Speech Function in Joker (2019) Movie: Confronting Responses in Arthur and Penny’s Conversation

Abstract

When people communicate, they use language to create interpersonal meaning and exchangeinformation. This research aims to analyze the speech function found in the conversation between ArthurFleck and his mother, Penny Fleck in the movie Joker (2019). It focuses especially on the confrontingresponses produced by Arthur and Penny, by applying the framework of speech function developed byHalliday (1985). A descriptive qualitative method was employed to analyze the data, by classifyingArthur and Penny’s utterances and labelling them into the types of confronting responses. The findingsreveal that the relationship between Arthur and Penny was heavily characterized by disclaimer andcontradiction in their conversation, indicating an emotional disobedience and dysfunctional relationshipbetween them. Contradictions are found to be the dominant speech function in their conversation,implying the disagreement and clashing perceptions between them. Disclaimers are the second highestfinding, suggesting the avoidance in answering questions in their relationship. It can be concluded thatnegative responses in the conversation may indicate a crack or a sign of a dysfunctional relationshipbetween individuals. Furthermore, this research suggests that language can be used as a tool to observetension and issues in a family setting using the framework of speech function.