The Effect of Role Play Method on Students’ English Speaking Skills

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the use of grammar in daily conversations represented in the animated film Zootopia (2016) and to explore its linguistic and social meanings. Employing a descriptive qualitative approach, the research adopts Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as the main theoretical framework. The data were obtained from the film’s dialogue transcripts and in-depth interviews with six English Education students who had watched the movie. The analysis followed the Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña model, consisting of data reduction, categorization, and thematic interpretation. The findings reveal that the grammar used in Zootopia is dominated by informal spoken forms such as gonna, wanna, and ain’t, as well as ellipsis and tag questions, which reflect the natural characteristics of everyday communication. These grammatical patterns function as interpersonal tools to negotiate meaning among characters. Moreover, the variation of grammar reflects social identity, power relations, and ideological values such as equality and diversity. Therefore, grammar in Zootopia is not merely a set of formal linguistic rules but a social practice that represents the intersection of language, identity, and culture in daily communication.