The use of assertive acts to portray social support in The Fault in Our Stars movie

This research aims to examine the use of assertive acts to portray social support in “The Fault in Our Stars” movie. This film tells the story of two lovers who are fighting cancer to stay alive. Social support is portrayed in the film because the condition of cancer patients requires support from others. Depictions of social support often use assertive acts. The researcher is interested in analyzing how assertive acts are applied in portraying social support. This research identifies what kinds of assertive acts are used in the film and the reasons behind using assertive acts to portray social support. This study uses a qualitative approach to analyze the assertive acts used by all characters to portray social support for cancer patients in the movie “The Fault in Our Stars”. The researcher refers to the theory of illocutionary acts formulated by John Rogers Searle (1976) to identify the types of assertive acts used and the social support theory proposed by James S. House (1981) to identify forms of social support. Data collection involves downloading transcripts and the film “The Fault in Our Stars”. Then, the film is analyzed by identifying and classifying types of assertive acts that depict social support. The analysis continued by examining the reasons behind the use of assertive acts by all characters to show social support to cancer patients in the film. This research reveals that there are seven types of assertive acts used to portray social support, including stating, asserting, informing, telling, suggesting, explaining, and claiming. Stating is the most frequently used type of assertive acts. Besides that, there are specific reasons influencing the implementation of assertive acts to portray forms of social support for cancer patients in the film, including expressing someone's feelings, giving advice, providing information, declaring facts or beliefs, clarifying something, and convincing the hearer. All characters in the film "The Fault in Our Stars" employed assertive acts to express social support to cancer patients to emphasize that someone with a chronic illness deserves love and wholehearted support.