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AN ANALYSIS OF ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS IN DONALD
TRUMP’S PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDACY SPEECH
A THESIS
Submitted to the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Hasanuddin University
in Partial Fulfillment for the Acquisition of Sarjana Humaniora Degree
in the English Department
By
FENTY RAHMAYANTI USMAN
F21113043
HASANUDDIN UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF CULTURAL SCIENCES
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
MAKASSAR
2017
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In the name of Allah, the most merciful and the most gracious, the writer
would like to convey a deepest gratitude to Allah SWT from whom the writer gets
strength, health and guidance during her studies in the faculty of letters of
Hasanuddin University.
The writer realizes that this thesis is not seemed to be perfect due to some
mistakes and deficiency in making this thesis. However, the writer hopes that this
thesis will be able to contribute in English teaching and learning process
especially in the subject of “Pragmatics”.
Here, the writer would like to express her deepest thanks to number of
family, friends and collegues who have made many valuable contributions during
the process of this thesis:
1. I am grateful to my beloved parents: Abdul Samad Usman and Sufatni
Memi Gobel for their endless pray in every single thing and for their love
and support in every step I take. High appreciation extended to all of your
encouragements. Also, for my lovely sister, Della Susanti Usman and of
course my beloved brother Muh. Iqbal Usman. I’m so blessed with all of
your supports and helps every time I need.
2. Thanks for my big family, my uncle Muh. Isfani Makmur, S.H. and his
wife Dayanti Gobel for the various helps during the process of this
research. Both of you like parents for me. Also, for their children Aini
Isfani and Airin Nurhuda Isfani. Thankyou for the supports.
3. Special thanks for my first and second consultants, Dr. Harlina Sahib,
M.Hum and Dra. Ria R. Jubhari, M.A., Ph. D. also for my examiners Dra.
Marleiny Radjuni, M. Ed. and Dr. Abidin Pammu, M.A., for their valuable
ideas, suggestion, correction, critique, guidance and remarkable patience
in processing this thesis.
4. High appreciation is extended to Prof Dr. Akun Duli, M.A. as the dean of
Faculty of Letters and for all Lecturer of English Department for their
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unlimited knowledge. Moreover, for all administration and Library staff of
Hasanuddin University.
5. Deepest thanks to my bestfriends Putri Winda Pakuan, Dyna Fauziah
Amran S.Hum., Wulan W. B. S.Hum., Muthi Syahidah, Wella Mufidah,
Ainy Sahrah, Nurul Mizan Asyuni and Hardiyanti Pertiwi, for their
memorable friendships.
6. Thanks to Etcetera 2013 especially Citra Restu Wulandari, Halim H.S.,
Rini Lestari, Wa Ode Nia Fadillah, Rea Risa Natasha, Faisal, Rilo
Fambudi and Husni Pangestu for sharing good memories during study in
English Department.
7. Thanks to Perisai KMFIB for their valuable kinship. Also, for my all
beloved seniors and juniors in English Department. Thanks for the
encouragement.
8. Thanks for my highschool bestfriend, Musdalifah Marzuki, Hesty Denog
Septiani, Fahdina Maulani L. S.E., Alviani Febrisa Rahmadhita S.T.,
Rahmi Damayanti, Resky Vebrianti Utami S.S., Hilman Nihaya S.Kh., and
Reski Handayani S.E., for never-ending support all the time.
Nobody can afford something to perfection on his own. Criticism and
suggestion for better form of this thesis is welcomed.
