CONTENT ANALYSIS OF DEIXIS AND SPEECH

ACTS FEATURES OF SELF IMPROVEMENT BOOK

“DEAR TOMORROW” BY MAUDY AYUNDA
Virky Ummah

virkyu@gmail.com

Postgraduate Faculty, Indraprasta University PGRI Jl. Jackfruit No. 58c Tanjung Barat,
Jagakarsa, South Jakarta

Abstract

The aim of this research is to analyze 1) how notes to my future self is applied. 2) How to apply to
our daily life in Dear Tomorrow book. Using descriptive qualitative as a method. This research
attempted to reveal the notes to future self. In identifying the data, deixis and speech acts are used.
The data were mainly collected from the script of author as the speaker of Dear Tomorrow. From
the analysis, 1) 205 data were collected to the use of person deixis. 2) 126 data were collected to
the use of place deixis. 3) 54 data were collected to the use of time deixis. 4) 37 data were
collected to the use locutionary act. 5) 36 data were collected to the use illocutionary act. 6) 35
data were collected to the use perlocutionary act. Moreover, Person deixis and locutionary act are
the most common data.

Keyword: analysis, deixis, speech acts, and Dear Tomorrow

PRELIMINARY
Pragmatic theory explains the reasoning or thinking of speakers and listeners in
constructing correlations in the context of a sentence with a proposition (plan or
problem). In this case, pragmatic theory is part of performance. The study of how we
bend something by using sentences are some reviews of deixis and speech acts.
Yule (2014: 3) argued that "pragmatic is the meaning conveyed by the speaker
(or author) and interpreted by the listener (or reader).
That was, pragmatic view languages based on speakers and speech partners. This
is because pragmatic views are based on external factors such as, speaker, speech partner,
speaker time, place of speech, situation of speech, purpose of speech, situation and event
of speech. Social relationships between speakers and listeners are established through
communication. In this case, language as a communication tool has a very important role
in social interaction. This is found in the choice of words in the form of deixis which is
always changing and depending on the context. Words such as me, he, we, now,
yesterday, here, there, this, that, are deictic words. The word has a meaning that moves
depending on who the speaker is, who is the opponent, what is the situation, and so on.
Absolutely, Each sentence has a category of types of speech acts.
Human language is used to convey a variety of information in various forms of
writing, such as poetry, novels, textbooks and so on. Accordingly, the use of existing can

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be found in oral and written conversations. Here, the author used self improvement book
presenting various types and forms of use of deixis and speech acts can be found. These
make the author interested in analyzing the use of deixis and speech acts in the self
improvement book title "Dear Tomorrow".
The author used a random system in the selection of books for analysis, so that
the theme of the self improvement book content analysis was chosen. With pragmatics
analysis in the book Dear Tomorrow, it is hoped that this research can be applied in
learning English especially for teenagers.
Based on the background on the top, it related with the research, the title in the research is
“content analysis of deixis and speech acts in the self improvement book title Dear
Tomorrow by Maudy Ayunda”.

Theoretical basis
1. Content analysis
Content analysis (CA) is a research methodology to make sense of the
(often unstructured) content of messages – be they texts, images, symbols or
audio data. In short it could be said to try to determine textual meaning. It is only
one research methodology that promises to do this, as there are numerous other
analyses dealing with text, messages and its content and meaning (such as
conversational, rhetorical or discourse analysis). However, content analysis is
distinct, for several reasons, as can be noticed in one often-cited definition: it is
“a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from texts (or
other meaningful matter) to the contexts of their use” (Krippendorff, 2004). This
stresses the inferential nature of content analysis: the fact that through an
inductive, deductive, or abductive process, conclusions are drawn from certain
premises and samples. Content analysts therefore typically use some guidelines
for inference (based on existing theories, previous research, or experience) and
strict procedural (coding) rules to move from unstructured text to answers to their
research questions (White & Marsh, 2006). During this process, due attention is
given to the context wherein these messages are embedded: two similar sentences
can mean different things in different surroundings. A common distinction in
social sciences, which also applies to content analysis methods, is between
qualitative and quantitative analyses. Problematically though, this dichotomy can
be understood in multiple ways, which in itself can be a source of confusion, but
the various ways of defining what counts as qualitative and quantitative also blur
the frontiers of what can be considered as content analysis. The dichotomy is first
of all applicable to approaches within the container of content analysis itself – if
we delineate it from other textual analyses. Hence, even after distinguishing
content analysis from other methodologies, it can flexibly be applied in a
quantitative or qualitative setting (White & Marsh, 2006). Section 2 of this paper
deals with what this distinction entails. Secondly, some authors equate the word
“qualitative” with “interpretive”, given that content analyses in general focus on
meaning and context. The dichotomy in this sense was between content analysis
as a systematic, rudimentary, quantitative approach, and other approaches that

