Hotel Transylvania Movie (Short Phonological Analysis)

A. I dentity of The Movie

Directed by                : Genndy Tartakovsky[1]

Produced by              : Michelle Murdocca

Screenplay by            : Peter Baynham, Robert Smigel[2]

Story by                     : Todd Durham, Daniel Hageman, Kevin Hageman

Starring                     : Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Fran Drescher,   Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, David Spade, Cee Lo Green

Music by                    : Mark Mothersbaugh[3]

Editing by                  : Catherine Apple

Studio                         : Sony Pictures Animation

Distributed by            : Columbia Pictures

Release date(s)           : September 8, 2012 (Toronto International Film Festival) and September 28,   2012 (United States)

Running time             : 92 minutes[4]

Country                      : United States

Language                   : English

B. The Reason I choose “Hotel Transylvania” Movie

            Hotel Transylvania is the movie I choose to be analyzed because this is kind of funny and cute movie. The animation is so good. That is why I am so attracted to watch and analyze this movie. I also can learn many things from this movie that being a parents is a litle bit difficult thing. Sometimes, we think that we should protect our children, but when they have grown up, we should let them free to choose their own future. It is also told that not every dark thing is a bad one. There might be a good thing in a dark side of something. In addition, besides watching and enjoying the movie, I also can find a lot of variations in English here. There is an Italian accent used by Dracula here that seems a litle bit different with the British accent.

C. Summary of Hotel Transylvania Movie

            After the death of his wife, Martha who died because of incendiarism by humans doing, Count Dracula built a hotel named Hotel Transylvania. This hotel is actually built to take care and grow up his only daughter, Mavis far away from human civilization. Every monsters around the world are usually come to this hotel to go on vacation with their family because this is human-free and the safest place for monsters.

            On the Mavis 118th birthday, Dracula had planned a great party for his lovely daughter. However, unexpectedly a 21-year-old Jonathan came to that hotel. Dracula wanted to drive away Jonathan, yet, some of the monster had suspected Jonathan as a human, so Dracula improvised a story that Jonathan is a Johnnystein, a distant cousin of Frank's right arm. Soon after that, Jonathan met Mavis. They got along each other. As the time pass by, Mavis seemed falling in love with Jonathan. On the other side, Dracula who was always afraid with human because of his memories in the past, find out that his daughter is very attracted to this man. He tried to erase the memory of Jonathan, but failed because he is wearing contact lens in his eyes. Because of this failure, Dracula tried to frighten Jonathan that if he did not want to go, Dracula would suck his blood.

            Jonathan who was ready to leave that hotel, was brought back by Mavis. Meantime, Quasimodo, a monster chef for that hotel learned that Jonathan is a human and so, he tried to kidnap and cook him into a human pie. Knowing that, Dracula saved Jonathan and froze Quasiomodo in order to prevent him talking to other monsters that there was a human exists in that hotel. After that moment, Dracula told the story to Jonathan about why he was really hate and angry to the human. In a short time, Jonathan realized that it is not all fault by those monster who always be meant to human, but it is the human fault first. Soon, the party begun. Dracula let Jonathan joined in the party.

Meanwhile, Quasimodo who is still frozen, bursts into the party. He wanted to talk something, but no one understood what he was talking about. The Fly who knew frozen language, translated it that revealed Johnny's humanity, but Mavis was undeterred by her attraction and still wanted to be with Johnny, even though he is a human. Johnny rejected her out of respect for her father and left the hotel. Mavis was tragically sad because of that. She thought that both Jonathan and she was sharing a “zing”. Realizing that his only daughter was sad and that “zing” was only comes once in life, Dracula tried to look for Jonathan back with the help of his friends and apologized to him. Jonathan accepted Dracula’s apology and backed to Hotel Transylvania. Then, both Mavis and Jonathan could live happily.

