From mitigation to domination: A diachronic pragmatic analysis of Walter White’s speech acts across the five seasons of Breaking Bad

Azam, Zidan Khairul (2026) From mitigation to domination: A diachronic pragmatic analysis of Walter White’s speech acts across the five seasons of Breaking Bad. Sarjana thesis, UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung.

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Abstract

This thesis conducted a diachronic pragmatic analysis of Walter White's speech acts across all five seasons of the television series Breaking Bad to systematically map his linguistic transformation from a submissive high school teacher to a dominant drug kingpin. Addressing a significant gap in media linguistics scholarship—which had largely treated character evolution in an impressionistic manner—this study provided a data-driven linguistic account of identity shift. The research employed a qualitative descriptive design grounded in Searle’s (1969) Speech Act Theory and Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Politeness Theory. Primary data consisted of purposively sampled pivotal interactions extracted from complete series transcripts covering Seasons 1 to 5. The findings documented a clear trajectory of discursive metamorphosis. In early seasons, the protagonist’s speech was characterized by heavily mitigated directives, frequent hedging, and cognitive hesitation. As the narrative progressed, the register shifted toward transactional assertives. By the final seasons, his discourse was dominated by bald-on-record commands, aggravated Face-Threatening Acts (FTAs), and explicit declarations of sovereignty. This systematic erosion of linguistic mitigation directly correlated with his moral decay. Ultimately, this research validated long-form television as a longitudinal laboratory for studying character evolution.

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