AN ANALYSIS OBAMA’S SPEECH ACTS ON THE THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE IN THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2012 PDF

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AN ANALYSIS OBAMA’S SPEECH ACTS ON THE THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE IN THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2012 Anang Mardani ([email protected]) Advisor: Moch. Maskuri M. Pd Universitas PGRI Ronggolawe Tuban (UNIROW), Tuban Abstract This research attempts to investigate and describe the phen...

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AN ANALYSIS OBAMA’S SPEECH ACTS ON THE THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE IN THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2012 Anang Mardani ([email protected]) Advisor: Moch. Maskuri M. Pd Universitas PGRI Ronggolawe Tuban (UNIROW), Tuban Abstract This research attempts to investigate and describe the phenomena of speech acts used by Barack Obama on the third presidential debate in the United States presidential election 2012. The researcher employs Langacker’s theory to analyze the kinds of Locutionary acts used by Obama. While Illocutionary acts the researcher uses Searle’s theory to analyze the kinds of illocutionary acts used by Obama. Besides, the researcher uses Austin’s theory to analyze perlocutionary acts used by Obama. The descriptive qualitative method is used to conduct this research. The researcher found three kinds of locutionary acts; declarative, imperative and interrogative. While the kind of illocutionary acts, the researcher found five kinds of illocutionary acts used by Obama. They are declarative; representatives; directives; expressives and commissives. The perlocutionary acts used by Obama is mostly intend to get the hearers know by his assertion, explanation, clarification, argumentation etc. Keywords: Speech Acts, Barack Obama, Third Presidential Debate. 1. Introduction People do not only produce utterances which contain grammatical structure and words when they speak, but also perform action through those utterances. Thus, the actions that performed in saying something, are generally called speech acts. Austin 1962 speech acts theory said that the action performed when an utterance is produced can be analyzed on three different levels. The first level of analysis is locutianary acts, the form of the words uttered or the acts of saying something. The second level is illocutionary force, he defined that illocutionary acts is what is done in uttering the word and the function of the words or the specific purpose that the speakers have in mind. The last level of analysis is perlocutionary effect, what is done by the word, the effect of the hearer or the hearer’s reaction (Austin, 1962, in Cutting, 2002: 16). Barack Obama, the first African-American president in American history, captured the world’s attention for his re-election on the presidential election 2012. During the presidential election of United States 2012, it has become customary for the main candidates to engage in a debate. The topics discussed in the debate are often the most controversial issues of the time, and arguably elections have been nearly decided by these debates. The study of presidential addresses has not only attracted the interests of political scientists and historians, but also attained the attention of linguists. Concerning with the use of speech acts for human activities, understanding the speaker’s intention is essential to capture the meaning. Thus, the utterance which is produced by Barack Obama is not merely to say something ordinary. It indicates that when he says something, it implies some action behind his utterances. The current research investigated and describes the phenomena of speech acts used by Barack Obama on the third presidential debate in the United States presidential election 2012. 1.1 Speech Acts 1