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 were more qualitative or interpretative (Neuendorf, 2002). Content analysis
should hence be contrasted to, for example, discourse analysis (DA), which
would then be the more “qualitative” of the two. But while both deal with text in
some way, we argue there are still differences between CA and DA that make it
distinct approaches. In section 3, we assess these differences, as one way to
delimit CA from other textual analyses. In sum, we deem “content analysis” a
distinct methodology from “discourse analysis” (or other types of textual
analysis, such as rhetorical or conversational analysis), while maintaining that
within the container-term of content analysis, there is a continuum of quantitative
and qualitative approaches to using it. In sector 2 and 3, we explain this in more
detail. After this delineation, section 4 shows some of the methodological
considerations that content analysts always take into account. Section 5 provides
a range of examples where content analysis can be applied to. Section 6, lastly,
looks at some of the contemporary evolutions that we witness.
2. Doing content analysis
Content Analysis begins with a specific statement of the objectives or
research questions to be studied. The researcher asks the question ‘what do I want
to find out from this communication content’ and frames the objectives for study.
The researcher must therefore locate a source of communication relevant to the
research question and ask questions that can be solved by content analysis.
The objective of content analysis is to convert recorded “raw”
phenomena into data, which can be treated in essentially a scientific manner so
that a body of knowledge may be built up. In fact, the researcher who wished to
undertake a study using content analysis ought to deal with four methodological
issues: selection of units of analysis, developing categories, sampling appropriate
content, and checking reliability of coding (Stempel, 1989).
More specifically studies using content analysis usually involve the following six
steps:
 Formulation of the research question or objectives
 Selection of communication content and sample
 Developing content categories
 Finalizing units of analysis
 Preparing a coding schedule, pilot testing and checking inter coder reliabilities
 Analyzing the collected data
In the following pages, I shall explain each step in brief and use an article
as an example to relate steps involved in taking up a content analysis study.
However, I wish to add a caution that as content analysis is a versatile method,
the sample article may reflect only a limited number of the wide range of options
practiced in the method at each step.
3. Types of deixis
In this study, the author discussed the deixis part according to Alan Cruse,
namely outer-speech deixis consisting of: person deixis, spatial deixis, and
temporal deixis.

