CONSTATIVE AND PERFORMATIVE UTTERANCES IN JOKOWI’S SPEECHES.

ABSTRACT
Hafifah, Mutia. Reg. No 8146112026. Constative and Performative Utterances in
Jokowi’s Speeches. A Thesis. English Applied Linguistics Study Program, Post
Graduate School, State University of Medan, 2016.
This study deals with constative and performative utterances in Jokowi’s
speeches. It was aimed at investigating the types of constative and performative
utterances in Jokowi’s speeches, to describe the realization of constative and
performative utterances in Jokowi’s speeches and to state the reason why
constative and performtive utterances used in Jokowi’s speeches. This study used
descriptive qualitative method. The data of this research were the utterances of
Jokowi’s speeches held on 10 January 2016 in Jakarta about “Pembangunan
Nasional semesta Berencana untuk Indonesia Raya” and Jokowi’s speech held on
17 February 2016 in San Fransisco with theme “Diaspora Indonesia”. The sources
of data of this study were taken from Jokowi’s speeches videos downloaded from
youtube. Based on the data analysis, there are eleven types of constative used by
Jokowi in his speeches; affirming, allegging, announcing, answering, concuring,
disclosing, identifying, informing, predicting, reporting and stipulting. In
performative utterances, Jokowi used all types of performative utterances;
verdictives, exertives, commisives, behabitives and expositives. In the realization
of constative utterances, Jokowi used the form of indirect speech act. In
performative utterances, he used direct and indirect speech act. Jokowi used

constative and performative utterances to persuade the listeners to participate in
the improvement of Indonesia.
Keywords: Constative, Performative, Speech acts.

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ABSTRACT
Hafifah, Mutia. NIM. 8146112026. Constative and Performative Utterances in
Jokowi’s speeches. Thesis. Program Studi Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris,
Sekolah Pascasarjana, Universitas Negeri Medan, 2016.
Penelitian ini berkaitan dengan ujaran constative dan performative pada pidato
Jokowi. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk menyelidiki tipe-tipe ujaran
constative dan performative pada pidato Jokowi, faktor- faktor mengapa tindak
ujar tersebut digunakan pada pidato Jokowi dan alasan mengapa tipe-tpe ujaran
sonstative dan performative digunakan pada pidato jokowi. Penelitian ini
menggunakan metode kualitatif deskriptif. Data penelitian ini adalah ujaran dalam
pidato Jokowi yang dilaksanakan pada tanggal 10 Januari 2016 di Jakarta dengan
tema “Pembangunan Nasional semesta Berencana untuk Indonesia Raya” dan
pidato Jokowi di san Fransisco dengan tema “Diaspora Indonesia” yang
dilaksanakan pada tanggal 17 Februari 2016. Sumber penelitian ini diunduh dari

youtube. Berdasarkan hasil analisis data, sebelas tipe ujaran constative yang
digunakan pada pidato jokowi, seperti affirming, allegging, announcing,
answering, concuring, disclosing, identifying, informing, predicting, reporting and
stipulting. Dalam ujaran performative, Jokowi menggunakan semua tipe ujaran
performative, yaitu verdictives, exertives, commisives, behatives and expositives.
Pada realisasi ujaran constative, Jokowi menggunakan tindak ujar tidak langsung.
Dalam ujaran performative, Jokowi menggunakan tindak ujar langsung dan tidak
langsung. Jokowi menggunakan ujaran constative dan performative untuk
menagajak pendengar untuk ikut serta dalam pembangunan Indonesia.
Kata kunci : constative, performative, tindak ujar

