Representative The data findings of the kinds of Speech Acts presented in Emma
audience by greeting them but by directly addressing the officials and the audience.
This perception was also emphasized with the use of “distinguished guests” phrase because this way of addressing
looked more formal yet very respectful than “ladies and
gentlemen”. Therefore, the utterance above was included as opening since its function was
to open Emma’s speech. However, greeting was not used because she wanted to be
straightforward and simple in her opening. Just like any other organizations, the UN also has its own
hierarchy position. However, not all Presidents and Chairs of the UN branches were invited in order to make the meeting more
specific and effective. The UN Secretary General, the President of the General Assembly, the Executive Director of the UN
Women were some of the most important people of the UN who were invited in the meeting. The other guests who attended the
meeting were the members of the UN and the media. Emma addressed the UN officials based on the degree of the
respect because it would eventually make the audience believe that she was very appropriate and had a high sense of social
sensitiveness. It was because Emma would tell the audience about the most sensitive issue which was the gender issue. Many
people did not believe in gender inequality simply because they
were not aware of the fact that women deserve the equal rights as men. Therefore, it was needed for her to grab their emotional
attention, so that she could deliver her ideas. To be exact, this way of opening was practically used in
order to gain the emotional feeling of the audience which then made them feel sympathetic towards Emma. This condition
made it easy for Emma to grab their unconscious mind to believe in what she said afterwards. Thus,
Emma’s speech would sound more powerful and believable.
2 Informing
The goal of Informing is to tell a fact or something new to the audience. Some of the informing presented in Emma
Wats on’s HeForShe speech are given below.
Today, we are launching a campaign called HeForShe. SP100.16-00.20
The utterance above is categorized as informing because the speaker wanted to tell the audience about what happened in the
day she gave the speech. The audience might wonder why a Hollywood actress like Emma wanted to deliver a speech in the
UN and what she was going to talk about. Emma tried to be informative by telling the audience the information that would
support them to understand the context of the topic. Thus, this
information would prevent the audience to misunderstand her. It also prevented the audience from being confused in following
the flows of her arguments mentioned later in her speech. Because of the reason, this utterance, therefore, was considered
as informing. In addi
tion to that, the word “today” was placed in front of the sentence in order to emphasize the time constraint on the day
she delivered the speech which was about the launching day for HeForShe campaign. Telling this to the audience was very
important not only to make them know what Emma’s main topic
was but also to make them realize that the future would be better. Emma tried to make people aware that there was a tangible
problem exist in the world which was about the gender problem. On one hand, women could not have full access to be what they
wanted to be and men, on the other hand, could not have a deliberate freedom to become more feminine.
By telling the HeForShe movement, she would like to say that finally there was an official platform in the UN which
concerned more on the gender issue and tried to care more for unfortunate women and men in the world. Emma combined the
goal to give the audience a clue of her topic and to ease the worry of the people toward gender issues in one simple
sentence. This made her speech very effective and efficient.
The second example of informing that existed in Emma Watson’s HeForShe is presented below.
This is the first campaign of its kind at the UN. SP100.33-00.37
Emma tried to tell the audience what was so special from her speech which was not only about the topic but also about the
chance. It was the first time for the UN to give a chance for a gender equality movement to campaign in the hall. This was a
good sign from the UN that at the end the UN realized that a gender issue should be treated as one of the important and
crucial issues to be discussed in the hall. It was good news for all feminists and people who concerned for gender equality.
Therefore, Emma wanted to spread and inform this good news to the audience.
Furthermore, by spreading this information, it added the sense of influence to the audience to join the movement. This
information made the audience think that this movement was very important and worth to follow. Because this utterance had
a function to inform the audience about the good news, therefore, it was considered as informing.
Moreover, the words were constructed by Simple Present Tense because Emma wanted to be straightforward in telling the
audience about the points that she emphasized. She used the
phrase “of its kind” to avoid redundancy because it would make the speech less effective. Thus, this sentence made the audience
easily grab the main idea and understand her intention. The last example of i
nforming in Emma Watson’s HeForShe speech is shown below.
