A REGISTER ANALYSIS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S MOVIE ADVERTISEMENTS THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan Stanislaus Ginanjar Widhi Hertanto 112006160 ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY SALATIGA 2013
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A REGISTER ANALYSIS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S
MOVIE ADVERTISEMENTS
THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
Stanislaus Ginanjar Widhi Hertanto 112006160
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA 2013
ii
A REGISTER ANALYSIS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S
MOVIE ADVERTISEMENTS
THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
Stanislaus Ginanjar Widhi Hertanto 112006160
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA 2013
iii
A REGISTER ANALYSIS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S
MOVIE ADVERTISEMENTS
THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
Stanislaus Ginanjar Widhi Hertanto 112006160
Approved by:
Christian Rudianto, M. App.Ling. Dian Toar Y. G, Sumakul, M.A. Supervisor Examiner
iv
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text.
Copyright@ 2013. Stanislaus Ginanjar Widhi Hertanto and Christian Rudianto, M. App.Ling.
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana University, Salatiga.
Stanislaus Ginanjar Widhi Hertanto :
v
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verify that:
Name : Stanislaus Ginanjar Widhi Hertanto
Student ID Number : 112006160
Study Program : English Department
Faculty : Language and Literature
Kind of Work : Undergraduate Thesis
In developing my knowledge, I agree to provide SWCU with a non-exclusive royalty free right
for my intellectual property and the contents therein entitled:
A REGISTER ANALYSIS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S MOVIE ADVERTISEMENTS
along with any pertinent equipment.
With this non-exclusive royalty free right, SWCU maintains the right to copy, reproduce, print,
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This declaration is made according to the best of my knowledge.
Made in : Salatiga
Date : January 23th
, 2013
Verified by signee,
Stanislaus Ginanjar Widhi Hertanto
Approved by
Thesis Supervisor Thesis Examiner
Christian Rudianto, M. App.Ling. Dian Toar Y. G. Sumakul, M.A.
A REGISTER ANALYSIS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S MOVIE ADVERTISEMENTS
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A REGISTER ANALYSIS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S MOVIE ADVERTISEMENTS
Stanislaus Ginanjar Widhi Hertanto
Abstract
Register is described as the language of group of people with common interests or jobs, or the language used in situations associated with such groups. According to Trudgill (1974), register is a language variety that is created by the environment. It means that people who have the same social background, jobs or environment will use the same register. However, individuals may differ in styles in entering a register. When a movie director wants to release his/her new movie, he/she will make a movie advertisement to attract the movie consumers. This study aims to describe the register in Steven Spielberg’s movies advertisement. In this study, the writer will analyze how diction, style and figure of speech are employed in the register of Steven Spielberg’s movies advertisement. The qualitative method will be used to analyze the data in this study. The data for this study are collected from internet. The finding of this research shows that the use of noun, pronoun, or things which reflects the male gender as the diction, formal and simple sentence structures as the style and literal language play an important role in creating and characterizing the register of Steven Spielberg’s movies advertisement.
Keywords: Register, Diction, Style, Figure of Speech, Movie advertisement
Introduction
Every movie fans know who Steven Spielberg is and what famous movies he has
made. Steven Spielberg is one of Hollywood's best known directors. That is the reason why I
am always interested to watch all his movies. Saving Private Ryan is the first movie of
Steven Spielberg that I watched. I was interested to watch the movie because of its
advertisement’s tagline that writes “The mission is a man”. Somehow, I was curious about
the meaning of those words in the tagline and of course the story itself. And after watching
the movie, I concluded that the tagline of Saving Private Ryan movie is not only a sentence
which is used to sell the movie and attract the audience to watch it, but it also has a meaning
to describe the entire story that happens in this movie. Therefore, I noticed that an
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advertisement should be attractive and interesting because it will be an important part to
introduce a new product like movie. The use of diction in the taglines can also influence or
attract the viewers. When the movie advertisement is interesting and the dictions are
appealing for the viewers, it can cause curiosity to watch the movie. As a result, it can also
determine for the success of the movie.
