iv This thesis is dedicated to:
My savior, Jesus Christ
My beloved parents Bp. Nasib and Ibu Eny Retnowati
My dearly little sister, Bella Yesica Destin
My truly inspiration, Yulius Archi Kuncahyo Utomo
My besties, Six Finish Wella Rindang Retno Wulandari, Ika Wahyuti,
Mutiara Sekar Utami, Yuvita Ardhani, and Maria Diana Petricia
Our greatest glory is not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.
vii ABSTRACT
Destin, Astika Christia. (2013). A Study on Pragmatics Presuppositions in Countries’ and States’ Slogans. Yogyakarta: English Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University.
People use language to communicate with others in their daily lives. In communicating, people often employ presuppositions in sentences they utter even though they did not aware of the presence of the presupposition itself. In this study, the researcher focused on presupposition occurs in countries’ slogans and taglines. Many countries introduce themselves to the world by showing their country slogans through advertisement for tourism promotion.
In this research, there are two research problems. The first problem is how presuppositional triggers hold to support the categorization of presupposition into its type. The second one is what types of presuppositions that occur in countries’ and states’ slogans are. Those two research problems lead the readers to the objectives of this study which are to find out the kinds of presuppositional triggers and types of presupposition of country and states’ slogans.
The method of this qualitative research was content analysis. The researcher also applied descriptive approach as one of special features of qualitative research which the final result of this research is interpreted in a form of a rich description. This research used 79 country slogans which had been listed and categorized alphabetically into their continents as the data. Since this research applied content analysis, the primary instrument to collect and analyze the data was the researcher.
The results show that there were 6 out of 13 kinds of presuppositional triggers occur in country slogans or taglines, namely definite descriptions, implicative verbs, change of state verbs, factive verbs, comparisons and contrasts, and iteratives. There were 54 definite descriptions, 6 implicative verbs, 3 change of state verbs, 6 factive verbs, 4 comparisons and contrasts, and 6 iteratives. There were also found three out of six types of presupposition, namely existential presupposition, factive presupposition, and lexical presupposition. There were 58 existential presuppositions, 6 factive presuppositions, and 15 lexical presuppositions. For the future researchers, it is recommended to conduct qualitative research. Future researchers could conduct research which analyzes the satisfaction of such presuppositions by referring to the truth values and truth conditions.
viii ABSTRAK
Destin, Astika Christia. (2013). A Study on Pragmatics Presuppositions in Countries’ and States’ Slogans. Yogyakarta: Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Orang-orang menggunakan bahasa untuk berkomunikasi dengan orang lain dalam kehidupan sehari-hari. Di dalam berkomunikasi, orang sering menerapkan presuposisi dalam kalimat yang mereka utarakan meskipun mereka tidak menyadari kehadiran presuposisi tersebut. Di dalam penelitian ini, penulis fokus pada presupposisi yang ada pada slogan-slogan negara. Banyak negara memperkenalkan identitas mereka kepada dunia dengan memperlihatkan slogan mereka melalui iklan untuk promosi pariwisata.
Di dalam penelitian ini, ada dua rumusan permasalahan yaitu bagaimana presuppositional triggers berpengaruh terhadap pengkategorisasian presuposisi menurut tipenya dan apa saja tipe presuposisi yang terdapat dalam slogan-slogan negara. Kedua rumusan permasalahan tersebut mengacu pada tujuan dari penelitian ini, yaitu untuk mencari tahu macam-macam presuppositional triggers dan tipe-tipe presuposisi yang ada pada slogan negara.
Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian kualitatif ini adalah content analysis. Penulis menerapkan pendekatan deskriptif sebagai salah satu special features dari penelitian kualitatif dimana hasil akhir dari penelitian ini diinterpretasikan dalam suatu deskripsi. Sebagai data, penelitian ini menggunakan 79 slogan negara yang telah di urutkan dan dikategorikan secara alfabetikal menurut benua. Karena penelitian ini menerapkan content analysis, maka instrumen utama untuk mengumpulkan dan menganalisa data adalah penulis sendiri.
Hasil akhir penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa ada 6 dari 13 macam presuppositional triggers yang terdapat dalam slogan-slogan negara, yaitu 54 definite descriptions, 6 implicative verbs, 3 change of state verbs, 6 factive verbs, 4 comparisons and contrasts, dan 6 iteratives. Di dalam penelitian ini juga ditemukan 3 dari 6 tipe presuposisi, yaitu 58 existential presupposition, 6 factive presupposition, dan 15 lexical presupposition. Untuk peneliti yang akan datang, disarankan untuk melakukan penelitian kualitatif. Peneliti yang akan datang dapat melakukan penelitian yang menganalisa satisfaction dari suatu presuposisi dengan mengacu pada truth values dan truth conditions.
ix
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For all the amazing things happened in my life, I would like to praise my
savior, Jesus Christ. Because of His never-ending love and grace in my life I
could accomplish this thesis. I know that my Jesus always guide me in every
single step I take. I’m very little below, but because of His guidance I can make
something big and I believe that He made everything beautiful in its time.
Completing this Sarjana Pendidikan thesis was not an easy thing for me. I
would like to express my gratitude to those who have helped and supported me.
My deepest gratitude goes to my advisor, Drs. Barli Bram, M.Ed., Ph.D., for his
advice and guidance in the completion of my thesis. I am very indebted to have
him as my advisor.
My gratitude also goes to Caecilia Tutyandari, S.Pd., M.Pd., Christina
Kristiyani, S.Pd., M.Pd., Drs. Y.B. Gunawan, M.A., Carla Sih Prabandari,
S.Pd., M.Hum., Aloysius Sujatmiko, S.Pd., M.Hum., and all lecturers in
English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University
Yogyakarta, for their guidance and for knowledge they have shared with me all
this time. I also would like to express my gratitude to all librarians in Sanata
Dharma University, especially for Pak Jono and Pak Devi, who always greet me
and give me support every morning I went to the library.
