An Analysis of Representative Speech Acts and Basics Emotions in the 2016 US Presidential Debates

Abstract

In the presidential debates, each candidate conveyed ideas, claims, and criticism. The words
used can be a speech act that refers to the basic units of communication in which utterances are
viewed as social acts that fulfil social functions. This study investigates types and function of the
speech act of representatives and the strong feelings expressed in the speech act. Speech act of
representative refers to acts in which the words state what the speakers believes to be the case;
and these can be found in the presidential debates. In the presidential debates, each candidate
conveyed ideas, claims, and criticism. According to Searle (1976) there five types of speech acts,
they are representative, directive, commissive, expressive, and declaration. Every utterance that
refers to asserting, informing, reporting, claiming, and fact stating can be said as representative
speech acts in which words delivered based on what the speaker believes to be the case.
(Cutting, 2003). Furthermore, each of the speech act of representative can be followed by the
emotional expressions like anger, sadness, joy, and fear. In this research, the writer analyzed the
basic emotions expressed in each types of representative speech acts. Some theories used to
observed the basic emotions are Parrot (2001): Fiehler (2002); Yanti (2013).
The method used in analyzing the research is qualitative method that refers scientific
method of observation to collect types of representative speech acts and basic emotion. It refers
to the meaning, concepts, definitions, and drawing conclusions. Data were taken from three
transcripts of the 2016 US presidential debates posted on the web Washington Post. The writer
observed three transcripts of the 2016 US Presidential Debates between Donald Trump and
Hillary Clinton in terms of utterances that refers to the representative speech acts and basic
emotions expressed through the words used by both of them. Then, the procedures done were
collecting, classifying the data based on the purpose of the study, analyzing those classified data,
interpreting the result of data analysis, and drew a conclusion.
The results show that there are a number of types of representative speech act used, for
example asserting, reporting, informing, claiming, and fact stating. These are influenced by
various contexts in terms of physical context, epistemic context, and linguistic context. From
those types used, the writer found that asserting used by both of Hillary Clinton and Donald
Trump in terms of repetition to assert their opinions. In the type of speech act informing Hillary
Clinton gives the information she had previously thought and implicitly. In type speech acts
informing Donald Trump gives the information directly to the point of discussion. In the speech
acts claiming, Clinton claimed about what she had done, or her success. Similarly, Trump also In
claimed what he had done but he tend to praise himself. Related to the basic emotions expressed,
the writer found three basic emotions in the representative speech acts based on Parrot’s theory
they are Joy, Anger, and Sadness. In types of asserting the emotions of Hillary Clinton are
optimism, as a part of the primary emotion Joy; rejection as part of the primary emotion of
Sadness, guilt (sadness), being annoyed (anger), exasperation (anger). Then, in the speech act of
reporting is the emotion of being disappointed (sadness). Other basic emotions expressed by
Clinton were are optimism (joy), pride (joy), disappointed (sadness), enthusiasm (joy) in
informing speech act representative. And, basic emotions expressed by Trump in the types of
speech act of asserting were rejection (Sadness), optimism (Joy), exasperation (Anger), pride
(Joy). In types of informing were feeling displeasure (Sadness), optimism (Joy), loathing
(Anger), grumpiness (Anger), enthusiasm (Joy), and pride (Joy); and many other basic emotions
expressed by both of the candidates.
From the explanation, the writer can draw a conclusion that the basic emotions expressed in
each type of the representative speech acts. In asserting, the basic emotion of Joy, Sadness,
Anger expressed by both of the candidates. In types of reporting Hillary Clinton tends to show
the basic emotions of Joy, that is strong feeling of optimism. In the speech acts of informing the
emotions expressed were Joy and Sadness and Anger. The difference emotional expression from
both of the candidates were sadness emotions. Hillary Clinton tends to inform something with
disappointed emotions (sadness) and Donald Trump tends to conveyed displeasure emotions.
Trump usually informed something with anger expressions, namely loathing, grumpiness and
exasperation. He showed his exasperation with the previous government differ from Hillary
Clinton. To claim something the emotion by both candidates is the same, namely (joy) pride and
(joy) optimism. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, both of them felt proud of themselves and
optimism they would be voted as a president. In types of Fact stating by both candidates have the
same feeling, joy emotion and anger emotion. But, Donald Trump tends to show anger emotions
by using sarcastic words and tends to feel exaggerating to say the facts. He showed the facts and
tried to convince people with the facts with his strong feeling of anger. From the data, the writer
tend to say that From that Clinton is more calm person and tends not to show her emotions in
public. Meanwhile, Trump is more resolute and straight to the point with his words. Finally, the
research is useful for people who study language in terms of words delivered have an
illocutionary act to make people do something; the words are not only use as saying things but
also doing things. For further research, it is very interesting to study other aspects, such as
language use as representative of ideology, character, and politeness.
Keywords: Speech act of Representative, Basic emotions, Types, The 2016 US presidential
Debates