Makassar, 11 Agustus 2017
The Writer
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
FRONT PIECE .................................................................................................... i
APPROVAL SHEET.......................................................................................... ii
OFFICIAL ENDORSEMENT ....................................................................... iii
AGREEMENT PAGES ................................................................................... iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................. vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................. viii
ABSTRAK............................................................................................................ x
ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................ xi
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... 1
A. Background ..................................................................................................... 1
B. Identification of Problem ................................................................................. 5
C. Scope of Problem ............................................................................................ 6
D. Research Question .......................................................................................... 6
E. Objectives of Writing ...................................................................................... 7
F. Significance of Study ...................................................................................... 7
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ...................................................... 9
A. Previous Study .............................................................................................. 9
B. Theoretical Background ................................................................................ 9
1. What is pragmatics? ............................................................................... 12
2. Speech Acts ........................................................................................... 14
3. Felicity Condition ................................................................................... 20
4. Topic Framework ................................................................................... 21
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CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ............................................................... 22
A. Type of research.......................................................................................... 22
B. Library Research ......................................................................................... 22
C. Field Research ............................................................................................ 22
1. Method of Collecting Data ............................................................................ 23
2. Method of Analyzing Data ............................................................................ 23
CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ..................... 26
A. The types of illocutionary acts used in Donald Trump’s speech. .................. 26
1. Assertives ...................................................................................................... 28
2. Directives ...................................................................................................... 39
3. Commisives .................................................................................................. 45
4. Expressives ................................................................................................... 48
5. Declaratives .................................................................................................. 51
B. The Dominant illocutionary acts in Donald Trump’s Speech ....................... 51
C. Reason of Dominant Illocutionary Acts in Donald Trump’s Speech ............ 52
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ................................... 55
A. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 55
B. Suggestion ..................................................................................................... 57
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................ 58
APPENDICES ................................................................................................ 63
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ABSTRAK
Fenty Rahmayanti Usman. TINDAK ILOKUSI DI DALAM PIDATO
DONALD TRUMP. Skripsi. Fakultas Ilmu Budaya. Sastra Inggris. Universitas
Hasanuddin. (dibimbing oleh Dr. Harlinah Shahib M.Hum. and Ria R
Jubhari M.A. Ph. D.).
Skripsi ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan dan menunjukan jenis-jenis tindakan
ilokusi dan tindakan ilokusi dominan yang terdapat di pidato pengumuman
Donald Trump.
Di skripsi ini, penulis menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif untuk
mengidentifikasi dan menjelaskan tindakan ilokusi yang digunakan Donald
Trump melalui teori lima klasifikasi dari Searle yaitu; (1) representatives, (2)
directives, (3) expressives, (4) commisives dan (5) declaratives. Data skripsi
diambil dari video dan naskah pidatonya yang diunduh dari sumber internet.
Setelah mengumpulkan data, penulis mengidentifikasi jenis-jenis tindakan ilokusi
dan kategori-kategori tiap tindakan ilokusi dalam pidato Donald Trump.
Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukan bahwa terdapat 358 ungkapan tindakan
ilokusi dalam pidato pengumuman kandidat presiden oleh Donald Trump. Secara
dominan terdapat assertives (273 ungkapan, 76.25%), diikuti oleh commisives,
directives dan expressives dengan jumlah ungkapan 27 (7.54%), 32 (8.93%) dan
22 (6.42%) secara berturut-turut. Sementara itu, declaratives memiliki frekuensi
terendah dengan jumlah ungkapan 3 (0.83%).
Data menunjukan bahwa tindakan ilokusi di pidato Donald Trump didominasi
oleh assertive mengingat Donald Trump ialah kandidat presiden Amerika yang
secara formal mengumumkan pencalonannya sebagai presiden. Oleh karena itu, ia
mencoba untuk meberikan penjelasan panjang lebar tentang alasannya untuk
membuat Amerika hebat kembali dengan tindakan yang bervariasi seperti;
informing, explaining, questioning, convincing, stating of opinion, mocking,
describing, predicting, stating and conluding.
Kata kunci: Tindak Ilokusi, Pidato, Donald Trump
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ABSTRACT
Fenty Rahmayanti Usman. 2013: “ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS IN
DONALD TRUMP’S SPEECH”. Thesis. Faculty of Cultural Science. English
Department. Hasanuddin University. (supervised by Dr. Harlina Shahib
M.Hum. and Ria R Jubhari M.A. Ph. D.).
This research aims to describe and to show the types and dominant
illocutionary acts found in announcement speech uttered by Donald Trump.