I would like to thank my family, especially my parents, Bp. Nasib and Ibu
Eny, and my little sister Bella, for their prayer, love and support for me. I would
like to express my thankfulness to Archi Kuncahyo, who always supports me
x
PBI, Six Finish Wella, Ika Wahyuti, Mutiara Sekar, Yuvita Ardhani, and
Maria Diana, for their support through good and bad times. To the excellent
teaching team, SPACE, I would like to express my thankfulness for teaching me
to be a good English teacher. Last but not least, my gratefulness goes to the
amazing Layung. I thank Layungers for their love and care and for the
togetherness because we go together like copy and paste. May all beings be
happy!
xi
PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ... vi
ABSTRACT ... vii
ABSTRAK ... viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... xi
LIST OF TABLES ... xiii
LIST OF FIGURES ... xiv
LIST OF APPENDICES ... xv
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ... 1
A. Research Background ... 1
B. Research Problems ... 5
C. Problem Limitation ... 6
D. Research Objective ... 6
E. Research Benefit ... 7
F. Definition of Terms ... 8
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ... 11
A. Theoretical Description ... 11
1. Related Studies ... 11
2. Theories on Advertisement ... 13
a. The Definition of Advertisement ... 13
b. The Function of Advertisement ... 14
c. Language in Advertisement ... 16
d. Slogan ... 17
3. Presupposition Triggers ... 18
a. Theories on Presupposition Triggers ... 18
b. Kinds of Presupposition Triggers ... 19
xii
a. Theories on Pragmatics Presupposition ... 30
b. Types of Presupposition ... 32
B. Theoretical Framework ... 37
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ... 40
A. Research Method ... 41
B. Research Setting ... 43
C. Research Participant/Subject ... 43
D. Instruments and Data Gathering Technique ... 44
E. Data Analysis Technique ... 46
F. Research Procedure ... 49
CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ... 51
A. Kinds of Presuppositional Triggers Occur in Countries’ Slogans ... 52
B. Types of Presupposition Occur in Countries’ Slogans ... 84
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ... 91
A. Conclusions ... 91
B. Recommendations ... 92
REFERENCES ... 94
xiii
LIST OF TABLES
Table
3.1 The Data of Countries’ Slogans ... 47
A.1 List of Countries’ and States’ Slogans ... 97
A.2 Kinds of Presupposition Triggers and Types of Presuppositions ... 101
B.1 Kinds of Presuppositional Triggers ... 105
B.2 List of Kinds of Presuppositional Triggers ... 106
C.1 Types of Presuppositions ... 110
xiv
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure
3.1 Step 1 – Opening Google (https://www.google.com/) ... 45
3.2 Step 2 – Typing the keyword of a country (e.g. Indonesia) ... 45
3.3 Step 3 – Searching for official website of Indonesia tourism ... 46
3.4 Step 4 – Go to the Indonesia tourism official website by clicking the link ... 46
4.1 Kinds of Presupposition Triggers ... 53
xv
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix 1 (List of Countries’ and States’ Slogans)... 97
Appendix 2 (Kinds of Presupposition Triggers and Types of Presuppositions) ... 101
Appendix 3 (Kinds of Presuppositional Triggers) ... 105
Appendix 4 (List of Kinds of Presuppositional Triggers) ... 106
Appendix 5 (Types of Presuppositions) ... 110
Appendix 6 (List of Types of Presuppositions) ... 111
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, the researcher presents the introductory part of this
research, namely the research background, problem formulation, problem
limitation, research objectives, research benefits, and definition of terms.
A. Research Background
Language plays a great role in our life (Bloomfield, 1935, p. 3). It means
that people in this world deal with language in their daily lives to communicate
with others or to do something or a certain job. People could not make
conversation to communicate with others or show their ideas without using
language. In every single activity that they do, language is an essential thing that
they need. In this investigation, the researcher would like to discuss pragmatics
since it studies the relation between linguistics expressions and their users (Leech,
1974, p. 319). Hence, pragmatics can be practically defined as the study of how
utterances have meanings in situations (Leech, 1983).
In the pragmatics field, the researcher wants to focus on presupposition. As
stated by Brown & Yule (1983), presupposition is defined as a background belief
of something. Meaning to say, the speaker and the hearer have the same common
background when they are involved in such conversations. Most people frequently
make implicit assumptions about something in this world and the sense of an
utterance may depend on those assumptions which some linguists call
(2010), say that the concept of presupposition itself is closely related to common
knowledge. Meanwhile, presupposition and common knowledge are closely
related because in the ideal case they two coincide.
Hickey (1998) says that basically, the study of presupposition conveys
such background assumption made in the communication process. For example
the utterance ‘The King of France is bald’. When there is no proofs hold, the
presupposition above is not satisfied because there is no such bald person as a
king in France. From this example can be concluded that the phenomenon of
presupposition requires a pragmatic approach which bounds linguistics utterances
to the use and the user’s circumstance.
There are two major kinds of presupposition, namely semantics
presuppositions and pragmatics presuppositions. Leech (1974, p. 287), says that
the distinction of semantics presuppositions is usually drawn between
presupposition and entailment. For example:
X : Dino has a wife and three children
Y : Dino is married
By reading the example above, from the sentence Dino has a wife and
three children, it can be concluded that the sentence above presupposes that Dino
is married. Meanwhile, the distinction of pragmatics presuppositions is drawn
between presupposition and assertion. Leech (1974) also says that a pragmatics
theory treats presupposition as a question of the status of a speech act in relation
to the speakers’ or the hearers’ beliefs. Therefore, in this study, the researcher
between a speaker and the appropriateness of a sentence in a context (Levinson,
1983, p. 177).
Presupposition is not only thing which a speaker happens to take for
granted. According to Fasold and Connor-Linton (2006), presupposition itself
occurs when a speaker’s choices of words show that he or she is taking something
for granted. In other words, he or she believes that something they say really
exists. There must be some reasons why presupposition is discovered. One of the
reasons is to make somebody else believe that something exists. It means that in
such conversations, people have to have background knowledge. Bauerle and
Zimmermann (2010), state that people have to know what the speaker is
presupposing in order to explain his behavior when he is engaged in a
conversation. It means that when a speaker having such conversations with the
interlocutor, presupposition happens to give information to the interlocutor that
something exists.