I decided that I was a feminist. SP102.18-02.21
In the data above, Emma wanted to inform the audience that after witnessing many gender inequalities in her past life, she
wanted to become someone who could heal these and bring the ultimate peace between genders. Emma realized that she needed
to not only fight for her own rights but also for all women’s right. Thus, in order to gain that goal, she decided to become a
self-proclaimed feminist. She thought that to be a self-proclaimed feminist was a must
because becoming a feminist means that you were aware of the rights that women deserved to get. At the same time, being a
feminist means that you also held a moral responsibility to actively make women aware of the rights and able to execute
their rights. Unfortunately, we found there were not many people became feminists. So, Emma delivered the speech to
provoke people to also become a feminist like her.
Emma structured the sentence by using Simple Past Tense because the fact that she finally decided to become a feminist
was done in the past. However, it did not necessarily mean that in the day she delivered the speech, she was no longer a feminist.
She is still a feminist until now. She is even appointed as the goodwill ambassador by the UN Women.
The utterance was made short and simple in order to make it more effective in delivering the main point. It could also make
the utterance sound meaningful and convincing. Thus, the audience could easily grasp the idea from this specific utterance.
3 Convincing
The function of convincing is to make people believe in one’s statements. In order to make the speech well-conveyed,
the speaker needs to be trusted by the audience. The trust leads people to easily consume what the speaker says because they
will not give any negative sentiments or rebuttals toward the arguments delivered in the speech. Hence, in order to create a
good strategy, it is very needed to gain the trust of the audience. One of the way, to do that is by being sincere and convincing.
There are several utterances in Emma Watson’s HeForShe that were considered as convincing which are given below.
We want to try and make sure that it is tangible. SP100.47-00.50
In the utterance above, Emma wanted to convince the people that HeForShe was a real, determinative and trusted movement.
In order to do that, she wanted to emphasize how important and promising HeForShe was. In this era, there were already many
feminist movements which supported th e women’s freedom and
right. However, not many of them recognized that at the same time,
men’s rights were also prohibited by the society. For instance, how men could not be emotional, sensitive and feminine was
because they would be seen as less of a man. It was because those characteristics we
re women’s characteristics. Women were considered as the second class human, so that anyone who
reflected their characters would also be considered as weak and second class.
She believed that even with current feminist movements, the gender equality was still hard to achieve. It was not only about
the lack of people’s awareness but also about the quality of the movement itself. Therefore, she explained that HeForShe was
different from other movements not only because it was under the UN Women but also because it had a different point of view
and was very persistent in making everyone’s ultimate
happiness true.
Furthermore, “want to try and make sure” strengthened the
point that she was very serious with the movement and highly suggesting the audience to join it. However, Emma believed that
this movement needed the full support from the audience because she admitted that quantity mattered a lot in achieving
the goal of the movement. She added that everyone could be a gender agent as a result of her experience in the past about the
people around her who became the inadvertent gender ambassadors. Therefore, this utterance added more convincing
sense to make people interested in supporting and joining the movement.
Based on the words structuring, Emma chose the less formal phrase “want to” compared to “would like to” because she
wanted to decrease the gap between her and the audience. Knowing the atmosphere of the UN General Assembly meeting
which was highly formal, she believed that it was not possible to find the gap. Therefore, she decided to be straightforward by
absorbing it and using less formal wording to convince them to believe in her. This kind of strategy was very helpful to decrease
the phychological disparity and to make the audience feel closer to Emma. Thus, the messages would be easily delivered.
The sentence was constructed in simple present tense because it showed that trying and ensuring the existence of
gender equality would not only be conducted during certain period of time. It secured the idea that this movement would not
stop fighting the inequality. Moreover “tangible” made the
utterance more sensible because this word was very powerful to strengthen the meaning of how the speaker wanted to make it as
visible, applicable and successful as it could be. Thus, it gave more vivid explanation to gain people’s understanding and
feeling toward the depiction of the movement.
And I think it is right that I am paid the same as my male counterparts.
SP103.10-03.16
In the past, not many companies hired women as their employee because women were considered as less capable of
doing other jobs except being housewives. This condition limited the freedom of women to work in any places they wanted
to. Those who felt capable of doing the job would be undermined simply because their gender was female.
But in the recent years, they start to hire more women. However, the women still get low salary and different
treatments. On the other hand, men with the same position get higher payment than they do, even though the women are able
to give equal or better performance. It is totally unfair for them because they also do the same job, as hard as, as difficult as, and
as risky as men’s job. So, it is common if they ask for the acknowledgement and same payment too.