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 According to Yule (1996) deixis was a way of pointing by using
language. Deixis is manifested by deictic expressions, that is, the words which
perform the pointing (p. 9). Purwo (1984) stated that deictic words did not have
an exact referent because it depends on who the speaker is, when the utterance is
produced, and where the utterance is taken place (p. 1). Some examples of deixis
expressions are words such as you, here, and now in English.
According to Yule (1996), there were three kinds of deixis (p. 9). There
are as follows:
a. Person Deixis
Person deixis was the use of deixis to point to people (Yule, 1996, p. 9).
Levinson (1983) explained that the three basic grammatical distinctions, that
were the first person, second person, and third person, may function to conduct
the pointing (p. 69). However, it was important to be noted that deixis was
egocentric in which the speaker became the centre point and relates everything
from his point of view (Lyon, 1977, p. 638). In other words, a speaker operates
the three basic grammatical distinctions used as person deictic expressions based
on his own view.
Person deixis in Indonesian language may reflect the relation between the
participants as well as the way the speaker views the addressee. Therefore, the
person deictic expression in Bahasa Indonesia is distinguished between the
familiar form and the non familiar or polite form. Some most well-known
examples are the use of ‘Aku’ and ‘Saya’ as well as ‘Kamu’ and ‘Anda’. Purwo
(1984) stated that in Bahasa Indonesia, leksem kekerabatan (kinship lexemes)
such as ‘Bapak’, ‘Ibu’, etc. may also conduct the pointing (p. 23).
b. Spatial Deixis
According to Levinson (1983), spatial deixis concerned with the location
of people or things which is indicated in the speech event. In English, it is
manifested by the adverbs “here” and “there” as well as the demonstrative
pronouns “this” and “that” (p. 79). Yule (1996), however, added that the location
from the speaker’s perspective might also be shown by some verb of motion,
such as “come” and “go” in which “come” indicated approaching the center,
while “go” indicates moving away from center (p. 12).
c. Temporal Deixis
Yule (1996) explained that temporal deixis was concerned with the use of
deictic expressions to indicate time (p. 9). According to Levinson, this deixis
could be manifested by adverbial time such as “now”, “then”, “soon”, “recently”,
etc. (p. 74).
6. Types of Speech Acts
Every action performed by producing an utterance would consist of three
related acts (Yule, 1996:48). These three acts are locutionary act, illocutionary
act, and perlocutionary act, it discussed as follow:
a. Locutionary Act
A locutionary act is the performance of an utterance: the actual utterance
and its ostensible meaning, comprising phonetic, phatic and rhetic acts

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corresponding to the verbal, syntactic and semantic aspect of any
meaningful utterance. It is description of what speaker says. It is the act of using
a referring expression and predicting expression.
b. Illocutionary Act
The utterance of the sentence with determinate sense and reference (as
called utterance act). It is description of what speaker says. It is the act of using a
referring expressing and predicting expression. For instance “Mom, I am
hungry”. The referring expression is „I‟.
c. Perlocutionary Act
Perlocutionary its actual effect on the hearer, it means of uttering the
sentence that through locutionary acts illocutionary acts, such as persuading,
convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise getting someone to do
or realize something, whether intended or not.

METHOD
The research approach of this research is to use a qualitative approach.
“What was meant by a qualitative research approach was research that wanted to
look for contextual meaning as a whole based on the facts used by research
subjects "(Arikunto, 2010: 21-22).
The research design used in this study is a qualitative descriptive method.
Qualitative method was a research method based on the philosophy of post
positivism, used to examine the natural conditions of objects, (as opposed to
being an experiment) where the researcher is a key instrument, data source
sampling is carried out in a proposive and snowball way, collecting techniques
with triangulation (combined), data analysis is inductive/qualitative, and the
results of qualitative research and qualitative research results emphasize more on
the meaning of generalization (Sugiyono, 2015: 15).
In this method, the interpretation of qualitative analysis. Data analysis
conducted was inductive based on facts found in the field and then constructed
into a hypothesis or theory (Sugiyono, 2013: 15). Qualitative research methods
were used to obtain in-depth data, a data that contains meaning (Sugiyono, 2012:
15).
The choice of descriptive qualitative research method because this
research is examining the use of deixis and speech acts of some expressions
contained in the self improvement book tile "Dear Tomorrow" on April 2021.
The data collected is not numeric, but in the form of qualitative data expressed in
the form of words-word. As a certainty for a situation the results of this study will
contain a variety of data expressions, namely expressions to be described in terms
of a comprehensive and interconnected study. Description of the analyzed data
will be reviewed one by one.
The type of research approach is descriptive. Descriptive research is
research that seeks to tell the solution of existing problems based on data. This
type of descriptive qualitative research used in this study is intended to obtain
information about content analysis in deixis and speech acts features in the self

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 improvement book title "Dear Tomorrow" in depth and comprehensively. In
addition, the qualitative approach is expected to reveal the use of deixis and
speech acts of each phrase in the self improvement book title "Dear Tomorrow".