In this study the researcher focuses on the presuppositions which occur in
countries’ and states’ slogans, for example the country slogan of Nigeria, Good
People, Great Nation. By reading this slogan, every person in this world would
know that there exists a country name Nigeria, Nigerian people are kind and
Nigeria is an enormous country. But still, people who read this slogan do not have
any idea about Nigeria if they have never been there before. Hence, the statements
that there exists a country name Nigeria, Nigerian people are kind, and Nigeria is
out what types of presuppositions that occur in countries’ and states’ slogans by
analyzing the presuppositional triggers of each country and state slogan.
This research aims to present presuppositions specifically about the
pragmatics presupposition that is discovered in countries’ and states’ slogans.
Most of countries in this whole world have their own slogans or taglines which
are used to attract foreigners or tourists to come to their countries. Shimp (2010)
says that slogans or taglines have always played an important role in the
advertising world. Effective slogans encapsulate a brand’s key positioning and
value proposition and provide consumers with a memory tag for distinguishing
one brand from another so that people could differentiate one product from the
other products. One country slogan is different from the other countries’.
Although they have the same aim which is to show the world their uniqueness and
what they have to persuade the foreigners to come to their country, those countries
have different sense in constructing their slogans. The researcher conducts
research on presuppositions because the researcher finds it interesting to analyze
the presuppositions discovered in slogans of countries and states in this world.
The reasons why the researcher conducts research on pragmatics
presupposition are because the researcher is interested in presupposition and the
researcher would like to investigate how presuppositions discovered in some
country and state slogans in this world. The researcher is interested in
presupposition because presupposition is a phenomenon happened in language
which shows that there is connection between the speaker and the hearer. The
presupposition discovered in those slogans. People or the government of the
countries creates slogans to tell the readers what the readers can find in the
countries. Moreover, it is a compulsory to know the slogans of countries and
states because the countries and states slogans presuppose something exists in the
countries which can persuade the readers or tourists to visit the countries. Since
there are many types of presuppositions, the researcher would like to investigate
in which type the presupposition that occurs in countries’ and states’ slogans
belong to. Many people read advertisements or magazines which contain countries
and states slogans or taglines, but they may not know what type of presupposition
is. To be able to know the types of presupposition of a sentence and what it
presupposes, they can construct a list of known presupposition triggers (Levinson,
1983, p. 181).
This pragmatics study on presuppositions has a certain purpose for the
English Language Education Study Program (ELESP) students since they also get
linguistic courses, specifically semantics and pragmatics courses as one of the
branches of linguistics course. This study will help them to comprehend more
about presuppositions, especially pragmatics presuppositions, types of pragmatics
presuppositions and also kinds of presuppositional triggers. By examining this
study on pragmatics presuppositions, the ELESP students will have more sense
about pragmatics awareness (Rose & Kasper, 2001).
B. Research Problems
In conducting this research, the researcher formulates two research
1. How do presuppositional triggers hold to support the categorization
of presupposition into its type?
2. What are the types of presupposition that occur in countries’ and
states’ slogans?
C. Problem Limitation
This study is limited to the presuppositions concept. The researcher limits
the study on how presuppositional triggers hold to categorize the presuppositions
into its type and what types the presuppositions occurs in countries’ and states’
slogans belong to. In this study, the researcher applied descriptive research
method which the final result of this research is in a form of a rich description.
The researcher applied descriptive research method because the researcher would
like to analyze the pragmatics presuppositions occurs in countries’ and states’
slogans. In this study, the researcher would like to analyze the presupposition
occurs in countries’ and states’ slogan and categorize them according to their
types.
D. Research Objective
This research is conducted in order to, first, discover how presuppositional
triggers hold to support the categorization of the presupposition occurs in
countries’ and states’ slogans into their types. Second, this study aims to find out
what types of presuppositions where the presupposition occurs in countries’ and
E. Research Benefits
The benefits of this research on the analysis of pragmatics presupposition
of countries’ and states’ slogans can be stated as follows:
1. For the English Language Education Study Program Students (ELESP
Students)
This research will provide advantageous information about
presuppositions, especially pragmatics presuppositions for ELESP students. By
reading this research, ELESP students can enhance their knowledge about
presuppositions and also comprehend the types of presuppositions especially
types of presuppositions where the countries’ and states’ slogans belong to.
Besides, the ELESP students can gain more information on what strategy which
can help them to discover presuppositional triggers in such presuppositions since
this research also discuss the kinds of presupposition triggers.
2. For future researchers
For the future researchers who are going to conduct research in the same
field, in this case is presupposition, this research would be beneficial and will
provide more information about presupposition, especially pragmatics
presuppositions. Besides, the future researchers can refer to this study as their
references if they want to conduct research on linguistics field and they want to go
3. For readers
This research will give insights to the readers when they happen to find
sentences containing presupposition. By reading this research, the readers will be
able to identify what types of presuppositions and what kinds of presuppositional
triggers of a presupposition they found. Besides, this research can be useful for the
readers if they would like to study presupposition as well.
F. Definition of Terms
In this part, the researcher would like to give the definition of terms used in
this study. Since the researcher focuses on pragmatics presuppositions which
belong to the linguistics field, in the definition of term, the researcher gives
definition of language, pragmatics presuppositions, presupposition triggers and
countries’ slogans and taglines.
1. Language
Since the researcher would like to discuss pragmatics presuppositions, the
researcher deals with language used in people’s daily lives. People deal with
language in their existence. People communicate, share idea, even act with
language. Language is defined as a finite system of elements and principles that
make it possible for speakers to construct sentences to do particular
communicative jobs (Finegan and Besnier, 1989). Thus, language has an
2. Pragmatic Presupposition
In this study, the researcher deals with presuppositions, especially the
pragmatic presuppositions. Presupposition is a background belief of something,
meaning that people believe that something does exist. Presuppositions appear
exceedingly often in the sentences uttered every day. A presupposition is an
underlying assumption that must be satisfied in order for an utterance to make
sense or for it to be debatable (Mihalicek & Wilson, 2011). As stated before, there
are two major kinds of presuppositions namely semantic presuppositions and
pragmatic presuppositions. The semantic presuppositions’ distinction is drawn
between presuppositions and entailment, while the focus in this research is the
pragmatic presuppositions which the distinction is drawn between presuppositions
and assertion (Leech, 1974, p. 287).