Advertisement is identified as the text that does their best to get people’s attentions to
make them turn toward them (Goddard, 1998). Movie advertisement is the kind of
advertisement to promote a movie by using interesting and attractive languages so that the
viewers will be interested to watch the movie. So, it is a must that the language of movie
advertisement should have a special characteristic in order to get its purpose. The
characteristic itself can be influenced by the style used by the director of the movie. Chaika
(1994) argues “a style may be associated with a particular social occasion. Then it is called
register or functional variety of speech”. Movie advertisement certainly has a particular social
occasion, which is to attract the viewers and makes them want to watch the movie. Thus,
movie advertisement must have its specific register.
Register is a language variety for a specific purpose (Alwasilah, 1985). It indicates a
language variety which is based on the function. The patterns of register usually will follow
the existing ones, but they still develop, either by reduction or by addition. English movie
advertisements have a variety Standard English either words or sentence structure, depending
on the language use, which are discussed in the literature discussion section. It is interesting
to see how the register of Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisements is created.
The register of movie advertisement is not created instantly. Many factors influence
and create this register. The register of movie advertisement is also created by considering
many factors. Movie advertisement has to attract the audience or the movie fans because it
A REGISTER ANALYSIS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S MOVIE ADVERTISEMENTS
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can influence the success of the movie. Therefore, diction and language variety, especially
the figure of speech and style, are influential in the register of movie advertisement. This
study will analyze how are diction, style and figure of speech employed in the register of
Steven Spielberg’s movies advertisement.
Theoretical/ Conceptual Framework
There are many languages which have many different styles. It is called language
variety. In general, language variety refers to a term for any characteristic form of a linguistic
or language expression (Nordquist, 2008). Moreover, a variety of language is as a set of
linguistic items with similar social distribution because what make one variety of language
different from another are the linguistic items (Hudson, 1996). Linguistic items are a
combination of linguistic expressions such as words and grammatical features, etc. It is for
sure that there are many kinds of language variety, for example are dialect, jargon, register,
etc. As the aim of this study is discussing about register in movie advertisement, register is
the only language variety that will be the main focus here.
Register represents a language variety that is based on its function. Wardaugh (1992)
stated “Register is another complicating factor in any study of language varieties. Registers
are sets of vocabulary items associated with discrete occupational or social group.” (p. 49).
Another similar idea of register is stated by Holmes (2001) who described register as the
language of groups of people with common interests or jobs. Thus, register is a linguistic
item and a particular vocabulary choices created by an individual or a social group to fulfill
the various functions in communication.
In discussing or analyzing a register, the characteristics of the register itself are also
necessary to understand. According to Biber (1994), register has four specific characteristics;
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first, register studies involve descriptive analysis of actually occurring discourse. The second
characteristics, register studies aim to characterize language varieties. The register is
considered to be a language variety along with dialect, argot, slang, jargon, for example:
register in the framework include aviation language, journalese, legalese, literacy, etc. Third,
register studies present formal linguistic characterizations of language varieties. Register can
range from high-level varieties such as spoken vs. written, formal vs. informal, and from low
level varieties such as methodology in psychology articles and newspaper headlines. The last
characteristics, register studies also analyze the situational characteristics of language
varieties, and functional or conventional relationships between form and situation are posited.
And the characteristic which is related in this study is the third characteristic as this study
discuss about the formal linguistic characterization of language varieties, which is formal vs.
informal.
In register, style is also a part of it. Keraf (2004) stated that language style or style is
considered as the way to explain the mind through particular language which expresses soul
and character. As stated previously, according to Chaika (1994) “a style may be associated
with a particular social occasion. Then it is called register or functional variety of speech”.
Therefore, in linguistic, different styles of language are technically called register. It means
language style can make a special characteristic in register which differentiate a register from
the other register. The difference can be seen from the use of language style and the sentence
structure. For that reason, it is a worth that language style and sentence structure are being
analyzed in order to understand the register.
