An Analysis of Speech Acts in Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities"

This research was aimed to find the categories of speech acts were performed by the
characters in A Tale of Two Cities and to find out what the frequency of speech acts
categories appeared in A Tale of Two Cities. The research concerns with the
utterances of all characters in Charles Dickens’. The researcher analyze the utterances
of all characters by reading the novel, identifying the utterances of all characters in
the novel, categorizing speech act of the utterances from the dialogue, make the result
and analyzed the result. The method used in this paper was quantitative. In this
research, the researcher uses descriptive analysis technique. He analyzes the novel by
reading it intensively and categorizing each utterance. Based on the result of the
research, it was found that the four categories of speech acts used in novel A Tale of
Two Cities. They are Assertive/representative, Directive, Commisive, Expressive,
and
Declarative.
The
most
dominant
categories
of
speech
acts
are
assertive/representative with the frequency 171 times (49, 5 %). Then directive with
the frequency 127 times (36, 8 %), commissive with the frequency 25 times (7,2 %),
expressive with the frequency 20 times (5,7 %), and declarative with the frequency 2
times (0,5 %).