3. Presupposition Triggers
In order for the researcher to investigate the categorization of
presuppositions discovered in countries’ and states’ slogans into their types, the
researcher tried to search for the presupposition triggers of those slogans.
Levinson (1983) says that to be able to know the types of presupposition and what
it presupposes, it is needed to construct a list of known presupposition triggers (p.
181). Presupposition triggers are words or phrases whose use in a sentence often
indicates the presence of a presupposition (Glanzberg, 2003). The researcher
would like to find out the presupposition triggers of each presupposition to reveal
what it presupposes and also to encourage the researcher to categorize the
4. Countries’ and States’ Slogans
Countries’ and states’ slogans are kinds of motto of such countries to show
people in the world that they exist. Slogan is a standard company statement or
tagline for advertisements, salespeople, and company employees (Bovee & Arens,
1982, p. 274). As stated by Shimp (2010), efficient and successful slogans can
persuade the consumers with a memory tag for differentiating one brand from
another. Countries’ and states’ slogans can be interpreted in a phrase or sentence.
Generally, countries’ and states’ slogans or taglines represent the identity of such
countries. The purpose of those countries and states slogans is to attract people’s
attention to come to the country. Mostly, countries in this world apply unique
words to construct their slogans or taglines to make people or public curious to
11
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
In this chapter, the researcher presents the review of related literature used
in this study to help the researcher to answer the two problems formulation stated
in the previous chapter. There are some theories about pragmatics presupposition
used by the researcher in this study. In this chapter, the researcher presents two
subtopics, namely the theoretical description and the theoretical framework.
A. Theoretical Description
In this theoretical description, the researcher presents some theories which
are directly relevant to the matter in this study, which is pragmatics
presupposition in some countries’ and states’ slogans. In the theoretical
description, the researcher presents the related studies, theories on advertisement,
pragmatics presuppositions, and presupposition triggers. The field of this study is
pragmatics. Pragmatics is the study of language from a functional point of view
that attempts to explain aspects of linguistics structure by reference to
non-linguistics pressures and causes (Levinson, 1983 p. 7). In this study, the researcher
focuses on pragmatics presupposition, specifically the types of pragmatic
presupposition and also kinds of presuppositional triggers discovered in some
countries’ and states’ slogans.
1. Related Studies
Presupposition is an interesting topic of pragmatics to be discussed. There
semantics presupposition or pragmatics presupposition. In this research, the
researcher presents some similar studies which are relevant to the topic. Asher and
Lascarides (1998) did research on semantics and pragmatics of presupposition.
Both of them did a novel analysis of presupposition and paid particular attention
to the interaction between the knowledge resources that are required to interpret
them. As the result of their study, there are three main advantages to processing
presupposition through binding them to the context with a rhetorical context.
Different from Asher and Lascarides (1998) who did an investigation of
presupposition in a novel, Abusch (2002) did research on lexical alternatives as a
source of pragmatics presupposition. In his research, he focused on presupposition
of verbs like know and stop. The result of his study is that he analyzed the
differences in suspendability between soft and hard triggers of the presupposition
of stop. He also analyzed Stalnaker’s and Simons’ analyses of the verb know. The
last, he came up with the analysis of lexical alternative of the verb know and stop.
Besides, in this study, the researcher also reviewed the Sarjana Pendidikan thesis
of a former student of Sanata Dharma University, Humardhiana (2009), who
conducted research on presupposition discovered in Weekender Magazine. In her
research, she focused on the function of the presuppositions occurred in
Weekender Magazine. She applied qualitative approach in her descriptive
research. She used 100 Weekender magazine’s advertisements as her data. As the
Having reviewed some related studies on presuppositions, the researcher
put this study focusing on the kinds of presupposition triggers and types of
presupposition discovered in countries’ and states’ slogans.
2. Theories on Advertisement
Since in this study the researcher focuses on presuppositions discovered in
countries’ and states’ slogans, this study has relation with advertisement. In the
theories of advertisement, the researcher presents the definition of advertisement,
the function of advertisement, language in advertisement, and slogan.
a. The Definition of Advertisement
The focus of this study is on pragmatics presupposition that is discovered
in countries’ and states’ slogans. Therefore, the data in this study are gathered
from countries’ and states’ tourism advertisements. The researcher searched out
the data from the advertisement attached in printed mass media such as newspaper
and magazine and the data are mostly obtained from easily accessible electronic
source or the internet. Advertising is needed in order to advertise the goods or
products of such companies. White (1980) says that advertising is the act of using
advertisement to sell products or goods (p. 2). This statement is supported by
Bovee & Arens (1982) who propose a statement that advertising is “truth well
told” (p. 4). People make use of advertising to let the public know what they have
through different way. White (1980) also states that an advertisement is not
necessarily a commercial on television or a page in the newspaper or magazine,
Advertisement is essential and crucial form of communication (Nicholl, 1973).
Advertisement is used not only to advertise something but also to communicate
and deliver new information to the public. Advertisement itself is a marketing
appliance that helps sell and advertise brands of such products and help to build
confidence in companies and institutions by conveying accurate and compelling
information to consumers about the brand (Weilbacher, 1984, p. 8). Mostly,
people in this world use advertisement to show their products to the public and
they generally make such slogan or tagline to grab people’s attention to buy their
products. People construct slogans or taglines in their advertisement to make the
advertisement more interesting so that people have more desire to see or buy the
product.
b. The Function of Advertisement
The main function of advertisement is not only to show the public about
what the seller or company has. Beside its advantage to help the seller or company
to promote their products, advertisement has many other functions. The basic
function of advertisement is to identify products and differentiate them from the
others (Bovee & Arens, 1982, p. 8). Countries and states in this world have
different slogans. They construct their own slogan in a different way from the
other because they wanted to show their uniqueness. Besides, Bovee & Arens
(1982) also state that the advertisement functions to communicate information (p.