The first thing that differentiates a register to one another is its language style. Chaer
& Agustina (2004) classify language style into three parts: formal, informal, and rhetorical (p.
71). Formal and informal style is related to the situation where the language is used.
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Meanwhile, rhetorical style is used for a rhetoric circumstances which have high aesthetic.
Formal language style is the standardization of sentence structure and diction (Chaer &
Agustina, ibid) (p. 72). The use of formal style in many movie advertisements is to build best
impression for the target consumers. In this case, the formal style used in the movie
advertisement signifies seriousness of the movie to the consumers. On the other hand,
informal language style is often used in casual situation. The character of informal style is
usually marked by the reduction of part of speech in a sentence to make a closer situation to
the consumers. This point is actually the realization of the third specific characteristic of
register that has been explained previously, where it is said that register studies formal
linguistic characterizations of language varieties. Thus, it is clearly required that language
style should be studied when analyzing a register.
Another thing to investigate in analyzing a register is its sentence structure. According
to Megginson (2007) sentence structures are classified into 4, they are simple sentence,
compound sentence, complex sentence, and compound-complex sentence. The simple
sentence structure is a sentence with only one independent clause. It contains one main
process which is explained by the use of verb and canbe as short as one word. The next type
is compound sentence, which contains at least two independent clauses and can be formed by
using coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet), the semicolon (either with or
without conjunctive adverbs), and on occasion, using colon. The third one is complex
sentence. It is a sentence that contains an independent clause and at least one dependent
clause. The last sentence structure is compound-complex sentence, which is a sentence with
two or more independent clauses and a least one dependent clause. The use of these kinds of
sentence structures in a movie advertisement is to create a connection to the viewers. When
the sentences in an advertisement are well-created, meaning that the sentences are simple but
A REGISTER ANALYSIS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S MOVIE ADVERTISEMENTS
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it has a deep meaning and can represent the story of the movie, it can gain the viewers’
curiosity and as a result they will be interested to watch the movie itself.
Furthermore, register is not only analyzed based on the style of the sentence
structures, but also analyzed based on the style of the meaning. It is called as figure of
speech. The use of figures of speech can also create a register in advertisement. When the
advertiser or the producer likes to use one kind of the figures of speech, it can give a special
characteristic in his/her advertisement. According to Leahy (1963), a figure of speech is an
expression in which the words are used in a non literal sense to present a figure, picture, or
image. It can be noticed that figure of speech contains the figurative language to express a
picture, image or figure. This research will also analyze the figures of speech that are usually
used in the language of advertisement. Those certain figures of speech are:
1. Hyperbole: Hyperbole is an exaggeration for the sake of emphasis and is not to be
taken literally (Leahy, 1963) (p. 20-21).
2. Synecdoche : Synecdoche is the technique of mentioning a part of something to
represent the whole (Leahy, ibid) (p. 20).
3. Metonymy : Metonymy is substitution of a word naming an object for another
word closely associated with it (Leahy, ibid) (p. 21).
4. Personification : Personification is the giving of human characteristics to
inanimate objects, idea or animals (Leahy, ibid) (p. 19).
5. Simile : A simile is a direct or explicit comparison between two usually unrelated
things indicating a likeness or similarity between some attribute found in both
things (Leahy, ibid) (p. 18).
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6. Climax and Anti-climax : Keraf (2004) said that climax arranged the idea from
general to specific. Meanwhile, Anti-climax is started with the meaningful idea
and finished with meaningless idea (p. 124-125)
7. Paradox : Paradox contains contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true
(Keraf, ibid) (p. 136).
8. Repetition : Repetition means the repetition of intonation, syllable, words or the
meaningful sentence (Keraf, ibid) (p. 127).
9. Parallelism : Parallelism is the quality or state of being alike of the use of words or
phrases having the equal function in the form of equal grammatical (Keraf, ibid)
(p. 126).
