WORD FORMATION PROCESSES ON TERMS USED BY

MILITARY OFFICER IN THE MOVIE BLACK HAWK

DOWN BY RIDLEY SCOTT

BY :

MUHAMMAD ANDRI MIRAZA

155110100111018

STUDY PROGRAM OF ENGLISH

DEPARTEMENT OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
FACULTY OF CULTURE STUDIES
UNIVERSITAS BRAWIJAYA
2017
I. Introduction

Morphology is the study of the minimal linguistic unit which has a

meaning or grammatical function. Therefore, every single word that was spoken
by people in the world has a specific meaning. The use of word as a tool for
communication has been used for a long time. And as time goes by, the word has
been developed a lot and it still going on until now. The development of the word
is very big, for instance, some words that originally only have one meaning could
have a lot of different meaning. This word could be used by certain groups or
communities as a sign of something or to make communication using words could
be a lot easier.

One of an example of a group that we can see is the Military Officer. As

one of the group that play a big role in order to protect their country, they should
create a very good strategies to make their plan efficient. And one of the important
element is a good communication between each military members. Therefore, The
Military Groups create a certain language that is only known by their own groups
as a sign for doing certain commands, whether they have to attack , run or
surrender, so their strategies wont be acknowledged by their opponent.

In this study , The Writer choose Military Officer , especially on the Army
or Ground Forces characters on the movie Black Hawk Down that was directed
by Ridley Scott as the object of the study to analyze the specific word or word
formation process used by The Military Officer.

The Writer choose the movie Black Hawk Down as the object for
the study are because of several reasons : First, The Movie Black Hawk Down
focused on the story of a United States army that was sent by the United States
Government to Somalia to capture the rebels using a black hawk helicopter.
Which means that in order for the army to do that action, there are certain words
that was used by the army to make the plan easier and faster to be done.

Second, The Movie Black Hawk Down is a movie that was based on
the true story. Which means that the conversation and the terms used by The
Military Officer in the movie might be adopted from the original story. That is
why The writer choose this movie as an object in this study to analyze the word
formation.

The Writer also found some benefits for the reader about the analysis of
the term used by military officer in the movie Black Hawk Down : First , The
analysis will give an additional information and deep understanding about the
using of word formation in terms used by certain communities or groups,
especially on The Military Officer. Second, The analysis will help the reader to
learn one of the method used by The Writer to analyze the word formation process
on terms used by the military officer in the movie Black Hawk Down. Third,
The analysis hopefully could give a new information to the reader about the
meaning behind the terms that was used by the military officer in the United
States since the movie is focusing on the United States Army.
II. Method

Yule (2006) stated that there are a lot of word formation processes that
was found but still able to be explored on how new words are created. There are
some examples that are provided by Yule on his analysis of the word formation
processed, and we can use that as one of the way to analyze word formation
processes. Coinage for example, it is one of the least common processes of word
formation in english. Coinage is known as a processes where commercial
products were used as a general term. There are also many more types of the word
formation processes, and later will be explained by the writers along with the
result of the analysis that was found in the movie Black Hawk Down.

In this Studies, the methods that will be used by The Writer to collect the
data is by watching the movie Black Hawk Down from the beginning until the
end and write the specific terms that will be heard during the movie. After the
Writer finished watching the movie Black Hawk Down until the end and finally
collected all of the terms that was found, The Writer will find the word formation
processes that is suitable with the terms that was found during the analysis. And
the result will be explained in the form of table which will be elaborated in the
findings
III. Result

Based on the analysis, The Writer found some word formation

processes in term used in the movie Black Hawk Down. The Writer will
elaborate the findings in the form of the table based on the word formation
process that was found in the movie. They Are:

No Word Word Formation Process Type

Clipping Borrowing Acronym Affixation Functiona
Found
l Shift
1 Mog

2 Hoo-Ah

3 QRF

4 Irene

5 RPG

6 Evac

7 KIA

8 PCL

9 SAR

10 Incoming

11 JOC

12 ETA

13 NOD

14 Ammo

15 Regroup

16 Medic

17 Wounded

Total 4 2 8 2 1
 Based on the table above , The Writer had found five word formation
processes used by The Rangers in the movie Black Hawk Down. Based on the
result , The Writer found Five Clipping Word formation process , Two Borrowing
Word formation process , Eight Acronym Word formation process , Two Affixation
Word formation process and One Functional Shift Word formation process, and
The Writer has elaborate the result of analysis based on word formation processes
found in the movie. They are:

A. Clipping

1) Mog

The word Mog in the movie is used as a reference of Mogadishu which

is a capital city of Somalia. The Rangers clip it become Mog as a secret code
because they do not want their opponent to know their target.