8). In countries’ and states’ slogan, generally, the identity of the country itself is
conveyed. The advertisement of country and state slogan is used by the country
in the country implicitly. Another function of advertisement is to induce or
persuade consumers to buy new product. Hence, the advertisement of countries’
and states’ slogan intended to persuade the public or foreigner to come to the
countries.
Besides those functions, Bovee & Arens (1982) propose the functions of
advertisement in several aspects.
1) Marketing function
As marketing function, advertising itself includes presenting the message
or communication, mostly through the mass media, to a large group of
people known as the target audience.
2) Communication function
In the aspect of communication, advertisement had its own beginnings in
society a long time ago.
3) Education function
From its education function, people could learn about the products that are
available for them and they can also learn how to make their lives better.
4) Economic function
Advertisement makes people aware of products, services, or ideas, and
advertisement promotes sales and commerce as well.
5) Social function
In social function, advertising is one of the major forces that have helped
the society to improve the standard of living in this country and around the
Although the data which are going to be discussed in this research are in a
form of a list of countries’ and states’ slogans, it does not mean that they have no
relation with advertisement. Still, countries and states in this world need
advertisement to publicize their tourism so that people in this world would know
about the existence of the countries and states. Without advertisement, people
would not know about the things that available or the newest information in this
world (Nicholl, 1973). Therefore, if there are no such advertisements that could
broadcast the existence of a country or state, there will be no one who knows
about the country.
c. Language in Advertisement
In advertisement, language is needed as a tool to communicate in order to
make sure what it presupposes can be expressed. People in this world know that
language plays an essential role to build communication in such circumstances.
Language in advertisement absolutely different from that language which is
generally used to communicate with others in people’s daily lives because
language in advertisement aims to attract people’s interest and persuade them to
buy the product advertised. The language used in advertisement is unique because
it has its own purpose. Advertisement is the usage of such language in particular
way that advertisement has to be able to get the readers’ attention. Generally, the
language used in advertisement aims to grab the people’s attention so that they are
interested to buy the product.
Similar to the language used in advertisement, the kind of language used
This kind of language aims to get an attention from the target audience. Target
audience is generally defined as a group of individuals to whom the advertisement
messaged is directed (Bovee &Arens, 1982, p. 12). In the advertisement of
countries’ and states’ slogans the target audience is the public or foreigner from
another country.
d. Slogan
Generally, sellers, who want to advertise their products using
advertisement, draw on a slogan. Many slogans or taglines begin as successful
headlines. Through continuous use, they become standard statements, not just in
advertisements, but also for sales people and company employees. Slogan has two
main basic purposes. Bovee & Arens (1982) state that the first purpose is to
provide continuity for a campaign, and the second one is to reduce a key theme or
idea that the company wants associated with its product to a brief and also
memorable positioning statement (p. 274). Slogan is needed in such advertisement
because it helps the seller to grab the public’s attention. Besides, the slogan itself
could make the products become more fascinating. Slogan also helps the seller to
persuade people to see or to buy their products. Effective slogans are short, easy
to understand, memorable, and easy to repeat. Good slogans help the product apart
from its competitors (Bovee & Arens, 1982, p. 274).
In this study, the seller means the countries or states that want to show
their existence to the world. The countries and states need slogans or taglines to
introduce themselves to the public from another country. The countries and states
people from another country would be interested to visit the country. Slogans or
taglines of the countries might become an identity of the countries or states
themselves.
3. Presupposition Triggers
One of the objectives of this study is to find out how the presuppositional
triggers hold to support the categorization of the presupposition into its type. In
this section, the researcher presents the theories on presupposition triggers and
kinds of presupposition triggers.
a. Theories on Presupposition Triggers
To analyze the data obtained, presuppositional triggers are needed to help
the researcher to indicate what the countries’ and states’ slogans presuppose.
Before the researcher categorizes the presuppositions discovered in countries’ and
states’ slogans into their types, the researcher would like to analyze the
presupposition triggers first. The analysis of presupposition triggers would ease
the researcher to categorize the presupposition into its type.
Presuppositions seem to be tied to certain words or aspects of surface
structure in general. We shall call such presupposition-generating linguistic items
presupposition triggers (Levinson, 1983 p. 179). Glanzberg (2003) says that
presupposition triggers are words or phrases whose use in a sentence often
indicates the presence of a presupposition. In this study, the researcher tried to
find out the presupposition triggers and classify the presuppositions into its types.
pragmatics limitations on the use of such sentences that they can only be
appropriately used if it is assumed in the context that the propositions indicated by
the presupposition triggers are true. To be able to know what a sentence
presupposes, it is needed to construct a list of presupposition triggers.
b. Kinds of Presupposition Triggers
Presuppositions which are triggered by the actual language used, in other
words there are linguistics items which act as presupposition triggers (Hickey,
1998, p. 115-116). There is a list of such triggers in language according to Hickey
(1998). Presupposition triggers include such things as:
1) Verb of change of state (asking somebody to stop or start doing something
presupposes that they were or were not doing it in the first place, just as
telling somebody to ‘get a life’ presupposes that they lead a boring
existence).
2) Iterative (asking somebody if they have done something again presupposes
they have done it before).
3) Temporal clauses (telling somebody ‘after you have done that, do ‘this’
presupposes they will do ‘that’).
4) Definite descriptions (expressions which refer to entities or something
supposed to exist in the real world).
Presupposition is somewhat special among pragmatics categories where
they often have syntactic or lexical signals, also called presupposition triggers
certain presupposition. Besides Hickey (1998), who defines presupposition
triggers into four aspects, Karttunen (1973) has collected 13 kinds of
presuppositional triggers. The examples provide positive and negative versions
separate by ‘/’ to allow the readers to check the inferences, and the presupposition
triggers themselves are italicized and the note below the examples is what they
presuppose.