Based on the explanation above, I can summarize that register is a language that is
created by an individual or a social group to communicate each other inside that certain social
group. What makes a register is differ to one another is its language style and sentence
structure. Thus, it is a need to investigate both of them to understand a register. In addition,
the style of meaning is also a worth to be analyzed when it comes to a discussion about
register. It is whether there is a use of figure of speech or not. That can also be a way to
understand more about the hidden meaning behind that register. Besides explaining about
register and how it should be analyzed, language in written movie advertisement will also be
discussed as the aim of this study is to understand a register in written movie advertisement.
As explained earlier, what is meant by advertisement is that the text that does their
best to get people’s attentions to make them turn toward them (Goddard, 1998). Another
similar idea of advertisement comes from Arens (2002) who stated that advertisement is
usually paid for and persuasive in nature, it is about products (good, service, or ideas) by
famous sponsors through various media (p. 7). In addition, the form of advertisements is not
A REGISTER ANALYSIS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S MOVIE ADVERTISEMENTS
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only in visual as in television or cinema advertisement, but also audio as in radio
advertisement. From the definition above, it can be concluded that advertisement is one of a
tool in communication to promote ideas, products and services by an identified sponsors or
company through media which hopefully can persuade or convince the society about the
products or ideas. In brief, the aims of advertisement is to change prospective customers
become loyal consumer and an advertisement needs to develop positive attitude of them, so
they can be loyal consumers in the future (Kasali, 1992).
Language cannot be separated with communication as human beings use language to
communicate each other in their daily life. In communicating, someone will choose certain or
proper words to express his or her ideas because his or her utterance will affect what people
might think of him or her. This is the same thing when discussing about language in
advertisement. Therefore, in advertisement, the advertiser should know the consumers well. It
means the advertiser knows who the target consumer is. He or she should choose a proper
language and words according to the target consumers. For that reason, diction plays
important role in advertisement to attract the consumers since the purpose of advertisement is
to influence the consumers to buy or use the product (Sudiana, 1986). Furthermore, choice of
words or diction, according to Keraf (2004) refers to the ability to differentiate the meaning
of ideas and to find out word which is proper with the situation, condition and feeling of the
hearer (p. 24). From the explanations above, it can be noticed that movie advertisement needs
attractive and interesting dictions, because the success of a movie is mostly influenced by its
advertisement. The consumers who are curious toward the movie advertisement will go to the
cinema to ensure it by watching the movie.
Previously, it also has been stated that a movie advertisement is the kind of
advertisement to promote a movie by using interesting and attractive languages so that the
A REGISTER ANALYSIS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S MOVIE ADVERTISEMENTS
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viewers will be interested to watch the movie. It is a must that the language of movie
advertisement should have a special characteristic in order to get its purpose. The distinctive
characteristic of a movie advertisement can be seen if we compare it with the other kinds of
language. For example, the language of a doctor will be different from the language of
advertisement. That is why language cannot be separated from the speaker. Furthermore, the
language and the speaker are influenced by not only linguistic factors but also non-linguistic
ones. The linguistic factor is the language of the speaker, but the non-linguistic factors are
social, like gender, status, education, economic background, etc. and the situational factors,
which consist of setting of place, time, events, environment, etc (Chaer & Agustina, 2004) (p.
4). The linguistic factors and non-linguistic factors come out in different ways of speaking,
called language varieties.
Besides linguistic and non-linguistic factors, an advertisement is also influenced by
social and situational factors. Some elements which belong to the social factors are producer,
advertiser, and consumer itself. The situational factor comprises with the advertisement
media and the goods and services factors. From those elements, the writer will only concern
to producer as the social and situational factor that influenced language in advertisement. A
producer is the creator of goods that will be produce for consumer or for a specific market. It
needs much money, time, and good ability in making attractive advertisement. Therefore the
producer will ask an advertiser to describe their idea into an advertisement. Thus, producer is
the main factor in an advertisement.
To conclude, language in advertisement needs to be interesting and attractive in order
to gain the viewers attention and curiosity. Producers should be as creative as possible in
making the taglines for the advertisement so that their promotion will result on a success.