2) Ammo

The word Ammo in the movie used by The Rangers is originally

coming from the word Ammunition . but it was clipped into ammo

3) Medic

The word Medic in the movie is originally a word Medication.

But the word was clipped into Medic.

4) Evac

The word Evac is originally stands for Evacuate. The word is

used to evacuate the specific area in Somalia.

B. Borrowing
1) Hoo-ah

The word Hoo-ah is originally coming from Vietnam which means

yes. And in the movie, the word Hoo-ah is also means yes or
understood.

2) Irene

The word Irene is originally came from Greek which means Peace.
But in the movie, The Rangers used is as a sign to said that the mission is
begin. So the word Irene in the movie means begin or Start.

C. Acronym

1) QRF

The word QRF in the movie stands for Quick Response Force.

2) RPG

The word RPG in the movies stands for Rocket Propelled Grenade. It
is a weapon used by the somalian to attack The Rangers

3) KIA
 The word KIA in the movie stands for Killed in Action. The word is
used as a sign if there are any rangers that was hit by a weapon and killed.

4) PCL

The word PCL in the movie stands for Positive Control Launch. The
word is used to describe the weapon used by the Somalian.

5) SAR

The word SAR in the movie stands for Save and Rescue. The word is
used when the sergeant give the command to save The Rangers who got hit.

6) JOC

The word JOC in the movie stands for Joint Operations Center. It is
one of the unit in the military.

7) ETA

The word ETA in the movie stands for Estimated Time of Arrival.

8) NOD

The word NOD in the movie stands for Night Observation Device. It is
a tool that the rangers used to see in the dark.

D. Affixation

1) Incoming
 The original word of the word Incoming is coming. It was added with
the prefix in. The word is a sign that there are an attack coming.

2) Regroup

The word Regroup used by The Ranger in the movie is a originally a

word Group added with prefix Re- in the beginning of the word. The
meaning of the word group is a number of people gathered in certain
belonging or communities , while after being added with prefix Re-, the
meaning changes into getting back together with the group.

E. Functional Shift

1) Wounded

In dictionary, the word wounded is supposed to be an adjective to

explain about a person who got a wound. but in the movie, The Rangers
use the word wounded as a noun. The word meant to explain about the
rangers who got a wound because of the war.
IV. Conclusion
 Based on the research, The Writer has found five out of thirteen
word formation processes that was stated by Yule. In the las chapter, it can be seen
that The Writer has found Five Clipping Word formation process , Two Borrowing
Word formation process , eight Acronym Word formation process , Two Affixation
Word formation process and One Functional Shift Word formation process that
was used by The Rangers in the movie Black Hawk Down.

Based on the analysis, The Writer found Acronym as the most used word
formation process in the movie Black Hawk Down. There might be several
reason why The Rangers use a lot of Acronym word formation processes in the
movie Black Hawk Down. The first might be because of the name of the weapon
is too sophisticated. So , The Ranger used acronym in order to make the name
shorter and easier to say. The second reason might be if the rangers used acronym
instead of saying the real names, it might become shorter and easier to
communicate among each Rangers.

Not only talking about the most word formation process found in the
movie Black Hawk Down. The Writer also found the word formation process
Functional Shift as the least used by The Rangers in the movie Black Hawk
Down. The reason that The Rangers did not really use word formation process
Functional Shift for their terms is might be because they dont want any
misunderstanding happened especially during the war. So in order to prevent that,
they use the word that has the same meaning based on the dictionary.

V. References
 Yule, George. 2006. The Study of Language : Third Edition. Cambridge
University.