In Emma’s speech this is an example of how women suffered unfair treatments for a very long time. Emma wanted to
convince the audience that companies or any other actors who involved in the work field should give the same chance and
salary for the women. Women should be free to choose their job as long as they are willing and capable. Women should also
receive the same salary as men for the same job and position. The utterance above proved how she was really insistent with
her argument that women should be treated equally in all spectrums. She wanted to make the people not only believe in
but also execute it too. They should help women to get their rights in the work field.
When people do so, Emma believed that gender inequality will be overcome soon.
She used the subject “I” because she wanted to show to the audience that she was the representative
of thousands women who get this unfair treatment. This strategy was effective to provoke people especially the women to be
braver to voice up their feelings and thoughts. Because Emma wanted to be straightforward in convincing the people to believe
in the point in her statement, therefore, this utterance was categorized as convincing.
I think… applause break I think it is right that women should be involved on my behalf in the policies and the decisions that
will affect my life. SP103.16-03.22
The data above was classified as convincing because Emma wanted to make the audience believe that women also have right
to sit in the parliament or to be a politician or to be in any other formal positions whose job is to create policies and public
decisions. In the work field, women are considered as less capable than men, especially those jobs which use intelligence
as its main wor kers’ capability. It is because women have been
stereotyped as too weak, too emotional, too sensitive, too expressive, and too irrational which at the end these perceptions
badly influence their working performance. They even perceive that women do not have any interest to
join because they generalize that all women should have interest in kitchen and children only. This way of thinking influences the
way how society constructs an unwritten yet accepted gender rule. This rule then harms women because there are no
representatives of women who are involved in the discussion. Therefore, it is believed that the fewer women involve in the
discussion, the lesser they are recognized by the society, and the sufferer they become.
By uttering that sentence, Emma wanted to tell the audience that women deserve to get involved in any politic, social, and
economy discussions. Women should be free to divine themselves to be what they want to be. They should be free from
any prejudices that undermine their dignity and capability as women. This was the message that Emma wanted to convince
to the audience. The long applause given by the audience in the middle of
Emma’s utterance proved how they felt touched seeing Emma could be that brave to deconstruct the values that have been
rooted so long in the society. This applause was also a proof that they were convinced with the arguments and ready to support
the movement to bring the change. When the audience gave her applause, she paused her speech for a while because she wanted
to respect the audience. She understood that the audience have given her a good response. However, she did not want to be too
flattered by this circumstance, so she continued her speech by mentioning
the words “I think” again to make her point strong.
4 Insisting
The goal of insisting is to force people to follow the speaker’s order. Some of the utterances presented in Emma
Watson’s HeForShe speech that were considered as insisting are given below.
We need more of those. SP104.38-04.40
In the utterance above, Emma wanted to make people believe that the world needed to be deconstructed for its inequality that
harmed people in the margin. People in the margin were the people who suffered the most like in this case, they were
women. To deconstruct the world, it needed feminists because they were the actors who would
fight and strive for women’s right.
Emma had shown them the inadvertent feminists in her surroundings. Thus, she wanted to make people become the
feminist as well who strived for the gender equality. By giving the statement above, it strengthened her intention that she really
insisted the audience to become ones. Therefore, this utterance was classified as insisting.
It could be seen that Emma used a simple sentence because she wanted to be straightforward in telling the people what it
really needed to change the world. It needed more feminists. This simple sentence was very powerful to send a message that
there should be more people who we re aware of the gender’s
rights and freedom, and willing to fight for that things to happen. The word “those” also added the sense of simplicity because
it referred to her previous statements about the inadvertent
feminists she met in her past life. Therefore, to reduce the redundancy she made it bold
by saying “those”. This simple, effective and straightforward sentence would make the point of
Emma very meaningful and powerful.
Gender equality is your issue too. SP105.41-05.47
The statement above proved that Emma wanted to show that people needed to care for the issue on gender equality too.
Basically people would care for the problems that were close to and had something to do with them. As long as the people were
not disturbed with it, they would not care for it at all. This was the proof of how people nowadays started to become self-
centred and ignorant. This condition would then make the society could not go hand in hand in solving the problem.
The utterance was very simple and straightforward. It emphasized that Emma really insisted the audience to think
about and to solve the gender inequality happened in this world. They had to think that gender inequality would also impact
them. For example if you treated women as second class people, it would
inherently limit men’s freedom to be feminine. At the end, the gender inequality did not only bring bad impacts to
women only but also to men and to the whole society. Therefore,
it was very urgent for all people to contribute in solving the gender problems.