In this research, the writer used descriptive qualitative method to identify
and explain illocutionary acts used in Donald Trump’s speech using Searle’s five
categories; (1) representatives, (2) directives, (3) expressives, (4) commisives and
(5) declaratives. The data were taken from video and the script which were
downloaded from internet sources. After collecting the data, the writer classified
and identified the types and sub-category of illocutionary acts in Donald Trump’s
speech.
The results of the research indicate that there are 358 utterances of
Illocutionary Acts of Donald Trump’s speech on announcement of presidential
candidate. It dominantly used assertives, followed by commisives, directives and
expressives respectively. Meanwhile, declaratives have the lowest frequency.
The data shows that dominant illocutionary acts found in Donald Ttrump’s
speech is assertives. This can be reasoned since he is a candidate president of U.S.
who formally announced his candidacy to the audience. Therefore, he tried to give
a far-ranging explanation about his plan to make America great again with various
acts; informing, explaining, questioning, convincing, stating of opinion, mocking,
describing, predicting, stating and conluding.
Keyword: Illocutionary Acts, Speech, Donald Trump
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the background of the study and explains what reason to
conduct the research. It then moves to identify the problem that the researcher found
to discuss throughout this thesis and clarify the objectives and significance of doing
this research.
A. Background
Communication using language is one of language characteristic that owned
by human being. This characteristic is not owned by other creature. Therefore,
according to Wibowo, Walija (1996:4), language plays a very important role in
human’s life as a tool to reveal ideas, thoughts, and behaviour . Meanwhile, as social
being, human use language to communicate not only to product words but also to
imply purpose or intention.
According to Buck and Arthur (2002: 522-528), there are two types of
communication. They are verbal communication which is the way of communicating
messages by using words as element and nonverbal communication which is the way
of communicating messages by using gesture, body movements, eye contact, facial
expression, or general appearances as the elements. These two types of
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communication are means of interaction that speaker and hearer use to process their
ideas or thoughts.
In verbal communication, the speaker tries to convey messages by uttering
words to the hearer. However, usually there is a misunderstanding meaning that the
hearer receives from the speaker. Therefore, speech acts as a one aspect of pragmatic
study exists to observe the intention behind utterances.
In one hand, speech acts refer to any intentions embedded in an utterance
conveyed (for example informing, persuading, convincing or warning). On the other
hand, speech acts refers to basic units of linguistic interaction such as give a warning,
greeting, applying for, telling what, and confirming an appointment (Griffiths,
2006:148). These intentions are producted by basic kinds of spech acts, Keidler
(1998:183) stated that there are seven basic kinds of speech acts. There are assertive
utterances, performative utterances, verdictive utterances, expressive utterances,
directive utterances, commissive utterances and phatic utterances.
In our daily activity, people often perform speech acts. Yet sometimes, people
don’t realize that the utterances they produce contain speech acts, which have implied
meaning behind the words uttered. It means that these acts occur in the process of
establishing meaning when communication occurs and when listener perceives the
aim.
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Austin (2003; 23-26) stated that speech acts can be analyzed into three levels:
locutionary acts, illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary acts. Thus, people do not only
say something but also imply something to the hearer. Searle (1983) as cited in
Wardaugh (1986: 287) stated that illocutionary acts must be performed
‘intentionally.’ In order to communicate something in a language that will be
understood by another speaker of that language as an utterance, it must (1) be
correctly uttered with its conventional meaning and (2) satisfy a truth condition. He
also divides illocutionary acts into five classifications: representatives, directives,
commisives, expressives and declarations. That is the reason why people have to
interpret the meaning of communication or language through speech acts. For
instance, as Yule (1996: 54) explained, if the speaker says “Would you make me a
cup of tea?” or “Don’t touch that”, the speaker does not expect the hearer to answer
the question with yes or no. That is a command to make the hearer acts as what the
speaker wants.
Based upon the explanation above, this research would like to analyse speech acts
found in verbal communication in the form of speech. Speech is used by people, in
this case Donald Trump as a speaker who wants to convey their ideas to public. It is
also the most efficient way that commonly used by a leader. Since it is used by a
leader, there’s a need to maintain the language to deliver speech to convince the mass
through this kind of communication.
