SPEECH ACTS IN JULIA GILLARD’S SPEECH
A THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
By:
DEDE PURWADI
Registration Number. 208222019
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
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ABSTRACT
Purwadi, Dede. 208222019. Speech Acts in this study deals with the analysis complete of Julia Gillard’s Speeches. A Thesis. Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan. 2013.
The objectives of this research were to find types of speech acts used in Julia Gillard’s Speeches. The dominant type of speech acts used in Julia Gillard’s speeches and the reason in using the dominant type of speech acts the way it is. This research was conducted by using qualitative descriptive design. There are
four text’s speeches of Julia Gillard in this study taken from internet, they were
the prepared text of Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s speech at the parliamentary
dinner for Barrack Obama in Canberra (November 2011), The Choice For Australia, The national Press Club Canberra (August 2010), Julia Gillard’s Opening Address at a Press Conference Monash University (June 2010), Speech at State Dinner in Honour of The President of Indonesia, Darwin (July2012). The result of analyzing types of speech acts were used in the Julia Gillard’s text speeches, they were: declarative, representative, expressive, directive, commissive. There were 241 utterances. The findings of data analysis showed that
the total numbers of speech acts from the four text’s speeches were: declarative 3,7%, representative 52,7%, expressive 6,2%, directive 12,0%, commissive 25,3%. It means that representative form is the most dominant type of speech acts
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First and foremost the writer would like to express his praises to God Almighty, Allah SWT, for the strengths, blessings, and guidance which have been given to his in completing this thesis. This thesis is aimed to fulfill one of the requirements for the degree of Sarjana Sastra (S-1) at the English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance and the help of several individuals who always contributed and extended their valuable assistances in the preparation and completion of this thesis. The writer’s special appreciation goes to:
Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si., the Rector of State University of Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of Faculty of Languages and Arts State University of Medan and to all her staffs.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English Department, Dra. Rahmah, M.Hum., the Secretary of English Department, and Dra. Meisuri, MA, the Head of Non-Educational English Program, for their administrative help during the writer’s study in English Department State University of Medan and facilitating him to be able to get the opportunity to have green table examination.
Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, M.Pd., the writer’s Thesis Supervisor who always gave the encouragement, constant support, constructive comments, and suggestions in finishing this thesis.
Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A., Ph.D., the writer’s Academic Counselor who has given his support and inspiration in belong this topic as his thesis discussion.
All lecturers who have taught and given contribution of knowledge to him so that he has wider horizon conducting research in this topic.
Mam Endah and Mam Indri who have helped the writer in providing the academic administration.
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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE5 A.Theoretical Framework ... 5
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD 20 A.Research Design ... 20
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2. State Dinner in Honour of The President of Indonesia,
(Darwin, July 2011) ... 27
3. The Choice for Australia, The National Press Club, (Canberra, August 2010) ... 30
4. Opening at a Press Conference, (Monash University, June 2011) ... 36
C.The Findings ... 42
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 44 A.Conclusions ... 44
B.Suggestions ... 44
REFERENCES ... 46
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List of Tables
Table Page
3.1The Subject ... 21
4.1 The summary of speech acts types with their occurrences ... 39
4.2 The Occurrences of Characteristics of Each Type of Speech Acts ... 39
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study
Pragmatics is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated
information by speaker and interpreted by listener (Yule, 1996). It is a subfield of
linguistics developed in the late 1970s, which studies how people comprehend and
produce a communicative act or speech acts in a concrete speech situation. The
ability to comprehend and produce a communicative act is referred as pragmatic
competence.
Speech has important role in human life. People that want to propose their
self to become the leader of an organization can transfer knowledge or at least
share much information when there is no ways to write. Not only the people who
want to become a leader of an organization but also all the people who want to
give important information and the students who study about speech acts but they
do not know or understand about it.
Speech refers to a succession of ideas expressed bit by bit in words,
phrases, and clauses (Herbert and Eve, 1997:10). Speech does not only produce
utterances containing grammatical structures and words but also perform actions
via those utterances, even when the president or prime minister invites their guest
for having dinner together. They have to give their welcoming speech before
having dinner with their guests. Such as ‘Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Speech at
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isgiven for specific intention, such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation,
promise, or request (Yule, 1996:47).
Actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts. Usually
some people such as teacher, president, mayor, governor, lawyer and others give
their speeches in front of the people. Especially the president always gives speech
in the form of campaign before or after becoming a president. The audience
should understand what the speaker means before they believe and vote. The
speaker normally expects that the audience or the hearers can understand the
utterances that the speaker already produced
Based on the explanation above, the acts which are formed in the
utterances in campaign speech need more concerned to analyze the contents of the
speech better than the grammatical structures of the speech itself. It is interesting
to describe the acts that performed, so the readers could possible comprehend
their understanding about the acts that performed in the utterances. However, it
might be different for women who are in the certain position such as high rank
government officials, scientists, successful business women, political leaders, etc.
The women who are in these positions should talk directly in their speeches. So
that, the listeners or audience know what the purposes of those speeches are. Then
the listeners do what the speakers ask to do.One of them is Julia Gillard, the first
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In this case, there are 5 (five) types of general functions performed by
speech acts (Yule, 1996: 53):
1. Declarations that changes the world via utterance.
2. Representatives that state what the speaker believes to be the case or not.
3. Expressives that state what the speaker feels.
4. Directives, that speakers use to get someone else to do something.
5. Commissives, that speakers use to commit themselves to some future
action. They express what the speaker intends.
B. The Problems of The Study
Relating to the explanation above, the writer attempts to analyze Julia
Gillard’s speech based on speech acts approach. Three problems found in this
research:
1. What are types of speech acts used by Julia Gillard?
2. What is the dominant type of the speech acts used by Julia Gillard?
3. What makes the dominant type of speech acts occurs the way it is?
C. The Objective of the Study
In relation to the problem of the study, the objectives are to find out:
1. The types of speech acts used by Julia Gillard.
2. The most dominant type of speech acts used Julia Gillard.
3. The reason of what makes the dominant type of speech acts occurs the
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D. The Scope of the Study
The scope of the study is necessary to lead readers in recognizing the
speech acts occurrence. This study will be limited to 4 (four) texts of Julia
Gillard’s speeches. Two texts are taken from speeches addressed to her citizens
and two others are addressed to presidents of other countries particularly Barack
Obama and SusiloBambangYudhoyono. The speeches will be analyzed based on
Yule’s theory.
E. The significance of the Study
The significance of this study is hopefully to be beneficial theoretically
and practically.
Theoretically:
1. The finding of this study is expected to be used as a reference for the
university students and those who would like to understand more about the
speech acts.
2. The researchers who plan to analyze speech acts from the similar sources.
Practically:
1. Someone who wants to prepare his or her own speech in English. The
writer can help the readers to write their speech draft.
2. The teachers who want to teach about the speech acts. In this case, the
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Conclusions
After analyzing the types of speech acts in Julia Gillard’s speeches, the
conclusions are drawn as follows:
1. The total occurrences of speech acts types of declaratives are 3,7%,
representatives are 52,7%, expressives are 6,2%, directives are 12,0%,
commissives are 25,3%.
2. The most dominant type of speech acts is representatives with occurrence
52.7% from the total of speech acts types occurrences in the 4 (four) Julia
Gillard’s speeches.
3. Representatives become the most dominant speech acts type that occurred
in Julia Gillard’s speeches. It happened because these speeches are
political or campaign speeches. Usually,the speakers will promote their
self and the speakers talk about their potency to be a good leader and
become the center of attention and the source of information.
B. Suggestions
With reference to the conclusions, suggestions are staged as the following.
1. The readers in general and the readers of political speech should have good
knowledge about the characteristics of each type of speech acts, so that
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2. The other researchers to make other analysis of speech acts with other text
types such as script of drama, novel, lyrics, who knows different media of
analysis will yield to different findings.
3. The students can use this research’s result as the media of learning speech
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REFERENCES
Arikunto. 2002. Prosedur Penelitian. Jakarta.
Clark, Hebert H and Eve V. 1977. Psychology and Language : An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. United State of America.
Hatch, E. 1980. Discourse and Language Education. Cambridge.
Kempson, R. 1997. Semantics Theory. Cambridge.
Kent, Jacqueline. 2010. The Making of Julia Gillard Prime Minister. Australia.
Larsen, D and Freeman. 1980. Discourse Analysis in Second language Research. Massachusetts.
Saeed, J.I. 1977. Semantics. London : United Artists Corporation.
Yule, Geroge. 1996. Pragmatics. New York.
http://en.wikipedia.org/ (accessed on May 1, 2012)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics (accessed on May 1, 2012)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/speechacts (accessed on May 1, 2012)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Gillard (accessed on May 5, 2012)
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/obama-in-australia/full-text-of-julia-gillards-speech-in-canberra/story-fnb0o39u-1226197262537
http://www.alp.org.au/federal-government/news/transcript--julia-gillard-speech,-the-choice-for-a/
