Constructing Miranda Priestly’s Personal Identities through Her Complaint Utterances in McKenna’s Movie Script The Devil Wears Prada

Nuris Khoirina Isnaini

Abstract

This research focuses on Miranda Priestly’s complaint utterances in McKenna’s movie script The Devil Wears Prada. Qualitative research is applied since the data are in the form of utterances. The methods that are used to analyze the data are descriptive and interpretative. Descriptive study is used to elaborate the speech act of complaint and Miranda’s complaint strategies. Then, interpretative method is used to construct Miranda’s personal identities through her complaint utterances. Other four variables; master identity, interactional identity, relational identity and altercasting also contribute in constructing Miranda’s personal identities. The results of this research show that Miranda employs all four complaint strategies. Most of her complaint utterances are classified as the most direct complaint strategy, namely blame. The most indirect complaint strategy, namely no explicit reproach, has the least number than other three complaint strategies. Those findings show that Miranda is a direct, abrasive, aggressive and assertive woman.

Keywords: Pragmatics, Speech Act, Complaint, Language and Identity