Speech Acts Analysis in Franklin the Turtle Series: Franklin's Halloween, and Franklin Goes to School

Cynthia, Felia Chandra and Olivia, Agatha (2021) Speech Acts Analysis in Franklin the Turtle Series: Franklin's Halloween, and Franklin Goes to School. Book Chapter Pedagogical Innovations in Education. pp. 20-26.

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Abstract

With globalization around the corner, the older generation is inclined to rear their children to qualify internationally and begin such a process; the first step will be to learn the universal language, which is English. However, to gain fluency in that particular language, classroom teaching is not enough. Other popular media, such as children's books, play a role in boosting the process by giving them realistic examples of how native speakers speak through various speech acts. This study analyzed two books from the famous Franklin the Turtle Series to find the most minor and most dominant speech acts used in the series by using the Speech Act Theory by J.R.Searle. According to Searle (Yule, 1996), there are five categories of illocutionary acts: representatives, directives, commissives, expressive, and declarations. The purpose of this analysis is to determine whether children's books have already given enough examples on five speech acts, as learning different address acts helps non-native speakers to understand the intention of the other parties. The research was conducted from a qualitative point of view. The writers would note the utterances in Franklin's Halloween and Franklin Goes to School and determine their speech acts. Results show that the most dominant speech act used in the two books analyzed is representative, whereas the least prevalent is commissive. In conclusion, the disparity between the two suggests that symbolic and expressive speech acts are too overpowering, and it gives lesser room for the other speech acts.

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