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In a democratic country, we commonly see politicians use speech to deliver
his/her ideas to public in order to become a leader. While campaigning, the politician
tries to reveal his/her visions and missions. The content of the speech must be trying
to persuade voters to elect him/her. It is also necessary to give a clear explanation of
the promises and hopes due to the fact that it affects the response of the public. It is
then crucial for politician to maintain their language in order to avoid ambiguity or
miss-understanding from the audiences.
In this research, the writer takes Donald Trump’s speech as an object of speech
acts analysis. He is a political figure in United States who formally announced his
candidacy on June 16, 2015 for the presidential race in the 2016 election. In his
speech, he brought attention to domestic issues such as illegal immigration, off
shoring of American jobs, the U.S. national debt, and Islamic terrorism. He also
emphasized in his campaign by the slogan "Make America Great Again”. However,
he also reveals some controversial statements toward the Obamacare program that he
wanted to build a wall in Mexico, due to his assumption that most of illegal
immigrants that come from Mexico are having lots of problems for U.S. The
following are...
“So, just to sum up, I would do various things very quickly. I would repeal and
replace the big lie, Obamacare.”
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“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not
sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of
problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs.
They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good
people.”
“I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe
me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively, I will build a great, great wall on
our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”
(http://time.com/3923128/donald-trump-announcement-speech/)
As a candidate president, he should not bring some sensitive statements that
would appear of racism to certain ethnic. The voters may question the purpose of his
statements instead of electing him. In this case, there is a need to use pragmatic
approach of meaning analysis to derive explanation from any speech in more
appropriate way. Take example from Donald Trump’s speech, the statements that he
wanted build a wall for mexican people is because he wanted to protect U.S. from
mexican people, assuming that many Mexican people are crminal. Therefore, this
research analyses illocutionary acts in Donald Trump’s Presidential Announcement
Speech.
There are two reasons of choosing Donald Trump’s announcement presidential
candidacy speech as the object being analyse. Firstly, his speech seems to be
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controversial as an interesting current issue. Secondly, in linguistic phenomena,
Donald Trump has special characteristics such as frank and blunt rather than other
candidates in terms of being a public speaker.
B. Identification of Problem
Based on the statements of background above, the writer studies further about
“Illocutionary Act in Donald Trump’s speech” with two considerations which can be
concluded as follows:
1. The sentences uttered by Donald Trump in his announcement of presidential
candidacy speech contain controversial arguments that possibly risk him to
lose his chance to be a President.
2. The sentences uttered by Donald Trump in his announcement of presidential
candidacy speech contain speech acts which have intentions and purposes that
possibly appear missunderstanding to audience.
C. Scope of Problem
In this research, the writer is interested in the use of illocutionary acts used by
Donald Trump in his speech. The writer takes the script of Donald Trump’s speech in
his announcement of presidential candidacy in 2015. In analyzing the illocutionary
acts, the research only limits the analysis on the speech acts especially in
illocutionary acts focused on five basic classification of illocutionary acts by Searle’s
theory (representatives, directives, commisives, expressives and declaratives) to
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elaborate the intention and purpose of Donald Trump’s announcement of presidential
speech. The research then elaborates more about each function of the classifications
(informing, thanking, promising, ordering etc.). Also, the research analyzes the
context underlying the speech in order to get a comprehensive understanding of the
speech as well as the possible effects of the dominant illocutionary acts.
D. Research Question
This research aims to classify the kinds of illocutionary act as the subject area of
pragmatics in Donald Trump’s speech. In particular, the research questions
are:
1. What kinds of illocutionary acts used in Donald Trump’s announcement of
presidential candidacy speech?
2. What are the dominant illocutionary acts used in Donald Trump’s
announcement of presidential candidacy speech?
3. What is the possible reason of why the dominant illocutionary acts occur in
Donald Trump’s announcement of presidential candidacy speech?
E. Objectives of Writing
The objectives of this study are:
1. To identify more about the illocutionary acts used by Donald Trump in his
announcement of presidential candidacy speech.
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2. To identify the dominant illocutionary acts used by Donald Trump in his
announcement of presidential canidacy speech.