D. Phonological Variations

Phonological variations, which is usually differ from the accents, come into a variety of languange forms. This variations are indeed happened in most of the laguange in the world with no exception of English. When we talk about English, there are many variaions happen in it. Those variations can be divided into geographical settings, age, style, and even social class and many others based on segmental and suprasegmental aspects. Referring to those kinds of variations, there are also many variations in English found in Hotel Transylvania movie.

1. Geographical Variations
     a. Italian Accent
• 01:25 – 01:30
I want to kiss your toes / aɪ ˈwɒnt tə ˈkɪs jə: ˈteʊz/  I vant to kiss your tus / aɪ ˈvɒnt tə ˈkɪs jə: ˈtʊz/ (Segmental aspects). Dracula uses Italian accents in producing the English sound in this movie. This italian man tends to change the “w” sound into the “v” sound. This man also tend to remove the ”e” sound in the word toes and just simply pronounce it as / ˈtʊz/. This segmental aspects is usually caled as deletion in phonological rule.
• 03:11 – 03:15
Dracula said the “the” sound in “the legs” as /ði:/ as if after the “the” sound is followed by the vowel. In English, the “the” sound in the word “the legs is pronounced as /ðə:/ because it is followed by consonant. This kind of variations is belonged to the segmental aspects. The italian man is always to pronounce “the” as /ði:/ in whatever the words following it.
The impacts of this phonological variation is that we can know and determine where exactly the place of this accent are coming from. However, it will be a little bit difficult to understand when we talk with those people if we do not look further at the context or expression happened and used at that time.

2. Age Variations
• 13:28 – 14:03
Young people tend to speak in rise and down intonation quickly when they are happy or get excited about something. Mavis spoke like that when she told that her Dad letting her go to see the world. This variation is belonged to the suprasegmental aspects since it deals with the rising intonation.
• Young people tend to use the word “dude” as many times as they speak to other people, eventhough it is the old one. Jonathan always use “ dude” word when he talk to other monster, even to Dracula the father of Mavis.
• 26:41 – 27:07
Old man like to explain something in a longer words and young man like to simplify that. Dracula was trying to explain what the place he lived exactly in a very long sentence. Then, Jonathan, as a young man, was simply sum it up into the words of “hotel for monster”
• 18:00 – 18:03
The young child tend to speak softly to his / her parents. It happens with Mavis when she was speaking to her father. She spoke very softly to him.
• 06:47 – 06:49
Even old man, if they meet with his / her old friend, he / she can be a little bit rude to them. It happens with Dracula when he met his old friend.

3. Sex Variations
• 29:15 – 29:17
Dracula said “Shut up!” to the hanging monster on the key room. This word is  usually used by male with high tone when they are getting upset or angry.
• 10:11 – 10:15
The female one tend to speak a little bit fussy than the male one. It shown by the act of auntie Eunice, the wife of Frankestein.
• 1:17:26 – 1:17:28
The pilot assistant said, “What a heck!” These words are usually used by male with low tone.

E. Phonological Rules

a. Assimilation

• 1:10 – 1:15

I didn’t mean that = /d/ is pronounced more like /n/. This is nasal assimilion. 

• 4:22 – 4:25

Darling = /r/ pronounced more like /l/. 

b. Deletion

• 4:15 – 4:18

Know = The sound /k/ is deleted and not pronounced.

• 2:30 – 2:33

Frighten = The sound /k/ is deleted and not pronounced.

c. Strengthening

• 01:02:11 – 01:02:13

“Lying to me! Tricking me! Keeping me…” The girl pronounced those words stronger.

The strengthening way is usually used when the people was a little bit upset and angry to someone else, so they strengthen their words to make it clearer. It happens with Mavis who tried to open his dead eyes that all what he had done to her was totally wrong. This is could be belonged to the suprasegmental aspects as the tone was involved here.

• 01:16:46 – 01:16:47

“Dracula”. The boy pronounced that word stronger because he wanted to make sure whether it is dracula or not. We also can use this strengthening rule in this way to show us whether we are sure about something or not.

Written by : Aida Shine