1) Definite Descriptions
Definite description is such expressions which refer to entities supposed to
exist in the real world. Sentence which contains definite description will indicates
something exists in this world.
Here is the example of definite descriptions:
Mary saw / did not see the man with two heads.
The sentences “Mary saw the man with two heads” and “Mary did not see the man
with two heads” indicate the same thing that there exists a man with two heads. It
is not about whether Mary sees the man with two heads or not, but the existence
of a man who has two heads.
2) Factive Verbs
Here are some examples of factive verbs:
a) Denise regrets / does not regret drinking David’s home brew.
The sentences “Denise regrets drinking David’s home brew” and “Denise does
not regret drinking David’s home brew” are not focusing about Denise’s regret.
b) Dracula was / was not aware that the Frankenstein was there.
The sentences “Dracula was aware that the Frankenstein was there” and
“Dracula was not aware that the Frankenstein was there” specify the same fact
that the Frankenstein was there and it has nothing to do with the Dracula whether
he is aware or not.
c) Don realized / did not realize that he was in debt.
The sentences “Don realized that he was in debt” and “Don did not realize that he
was in debt” are also indicate the same truth that the person name Don in the
sentence was in debt.
d) It was odd / it was not odd how happy she was.
The two sentences “It was odd how happy she was” and “It was not odd how
happy she was” do not focused on what way she is happy. These two sentences
indicate the same thing that she (the person mentioned in the sentence above) was
happy. Some further factive predicates: know; be sorry that; be proud that; be
indifferent that; be glad that; be sad that.
3) Implicative Verbs
Here are some examples of implicative verbs:
a) Ruth managed / did not manage to open the door.
The sentences “Ruth managed to open the door” and “Ruth did not manage to
open the door” indicate the same thing that Ruth (the person mentioned in the
sentence) tried or intended to open the door.
The two sentences “Ruth forgot to lock the door” and “Ruth did not forget to lock
the door” specified the same truth that Ruth (the person mentioned in the sentence
above) ought to have locked, or intended to lock the door.
Some further implicative predicates: X happened to V, X did not plan or intend to
V; X avoided Ving, X was expected to, or usually did, or ought to V, etc.
4) Change of State Verbs
Change of state verbs have characteristic that is asking somebody to stop
doing something or start doing something presupposes that they were or were not
doing it in the first time.
Here are some examples of change of state verbs:
a) Charlie stopped / did not stop beating his son.
The sentences “Charlie stopped beating his son” and “Charlie did not stop beating
his son” presuppose the same thing that whether or not the person name Charlie in
those sentences stopped or did not stop beating his son, the truth is that he had
been beating his son.
b) Jenny began / did not begin to beat her sister.
The sentences “Jenny began to beat her sister” and “Jenny did not began to beat
her sister” indicate the same thing that whether or not, Jenny, (the person
mentioned in the sentences above) began or did not begin to beat her sister, the
truth is that she had not been beating her sister.
c) Kissinger continued / did not continue to rule the world.
The two sentences “Kissinger continued to rule the world” and “Kissinger did not
to rule the world. Meanwhile, those two sentences have the same truth that
Kissinger (the person mentioned above) had been ruling the world.
Some further change of state verbs: start; finish; carry on; cease; take (as in X
took Y from Z, Y was at / in / with Z); leave, enter; come; go; arrive; etc.
5) Iteratives
Iteratives have characteristic that is asking somebody whether if they have
done something again presupposes they have done it before.
Here are some examples of iteratives:
a) The flying saucer came / did not come again.
The two sentences “The flying saucer came again” and “The flying saucer did not
come again” presuppose the same thing that the flying saucer came before. The
phrase “again” indicates that the flying saucer had been coming before and now it
comes again.
b) You cannot get gobstoppers anymore.
The sentence “You cannot get gobstoppers anymore” presupposes that you (the
person mentioned by the speaker above) once could get gobstoppers.
c) Carter returned / did not return to power.
The two sentences “Carter returned to power” and “Carter did not return to
power” presuppose the same thing that is, Carter, (the person mentioned in the
sentences) held power before. The word return and did not return indicate that
Carter had the power before.
Some further iteratives: another time; to come back; restore; repeat; for the nth
6) Verbs of Judging
Here are some examples of verbs of judging:
a) Veronica accused / did not accuse Don of plagiarism.
The sentences “Veronica accused Don of plagiarism” and “Veronica did not
accused Don of plagiarism” indicate the same truth that, Veronica, (the person
mentioned above) thinks that the action of plagiarism is bad.
b) Don criticized / did not criticize Veronica for running away.
The two sentences “Don criticized Veronica for running away” and “Don did not
criticize Veronica for running away” presuppose the same thing that, Don, (the
person mentioned in the sentence above) thinks that Veronica (the woman
mentioned in the sentence) ran away.
7) Temporal Clauses
Temporal clauses have characteristic that is telling somebody that ‘after
you have done that, do this’ presupposes they will do ‘that’.
Here are some examples of temporal clauses:
a) Before Strawson was even born, Frege noticed / did not notice
presuppositions.
The two sentences “Before Strawson was even born, Frege noticed
presupposition” and “Before Strawson was even born, Frege did not notice
presupposition” indicate the same thing that whether or not Frege noticed or did
not notice presupposition, the truth is Strawson was born.
b) While Chomsky was revolutionizing linguistics, the rest of social
From the sentences “While Chomsky was revolutionizing linguistics, the rest of
social science was asleep” and “While Chomsky was revolutionizing linguistics,
the rest of social science was not asleep” can be seen that although those two
sentences convey different meaning, but still those sentences indicate the truth
that Chomsky was revolutionizing linguistics.
c) Since Churchill died, we have lacked / we have not lacked a leader.
From the two sentences above “Since Churchill died, we have lacked a leader”
and “Since Churchill died, we have not lacked a leader” can be seen that although
we (the people in the sentence) have lacked a leader or have not lacked a leader,
both of the sentences above convey the same truth that Churchill died.
Some further temporal clause constructors: after; during; whenever; as (as in As
John was getting up, he slipped).