3. To explain the reason of dominant illocutionary acts occur in Donald Trump
in his announcement of presidential candidacy speech.
F. Significance of Study
This research is expected to give valuable contribution theoretically and
practically. Theoretically, the result of this study is expected to contribute on the
development of pragmatic study, especially on how to analyse text using the
speech act theory. Practically, the result of this study is expected to give
knowledge about speech act for teacher and future researcher.
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CHAPTER II
THEORITICAL REVIEW
This chapter presents about the findings of the similar research that had been
conducted and explains about description of the literature related to the topic of the
research such as pragmatics, speech acts, felicity condition and topic framework.
Each is presented as follows.
A. Previous Study
There have been numerous studies on speech acts, especially on illocutionaary
acts. These studies are very helpful in establishing the thesis of the study, which is
the teory of speech acts. In this chapter, some relevant journal and thesis were cited,
searching for their similiarities and dissimiliarities.
The similarities found in the study of illocutionary acts by Safitri (2012),
Rahmasari (2013) and Mardani (2013). Safitri (2012) analysed types of illocutionary
acts uttered by Major Character in the play of The Death of Salesman using Searle’s
theory, Rahmasari (2013) also describes relation to impoliteness in Harold Pinter’s
Drama, while Mardani (2013) focused on political phenomena of speech acts used by
Barack Obama on the third presidential debate in the United States presidential
election 2012. However, the difference found between these theses explained as
follows. Mardani (2013) employed the theory of Langacker (1972), Searle (1983),
and Austin’s (2013) theory while the current study employed Searle’s theory and
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elaborated more about each sub-category of the utterances. Both Safitri (2012) and
Rahmasari (2013) used literary works as object of the study which in fact may be
easier to recognize since the utterances were written by authors. This current research
uses political figure as object of the study, which is naturally uttered in the terms of
pragmatics study.
Not only theses, several journals which used speech acts also related and mostly
used Austin and Searle’s speech acts theory as main reference. For instance,
Akinwontu (2013) analyses speech acts in a political figure and focused on the role of
language in the communication and interpretation of intentions by examining selected
political speeches as pieces of discourse with specific goals. Like Akiwontu’s
analysis, Yiyu and Paul Trossell (2011) also applied speech acts theory to different
object which is English Foreign Language Teaching in China. They found that speech
act theory plays a significant part in EFL teaching and learning in China and is also
associated with politeness strategy as well as good behaviours in intercultural
communication. Ilyas and Khushi (2012) used different object of study in employing
speech acts theory, analysed 171 Facebook status updates collected for 5 consecutive
days. Then the data were categorized according to the devised coding. They found
new category of expressive in illocutionary acts theory called poetic verses. The
findings showed that various socialization patterns emerge through the sharing of
feelings, information and ideas.
Talking about illocutionary acts in Austin’s theory, some other journals focused
on this theory by developing Searle’s theory. Rosadi and Iragiliati (2013) analysed
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the patterns of Barrack Obama’s utterances that contain Searle’s five types of
illocutionary acts as assertives, expressives, commisives, directives and declaration.
Kristiani (2012) analyzed the importance of directive speech acts in keeping the flow
of storyline of the sleeping beauty movie and finds that the least frequently used
directive speech act in storyline of the sleeping beauty movie is inviting directive
speech act. Similarly, Utami (2013) also analysed about expressive speech acts in
judge’s narratives of X factor Indonesian talent show, identified the sub-strategies
then discussed politeness strategies found in each narratives speech acts. Moreover,
Ariff and Mugableh (2013) expanded their analysis about the most prominent
strategies of promising based on gender uttered by Jordanian men and women. They
employed Al-Khatib’s (1994) theory which examining a sociolinguistic view of the
language of persuasion in Jordanian society. Hence, they found that women typically
speak and hear a language of connection and intimacy stressing confirmations and
support within their specific online communities. Their speech is inclusive, less
direct, and avoids arguments and confrontation whenever possible. Men, on the other
hand, speak and hear a language of status and independence, focusing on social order
and the exhibition of knowledge and skill.