Meanwhile, for the sentence structure, this sentence was created in the simple present because the speaker wanted to
emphasize the awareness of the audience from now on. “Your
issue too” was perceived as something powerful because it made the audience, especially men, feel that the problems faced by
women were one of their responsibilities too.
It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals. Applause
SP107.23-07.31
In the utterance above, Emma tried to insist that all audience should see gender as one point. There should be no significant
difference between the role of men and women in the society. Both of them were just physically different. They deserved the
same freedom and rights to be free from any prejudices and gender biased rules. The people thought that men bring certain
burden that were opposed to women’s burden which at the end
it harmed them both. As the example, people casually thought that being strong
was the power of men, on the other hand, being emotional was the power of women. Another example was when going to work
was the job of men, on the other hand, staying at home was the
most ideal job for women and so forth. This was so unfair because we created a standard not based on their capability and
willingness but based on their gender. Becoming women did not mean that you had to be weak and emotional and at the same
time, becoming men did not always mean you had to be strong and more logic than women.
This kind of concept was wrong at the very first place. Thus, she delivered her speech in order to wake everybody up to
realize that men and women had the same freedom and rights such as to determine their personalities, to be what they want to
be, to work in whatever jobs they like and so on. So, at the end, women and men could be whatever they wanted to be and they
could be free from any gender stereotypes. She
put “It is time that..” in front of the sentence to strengthen the essence that she wanted to be straight in making
people believe that this was the right time for them to change their conventional thought about gender. The applause given by
the audience was a form of appreciation of how brave Emma was in voicing up her idea about the gender equality. The people
felt so impressed with her performance and were convinced to change their perception.
5 Clarifying
The goal of clarifying is to give more explanation or details which can make the previous statements clearer, less doubtful,
and easier to understand. In Emma Watson’s HeForShe, the
clarifying was only raised for once which is posted below.
And if you still hate the word, it is not the word that is important. SP104.40-04.48
Many people still did not aware of the women’s right. Most
of them even antagonized the feminists as the destroyers of the current values. They were seen as the bad actors who would
mess up the norms and values which had been constructed for years. The people were just too lazy to move from their comfort
zone. They were afraid of the challenges. They did not realize that actually the challenges could bring new alterations and
better values. In the sentence above, Emma tried to create the pre-emptive
utterance that the people might still hate the feminism idea. She realized that there was still a possibility for the people to not be
convinced by her speech. This strategy even strengthened the point Emma wanted to emphasize which was to make people
believe in the gender equality. T o grab people’s attention to the
ultimate meaning and neglect the words and its spelling were very much needed because people were only trapped in the
stereotype toward feminism but they did not really know what it really meant to be a real feminist.
In her speech, she wanted to drag people’s mind to
understand more about the idea of having an equal opportunity, equal power and equal freedom upon their body, their dreams,
and their willingness. They should put less focus on the wording because it could make them feel difficult and impossible to
achieve that ideal and expected condition. It could be so because whenever they wanted to strive for the gender equality, what
they needed to do is fighting the very strict conventional society to accept the new different value among them. Changing the
social values was the hardest part. Emma realized that fact about how this was not an easy thing to do. Thus, she convinced the
audience by uttering that sentence. She repeated the phrase “the word” for twice to indicate that
she strengthened the point that people should really neglect the word and should pay more attention to the full meaning.
Conditional word like “If” was used to address the people who still had a possibility to not be willing to balance the gender.
Thus, this sentence was specifically addressed the people who still doubted about whether to join the movement and become
the feminist.
6 Protesting
The goal of protesting is to show that the speaker disagrees and complains about something. Some of the utterances
presented in Emma Watson’s HeForShe speech that were considered as protesting are given below.
Why has the world become such an uncomfortable one? SP1 02.59- 03.06
In the data above, it was clear that Emma wanted to complain about the nowadays condition. In the status quo, the world was
considered as not comfortable for women since many people, values and
beliefs limit women’s freedom and happiness. For example the fact that women were not treated equally in politic,
economy, education and even social spectrum proved that women were undermined in all aspects of life. Because of that
reasons, Emma felt that the world was no longer comfortable for the women to live in.