Diction and language variety, especially the figure of speech and style influence the language
in advertisement which then composes its distinctiveness – the register. Thus, this study will
A REGISTER ANALYSIS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S MOVIE ADVERTISEMENTS
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analyze how diction, style and figure of speech are employed in the register on advertisement,
especially on Steven Spielberg’s movies advertisement.
The Study
Context of the study
This study is discussing register in movie advertisements. The focus is more on the
how Steven Spielberg uses diction, style and figure of speech the register in his movie
advertisements. Thus, the scope of this study is the advertisements which were produced for
the promotion of Steven Spielberg’s movies.
Data
There were 15 Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisements as the data in this research.
All the Steven Spielberg’s movie genre like war, kids, tragedy, adventure, romantic, etc. are
discussed in this study. Another reason for choosing all movie genres is to get various data
from the movie advertisements to support the discussion that movie register is not created
instantly, but by employing many factors which influence and create the register.
Methodology
This study is a qualitative study, which means that the study is to gather an in-depth
understanding of a problem or phenomena. Sutopo (2002) said that the collected data which
resulted in the form of words, sentences, and pictures, are more meaningful than in the
number or frequency/quantity. Thus, this research applies a qualitative research using
descriptive method. The purpose of this research is describing the language in the written
movie advertisement accurately. As this study is aiming to describe the facts, which is the
style of Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisement, therefore the data collected will be in the
form of words and sentences.
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Procedures of data collection
The data were collected from the internet website, such as www.21-cineplex.com, etc.
They are advertisement for Steven Spielberg’s movie. Because the purpose is to describe the
register in his movie advertisement, the data is in the form of written sources as movie poster.
Then, the taglines of the movie advertisement were taken to be analyzed because it carries the
linguistics items, such as diction, figure of speech, style, and non-linguistic factors such as
the target consumer and the movie genre etc. that characterize the register of Steven
Spielberg’s movie advertisements.
Data Analysis
The collected data will be analyzed by conducting some steps. First, the context of
movie is presented by describing the movie performances, the movie summary/synopsis, and
the target consumer. Next, the characteristics of Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisements are
profiled. In this part, the research explores something typical such as the register of the
director in making the advertisement tagline by looking at diction, figure of speech and style
in the advertisement. Third, the data will be interpreted based on the results of the first and
second steps analysis. It will be done by looking at all factors in Steven Spielberg’s movie
advertisements, including linguistic and non-linguistic factors. Then, he determines what kind
of diction, style and figure of speech used in Steven Spielberg’ movie advertisements. Lastly,
conclusion is drawn, which describes the register in Steven Spielberg’s movie
advertisements.
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Discussions
Based on the theory discussed, register is another complicating factor in any study of
language varieties. Register is a linguistic item and a particular vocabulary choices created by
an individual or a social group to fulfill the various functions in communication. There are
many factors which influence in creating a register of movie advertisement especially in the
register of Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisements. To discuss the factors which influence
in creating the register of Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisements, the writer will analyze
based on the linguistic factors like the director’s writing style. Therefore, the writer classified
the factors into three groups, which are diction, style and figures of speech:
Diction in the register of Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisement
Diction is one of important points in the register of movie advertisement. Diction is
the choice and use of words in speech or writing. Keraf (2004) stated that choice of word or
diction is the ability to differentiate the meaning of ideas and to find out word which is proper
with the situation, condition and feeling of the hearer. Diction will be effective when the
words of the speaker or the writer’s choose is appropriate with the purpose and the reader can
get the message or the meaning accurately. Based on the findings, Steven Spielberg mostly
uses diction that is related to personification of the main character and object complement, in
addition to adjectives, to describe the main character in his movie advertisement.
For example, the tagline of ET - EXTRA TERRESTRIAL’s movie advertisement “He
is afraid. He is totally alone. He is 3 million light years from home” This advertisement tells
about a person who faces everything since he has to survive from the truth. The tagline of
advertisement is closed with the sentence of “He is 3 million light years from home”. It is
understood that the director use a phrase “he” and “million light years” as the diction. The
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pronoun “he” is used to represents the oddity which shows the character who is not a human
being, and the complement “million light years” represents a distance between the earth to
the character’s home. The use of diction “he” and “million light years” indicates to show the
story about the character of this movie is not came from the earth, but he came from the other
planet which is far from the earth.