Austin (1962, in Cutting 2002: 16) states that speech act is an act refers to the action that is performed in making an utterance. Similarly, Yule (1996: 47) defines speech acts as “actions performed via utterances”. When a speaker utters something, he or she then expects that the hearer will be affected by his or her utterances. According to Austin (!962 cited in Cutting 2002: 16) states that, the action performed when an utterance is produced can be analyzed on three different levels. Those are explained below: 1.1.1 Locutionary Acts Locutionary act is semantic or literal meaning of sentence. The understanding of the function of sentence is very important to understand semantic or literal meaning of sentence. Thus, Langacker classified locutionary acts based on the type of sentence. In order to describe the types of the locution, the researcher uses Langacker theory, Langacker (1972, in Laily, 2005:12) describes the three types of sentences as follows: a) Declarative sentences Declarative sentences are sentences that present a predicate and with or without more phrase adjuncts. The function of declarative sentence is to assert and describe something. For example: a. He ate The example of sentence that present a predicate and without more phrase adjuncts b. I bought a watch from Harvey for three clam shells. c. Pauline gave Tom digital watch for his birthday The example of sentence that present a predicate and with more phrase adjuncts b) Imperative sentences Imperative sentences are said over the person who has some voluntary control. They are tending to be restricted to sentences with second person subject and active verbs. They are also restricted in tense. They are closer to order or request. For example: a. Let him come! b. Bring me more sugar! c. Give a digital watch for my birthday c) Interrogative sentences There are two basic kinds of question sentences: 1) Alternative questions; those that ask which of two or more alternative proposition is true. Example: Did you buy the wallet, or did you steal it, or did you find it on the street? 2) Specification questions; those that ask for the further specification of some constituent. Example: Who steal my wallet? 1.1.2 Illocutionary Acts Leech (1983: 199) states that illocutionary act is performing the act in saying something. An illocutionary act can also be called as an implied level. It is an act of doing something. Yule (1996: 48) writes that “the illocutionary act is performed via the communicative face of an utterance” and it is an intended meaning of a speaker. Furthermore, Yule (Yule, 1996: 49) states sometimes it is not easy to determine what kind of illocutionary act the speaker performs. To hint his intentions and to show how the proposition should be taken the speaker uses many indications, ranging from the most obvious ones, such as unambiguous performative verbs, to the more opaque ones, among which mainly various 2

paralinguistic features (stress, timbre and intonation) and word order should be mentioned. All these hints or let’s say factors influencing the meaning of the utterance are called Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices, or IFID as Yule, referring to previous Searle’ s work, calls them. There are hundreds or thousands of illocutionary acts and that is why, for better understanding and orientation, some linguists proposed their classification. Classification of speech act is also classified by Searle. Searle (1976 cited in Cutting 2002:16) divides illocutionary (speech) acts into five major categories (to define them, the researcher will use Yule’s explanations (Yule, 1996: 53-54). 1. Declaratives In this type of speech acts, a speaker wants to change the world via his or her utterance. In order to perform declarations correctly, the speaker has to have a special institutional role in a specific context that can be used to express it. The example of this speech act is presented below. Jury Foreman: “We find the defendant guilty.” The utterance above is a declaration speech act which is uttered by a jury foreman. He declares that the accused is guilty (Yule, 1996: 53) 2. Representatives The purpose of a speaker in performing representatives is to commit him or herself to the belief that the propositional content of the utterance is true. Statements of fact, assertions, conclusions, and descriptions, are the examples of this type of speech acts. In using representatives, the speaker makes the words fit the world. The application of the type can be seen in the following example: a) The earth is flat. b) Chomsky did not write about peanuts. These two examples above are facts that are believed by people in the world. It is true that the earth is flat and Chomsky did not write about peanuts (Yule,1996: 53). 3. Expressive Expressives are speech acts that state what the speaker feels. It can be caused by something the speaker does or the hearer does. They express psychological states and can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy or sorrow. A complaint, the main topic of the research, is a kind of expressive speech act. The complainees express their feelings (disapproval, unsatisfied, anger, etc) through this speech act classification. The examples of this speech act can be seen below. a) I’m really sorry! b) Congratulations! Example (a) is an expression to show sympathy or guilty to someone. The second example, (b) is used to congratulate someone (Yule, 1996: 53). 4. Directives In directives, a speaker tries to get the hearer to commit him or herself to do something. Directives express what the speaker wants. Commands, orders, requests, suggestions are the forms of directives. The following sentences are the examples of directives. a) You may ask b) Would you make me a cup of tea? Don‟t touch that. In the first example (a), the sentence is a suggestion that has a function to get the hearer to do something as what the speaker suggests. Meanwhile, in the second example (b), the speaker uses an interrogative sentence to ask the hearer to make a cup of tea. In this case, the speaker does not expect the hearer to answer the question with yes or no. The last example is a command to make the hearer acts as what the speaker wants (Yule, 1996: 54). 3