The form of the utterance was interrogative because she wanted to invite the audience to also question why the condition
was very uncomfortable for all of us all. This form helped Emma to not only make the listeners
believe in Emma’s statement about how deploring the fact was but also to make them realize
it by themselves. They did not question the world but
themselves. They were the actors who contributed in making that unideal atmosphere.
“Such uncomfortable one” means that the existence of gender inequality was really depressing and frustrating, so that
it made people feel uncomfortable to live in. When it existed, it means there was one kind of human who suffered alone, women.
This way of speaking made it more effective to protest to the people why they kept on holding the values that limit
women’s right, and even violate many of their rights. Emma invited the
audience to reflect themselves that what they so far did for years was wrong. They should respect women the same way as how
they respect the men.
7 Criticizing
Criticizing is used to express disapproval toward someone or something. The examples of c
riticizing in Emma Watson’s HeForShe are elaborated below.
How can we affect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?
SP105.24-05.35
There were gender equality promotions, movements and socializations. However, not many of them were successful to
achieve the gender equality simply because it hit the wrong target. In upholding the equality, it needed the cooperation
between men and women, not women alone as a single fighter. This happened in the current movements where they did not
involve men as their fighters. The way involving men was not only how men should become the feminist only but also how
they should explain it according to the men’s point of view. For
instance, the gender inequality was not only going to harm women as a single entity but it would also harm men and the
whole society. The importance of men to be involved in the discussion was
to make the discussion become richer, deeper and wider. This good and healthy discussion would bring the best result in
tackling down the problem. It was because men were considered as the first class human. The only way to make women level up
and get the same treatment as men was by giving the ladder for them to go up which could only be conducted by men.
In 1995, Mrs Clinton delivered a feminism idea in Beijing, China. Only less of half of the invited audience were men. The
speech was not really heard because the speaker could not position herself in both scenarios which were how the gender
inequality would not only harm the women but also the men. So, it could not raise the emotional attentions from men to see that
the problem was really urgent to solve. This precedent proved that the men involvement was really important.
The form of the utterance was in the interrogative sentence because she wanted to criticize the current method used to
uphold women’s right. Inviting the audience to think like the way how she thought could possibly be shown through an
interrogative sentence. It was effective because this kind of utterance would
enter the audience’s logic to also think about the importance of men to involve in the discussion. She utilized
“affect change in the world” in order to strengthen the point that having a speech about feminism was not a mere speech but a
speech which could bring a change.
8 Guessing
Guessing is used to give an answer to particular question that you predict it will be asked by someone. The examples of
g uessing in Emma Watson’s HeForShe are elaborated below.
You might be thinking who is this Harry Potter girl? laugh and what is she doing at the UN?
SP108.19-09.28
Harry Potter was a movie which took place in a magical world. The main characters were Harry the boy who lived and
his two best friends, Ron The king and Hermione The smartest witch ever. Their life journey started when they
entered a school special for witches called Hogwarts. These movies were based on a novel with the same title, Harry Potter.
The writer, J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter in seven series from 1997 up to 2007 while the movie were produced in eight
series from 2001 up to 2011. So basically, the movies existed for more than ten years. However, until now people still keep on
talking about this. One of the main character, Hermione, was played by Emma.
She joined the Harry Potter franchise since she was 11. These movies successfully brought Emma to the ultimate fame. It was
quite hard for people especially Harry Potter fans to not associate her with Hermione. Thus, whenever Emma appeared
in public, people would always think that she was always the Hermione of the Harry Potter.
Emma was rarely seen in any political movements. It was very shocking that suddenly she appeared in public in the
different form. She wore formal casual attire and talked about a serious issue in the United Nations. Members of the UN might
have wondered why an actress like her who was hardly seen in the UN having a speech there. The laughter was a common
response from the audience to Emma’s keywords “Harry Potter girl”. She also laughed when she addressed that term indicating
that she also accepted the fact that people labelled her with Hermione, the Harry Potter girl.
However, this was considered as a good strategy for Emma to be more convincing. In order to make people convinced, a
speaker needed to heal the doubts towards the arguments brought in the speech. She realized that people felt uncertain
about her arguments about how she wanted to change the world for the betterment. She guessed that this uncertainty existed
simply because the people knew her only as Hermione. To heal the doubts, she directly spott
ed it by mentioning the term “Harry Potter girl” and gave answers as to why this girl was standing in
the UN podium. This way of explaining would eventually make people give more trust to her and believe that she deserved to be
there and talk about the gender issue.