In SAVING PRIVATE RYAN’s movie advertisement, the taglines “The mission is a
man” show the background of this movie story about war film. The choice of the word
“man” indicates that it is a personification of a soldier. The movie story shows about the
atmosphere of soldiers who get a difficult mission to save a soldier in a war. From the real
meaning, the word “man” has meaning a gender of human, but the director use the word “a
man” to symbolize a person specifically a soldier.
To personify the main character Steven Spielberg also employs noun in movie
advertisement. It can be seen from the taglines of INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST
CRUSADE’s movie advertisement “The man with the hat is back, and this time he’s bringing
his dad” The advertiser opens this movie advertisement by employing the diction “The man
with the hat” which depicts the mysterious character. By using “The man with the hat” as the
diction for his movie advertisement, the director seems to ask the readers to imagine who the
main character is. In general, people will guess “The man with the hat” that it can be a police,
a cowboy, etc. But, the director represents this diction is an adventurer named Indiana Jones
who always uses a hat. The writer concludes that Steven Spielberg using noun “the man” and
“ the hat” as the diction to symbolize a person who has his own fashion style by using a
cowboy hat.
The other examples of diction analysis can be seen in the appendix that is from Data
2, Data 6, and Data 10.
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From the analysis, the writer can conclude that Steven Spielberg is mostly using noun
and pronoun which are related to person or human being in his movie advertisements to
personify the main character, even if the main character is sometimes not human. These
dictions are chosen as the genre in most of Spielberg’s drama movies. It is because drama
movies are mostly fundamental with human. Spielberg also uses that kind of diction to
emphasize the movie genre itself. In addition, the distinctive characteristic of Steven
Spielberg’s dictions in his movie advertisements is that he mostly tends to use noun, pronoun,
or things which reflects the male gender to represent anything in his movies, for example
about jobs, things, or activities, which are related to males.
Style in the register of Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisement
To analyze the style in the register of Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisement, I limit
the discussion of this study into (1) formal language style, (2) simple sentence structure
because the result of the analysis mostly shows those two characteristics.
1. Formal language style
Formal language of the English written text consists of the formal form which
has grammar rules, no contractions and not deleting words (Chambers, 2010). Based on
the data analysis, the formal style is mostly applied in the Steven Spielberg’s movie
advertisement. The formal style of the Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisement can be
seen from the following taglines:
a) Correct Grammar
• Life is waiting (THE TERMINAL’s movie advertisement)
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• David is 11 years old. He weighs 60 pounds. He is 4 feet, and 6 inches
tall. He has brown hair. His love is real, but he is not. (ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE’s movie advertisement)
• Everybody runs (MINORITY REPORT’s movie advertisement)
• If adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones. (INDIANA JONES
AND THE TEMPLE OF THE DOOM’s movie advertisement)
• He is afraid. He is totally alone. He is 3 million light years from home.
(ET - EXTRA TERRESTRIAL’s movie advertisement)
Looking at the taglines above, the language style employed by the
advertiser is formal. The director applies present tense which
grammatically correct in the taglines. The director does not create the
tagline as casual expression but seriousness which emphasizes on the story
themes. It is due to the movie story which tells about something that still
happens, or information what happens in the story.
b) No Contraction and not deleting words
• The mission is a man (SAVING PRIVAT RYAN’s movie
advertisement)
• He is afraid. He is totally alone. He is 3 million light years from home.
(ET - EXTRA TERRESTRIAL’s movie advertisement)
• Something has survived. (THE LOST WORLD JURASSIC PARK’s
movie advertisement)
A REGISTER ANALYSIS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S MOVIE ADVERTISEMENTS
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• The world was watching in 1972. As 11 Israeli athletes were murdered
at the Munich Olympics. This is the story of what happened next.
