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CHAPTER 1
BACKGROUND
1.1 Background of Study
Holmes (1988) mention the interconnectivity between ethinicity and language style. It could be well understood that a group of different people with specific identity would have specific characteristics, including ways of communication. Accordingly, different context and situation would result in different style of speaking or communication. The relationship between styles and the way of speaking concordance the social formations, such as: groups, categories, personalities, situation and condition, type of interlocutors, etc. Their acts of speaking involve deep understanding about those social formations and included the speaker’s position. Especially, in a community we might find so many different groups, and people as a member will tend to speak similarly when they belong to the same group. Language also gives the clues to the others that indicate the person’s identities. In addition, context of language style, as well as register are discussed as style.
In sociolinguistic, people tend to speak to the others, more likely refer to style and register. Style itself describes the differences in speech and writing of a group of users of a language that depends on context, location, topic and roles. Holmes (2008) argues style may affect some areas, essentially: addressee's influence on style, formal contexts and social roles, topic or function. While, register is occupational style using specialized or technical jargon, includes the language of groups of people with common interests or jobs, or the language used in situations associated with such groups, such as the language of doctors, engineers, journals, legalese, etc. Register affects lexis most noticeably but also influences the choice of grammatical form.
Todays, homosexual people have become part of modern community in Indonesia. This is from the point of view of gender, they have their own characteristics as the third gender, unlike the conventional male or female. This has implied that their style of living, as well as communicating, may be different from the rest of the gender categories. Oetomo (1991) Lecturer of Airlangga University in his Indonesian popular book “Homoseksualitas di Indonesia” stated each culture determines traits of gender behavior, so that gender specific behavior and gender roles on each culture cannot be the same one another. In Indonesia itself, Dede Oetomo divided homosexual into two major groups which the writer will be explained further about those type of homosexuals. The first one is masculine homosexual which people often assume as ‘Metrosexual’ though they are not acting like ‘banci’. They totally looks manly, dressed up tidy, very fashionable, mostly handsome and masculine, also they use an educated language. Most of them also have a good occupation, whether they are model, actor, musicians, works in the company, and others. The second one is feminine homosexual (transgender or “Banci”) we often find them at the Barber shop, on the street, dancer and fashion agency. They always look like a girl who wears a long wig, mini skirt, makeup on, and using another language to chit chat with their friends. The use of homosexual language often related with the workplace, especially in the feminine area. They often change the word or added some suffixes, for example: lekong, apose, cuco.
Boellstorff (2009, p.89) stated homosexual community is also signed by their language usage which is closely related with language variety. Banci is a nationwide (and somewhat derogatory) term for male-to-female transvestites; two well-known as bahasa binan or bahasa bencong.
Both of social life of Homosexual in Indonesia is portrayed in Arisan! (The Gathering) movie, release in 10 December 2003 directed by Nia Dinata. The Daily Jakarta post (2003) said “Achingly funny, an honest work from the heart.” Arisan! tells us about socialite community and also become the first Indonesian film with gay theme. This movie contains many types for ‘Binan Language’ designation for homosexual language in Indonesia. Sakti (Tora Sudiro), Nino (Surya Saputra), and Yung-yung (Sapto S.) are the representation of its community. Sakti has a benefit occupation as an assistant for Mei-mei which become another character in Arisan. He realizes that he is more interested inthe same sex in Fitness Center. He tries to betray himself and comes every time to the psychologist, hoping to become normal. Sakti then meets with Nino as his klien, Nino is more open minded than Sakti, he does not shy to cover his true identity. He even persuades and teases Sakti to open his identity, so that they will be together. At last, they both see each other but secretly. The first time Nino came to Sakti’s house when they were having Gathering, since Sakti’s house has a very big and lovely backyard, Andien (Aida Nurmala) Sakti’s close friend who comes from socialite community or familiarly called ‘Hedonism’, invited well-known photographer Yung-yung (Sapto S.) to shoot their Gathering location, Yung-yung works for one of the famous magazines in Jakarta as a photographer. Though, Yung-yung is not frequently appear since he is only supporting cast, Yung-yung gives many clues for feminine homosexual, clearly seen from his appearance and also the language used (Sertori, 2011).
The writer found two main previous studies which have done by Hanson and Evie who graduated from Bina Nusantara University. Hanson wrote about the thesis entitled An Analysis of the Identity Problems of Homosexual Characters in Brothers TV Series from First until Third Season Using Queer Theory, he used library research as method and used gay characters in TV series Brothers and Sisters in order to analyze how homosexual people living their lives in America. By using sexuality theory as approach, he took the result that homosexual community still meet the unfair dealing with people although they have already put themselves outside the box. As same as Hanson, Evie also conducted research about Homosexual Identity in USA Portrayed in Invisible Life, used library research and secondary research, Evie identify is the homosexual faced the struggle for equalizing their rights. Sexuality approach helped Evie discovered in Invisible Life’s novel implied that homosexual feels like having inappropriate treatment from the society. However, no research conducted for homosexual language usage.
1.2 Problem Formulation
This study intends to analyze some problems below:
1. What kind of style and register are used by the gay characters in the movie?
2. To what extent do the homosexual characters use those kinds of style and register?
1.3 Scope and Limitation
The study will analyze the homosexual language portrayed in the Arisan! played by Sakti (Tora Sudiro), Nino (Surya Saputra), Yung-yung (Sapto. S). Sociolinguistic will be the scope of this research, while the writer chooses style and register as the limitation because the homosexual characters on Arisan! use many different style and register along their communication ways.
1.4 Goal and Function
The writer’s goal is to analyze deeply the style and register of homosexual language, and also shows the types of formations which have a great role to weight style and register while they are speaking. Furthermore, by conducting this research, the audience will be able to know another minority language and the language use.
1.5 Research Method
This study is using library research in order to find the information (from books, websites, journals, and of course the movie, etc) and to help analyze the case. Then, the material will be more specific as the writer searches for information about language used by characters, style and register, and sexuality theory. The scenes or conversations are being selected from the movie. The selections are based on the homosexual characters. The data then are categorized to find the style and register which are specific to the homosexual people and also the types of formations the way of speaking which influence the Style and Register. Finally, the data are analyzed based on the theory of language, style and register.