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Bismillahirahmanirahim,
Praises be to Allah SWT for His Great Blessing, Health and Luck that
have been continuously poured to the writer in the process of completing her
studies and this piece of academic writing. Praises are also addressed to our
Prophet Muhammad SAW who has guided us to the better life of today. In the

process of completing this thesis, the writer has to confess her profound
thankfulness for the generous guidance and assistance which has been rendered to
her by many people. It would be impossible to list all names but on this very
special opportunity the writer would like to express her gratitude to the following
people.
First of all, the writer deepest appreciation and gratitude is dedicated to Dr.
Siti Aisyah Ginting, M.Pd her first adviser for the guidance, comments, criticisms,
suggestions and special notes for the improvement of the thesis from the very
beginning up to the end of this thesis.
Next, her deepest appreciation is addressed to Dr. Rahmad Husein, M.Ed,
her second adviser for her available time spent for consultation, guidance,
comment, encouragement, special notes for improvement of the thesis, and full
support in shaping this thesis.
She would like to take this special occasion to express her gratitude to Dr.
Rahmad Husein, M.Ed. and Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum. as the Head and
Secretary of the English Applied Linguistics Study Program for their

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administrative assistance and administrative requirements during the process of

conducting this study and completing this thesis.
Sincere gratitude also to her reviewers and examiners, Prof. Amrin
Saragih, M.A, Ph.D, Dr. Zainuddin, M.Hum and Dr. I Wayan Dirgayesa, M.Hum,
for their valuable inputs to be included in this thesis. She would like to express
her gratitude to all lecturers who have given the valuable knowledge and the
excellent performance in delivering the lectures during her study at the English
Applied Linguistics Study.
Next, her greatest and sincere gratitude should also go to her beloved
parents Azwar, M.Ag and Damarliah, S.Pd, her lovely sisters and brother Ade
Rahmi Firdausa, Sri Lira Hafidah and Muhammad Khairun Nahwan who have
patiently given moral support, their never ending love and pray. Special and
sincerest gratitude are addressed to her inspiration, Yuanda Yudhistira Ginting,
S.H for his amazing support, love and motivation for the writer to finish this thesis
soon.
She also would like to express her thankfulness for her beloved friends on
LTBI B-2 and B-1 UNIMED 2014 who can not mention one by one for their love,
support and help to finish this thesis. She offers her regards and thanks to Brother
Farid, who has helped her in providing the academic administration.
Medan, August 2016
The writer,


Mutia Hafifah
Registration number: 8146112026

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pages
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .......................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................ v
LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................... vii
LIST OF FIGURE ...................................................................................... viii
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................... 1
1.1 Background of the Study ....................................................... 1
1.2 The problem of the Study ...................................................... 6
1.3 The Objectives of the Study .................................................. 7
1.4. Scope and Limitation of the Study ....................................... 7
1.5. Significance of the Study ..................................................... 8

CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE ............................................
A. Theoritical Framework .......................................................
2.1 Pragmatics ...................................................................
2.2 Speech Act Theory.......................................................
2.3 Constative and Performative Utterances .......................
2.3.1 Types of Constative ...........................................
2.3.2 Types of Performatives ......................................
2.3.3 The Way of performing Speech Act ...................
2.4 Language and Politic....................................................
2.4.1 Public speaking ..................................................
2.4.2 Speech ...............................................................
B. Relevant Studies ..................................................................
C. Conceptual Construct ...........................................................

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CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHOD ...................................................
3.1 Research Method ................................................................
3.2 Data and The Source of Data ..............................................
3.3 The Technique for Collecting Data .....................................
3.4 The instrument of Data Collection ......................................
3.5 Trustworthiness of the Study ..............................................
3.6 The Technique of Data Analysis .........................................

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CHAPTER IV. DATA ANALYSIS, FINDING AND DISCUSSION........ 44
4.1 Data Analysis ........................................................................ 44
4.1.1 Types of constative and performative utterances used in
Jokowi’s speeches ....................................................... 45
4.1.2 The realization of Speech Acts in Constative and
Performative utterances in Jokowi’s speeches ............. 46
4.1.3 The Reason why Constative and Performative Utterances
are used in the ways they are ....................................... 49
4.2 Findings ................................................................................ 50
4.3 Discussion ............................................................................ 51
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS .............................
5.1 Conclusion ............................................................................
5.2 Suggestion ............................................................................


