Expressive Illocutionary Acts Analysis of Donald Trump’s Remarks on COVID-19 Pandemic in Press Briefing April 23rd, 2020

Abstract

Salsabila, Luthfiya. 2021. ― Expressive Illocutionary Acts Analysis of Donald Trump’s Remarks on COVID-19 Pandemic in Press Briefing April 23^rd, 2020. Final Project, English Education Study Program, Faculty of Language and Arts Education, University of PGRI Semarang. Advisor I: Prof. Dr. Suwandi, M.Pd. Advisor II: Dr. Arso Setyaji, S.Pd., M.Hum.

Language is a primary need that helps us share ideas and things that we want to express. Everyone has their own experiences that create preferences and results on how they express things. This is why some people even at the same time and place may have different judgments toward an event and this is what pragmatics is concerned with, it is not only about words or any literal meaning, it deals with how people use their language in which social context they use it. An utterance can result in three kinds of acts, they are locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary, the researcher chose expressive speech acts. Expressive speech acts are the category that Vanderveken has developed in his book Foundations of Illocutionary Logic. For this research, the researcher decided to take Donald Trump’s remarks on COVID-19 in the press briefing issued on April 23, 2020 to be discussed. As the result, 110 utterances were identified as expressive illocutionary activities. Donald Trump used thirteen different sorts of expressive illocutionary acts. They were 1) welcoming, 2) thanking, 3) complimenting, 4) complaining, 5) reproving, 6) boasting, 7) bragging, 8) approving, 9) deploring, 10) rejoicing, 11) disapproving, 12) blaming, and 13) praising. Thus, the researcher advises that the teacher should provide examples from real-life cultural and social contexts to teach students expressive illocutionary acts as offered in this paper.