ii. Antithesis
Antithesis is the use of two contrastive ideas in an utterance. As Brocher elicited in his book, King used alliteration in his speech by saying “Nineteen
sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning
” Brochers, 2005: 189. The word “end” and “beginning” in the above sentence have a
contrastive meaning, but the contrastive meaning of those two words is used by King to dramatize his statement that the year nineteen sixty-three was indeed not
an end, but a beginning of an era. iii.
Alliteration Alliteration is the use of words with the same first letter either vowel or
consonant which has close proximity one and another. This is also seen in Martin Luther King‟s speech
I Have A Dream:
“We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline” Brochers, 2005: 189. In this part of his
speech, King alliterated the word dignity and discipline.
In his book, Larson also stated that alliteration is one of the ways to elicit words‟ feeling, texture, or theme. He said that alliteration is a favorite tool of
advertising since it is “fun to hear and repeat” 2010: 140.
b. Phonology
The phonology of the text is studied through its stress and intonation appeared in the audio. The study of the stress and intonation of the video
campaign is significant because the type of the main data is spoken data. Since the genre of the data studied is in the scope of advertising, the intonation and the
stress of the utterances spoken have their own characteristics than any other genre.
i. Stress
Studying the stress of the utte rances spoken in Obama‟s presidential
video campaign is very significant since through the study of the stress we can see which words are stress and given a more prominent property than the other.
An important prosodic feature, „stress‟ applies to individual syllables, and involves, most commonly loudness, length, and higher pitch Celik,
2001: 2. The difference of the stressed and unstressed syllables can be seen
through the table below:
Stressed Unstressed
1 intensity
articulation with
greater breathmuscular effort
perceived as greater loudness less breathmuscular effort
perceived as
having less
loudness 2
pitch marked change in pitch
syllables tend to follow the pitch trend set by previous
stressed syllables
3 vowel
quality may contain any vowel except
ə vowels have clear peripheral
quality glides have clearly defined
second element generally have central vowels
ə ɪ ʊ or syllabic consonants vowel may have centalised
quality glides tend to lose second
element
4 vowel
duration vowels have full length
vowels are
considerably shorter
Table 1. Characteristics of stressed and unstressed syllables
Collins and Mees, 2003: 111. Referring to Collins and Mees, the stressed words are usually the content
words and the unstressed words are the function words. However, Celik in his journal stated four major types of stress; they are unmarked tonic stress, emphatic
stress, contrastive stress, and new information stress Celik, 2001: 3-5. The studied stress features in the study, however, is the emphatic stress. Emphatic
stress is studied particularly because the purpose of the word-stressing in the video campaign is to emphasize certain words.
a Emphatic stress
Emphatic stress, as a type of stress use in an utterance, makes a differentiation on the use of stress since the purpose of the stress is to emphasize a
certain word, whether it is content word, modal auxiliary, adverb, etc. The emphatic-
stressed words are regarding to the speaker‟s intended meaning. For example:
1 It was very BOring. unmarked
2 It was VEry boring. emphatic
Celik, 2001: 4. In the analysis, however, the researcher uses Collin and Mees‟ stress
marking by using [°] mark. The marking was chosen to create difference toward the intonation nucleus analysis.
ii. Intonation
The study‟s primary data are the utterances spoken in the video. Then, the intonation is studied to reveal the intonation in the video and relate it to the
vocabulary of the utterances to reveal the persuasion strategies used in the video campaign.
1 Intonation Markings
In their book, Collins and Mees proposed two types of intonation marking. The first one is the interlinear marking system, and the second is the
complementary in-text marking system. In the complementary in-text marking
system, the stressed syllables are marked by [`] and the stressed syllables with particular prominence are marked by [º] while the unstressed syllables are left
without any markings. He inºsisted on cooking an `omelette.
Collins and Mees, 2003: 120. The second, the interlinear marking system elicited by Collins and Mees,
are using three marking symbols. They are for stressed syllables, for unstressed syllables, and a thicker line for stressed syllables with particular
prominence. Example: He in°sisted on cooking an `omelette.
3 2
1
Collins and Mees, 2003:120. 2
Intonation Types In brief, there are four types of intonation patterns, as Collins and Mees
writes: a
Falling Falls is the commonest type of nuclear tone. A high fall has the pitch
movement from high to low, while the low fall has less pitch movement. In the study, the researcher uses [`] to identify the falling intonation whether it is high
fall or low fall. The explanation of the type of the falling intonation is given through the intonation transcription.
b Rises
Eventhough rising patterns are more less common than the falling patterns, the most common rise is the low to mid. The less common rise pattern
moves from mid to high. In this research, the researcher uses the [ ] mark to indicate whether the low rise or high rise. The explanation of the type of the
falling intonation is given through the intonation transcription. c
Fall-rise The fall-
rise is symbolized by [ ]. It has high to low to mid pitch movement. The following syllables after the nucleus following the rise.
d Rise-fall
The rise fall is symbolized by [ ]. It has mid to high to low pitch movement. The following syllables after the nucleus remains low Collins and
Mees, 2003: 121-123. Collins and Mees also stated the context of the intonation. Falling tones
high fall, low fall, and rise-fall are suggesting finality or unloading of information, while the rising tones high rise, low rise, and fall-rise are
suggesting non-finality and information seeking, rather than unloaded Collins and Mees, 2003: 126.
In terms of the intonation purpose, the high fall and low rise can be taken as neutral, while the low fall and high rise is having the strengthening function to
emphasize the speakers‟s attitude Collins and Mees, 2003: 125. 3
Patterns of Intonation Collins and Meet also elicited four types of intonation pattern. They are:
i Statements
Statements usually use falling intonation. When did Keith leave? A `month or so ago.
The low fall intonation can also be used in utter the above utterance. A month or so ago.
Collins and Mees, 2003: 127. But there are also statements that use rising intonation that sometimes is
indicating that the person is questioning a statement. It‟s ˚well worth a visit? Well, I don‟t think so.
˚Delia‟s bought a turkey from some guy in Swindon? How could she be so gullible?
Collins and Mees, 2003: 127. Moreover, when statements are said on a fall-rise, it adds reservation,
doubt, disagreement that meant to correct or contradicting the other speaker in a polite way.
Floyd arrived this morning. Yesterday. A month a˳go all implying disagreement or doubt
Collins and Mees, 2003: 127. When the statement has several intonation groups, the last intonation
groups will have the fall. Other than the last intonation group, the intonation will be on rise or fall-rise that imply non-finality.
If you ˚want a good job || it‟s im˚portant to possess management skills. Collins and Mees, 2003: 127.
ii Commands
Commands are usually said from the superior to the inferior, so commands are usually using falling pattern.
˚Shut the window. Collins and Mees, 2003: 128.
Commands that said on rising pattern is meant to give a gentler tone and give a non-
finality effect that is followed by other utterances, whether it‟s spoken or not.
˚Meet us on Thursday. And then we can sort it out later. ˚Don‟t worry. It‟ll be alright
Collins and Mees, 2003: 128. iii
WH questions The WH question which is neutral or business-like is often said in fall.
How can we ˚possibly pay this bill? Collins and Mees, 2003: 128.
WH questions usually have rising intonations to make the wuestion friendlier.
˚How can I help you? Collins and Mees, 2003: 128.
iv Yes-No questions
Yes-No questions usually use rising pattern. Has ˚Prue booked her flight to Paris?
Collins and Mees, 2003: 128.
When the yes-no question is said in falling pattern, it implies as more to be an exclamatory statements.
Do we ˚have any choice? It doesn‟t look as if we have. Collins and Mees, 2003: 128-129.
c. Vocabulary