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REFERENCES ...........................................................................................
APPENDIXES THESIS ..............................................................................

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LIST OF TABLES
Pages
Table 4.1. The percentage of Constative and Performative Utterances ................45

vii

LIST OF FIGURE


Pages
Figure 1. Interactive Model of Drawing Conclusion Process ........................

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

1.1.

Background of the Study
Speech act is an action performed via utterances and speech act is concern

with the speaker‟s communicative intention in producing an utterance. It is
defined by the purpose for which the speakers use the language, for example to
make a request, to apologize, and to report. (Yule, 1996:54) based on the
statement, the study of speaker‟s intentions and what the speakers mean when
they use the particular linguistics in context.

Based on some opinions about meaning of speech act, it can be concluded
that speech act is a process when a speaker utters something, sometimes not only
just an utterance, but it is also has a meaning outside the context. The people have
to interpret the meaning of communication, in communication what speaker said,
the hearer identified what speaker mean and when the hearer is doing an act.
Speech act can be divided for some parts. Austin (1962) states that
communicating a speech act consist of three elements: the speaker says something,
the speaker signals an associated speech act, and the speech act causes an effect
on her listeners or the participants. First, Locutionary act is the literal meaning of
what is said or by which meant as the act of saying something that makes sense in
a language. Example: It‟s hot in here, second, Illocutionary act, the action
intended by the speaker, or the uses to which language can be put in society,
example: „It‟s hot in here‟ could be; an indirect request for someone to

open the window because is cold or a complaint implying that someone should
know better than to keep the windows closed and third perlocutionary act
concerned with what follows an utterance: the effect of what is said or „take-up‟
of an illocutionary act. Example: „It‟s hot in here‟, could result in someone
opening the windows.
Shiffrin (1994) also says that Austin in his early thinking about speech act,
he began this theory by distinguishing the types of declarative sentences into what
he called “performative utterance” from “constative utterance.” So, constative and
performative are part of speech act theory. He identified a constative as an
utterance which states a fact that is true or false. Meanwhile, performative seems
not to describe anything in the world at all, and so seems not to be true or false.
Instead, it seems to perform an action in saying utterances.
Beck (1985) states that constatives are a class of “fact-stating” utterances,
which “constate” something true or false. This includes reports, statements,
descriptions, assertions, predictions etc. A simple example is “that books are
white and blue”. Meanwhile, a performative utterance is doing something rather
than saying something. It is not true or false but felicitous (happy) and infelicitous
(unhappy). Besides, he divides performative into explicit performative that have a
specific linguistic structure, such as the normal form (NF) for performatives: first
person singular, present tense, active, and allows the use “hereby”. Then, implicit
performative that does not have the normal form (NF) of a performative can
nevertheless function as a performative.

Beck (1985) states that constative and performative are used to understand
the intended meaning of all utterances, especially in oral communication. Its very
important to be used because its help us to understand what the speaker really
means, whether the speaker just says or states something of fact or he does
something than says something. For example the utterance “Smoking is
dangerous”. By using constative and performative, we will understand clearly
whether the speaker states a report or an information of fact that smoking is
dangerous or the speaker performs an action such as warning or advising to avoid
smoking because smoking is dangerous.
On Wednesday, July 9th, 2014 Indonesia held a presidential election that
was won by Ir. H. Joko Widodo as one of the candidates of the Indonesia to
become the 7th president of Indonesia. The inauguration of Joko Widodo as the 7 th
president and H. Muh. Jusuf Kalla as vice president took place on July, 20, 2014.
Following his victory in Indonesia presidential election, 2014, then president elect
Jokowidodo gave his victory speech at the Pensi Ship Jakarta, in front of an
estimated crowd of his supporter.
Joko Widodo comes from Solo, he has a good personality, he has become
a phenomenal public figure since he proclaimed himself as the candidate of
presidential election collaborated with H. Muh. Jusuf Kalla as vice president.
Although Joko Widodo is a newcomer to the presidential political scence, he is
familiar to Indonesian public eye. Joko Widodo had served as Mayor of Solo
since 2005, and was already well known as having a good reputation and success
in running the city. He succeeded developing Solo with the moto of Solo. The