(MUNICH’s Movie Advertisement)
• If adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones. (INDIANA JONES
AND THE TEMPLE OF THE DOOM’s movie advertisement)
From the taglines above, the writing style used by the advertiser is
complete sentence. Mostly, I did not find any contraction in the taglines.
The aim of using complete sentence is to build the formal situation
between the director and the reader. In addition, when the director does not
employ any contraction, it can support the seriousness of the taglines that
created by using correct grammar.
Additional examples of formal style are Data 2 and Data 7 and its analysis are
provided in the appendix.
Based on the interpretation above, it can be concluded that formal language can
be one of the one of the characteristic of the style in creating the register of Steven
Spielberg’s movie advertisements. The characteristic of Steven Spielberg’s formal
language style are mostly use present tense and no contraction in his advertisements.
2. Simple sentence structure
The written texts of Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisement cover many terms
of language varieties in the form of sentences such as; simple, compound, complex, and
compound-complex sentence structures. In the data analysis, most data use simple
sentence structure more than the other types of sentence structure. The examples of
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simple sentence that is used in the Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisement’s tagline are
provided below:
The tagline of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN’s movie advertisement “The mission is
a man” is using simple sentence, consisting of a subject (The mission), a predicate (is),
and followed by an object (a man). The tagline represents a statement sentence which
indicates the conclusion of this movie advertisement.
In promoting THE LOST WORLD JURASSIC PARK’s movie advertisement, the
director represents simple sentences “Something has survived”. It consists of a subject
(Something), and a verb (has survived). The tagline is a statement sentence which
explains about the information of the main story.
In the taglines of ET - EXTRA TERRESTRIAL’s movie advertisement “He is
afraid. He is totally alone. He is 3 million light years from home”, it represents three
simple sentences; (He is afraid), (He is totally alone), and (He is 3 million light years
from home raid) All the simple statement sentences consist of subject, predicate, and
adjective or adverb. This tagline explains about the conclusion of the main story.
There are 8 more data of simple sentence analysis which are explained in the
appendix. They are data 3, data 7, data 8, data 9, data 11, data 14, and data 15.
From the analysis above, the director is likely to use simple sentence because he
wants to make a simple and clear advertisement. Mostly, the Steven Spielberg’s movie
advertisement represents a statement sentence which tells the conclusion of the movie
story. It also can be the characteristic of the style in creating the register of Steven
Spielberg’s movie advertisement.
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Figure of Speech in the register of Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisement
In all movie advertisement, the director often employs certain figure of speech in his
language to attract the viewers to watch the movie. A figure of speech is an expression in
which the words are used in a non literal sense to present a figure, picture, or image (Leahy,
1963). From the findings, Steven Spielberg is mostly using a literal language in his movie
advertisement. Literal language is a language which does not deviate from the defined
meaning (Nordquist, 2008). The use of literal languge in these movie advertisement is to state
the facts such as; the message of the movie story, the summary of the movie story, or the
conclusion of the movie story.
For example in the tagline of INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE’s movie
advertisement “The man with the hat is back. And this time he’s bringing his dad.” The
director makes the taglines of his advertisements simple and the meaning is clear and
understandable that it just to describe the story tells about the return of Indiana Jones. It can
be known that the aims of the director in using literal words meaning and creating a simple
advertisement because he wants to get the viewers’ attention by telling the summary of the
movie story.
In the tagline of EMPIRE OF THE SUN’s movie advertisement “To survive in a
world at war, he must find a strength greater than all the events that surround him.” This
movie advertisement does not contain any figure of speech since all the meaning is clear and
no exaggeration of expression. The director only mentions literal words which are to explain
the summary of the movie story about the problem of the story.
The next example is the tagline in WAR OF THE WORLDS’s movie advertisement
“They’re already here”. In terms of figure of speech, the director also did not apply any figure
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of speech and it contains literal language. If we see from the taglines, the meaning of this
advertisement is simple. The tagline tells about the conclusion of the movie story which tells
information about what happens in the story.