Discussing promising strategies, Salgueiro (2010) stressed the similarities
between two kinds of speech acts namely promising and threatening. He continues to
reject or minimize the importance of certain asymmetries between them that some
researchers have been regarded as fundamental differences. He finally concludes that
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the fundamental differences between promise and threat in regard to explicitability,
deontics, and illocution/perlocution.
Some other studies on speech acts focused on different aspects such as Rácová
and Horecký (2010) on the theory of illocutionary acts, the foundations of which
were established in Slovakia by Pauliny (1981) and developed further by Horecký
(1996, 2001). First, they explain about the basic and general structure of an
illocutionary act included in the nominative, the predicative and the circumstantial
components. Furthermore, they explained content, form and function of the
illocutionary acts. They continued to analyse the illocutionary acts in Romany texts.
Lastly, they concluded that illocution acts cannot by themselves represent the
linguistic conscience. Thus, Racova and Horecky’s research focused on structure of
an illocutionary acts. In aspect of political discourse use of speech acts, Arsith (2015)
aimed to prove that by valorification, on the level of discourse, the illocutionary force
components at the level of the speech is pointed out as the actional function of the
language. From this perspective, all human are reasoning on the facts, decisions,
beliefs, opinions and values.
B. Theoretical Background
1. What is pragmatics?
Pragmatic is one of linguistic branches which developed in the late 1970. This
study discussed in how people understand and produce a communicative act or
speech act in a basic speech situation. According to Yule (1996: 46), pragmatics deals
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with the study of meaningn as communicated by the speaker or writers and
interpreted by listeners or readers. He also defined pragmatic as (1) the study of
speaker’s meaning. (2) contextual meaning, and (3) how more gets communicated
than is said and (4) the expression of relative distance. Moreover, he stated that
pragmatic is the study of relationship between linguistic forms and the users. He also
added that the benefit of studying language with the use of pragmatic is we know
about people’s intended meaning, their assumption, their purpose of goals, and the
kinds of action that they perform when they speak. While Mey (1993: 18) stated that
pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies the ways in which
context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory,
conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language
behaviour in philosophy, sociology, linguistics and anthropology. Austin (1962 cited
in Cutting: 14) bemoaned the common philosophical pretense that "the business of a
sentence can only be to 'describe' some state of affairs, or to 'state some fact', which it
must do either truly or falsely". He observed that there are many uses of language
which have the linguistic appearance of fact-stating but are really quite different.
Explicit performatives like "You're fired" and "I quit" are not used to make mere
statements but they mean to say the implicit performatives like “You’re making a
mistake that we can’t tolerate. You better find another job” and “I want to find more
experiences in other company that i can not find here”.
The definitions above mentioned of pragmatic, indicated that pragmatics is the
study of the speaker’s intends or aim behind the words they uttered related to its
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context. And, speech acts as one of pragmatic branchs is there to study more about
speker’s intended meaning.
2. Speech Acts
Austin (1962 cited in Cutting 2002: 16) stated that speech acts is an act refers to
the action that is performed in making an utterance. For instance, when a speaker says
“I will invite you to the party”, it means that the speaker intends on future action
called inviting. Similarly, Yule (1996: 47) defined speech acts as “actions performed
via utterances”. For instance, when a speaker says “I like you” he or she then expects
that the hearer will be affected by his or her utterances. According to Austin (1962
cited in Cutting 2002: 16), the action performed when an utterance is produced can be
analysed on three different levels namely locutionary acts, illocutionary acts and
perlocutionary acts. These levels are explained below:
a. Locutionary Acts
Locutionary act is the 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) which describes the three types of
sentences. First, declaratives sentences which are sentences that present a predicate
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and with or without more phrase adjuncts. The function of declarative sentence is to
assert and describe something. For example “He ate”, it presents a predicate and
without more phrase adjuncts. The other examples are “I bought a watch from Harvey
for three clam shells” and “Pauline gave Tom digital watch for his birthday” include a
predicate and phrase adjuncts. Phrase adjunct means an additional phrase for
sentence. Second, imperative sentences which are said over the person who has some
voluntary control. They tend to be restricted to sentences with second person subject
and active verbs. They are also restricted in tense and are closer to order or request.