spirit of Java and successfully make the city to become a member of the
Organization of World Heritage Citties (Yew- Foong et.al, 2012).
Unfortunately, not all speakers or listeners have sufficient knowledge and
understanding about this utterances type. Some people may not understand well
what types of utterances they produce or listen, whether the speaker describes
about something or performs an action with his words, as a consequence they
cannot interpret and understand the intended meaning of all utterances well (Beck,
1985).
For example in Jokowi‟s speech :
- “Saya akan berdiri di bawah kehendak rakyat,”( I will stand up under the will
of the people), some of listeners may interpret this sentences to be a constative
utterance because the speaker is describing or stating the reality about the
position of the speaker, but actually this is a performative sentence because the
speaker not only say something but also performing an action of promising to
help society to be better.
-

“Bensin, premium disini sekarang harganya berapa? Kurang lebih Rp.7.000
tetapi, coba kita lihat di Wamena Jaya harganya sekitar Rp.60.000-Rp.70.000,
inilah ketimpangan wilayah yang harus kita kejar,”(Gasoline, premium,how
much it costs here now? ApproximatelyRp.7.000 but, let's a look at Wamena
Jaya the price is aboutRp.60.000-Rp.70.000. This inequality in the region that
we must pursue). The speaker use interrogative sentence in his utterance, it
does not mean the speaker did not know the price of gasoline and premium, but
the speaker want to give the illustration of the different price of human

resources. Some listeners may interpret this sentence to be a constative
sentence because the speaker is stating the truth or fact about the price of
gasoline and premium in the remote area but actually this is a performative
utterance because the speaker is performing an action to solve the problem in
the distribution of natural resources.
- “Tantangan yang kedua adalah kemiskinan di depan mata kita” (The second
challenge is poverty in front of our eyes). Some listeners may interpret this is a
constative utterance because the speaker stating the truth about the poverty in
Indonesia but, thi is the performative utterance because that speaker persuade
the listeners to eradicate poverty in the society.
According to Allan (1986) uttering a constative is „saying something‟ that
has the property of being either true or false. So, the constative includes all
descriptive utterances, statements of fact, definitions and so forth: utterances
which report, inform and state. But, the examples above, Jokowi used constative
utterances to perform or doing something. Jokowi in his speech, used declarative
and interogative sentences to persuade listeners to do something to the
development of Indonesia. Jokowi in his speech persuades peoples by face the
fact of Indonesia situation but the meaning of his speech is doing action to the
development of Indonesia.
Other researchers have conducted researches on performative utterances.
Ariko, Rina & Hardi (2013) found that the main character in Da Vinci Code novel
use three types of performative utterances namely, directives, declaration, and
commissives. Another previous research was done by Utami (2014) who found

that in O‟neil‟s Beyond The Horizon drama there are four types of performative
utterances; those are representatives, directives, commisives, and expresives. The
declarative act was not found in the dialogues as there are no speech situation and
speech event that requires this illocutions. Based on the previous results above,
researcher conclude that performative utterances are very important to be
investigated. Even less, the previous researchers have not conducted a research on
constative and performative utterances in Jokowi‟s speeches because they only
focused on the types of performative utterances. Therefore, researcher interested
in analyzing constative and performative utterances in Jokowi‟s speeches.
Based on the phenomena of Jokowi‟s speech, the researcher interested in
analyzing two types of utterances namely constative and performative utterances
which are proposed by Austin. Hence, the present study would like to find out
Jokowi‟s intention act performed in his speech by using Pragmatic approach. By
using constative and performative in analyzing Jokowi‟s speeches, people will
know comprehensively about what is actually the meaning of Jokowi‟s utterances
in his speech, just to show the truth (constative) or perform an action
(performative).

