SOCIAL FACTORS AND SOCIAL DIMENSIONS IN THE LANGUAGE OF FREEDOM WRITERS’ CHARACTERS REFLECTING RACISM IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This study is aimed at identifying and describing the social factors and social dimensions employed by the characters in the film Freedom Writers. The objectives of this study are to identify and describe (1) the social factors of the characters’ language reflecting racism and (2) the social dimensions of the characters’ language reflecting racism. This research applied a qualitative method with the researcher as the main instrument and the data sheets as the secondary instruments. The data of this research were in the form of utterances employed by the characters in Freedom Writers. The data were collected by watching the film, checking the dialogues in the script, and recording the racist utterances. Theory and researcher triangulations were applied to enhance the trustworthiness of the data. The findings show four kinds of social factors that are used in the film Freedom Writers, i.e. participants, setting, topics, and functions of the interaction. The first is participants who involve racism issue in their daily conversation, i.e. family and school participants. The second is setting, which consists of public and private places in which the racism phenomena occur. The third, there are two main topics which are talked by the characters, racial segregation and race perspective. The utterances reflecting racism in Freedom Writers have three functions. Expressives which show the characters’ feelings about racism, directive, and representative, which is to provide information from others especially about racism as a crucial issue in America. The second findings show that there are four kinds of social dimensions in Freedom Writers, i.e. solidarity scale, status or power scale, formality scale, and functional scales. There are two types in each scale, high and low scales. Solidarity scales show the relationship between the participants. Intimate speakers have a high solidarity, such as family participants who have a higher solidarity scale than school participants. Status scale shows the social role in the society. Superior speakers will have a higher status than others who are inferior. Formality scales show how the participants speak based on the social context and setting. High formality is used by speakers when they are talking in the formal places and occassions, i.e. in a classroom and teachers’ room. Low formality conversations occur in the informal settings and occassions, such as in a bedroom, school yard, and restaurant. Functional scales present the functions of the racist utterances in two sub-categories, referential and affective. Referential involves the utterances which express new information, while affective expresses the speakers’ feeling in the conversations about racism issue