Tracying for Power representation through the use of Directive Acts Speech between the Teacher and the Student: A Communication and Pragmatic Study

Abstract

This article presents the results of research on the representation of power in the speech directive of teachers and students in high school. The study uses the communication and pragmatic ethnographyapproach. The results of this study indicate that the use of directive acts by teachers and students represents power. Teachers and students in classroom discourse use four types of directives, namely command, request, prohibition, politeness, and suggestions. The use of the directive type of command and the prohibition has a high restriction content that tends to represent dominative power. In contrast, the use of demand, politeness, and suggestion, has a low restriction level that represents humanist power. The degree of dominance of teacher and student directive action is related to the use of modality types including the directness of the directive, the greeting used, and the type of speech acting diathesis. The power representation is influenced by the socio-cultural dimension that builds class discourse, especially the difference in institutional role between teacher and student, the purpose of speech to be achieved from the learning process, and the topic of speech controlling the learning activity. Keywords: representation, power, speech acts