Assertive Speech Acts in Donald Trump’s Presidential Speeches

https://doi.org/10.22146/lexicon.v7i1.64574

Kartika Dina Ashfira(1), Tofan Dwi Hardjanto(2*)

(1) English Department, Universitas Gadjah Mada
(2) English Department, Universitas Gadjah Mada
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract


This research investigates assertive speech acts in Donald Trump’s presidential speeches. It classifies the assertive speech acts based on their illocutionary forces according to Bach and Harnish (1979). The data were taken from three speeches by Donald Trump. The results show that the illocutionary forces of assertive speech acts found in the speeches are affirming, alleging, asserting, avowing, claiming, declaring, denying, maintaining, propounding, saying, and stating. The act of stating is the most commonly used (44%). The findings suggest that Trump uses the act of stating mostly because he wants the hearer to believe him that the policies he has made are the best for the United States.

Keywords


assertive speech acts; Donald Trump; illocutionary forces; political speech

Full Text:

PDF 24-39


References

Affirm. (n.d.). In Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/affirm.

Akinwotu, S. A. (2013). A speech act analysis of the acceptance of nomination speeches of chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief M.K.O. Abiola. English Linguistics Research, 2 (1), 43-51. http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/elr.v2n1p43.

Alattar, R. A. S. (2014). A speech act analysis of American presidential speeches. Arts Journal, (110), 1-40. Retrieved from https://www.iasj.net/iasj?func=article&aId=97967.

Allan, K. (1986). Linguistics meaning : Volume II. New York, N: Routledge.

Allan, K. (1998). Meaning and speech acts. Retrieved from http://users.monash.edu.au/~kallan/papers/Speechacts.html.

Allege. (n.d.). In Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/allege.

Assert. (n.d.). In Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/assert.

Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Avow. (n.d.). In Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/avow.

Bach, K. (2006). Speech acts and pragmatics. In M. Devitt & R. Hanley (Eds.), The Blackwell guide to the philosophy of language (pp. 147-440). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.

Bach, K., & Harnish, R. M. (1979). Linguistic communication and speech acts. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Chilton, P. (2004). Analysing political discourse : Theory and practice. London: Routledge.

Claim. (n.d.). In Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/claim.

Cohen, A. & Krifka, M. (2014). Superlative quantifiers and meta-speech acts. Linguistics and Philosophy, 37 (1), 41-90. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10988-014-9144-x.

Declare. (n.d.). In Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/declare.

Deny. (n.d.). In Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/deny.

Euronews. (2019, February 6). Donald Trump calls for unity while repeating controversial policies in State of the Union address. Euronews. Retrieved from https://www.euronews.com/2019/02/06/donald-trump-calls-for-unity-while-repeating-controversial-policies-in-state-of-the-union.

Fischer-Baum, R. & Vitkovskaya, J. (2018, January 22). One year of Trump : How the administration changed American foreign policy. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/trump-shifting-alliances/?utm_term=.a4779b78bfea.

Fraser, B. (1975). Hedged performatives. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech acts (pp. 187-210). New York: Academy Press.

Gajanan, M. (2019, January 30). ‘I’m Going to save every dollar I can.’ Government workers are saving and looking for private industry jobs to prepare for another shutdown. Time. Retrieved from https://time.com/5515372/government-shutdown-workers-trump/.

Hardjanto, T. & Mazia, N. (2018). “We believe in democracy…”: Epistemic modality in Justin Trudeau’s political speeches. Jurnal Humaniora, 31 (2). Retrieved from https://jurnal.ugm.ac.id/jurnal-humaniora/article/view/44948/0.

Hashim, S. S. M. (2015). Speech acts in political dpeeches. Journal of Modern Education Review, 5 (7), 699-706. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0b7a/d998f72dd5925b3cf3a7c2d0d2302a7b0f00.pdf.

Khoirunnisa, A. (2015). Illocutionary acts found in Soekarno’s speech in the 1955 Asian African conference (Unpublished undergraduate Thesis), Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Lazuka, A. (2006). Communicative intention in George W. Bush’s presidential speeches and statements 11 September 2001 to 11 September 2003. Discourse and Society, 17 (3), 299-330.

Leech, G. (1983). Principle of pragmatics. London/New York: Longman.

Mey, L. (2001). Pragmatics: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Mufiah, N. S. & Rahman, M. Y. N. (2018). Speech acts analysis of Donald Trump’s speech. Professional Journal of English Education, 1 (2). Retrieved from https://journal.ikipsiliwangi.ac.id/index.php/project/article/download/461/67.

Obstructionist. (n.d.). In Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/obstructionist.

Propound. (n.d.). In Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/propound.

Risselada, R. (1990). Illocutionary function and functional illocution. Amsterdam: Working Papers in Functional Grammar 34.

Say. (n.d.). In Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/say .

Searle J. R. & Vanderveken D. (1985). Foundations of illocutionary logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Searle, J. R. (1976). A classification of illocutionary acts. Language in Society, 5(1), 1-23.

State. (n.d.). In Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/state .

Urpelainen, J. & Van de Graff, T. (2018). United States non-cooperation and the Paris agreement. Climate Policy, 18 (7), 839-851. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2017.1406843.

Very. (n.d.). In Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/very .

White House. (2017, June 1). Statement by President Trump on the Paris Climate Accord. Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-trump-paris-climate-accord/.

White House. (2017, June 16). Remarks by President Trump on the Policy of the United States Towards Cuba. Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-policy-united-states-towards-cuba/.

White House. (2019, February 15). Remarks by President Trump on the National Security and Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border. Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-national-security-humanitarian-crisis-southern-border/.

Zhou-Castro, H. (2019, March 7). Trump’s US-Mexico border policies under fire in Congress. Al Jazeera. Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/trumps-us-mexico-border-policies-fire-congress-190307060835247.html



DOI: https://doi.org/10.22146/lexicon.v7i1.64574

Article Metrics

Abstract views : 5211 | views : 2921

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2020 Kartika Dina Ashfira, Tofan Dwi Hardjanto

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Lexicon Office

English Department
Faculty of Cultural Sciences,
Universitas Gadjah Mada
Soegondo Building, 3rd Floor, Room 306
Yogyakarta, Indonesia 55281
Telephone: +62 274 513096
Email: lexicon.fib@ugm.ac.id

ISSN: 2746-2668 (Online)

Web Analytics View Stats

Creative Commons License
LEXICON is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Lexicon is indexed in

 
About UsSubmissionIssuePoliciesReview
Editorial Team
Journal History
Contact
Author Guidelines
Article Submission
Account Registration
Current Issue
All Issues
Upcoming Issue
Privacy Statement
Open Access
Publication Ethics
Review Process
Peer Reviewers
Reviewer Guidelines