5. Commissives When a speaker uses commissives, one can assume that the speaker will do an action in the future. It can be in the form of promises, threats, refusals, and pledges. Those actions can be performed by the speaker alone, or by the speaker as a member of a group. This speech act is illustrated in the following example. a) I’ll be back. b) I’m going to get it right next time. c) We will not do that. From the three examples above, it can be concluded that the content of the commissive has something to do with the future and a possible action of the speaker. The modal “will” or “to be going to‟ in certain rules, contexts, and situation signifies a promise in which it is considered as a commisive (Yule, 1996: 54). 1.1.3 Perlocutionary Acts According to Austin (1962, cited in Sadock 2005: 20) Perlocutionary act is the effect of the word for the hearer. Which is a consequence or byproduct of speaking, whether intended or not. Moreover, Austin (1962 cited in Brown and Yule, 1983: 232) perlocutionary act can be described in terms of effect of illocutionary act, on the particular occasion of use, has on the hearer. In addition, perlocutionary act is the effect on hearer’s response of what speaker says. Perlocutionary act would include such effects as; persuading, embrassing, intimidating, boring, irritating, and inspiring the hearer. For instance, a teacher says to the students “please study hard or you’ll fail on final examination”. The illocutionary act might be advising or suggesting but the perlocutionary act may be intimidating for students. In short, the locutionary acts concerns with meaning, the illocutionary acts concerns with force and the perlocutionary acts concerns with effect. If the listener to do something, automatically the speaker will say something (locutionary), then the speaker will act something to get what she or he wants (illocutionary). Consequently, the listener will do something as response to the speaker utterance (perlocutionary). 1.3 Felicity Conditions The term of felicity conditions is still in use and it is not restricted only to performatives anymore. As Yule (Yule, 1996: 50) observes, felicity conditions cover expected or appropriate circumstances for the performance of a speech act to be recognized as intended. He then, working on originally Searle’s assumptions, proposes further classification of felicity conditions into five classes: general conditions, content conditions, preparatory conditions, sincerity conditions and essential conditions. According to Yule (Yule,1996: 50) general conditions presuppose the participants’ knowledge of the language being used and his non-playacting, content conditions concern the appropriate content of an utterance, preparatory conditions deal with differences of various illocutionary acts (e.g. those of promising or warning), sincerity conditions count with speaker’s intention to carry out a certain act and essential conditions combine with a specification of what must be in the utterance content, the context, and the speaker’s intentions, in order for a specific act to be appropriately (felicitously) performed. 1.4 The Presidential Debate on The Presidential Election 2012 Debating is commonly carried out in many assemblies of various types to discuss matters and to make resolutions about action to be taken, often by a vote. Deliberative bodies such as parliaments, legislative assemblies, and meetings of all sorts engage in debates. In particular, in parliamentary democracies a legislature debates and decides on new laws. Formal debates between candidates for elected office, such as the leaders debates and the U.S. presidential election debates, are sometimes held in democracies. Debating is also carried out for educational and recreational purposes, usually associated with educational establishments. The major goal of the study of debate as a method or art is to develop the 4