8) Cleft Sentences
A cleft sentence is a complex sentence in which a simple sentence is
expressed using a main clause and a subordinate clause. In English, the
prototypical cleft sentence has the following form:
It + be + X + subordinate clause
Here are some examples of cleft sentences:
a) It was / was not Declan that kissed Martha.
The sentences “It was Declan that kissed Martha” and “It was not Declan that
kissed Martha” presuppose the same fact that whether it is Declan or not who
kissed Martha, those two sentences indicate the same truth that there is someone
b) What Declan lost / did not lose was his wallet.
The two sentences “What Declan lost was his wallet” and “What Declan did not
lost was his wallet” convey the same meaning that whether or not Declan lost his
wallet, the truth is that Declan lost something.
9) Implicit Clefts with Stressed Constituents
Here are some examples of implicit clefts with stressed constituents:
The particular presuppositions that seem to arise from the two cleft constructions
seem also to be triggered simply by heavy stress on a constituent, as illustrated by
the following examples where upper-case characters indicate contrastive stress:
a) Linguistics was / was not invented by CHOMSKY!
The sentences “Linguistics was invented by CHOMSKY!” and “Linguistics was not
invented by CHOMSKY!” indicate the same thing that whether or not Chomsky
invented the Linguistics, the truth is someone invented linguistics.
(cf. It was / was not Chomsky that invented linguistics.)
b) Tom did / did not compete in the OLYMPICS.
The two sentences “Tom did compete in the OLYMPICS” and “Tom did not
compete in the OLYMPICS” indicate that whether it is the Olympics or not, the
truth is that Tom did compete somewhere.
(cf. It was / was not in the Olympics that Tom competed.)
10) Comparisons and Contrasts
Comparisons and contrast may be marked by stress (or by other prosodic
a) Bella is / is not a better linguist than Darla.
The sentences above “Bella is a better linguist than Darla” and “Bella is not a
better linguist than Darla” convey the same meaning whether Bella is a better
linguist than Darla or not, the truth of both sentences is that Darla is a linguist.
The word “better” in both of the sentences indicates the comparisons and
contrasts.
b) Tom is / is not as unpredictably gauche as John.
Both of the sentences above “Tom is as unpredictably gauche as John” and “Tom
is not as unpredictably gauche as John” indicate one certain thing that John is
unpredictably gauche. The words “as unpredictably gauche as” here indicate the
comparisons and contrasts.
11) Non-restrictive Relative Clauses
In non-restrictive relative clause, note that there are two major kinds of
relative clause in English – those that restrict or delimit the noun phrase they
modify (restrictive as in Only the boys who are tall can reach the cupboard) and
those that provide additional parenthetical information (non-restrictive as in
Hillary, who climbed Everest in 1953, was the greatest explorer of our day). The
later kind is not affected by the negation of the main verb outside the relative
clause and thus gives rise to presupposition:
The Proto-Harrappans, who flourished 2800 – 2650 B.C., were / were not
great temple builders.
The two sentences “The Proto-Harrappans, who flourished 2800 – 2650 B.C.,
2650 B.C., were not great temple builders” show the truth that the
Proto-Harrappans flourished 2800 – 2650 B.C. The comma (,) symbol indicates the
non-restrictive relative clause.
12) Counterfactual Conditionals
Here are some examples of counterfactual conditionals:
a) If Hannibal had only had twelve more elephants, the Romance
language would / would not this day exist.
The two sentences above “If Hannibal had only had twelve more elephants, the
Romance language would this day exist” and “If Hannibla had only had twelve
more elephants, the Romance would not this day exist” presuppose the same thing
that Hannibal did not have twelve more elephants. The word “if” in both of the
sentences indicates the counterfactual conditionals.
b) If the notice had only said ‘mine-field’ in English as well as Welsh, we
would / would never have lost poor Llewellyn.
Both of the sentences “If the notice had only said ‘mine-field’ in English as well as
Welsh, we would have lost poor Llewellyn” and “If the notice had only said ‘mine
-field’ in English as well as Welsh, we would never have lost poor Llewellyn”
presuppose one thing that the notice did not say mine-field in English. Same as
the previous example, the word “if” indicates the counterfactual conditionals.
13) Questions
A question will generally share the presupposition of their assertive
presuppositions, of a rather different kind. It is necessary to distinguish different
types of questions: yes / no questions will generally have vacuous
presuppositions, being the disjunction of their possible answers. There are the
only kinds of presuppositions of questions that are invariant under negation.
WH-questions introduce the presuppositions obtained by replacing the WH-word by
the appropriate existentially quantified variable, e.g. who by someone, where by
somewhere, how by somehow, etc. These presuppositions are not invariant to
negation.
a) Is there a professor of linguistics at MIT?
The interrogative sentence above presupposes that either there is a professor of
linguistics at MIT or there is not. The form of be (is) points out the curiosity
whether or not there is a professor of linguistics at MIT.
b) Who is the professor of linguistics at MIT?
The interrogative sentence above presupposes that someone is the professor of
linguistics at MIT. The pronoun (who) shows the curiosity about who the
professor of linguistics at MIT is.
4. Pragmatics Presuppositions
Pragmatics presupposition is the main discussion in this study since the
researcher would like to analyze the kinds of presuppositional triggers and types
of presupposition discovered in countries’ and states’ slogans. In this subtopic, the
researcher presents theories on pragmatics presuppositions and types of
a. Theories on Pragmatics Presuppositions
Pragmatics is a general study of how context influences the way sentences
convey information (Brown & Yule 1983, p. 227). As stated in the previous
chapter, presupposition is background believe of something. Presupposition is
very generally defined as that which the speaker assumes to be true as opposed to
what he asserts to be true (Kempson, 1975 p. 54). This statement is supported by
Stalnaker (1972) who says that presuppositions are what the speaker takes to be
common background for the participants in the context. In a certain circumstance,
both of the speaker and hearer have the same background knowledge or at least
know about the thing being talked. Allan (2009) says both concepts of pragmatics
and presupposition can be interpreted in unusual ways. On one side, not being
very distant from the perceptive, the concept of presupposition as ‘background
assumption’, the concept of presupposition which covers a wide range of
heterogeneous phenomena. Presuppositions are generally discovered in such
situations where some people were talking about something even though they do
not know the truth or the existence of the thing itself. It is supported by
McCawley (1981) who says that describing an approach to presupposition which
was in fact originally framed in terms of semantic presupposition, but which
developed in a natural way into an account of pragmatic presupposition which can
be divorced entirely from considerations of truth value gaps. Filmore (1971)
proposes an argument which supports that such sentences must be satisfied in
order for a particular illocutionary act to be effectively performed. An alternative
wrong when a presupposition is not true is provided by the so called pragmatic
analysis of presuppositions (Allwood, Anderson, & Dahl, 1977). For example the
sentence Johnny has a motorcycle presupposes that Johnny, or the person
mentioned in the sentence, has a motorcycle. But still, the people who talk about
Johnny do not know the truth whether Johnny has a motorcycle or not.