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Deictic
words
No. Utterances
Sometimes the phrase “be
yourself” confuses me.

Me
So I am most likely a
combination of the many
different people that have
surrounded me or inspired me.
I
I so badly wanted to know who I
was. I knew I was lucky to be
1 able to try so many life path
options--but I still couldn’t
decide. I was convinced that I
had to “find myself” soon, that all
I had to do was to look inside and
find this inherent self that has
been hiding all this time. I
wanted to know if I was meant to
be a singer, meant to be an
economist, meant to be an
educator, meant to be an actress.

The many challenges we had to

2
face.
We
Finding myself may be a never I
ending progress and I choose to
3 be excited about the prospect of
being able to customize myself.
Myself

4 The obvious path to take is laid

right in front of my eyes. My

6
 I think the answer depends on
what exactly brings us happiness
5 I
Us
Table 1 First Person Deixis

Deictic Words Number of Deictic Words

I 128

Me
25
My 24

Myself
8
We
15
Us 4

Mine 1

Total 205
Table 2 The Total of Deictic Words in First Person Deixis

No. Utterances Deictic Words

With this new understanding of what Yourself

happened and of yourself—look beyond, You
and decide on the new mindsets of
changes that you have to adopt to leave the
vicious circle.
1.
Breath, open your eyes, and live your Your
2. days consciously. You
Table 3 Second Person Deixis

Deictic Words Number of Deictic Words

You 41

Your 17

Yourself 4

7
 Total 25
Table 4 The Total of Deictic Words in Second Person Deixis

Deictic
No. Utterances
Words
It is near impossible to know a person’s whole life story—let alone be It
in their shoes completely.
1. Their
Last time I checked, opinions are opinion because they are subjective They
2. and not facts.
3. You know nothing of how another person got to where he/she. He
She
4. It’s difficult to look at the ever so colorful world: with all its It
interconnectedness, its new culture of sharing, without comparing
oneself to others. Its
Its
Table 5 Third Person Deixis

Deictic Words Number of Deictic Words

He 1
She 1
It 20
Itself 1
They 16
Them 1
Their 4
Total 44
Table 6 The Total of Deictic Words in Third Person Deixis

No. Utterances Deictic Words

In that case, there are multiple ways to That

achieve that.
1. There
2. I definitely learned this the hard way. This
3. Here is the main issue in judging others. Here
I love that girls these days are embracing their That
individuality: designing their own lives. These
4.
5. But sometimes living alongside others can Those
blur the lines between my own desires and
those others have of me.

Table 7 Place Deixis Utterances

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Deictic Words Number of Deictic Words
This
13
That
93
Here 3

There
12
These
4
Those
1
Total 126

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 Table 8 The Total of Deictic Words in Place Deixis

No. Utterances Deictic Words

A couple of years ago, I so badly wanted to A couple years ago

know who I was.
1.
I was convinced that I had to “find myself” All this time
soon, that all I had to do was to look inside
and find this inherent self that has been hiding
all this time.
2.
Because now I believe that my “self” is not Now
necessarily something to be found inside me.

3.
Sometimes I even felt drowned by Sometimes
expectations.
4.
5. There was a time when I felt overwhelmed a time
with trying to please everyone else.

Table 9 Time Deixis

10
Deictic words Total of deictic words
A couple years ago 1
All this time 3
Sometimes 5
Now 10
A time 1
The most of time 2
A day 1
Each day 1
At different times 1
The first few months 1
The first time 1
All the time 3
Some years ago 1
Soon 1
At the time 2
Gap year 3
A year off 1
In that year 1
The first year 1
Days 1
Hours 1
The next day 1
Two minutes 1
Tomorrow 2
Most of the time 2
In the future 1
Last time 1
Many days 1
Every day 1
In the past 1
These days 1
Total 54