ability to debate rationally from either position with equal ease. Although informal debate is a common occurrence, the quality and depth of a debate improves with knowledge and skill of its participants as debaters. The outcome of a contest may be decided by audience vote, by judges, or by some combination of the two. Every four years, hundreds of thousands of Americans will welcome the glory moment of electing a new president. They will canvass for their favorite candidates willingly. Barack Obama, the first African-American president in American history, captured the world’s attention for his re-election on the presidential election 2012. During the presidential election of United States 2012, it has become customary for the main candidates to engage in a debate. The Commission on Presidential Debates stipulates three criteria for eligibility: constitutional eligible, appearance on enough ballots to potentially reach 270 electoral votes, and average at least 15% on five selected national polls. Only Barack Obama and Mitt Romney also satisfy the third criterion of averaging 15% in five selected national polls and thus are the only two to appear in 2012 Commission Presidential Debates. The topics discussed in the debate are often the most controversial issues of the time, and arguably elections have been nearly decided by these debates. Debates are broadcast live on television and radio. The first debate for the 1960 election drew over 66 million viewers out of a population of 179 million, making it one of the most-watched broadcasts in U.S. television history. The 1980 debates drew 80 million viewers out of a 226 million. Recent debates have drawn decidedly smaller audiences, ranging from 46 million for the first 2000 debate to a high of over 67 million for the first debate in 2012. On the first Presidential debate, some polls found that Mitt Romney had done better than Obama, debate watchers believed that Romney was the clear winner. Different with the first, the second presidential debate, debate watchers and voters believed that Obama had done better on the debate. Regarding to the second debate, the third presidential debate, Obama was the clear winner. Over all of the Presidential debates every candidate was apply his rich language expressions, impassioned speeches and wholehearted attitudes to try to win more votes. The study of presidential addresses has not only attracted the interests of political scientists and historians, but also attained the attention of linguists. There are mainly two reasons in case of selecting Barack Obama’s speech in the third presidential debate as the object being analyzed. First, his speech seems to be considered as an interesting current issue in the same manner as qualitative research. Another one as the primary reason is that, in lisnguist phenomena, Barack Obama has special characteristics in terms of being a speaker. The characteristics are not only from his utterances or the way performing the speech or his utterances which is able to influence all the audiences, but then the implied meaning which needs to be observed deeply. In consequence, it is needed a device namely linguistic approach speech acts theory in order to understand and analyze Obama’s speech. Besides, linguistic approach is commonly used by the linguists and linguistic philosophers in relation to interpret text study. 1.5 The Third Presidential Debate The third presidential debate took place on Monday, October 22 at Florida's Lynn University, and was moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS. Topics discussed included the recent attack on the United States. There are five topics generally discussed on the third presidential debate. The first is the changing Middle East and the new face of terrorism, the second is America’s role in the world, the third is about red lines Israel and Iran, the fourth is America’s longest war Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the last topic is the rise of China and the future challenges for America. 1.6 Research questions This study focuses to answer the following three research questions: 1. What kinds of locutionarry acts used by Obama in the third presidential debate? 2. What kinds of illocutionary acts used by Obama in the third presidential debate? 5

3. What kinds of perlocutionary acts used by Obama in the third presidential debate? 2. Research Method This study uses descriptive qualitative approach. It is called descriptive qualitative approach because some reason, they are: because some reasons. They are: 1) the source of data in this study is in natural setting; 2) the study tries to identify the data and present it descriptively; 3) this study uses a human instrument; 4) the study concerns more on the process rather than product; 5) the study is conducted by carrying out the data inductively. These characteristics are appropriate with the characteristics of descriptive qualitative that are stated by Bogdan and Biklen (1982, in Maskuri 2008:2). In related to the linguistics Croker (2009: 4) states that qualitative research in applied linguistics is a broad and exciting interdisciplinary field of study. It focuses on language in use, connecting our knowledge about languages with an understanding of how they are used in the real world. The source of the data is the transcript of the Obama’s utterances of the third presidential debate in the United States Presidential Election 2012 against Mitt Romney as candidate from Republican Party. In collecting and analyzing the data, in this study, the researcher employs content analysis method. Borg and Gall (1983, cited in Maskuri, 2008: 2) state that content analysis technique is a research technique that collects the data of communication objectively, systematically, and descriptively. Content analysis method can be applied to analyze any form of communication which is usually written such as text, book, composition novel, newspaper, magazine, advertisement and political speech. Furthermore Weber (1990 in GAO, 1996: 6) a central idea in content analysis is that the many words of the text art classified into much fewer content categories. Furthermore, in collecting the data the writer perform some steps which are related to the focuses of the study. They are as follow: 1. Reading the transcript of the third presidential debate repeatedly. 2. Segmenting the data The data source in this study is the transcript of Barack Obama’s utterances in the third presidential debate in the presidential election of United States 2012. The debate consists of some topic that being talked. The writer segments the data base on the topics. In relation to segmenting the data, Brown and Yule (1983 cited in Maskuri 2008:3) state that the dialogue is segmented into fragment based on the topic or “what is being talked about”. 3. Identifying the utterances The utterances in the debate are identified by analyzing based on the aspects of linguistic. The utterances are identified by ana...