A SOCIOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF STEREOTYPES IN FREEDOM WRITERS MOVIE

Mutia Fitriani, , Indonesia

Abstract


This research is a Sociolinguistic study which aims at revealing the categories and the functions of stereotypes occurring in Freedom Writers movie. This research applied descriptive qualitative method to describe the phenomenon under research in a textual form. Additionally, this research also used quantitative method to support the interpretation of data by presenting the research findings in numerical form. The primary instrument of this research was the researcher and the secondary instrument was the movie transcript. The data were collected by selecting dialogues containing stereotypes while watching and listening to the movie. For the data analysis, the research findings were classified based on the theories used in the research and analysed according to each categorization. The results of the research obtained from the qualitative and quantitative investigation are stated as follows. Five categories of stereotypes are found in the utterances of the characters, namely gender; race; age; physical features; and occupations and socioeconomic status. Race gets the highest number of occurrences, whereas the lowest one is equally occupied by gender and physical features. Furthermore, all three functions of stereotypes are identified in the movie, namely cognitive economy, ego protection, and social function. The findings reveal that cognitive economy is the most frequently used function. In contrast, social function is the least frequent function used by the characters throughout the movie.

 

Keywords: sociolinguistic analysis, stereotypes, Freedom Writers movie

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References


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