A critical discourse analysis on sentence structures used by characters in The Kite Runner movie

ABSTRACT

This research investigates critical discourse analysis which is applied in a movie entitled The Kite Runner movie. This movie tells about the existence of power fighting, discrimination, underestimating, etc. between Pashtun (the majority) and Hazara (the minority). In this research, I used Fairclough’s theory to study sentence structures which are used by characters on the movie as discursive strategy to produce the expressions of power fighting, discrimination, etc.

I use descriptive qualitative. The data are analyzed in the following steps: First, describing and explaining the context of the utterances (especially in the sentences form) used by the characters in The Kite Runner movie explains the context which underlies the characters to produce the discourse including: 1) discourse participant (who speak, to whom the speaker speak, who else stand in there, and what the background of the speaker who produce the discourse such as the religion and ethnic). 2) social setting refers to the time and place of the discourse produced. 3) history that related to the place and the characters. Second, classifying the utterances which indicate the discrimination both ethnically and religiously produced by the characters in the movie. Third, interpreting the classified utterances as the discursive strategy used by the characters both in the movie script and movie based on the context and the theory by Fairclough. Fourth, discussing the finding. The last, making a conclusion based on the data finding to answer the research question.

The analysis found some findings covering the formulated research question. It is found that the characters uses sentence structures to convey their interest which tend to discriminate, marginalize, dominate and underestimate person who has the lower social status. The characters represent their power, ideology and history in their sentence structure which can be indicated by noun, verb, and adjective in their utterances. Besides, I also found that the power fighting, discrimination, underestimation, etc. can be done not only by person with different social status but it also can be done by person with the same social status such as between Pashtun and Pashtun, Father and son, or between the close friends.

Based on the findings mentioned above, it is suggested to the next researchers to fill the gap by continuing this research through the same theory which adopt Fairclough’s theory but in elements; such as presupposition, irony, etc.