THE BATTLE OF IDENTITY: A COMPARATIVE SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF SPEECH ACCOMMODATION BETWEEN UHTRED AND BRIDA IN THE LAST KINGDOM

Abstract

This study aims to analyse the speech accommodation strategy from historical drama series, namely The Last Kingdom. Analyzing Uhtred and Brida’s utterances uses speech accommodation strategy by Howard Giles (2016) three strategies, including convergence, divergence, and maintenance. The author found all three strategies in the 10 data collected, which consist 4 convergence, 4 divergence, and 2 maintenance cases. After classifying the dialogues according to the speech accommodation strategy, the author now uses Tajfel and Turner (1979) Social Identity Theory to assess the cultural loyalties or psychological defense mechanism of the characters. The assessment covers 2 aspects, namely: In-group favoritism, and Out-group discrimination. This study shows that Uhtred managed to use convergence well to survive among the Saxons and Brida used divergence and did not adapt to the Saxon culture. It also shows the importance of speech accommodation strategy selection and social identity assessment in a cultural conflict.