People should explain the suitability of what someone says not only in
terms of what he believes and desires, but also to a certain extent in terms of what
he presupposes (Bauerle & Zimmermann, 2010). This does not mean that people
have to find the truth of anything they hear or read. Bauerle & Zimmermann
(2010) say that in the traditional pragmatics theories the notion of the context
plays two roles. The first one, it should contain enough information about the
conversational situation to determine what is expressed by a sentence. The second
one, it should contain enough information about what the participants of the
conversation commonly assume about the subject matter of the conversation to
determine whether what is said by a speaker is appropriate or not.
There are several features which are claimed to define presuppositions and
to delimit them from other forms of assumption (Hickey, 1998, p. 117). The first
one is that they remain constant under negation. The second one is that they are
‘defeasible’ which according to Levinson (1983) they cannot be cancelled out by
either the immediate linguistics context or by some wider context of discourse.
The last feature is that they are tied to particular aspects of the surface structure of
The researcher chooses pragmatics presuppositions because the researcher
would like to figure out what types of presupposition discovered in some
countries and states slogans in this world. Pragmatics presuppositions are best
depicted as a relation between a speaker and the suitability of a sentence in a
context (Levinson, 1983, p. 177). In the pragmatics view of presupposition, the
distinction is usually drawn not between presupposition and entailment, but
between presupposition and assertion, where presupposition is the part of the
content of an utterance which is treated as if it is familiar, and assertion is that part
which is treated as if unfamiliar, new, or informative (Leech, 1974 p. 287).
b. Types of Presuppositions
According to Yule (1996, p. 25-34) there are six types of presuppositions,
namely existential presupposition, factive presupposition, lexical presupposition,
structural presupposition, non-factive presupposition, and counterfactual
presupposition.
1) Existential Presupposition
Existential presupposition is the basic type of presupposition. It usually
presupposes the existence of something in such circumstances. Existential
presupposition is normally triggered by definite descriptions which are formed by
using proper names, definite article, demonstrative pronoun and possessives.
Here is the example of existential presupposition:
The sentence above shows that there is a person name Mary who has a car which
color is black. Therefore, the sentence above presupposes that Mary has a car.
2) Factive Presupposition
Factive presupposition is a presupposition which has information following
verbs like know, realize, regret, surprise(d), strange, and a quite large number of
other verbs, predicate adjectives, and predicate nouns which take a clause as a
subject or object. The information conveyed in factive presupposition is
considered as a fact, meaning that this kind of presupposition presupposes truth of
what is stated.
Here are some examples of factive presupposition:
a) He did not realize Brad was sick.
The sentence “he (the person mentioned above) did not realize Brad was sick”
presupposes that there exists a person name Brad, and it is true that the person
name Brad was sick.
The other examples of factive presupposition are:
b) I was not aware that he was married.
The sentence “I was not aware that he was married” presupposes that he (the
person mentioned above) was married and I (the speaker) was not aware about
that.
c) I regretted telling him.
The sentence “I regretted telling him” presupposes that I (the speaker) here have
told something to him (the person mentioned above). And the fact that I (the
3) Lexical Presupposition
Lexical presupposition is a kind of presupposition that another
non-asserted meaning is understood. Different from factive presupposition, lexical
presupposition presupposes an unstated concept.
Here are some examples of lexical presupposition:
a) Mr. Bennet started complaining.
The sentence above presupposes that Mr. Bennet (the person mentioned in the
sentence) was not complaining before. And the fact is that in the sentence Mr.
Bennet started complaining.
b) Don managed to win the competition.
The sentence “Don managed to win the competition” presupposes that Don (the
person mentioned in the sentence above) intended to win the competition and he
succeeded in the competition.
c) Don did not manage to win the competition.
Different from the previous sentence “Don managed to win the competition”, the
sentence “Don did not manage to win the competition” presupposes that Don (the
person mentioned in the sentence above) failed in the contest. But if those two
sentences are combined, those two sentences presuppose that Don tried to win the
competition.
d) He stopped smoking.
The sentence above presupposes that he (the person mentioned above) used to
sentence shows the shift of how he in this sentence used to smoke and then
stopped smoking.
e) He started smoking.
The sentence “He started smoking” is the opposite of the previous example of
lexical presupposition “He stopped smoking”. The sentence “He started smoking”
presupposes that he (the person mentioned in the sentence above) did not smoke
before. And the fact is that now he (the person mentioned) is starting to smoke.
4) Structural Presupposition
A sentence which is triggered by structural presupposition presupposes that
the part of the structure is already assumed to be true.
Here are some examples of structural presupposition:
a) When did he leave?
The question “When did he leave?” presupposes that he (the person mentioned in
the question) has been there before, and the fact is that now he has left.
b) Where did you buy the hand phone?
The question “Where did you buy the hand phone?” presupposes that the speaker
asks where you (the person mentioned) bought the hand phone, and the fact in this
question is that you (someone mentioned in the question) have bought the hand
phone.
c) How fast was the motorbike going when it ran the red light?
The question above presupposes that the speaker asks about how fast the
motorbike going when it ran the red light and the fact is the motorbike ran the red