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 Table 10 Time Deixis in Script of Dear Tomorrow
No. Locutionary
Utterances/Quotes
Who are you going to be today?
1.
(page 3)
She remembered who she was and
2.
the world started to listen. (page 4)
“Be yourself—not your idea of what
you think somebody’s else idea of
3.
yourself should be.” –Henry David
Thoreau (page 19)
Time does not wait, but it does not
4.
chase either. (page 13)
“You don’t have to have it all figured
5. out to move forward.” –ROY T.
BENNET (page 14)
Can you remember who you were,
6. before the world told you who you
should be? (page 29)
If you only do one thing today, what
7.
would it be? (page 33)
Table 11 Locutionary acts
No. Illocutionary
Utterances/Quotes
Who are you going to be today?
1.
(page 3)
She remembered who she was and
2.
the world started to listen. (page 4)
“Be yourself—not your idea of what
you think somebody’s else idea of
3.
yourself should be.” –Henry David
Thoreau (page 19)
Time does not wait, but it does not
4.
chase either. (page 13)
“You don’t have to have it all figured
5. out to move forward.” –ROY T.
BENNET (page 14)
Meaning
What are your mission going
to be?
She remembers who she is
and start listening
Be yourself who different is
from the others!
Time keeps running.
Do not think too much about
the things who hinder our
progress!
Can you remember who you
were before the others found
out?
What is the first thing you
will do?
Meaning
Maudy asks what will you do
today
Maudy also remembered who
she was and where to start
Maudy gives a message to us
that be yourself without
having to listen to other
people who are far from
common sense
Maudy informs that time is
running out
Maudy quoted what Bennet
said that we have to move
forward by adjusting our
abilities without thinking hard
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 at all.

Table 12 Illocutionary acts

No Perlocutionary
Utterances/Quotes Meaning
Who are you going to be today? (page
1. Who your mission will be
3)
She remembered who she was and the Maudy remembered what she had to do
2.
world started to listen. (page 4) first.
“Be yourself—not your idea of what
you think somebody’s else idea of Do not listen to what other people say if it
3.
yourself should be.” –Henry David doesn't make sense!
Thoreau (page 19)
Time does not wait, but it does not
4. Take the best possible time!
chase either. (page 13)
“You don’t have to have it all figured
5. out to move forward.” –ROY T. Go forward despite the storm!
BENNET (page 14)
Table 13 Perlocutionary acts

It was known that person deixis “I” was often found in this script because
the deictic word “I” could be used to refer to either person or entities of the
utterances. Place deixis mostly found in the script was “that”, because in the
script the characters of the play referred to the location far to the speaker. Time
deixis mostly found in the script was “now”, because in the script the characters
of the play referred to the present time of the speech event.
In the other analysis, it was known that locutionary act was often found
in the quotes script because this act is the most easiest to find the meaning than
other acts such as illocutionary act and perlocutionary act.

Conclusion
After the author described and analyzed the kinds of deixis and speech
acts in script of Dear Tomorrow, the author made conclusions. The author
concluded that the three kinds of deixis based on Yule’s theory are used in the
Dear Tomorrow, they are person deixis, place deixis, and time deixis. In the other
side, based on Levinson’s theory, there are three kinds of speech acts such as
locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act.
Each deictic word has referent. The referent can be different because the
speaker is different as well, but the different deictic words can have the same
referent. The referents in this play are mostly first persons because the speakers
of the utterances mostly use deictic words that refer to herself and us as readers
entities that are neither speakers nor addressees of the utterances and because this
play tells about all of self improvement to be better in the tomorrow or future life.

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 The use of pragmatics in the speech in Maudy Ayunda's book Dear
Tomorrow includes three types of speech acts such as locutionary, illocutionary,
and perlocutionary. The three types of speech acts have different types of
paraphrase but have the same meaning.
The function of using speech act pragmatics contained in several excerpts
from the self-motivated book Dear Tomorrow by Maudy Ayunda, contains
pragmatic analysis which is useful and provides reading sources as well as adding
insight and self-motivation for readers.

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