A study on deixis used in john steinbeck's the pearl

ABSTRACT

Novelette or novella is a part of literature work which is included in prose format. It is a prose narrative which is longer than short story but shorter than novel. Editors often measure the novella about 15.000 words. Here, The Pearl is included in this category. To analyze The Pearl, the theory of deixis which is proposed by Karl Buhler will be used, because it provides the basic theory of how people use the language in written or spoken on the functions of words, especially deixis. Beside that, in deixis there is a potential ambiguity and it is present in providing a subtle opportunity for a hearer to decide what was communicated. In ihis case the hearer gets to decide the kinds of more that is being communicated. This study, then focuses on the deixis types, which consists of three parts, namely place deixis, time-space deixis, and person deixis. The research problem on deixis used in John Steinbeck’s The Pearl is conducted with the proposed problem: What kinds of deixis are used in The Pearl? And how are the deixis used in The Pearl?

This research is classified into descriptive qualitative because it analyzes the data descriptively based on deixis theory. In addition, the data of this study are in the forms of utterances or words rather than numbers were not statistically analyzed. This method is chosen, since it is intended to get the accurate result from analyzing the data.

Data analysis revealed some findings covering the formulated research problems. The deixis used in John Steinbeck’s The Pearl in the forms of person, time and place deixis. Person deixis contains of first person deixis, second person deixis, and third person deixis that are used to identify the speaker, the addressee, and the referents. Time deixis is used to point the certain period of time when the speakers uttering the sentences and determine the time to do something from their utterances. In addition, place deixis is appeared to describe to a location relative to the location of a participant in speech event, as well as what had been shown in the context. In place deixis, a speaker can refer to something that is in vicinity or farther a١vay.

Based on those findings, it is recommended for the authors to comprehend and consider the deixis types when they write novel, short story, or novelette. In addition, it is recommended for the future researchers to conduct the research using deixis theory in other objects.