAVE in the movie in formal and informal situation. The writer analyzes The Help based on the syntactical features both SAE and AAVE and the social factors that influence the people in use that language.

1.4.Objectives of the Study

The objectives of this study are:

  1. To describe the syntactical features of SAE and AAVE used by the main characters in The Help.
  2. To find out social factors influential in the use of both varieties; SAE and AAVE between main – minor characters and both main characters when they are doing conversation.

Meanwhile, the functions of this research are:

  1. To show the SAE and AAVE in syntactical features used by the main characters in The Help.
  2. To show that social factor in influencing of language that used by white and black people.

1.5.Research Method

In conducting the research, there were two methods of research that are used, they were qualitative and library research. The qualitative research was used for observing the conversation happened in The Help (2011) by Tate Taylor. Then in library research, some theories were gathered related to topic of study from books and online website references; journals and previous researches. In order to collect the data, there were some steps. First, writer chose and watched The Help, as the media research, from the beginning until the end and browsed the internet to find the script of the movie. After that, writer transcribed all the conversation or dialogues from all scenes. To make sure the conversation was correct, writer was watching the movie while checking the script. Moreover, writer wrote the code of transcript based on the scenes and made the list of conversation. After that, the list of conversation was picked based on the syntactical features of Standard American English and AAVE, English varieties happen between main and minor characters, and English varieties happen between both main characters. For this analyzing, writer focused on both main characters in The Help while they are doing conversation and when they are doing conversation with minor characters in formal and informal situation.