An Analysis of Grammatical Cohesion in Barack Obama’s Speech

Abstract

Cohesion is one of part of discourse. Cohesion is a linking medium that holds some
events and ideas together within a text that gives its meaning. In means that cohesion is
necessary in terms of communication since it is a part of language system. One of the spoken
forms which has big role is speech. The speech must have the cohesion as one of important
component to make the speech effective and efficient. So that it can be understood by the
listener. Halliday and Hasan (1976) have divided cohesion into two, namely grammatical and
lexical cohesion. The main focus of the writer is the grammatical one. Therefore, the purpose
of this research are to find the types of grammatical cohesion and forms of reference,
substitution, ellipsis and conjunction in the Barack Obama Inaugural Speech.
According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the grammatical cohesion deals with the
structures of the sentence within the text. They have divided the types of grammatical
cohesion into four headings such as reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction.
Reference is divided into two such as anaphoric reference and cataphoric reference.
Substitution is divided into three such as nominal, verbal, and clausal substitution. Ellipsis is
divided into three such as nominal, verbal, and clausal ellipsis. Conjunction is divided into
two such as additive and adversative.
This research employed descriptive qualitative research. It is done by collecting data,
analyzing data that are types of grammatical cohesion and forms of them, giving explanations
and drawing conclusions. The data in this research are taken from the internet, namely Barack
Obama Inaugural Speech Script.
From the research object, there are 25 data found. The writer found 25 forms of
reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction in this speech. There are 1 anaphoric
reference, 2 cataphoric references, 1 nominal substitution, 3 verbal ellipsis, 14 additive
conjunctions and 4 adversative conjunctions.
Keywords: Cohesion, Types Of Grammatical Cohesion, Descriptive Qualitative, Barack
Obama Inaugural Speech