1.2 The problem of the Study
Based on the background of the study, the problems of the study are
formulated as the following.
a) What are the types of constative and performative utterances in Jokowi‟s
speeches?

b) How are the constantive and performative utterances realized

in

Jokowi‟speeches?
c) Why are constative and performative utterances used in Jokowi‟s speeches as
the way they are?

1.3 The Objectives of the Study
Based on the problems mentioned above, the objectives of the study are:
a) To describe the types of constative and performative utterances in Jokowi‟s
speeches.
b) To elaborate the realization of constative and performative utterances used in
Jokowi‟s speeches.
c) To state the reason of using constative and performative utterances as way
they are.

1.4 The Scope of the Study
This study investigated constative and performative utterances and speech
acts that utilized in Jokowi‟s speeches. The main aspects observed are the types of
constative (affirming, alleging, announcing, answering, concurring, denying,
disclosing, identifying, informing, predicting, reporting, and stipulating) and
performative utterances (verdictives, exercitivies, commisives, behabitives and
expositives), the realization of constative and performative utterances (direct or
indirect) and reason for their occurrences.

1.5. Significance of the Study
Findings of the study are expected to give some relevant constribution
both
a) Theoretically, to enrich the theories of pragmatics in terms of linguistic,
specifically give a better understanding about the basic concept of constative
and performative utterances in speech act theory.
b) Practically, this study provide the reader on how Jokowi convey his programs
in the speech and it is useful for the learners who would like to analyze about
constative and performative in any speech. This study equips the learners with
the knowledge and skill to comprehend constative and performative which is
cohesive in its learning. It also useful for the lectures as one of their references
in analyzing of constative and performative utterances, further, it is useful for
the community as political to get more information on Jokowi speeches
whether the utterances to say something or do action through his speech.

CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION

5.1 Conclusion
After the data was analyzed, it was written and scrutinized in the previous
chapter. It was discovered that constative and performative have a role to deliver
an understanding of information conveyed in the speech to the listeners. So, it is
important to kwon about constative and performative utterances, especially in the
speeches. The important of understanding of constative and performative
utterances research upon the Jokowi’s speeches has been done and the result can
be conclude as the following.
a. There are eleven types of constative used by Jokowi in his speeches, such
as affirming, alleging, announcing, answering, concuring, disclosing,
identifying, informing, predicting, reporting and stipulating. Reporting
dominantly is used in Jokowi speeches. Denying can not found in jokowi
speeches, because the speaker did not use deny utterances in his speeches.
In performative utterances, Jokowi used all types of performative
utterances, such as verdictives, exertives, commisives, behabitives and
expositives. Commisive dominantly is used in Jokowi speeches.
b. The realization of constative and performative utterances in speech acts
used in Jokowi speeches. Jokowi used the form of indirect speech acts in
constative. In performative utterances, Jokowi used direct and indirect
speech act.

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c. Jokowi used constative and performative utterances to persuade the
listeners to participate in the improvement of indonesia.

5.2 Suggestions
The study of constative and performative acts are interesting to be
discussed because it gives knowledge and deep understanding for the readers who
intend to build their ability on a good communicative competence. So, the
researcher offers some suggestion as follows:
a. It is suggested that the lectures of pragmatics should develop the theory of
constative and performative utterances used by exemplifying the theory
with the speeches discourse by which the lectures can be enlived and
student’s interest in research can be aroused.
b. Other researchers who are interested in investigating the same field to fill
the gap especially on denying as a type of constative that cannot be found
and fulfilled in this research.
c.

The researcher will hopefully give more attention to constative and
performative utterances because it can help the audience in understand and
get information from the speech especially in Jokowi speeches.