Data 5 and data 8 are two other examples of figure of speech analysis and it is
explained in the appendix.
Based on the data above, Steven Spielberg mostly employs literal meaning and does
not normally use any figure of speech in creating his movie advertisements. It can be seen
that he wants to make his advertisements simple and has a clear meaning without any
exaggeration of expression. By employing literal language, it can be one of the factors that
influence in creating the register of Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisement.
From the discussions above, the writer concludes that the linguistic factors such as;
diction, style and figure of speech in Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisements are giving a
distinct characteristic in the register of Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisements. The diction
plays important role in advertisement to attract the consumers since the purpose of
advertisement is to persuade the consumers to watch Steven Spielberg’s movies.
Furthermore, the diction can help to deliver the information of movie story and can raise the
consumers’ intention to watch the movie. By using noun and pronoun as the diction which
are related to person or human being especially male gender in the taglines, it can help the
director to represents the movie story and the movie genre in Steven Spielberg’s movies
advertisements.
Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisements are applying more formal style rather than
informal style in the taglines of his advertisements. The formal style, in the movie
advertisement, seems to build best impression to the target consumers through the taglines. In
this case, the director likes to use formal style in his movie advertisement because he wants to
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show the story of movie seriously. It also can be seen that the use of simple sentences in the
register of Steven Spielberg’s movie advertisement are more dominated than complex one. It
follows general rule that an advertisement should be simple & clear enough. In terms of
figure of speech, the director mostly employs literal language in the movie advertisements. It
shows that the director tries to attract the reader through a simple tagline which is telling the
fact or conclusion of the movie story without any figurative words.
Conclusion
Register is an interesting sociolinguistics topic to discuss. It is a language that usually
used by a certain group of people who have common interests or jobs especially to
communicate each other within the group. The characteristics of linguistic factors, such as
diction, style and figure of speech, in the register of movie advertisement have particular
point of views that is different from other types of register. The diction in advertisement is to
attract the consumers using the inviting choice of words. In the written texts of movie
advertisement, the sentence structures of the taglines are determined whether they are simple,
compound, complex, or compound-complex sentence structure. Moreover, formal style used
by the advertiser aims at building a best impression of movie story for the target consumers.
Meanwhile, the informal style tends to give an intimate and casual impression for the
consumers. The figures of speech factor applied in the register of movie advertisement, it
aims to expressing a figure, picture, or image.
Based on the findings, the characteristic of Steven Spielberg’s diction is mostly tends
to use noun, pronoun, or things which reflects the male gender to represent anything in his
movies, for example about jobs, things, or activities, which are related to males in the term of
sentence structure, Steven Spielberg mostly uses simple sentences structures in his taglines.
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This is based on the principle that reveals an advertisement should be simple and clear
enough. The analysis also proves that most of language style employed by Steven Spielberg’s
movie advertisements is formal style. It is assumed that by applying formal styles in movie
advertisement, the director has a purpose to describe the movie story seriously to the target
consumers. In the data analysis, it is also found that the director did not use many figures of
speech and he is mostly applying a literal language in promoting his movies. It is based on
the director’s effort to attract the consumers through a simple advertisement that contains
clear and understandable taglines because he wants to get the viewers’ attention by telling the
information, the conclusion, or the summary of the movie story.
Acknowledgment
All praises and thanks are just for Jesus Christ who always blessings me so that I can
finish my thesis. Thank you so much to my parents especially my mom who always support
me to finish my thesis, I love you, mom! Million of thanks to my supervisor, Christian
Rudianto, M. Appling for all your help and guidance, thank you so much Mas Rudi. Then,
bapak Dian Toar Y. G, Sumakul, M.A. thanks for revising my thesis, I will miss all your
jokes, pak Toar. ☺ I would like to appreciate my girlfriend, Cynthia Niken P. for her love and
support, thanks for everything and trust me that ‘true love never runs smooth”. I would also
like to extend my appreciation to all of you who have helped me writing this thesis, and also
everyone who I cannot mention one by one. Thank you and I love you all.
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