Background of the Study

English is a global language. It is an international language with over one billion speakers

worldwide. It belongs to the Indo European family, which includes most of the European

language and Few Asiatic ones. Therefore, acquiring good command in English is beneficialto

one’s career and self-development.

There are three varieties of English based on its use, namely formal, informal and nonstandard

(Guth, 1977). Formal English is the language of serious discussion and formal occasion. It is

used in business latters, application letter, reports, thesis, research seminars and curriculum vitae.

Informal English is also called colloquialism ( conversational variety ) since informal English is

often used in daily conversation (Widarso, 1989). It is used among friends, colleagues, families

and the kind. Nonstandard English is a variety, which does not agree with rules of standard

English (Widarso, 1989)

For English learning Indonesia, English idioms constitute a somewhat serious problem.Idioms

are constructed by combining two or more words the meaning of which are, in one hand,

predictable on the basis of the meaning of individual word forming the idioms, and, in other

hand, are not related to the meaning of each word developing it. Moreover, most of the meaning

of idioms are culturally determined

In a movie, one is able to learn many aspects of knowledge related to English, especially for

everyday English usage. Learning English thourgh movies also supports one to practice English

in listening and speaking skills. Movie can also be a source for one to understand other culture;

especially to know how the language is used by the people in a particular country.thourgh the

characters’ conversation in the movie, one can learn informal English used in its script. A script

of a movie should be written using the viewer’s normal conversational vocabulary. Therefore a

script is befitting for research data, since this study is looking for closest reflection of idioms

usage.
Man in Black: International is a famouse American comedy movie. As a comedy movie, its

characters use unique English conversation. It is one thing that makes this movie interesting. As

a mirror of daily life, the script of the movie contains the use of informal English. Based on these

arguments, I attempt to investigate the informal English usage ( especially the use of idioms ) in

the movie Man in Black: International as the source of the research data.