Illocutionary acts used by characters in “The Man With The Heart In The Highlands “William Saroyan’s

This study investigates illocutionary acts used by characters in “The Man with The Heart in The Highlands” William Saroyan’s and how do the characters perform illocutionary acts in this drama. A drama is work of literature and it is more than the presentation human life. The theory of illocutionary act is chosen because it is used to describe how speaker should communicate something to hearer. The researcher chooses this drama because after reading the text there are kinds of illocutionary acts.

In this study a descriptive qualitative method is used. The qualitative researcher is the primary instrument for data collection and analysis. The data are taken from text of drama entitle “The Man with The Heart in The Highlands” by William Saroyan.

Searle’s theory was used to analyze data. This study found there are four types of illocutionary acts used by characters, namely representative act, directive act, commisive act, and expressive act. This research did not find illocutionary acts of declarative acts. Kinds of representative acts used are asserting, suggesting, boasting, complaining, reporting, answering, and disagreeing. Directive act in this analysis contains the act of ordering, commanding, requesting, and advising. The commisive act also constitutes the act of agreeing, promising, and offering. In addition, the expressive acts used by characters are greeting, thanking, and apologizing. In this drama, the ways to perform illocutionary acts can be done directly and indirectly. The writer of the drama uses four functions of illocutionary acts: competitive, convivial, collaborative, and conflictive.

Finally, the researcher hopes that this research can give a contribution for the next researcher who are interested in illocutionary acts research by using other theories that more complete and better.