DIRECTIVE SPEECH ACTS OF ASIAN PROTAGONISTSAND ASIAN SUPPORTING CHARACTERS IN 2021 SUPERHERO MOVIES

Abstract

This study investigated the structures and the strategies of directive speech acts employed by five selected Asian characters in three different superhero movies in 2021, including Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, and Spider-Man: No Way Home. There were 1,209 utterances by the two Asian protagonists (i.e., Shang-Chi and Sersi), and the three Asian supporting characters (i.e., Katy, Xialing, and Ned Leeds). There were 537 utterances that were justified as directive speech acts. The head acts [H]s and supportive moves (S)s structures (Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984; Leech, 2014) were employed to classify directive speech acts. These included [H] oriented (i.e., Single [H], Double [H]s, Multiple [H]s, and [H]s + (S)s), and (S) oriented (i.e., Single (S), Double (S)s, Multiple (S)s, and (S)s + [H]s) structures. The different levels of directness (Leech, 2014) were used to classify the strategies. The strategies included direct, conventionally indirect, nonsentential, and hint strategies. In terms of the structures, the five selected Asian characters in these superhero movies appeared to use the single [H] oriented more frequently than the other structures. For the strategies, the nonsentential strategies tended to be the most preferred strategies. The findings confirmed the results from previous studies that the level of the intensity of a situation, and the relationship between the speaker and the hearer are significant factors that influence directive speech acts. However, the findings differed from the studies that directive speech acts in the present study may not always signify the higher authority of the speaker to the hearer as the context of the movies and the relationship between the characters are different from previous studies.

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