For example “Let him come1” and “Bring me more sugar!”. Third, interrogative
sentences are sentences that have two basic kinds of question sentences. Those are
alternative questions and specification questions of the further asks which of two or
more alternative proposition is true. For instance “did you buy the wallet, or did you
steal it, or did you find it on the street?”.Specification questions ask for the further
specification of some constituent such as “Who steal my wallet?”.
a. Illocutionary Acts
Illocutionary act is an act of doing something either for the speaker or for the
hearer. Leech (1983: 199) stated that illocutionary act is performing the act in saying
something. An illocutionary act can also called as an implied level. Yule (1996: 48)
wrote that “the illocutionary act is performed via the communicative face of an
utterance” and it is an intended meaning of a speaker. To illustrate, when a speaker
says “It is so dark here” in a room, he or she intends to give affect to the hearer for
16
turning the light on. Furthermore, he stated that sometimes it is not easy to determine
what kind of illocutionary acts the speaker performs. In this case, 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 3 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.
Searle (1975; 52-56) divided the illocutionary acts into 5 categories, based on
Austin (1969)’s theory, which consist of declarative, representative, expressive,
directive and commisive. These categories are elaborated in Yule (1996) as follows:
1. Declaratives
Declaratives are where the speaker intend to het the hearer to do something. 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 as follows. Jury Foreman: “We find the
defendant guilty.” The utterance above is a declaration of speech act which is
uttered by a jury foreman. He declares that the accused is guilty (Yule, 1996:
53).
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2. Representatives
By performing representative acts, the speaker make the words fir the world
or belief (Yule 1996:53). 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. 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. Expressives
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
(Yule, 1996: 53). These expressives acts can be producted by affect from the
speaker. The speaker expresses 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!
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b) Congratulations!
Example (a) is an expression to show sympathy or guilty to someone while
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).
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
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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).
b. Perlocutionary Acts
A Perlocutionary act is an act when the speaker says something and it gives an
effect to the hearer. According to Austin (1962 cited in Sadock 2005: 20),
perlocutionary acts is the effect of the word for the hearer. In order words, it is a
consequence or by product of speaking, whether intended or not. Moreover,
according to Austin (1962 cited in Gillian, Brown and Yule, 1983: 232),
perlocutionary acts 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 acts would include
such effects as: persuading, embarrassing, intimidating, boring, irritating, and
inspiring the hearer. For instance, a teacher says to the students “please study hard or
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you’ll fail on final examination” (Sadock 2005: 20). The illocutionary acts might be
advising or suggesting but the perlocutionary acts 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 does
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).
3. Felicity Condition
The term of felicity conditions is still in use and it is not restricted only to
performatives anymore. As 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 that
introduce the appropriateness conditions, proposes further classification of felicity
conditions into five classes: general conditions, content conditions, preparatory
conditions, sincerity conditions and essential conditions. According to 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
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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.
4. Topic Framework
Tyler (1978: 452) uses the term 'topic' to refer to 'one possible paraphrase' of a
sequence of utterances. What is required is a characterisation of 'topic' which would
allow each of the possible expressions, including titles, to be considered (partially)
correct, thus incorporating all reasonable judgements of 'what is being talked about'.
Brown and Yule (1983; 76) suggest that such a characterisation can be developed in
terms of a topic framework. From the content of the text the analyst can, in principle,
determine what aspects of the context are explicitly reflected in the text as the formal
record of the utterance. Those aspects of the context such as politic and economy
which are directly reflected in the text, and which need to be called upon to interpret
the text, we shall refer to as activated features of context and suggest that they
constitute the contextual framework within which the topic is constituted, that is, the
topic framework. Thus, in this study the term ‘topic’ is defined by several aspects for
example economy, politic, foreign affairs, defense and security of the country,
American’s army, health care program and infrastructure. Those aspects are talking
on terrorism, on his rival of candidate president, on the future of affordable health
care program, on negotiating with foreign country, on America’s economy, on
America’s borders, on Iran nuclear talks, on his family and on America immigration.
