CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
To be a leader of a nation, especially a powerful one, a person needs to be a role model for his or her society nationally or even internationally. In that case, the leader
needs to know how and when he or she needs to think, speak, and behave in such a way that represents
society‘s voices. In some cases, one of the important skills that a leader has to master is public speaking skills. Slagell
2009:194 states today‘s speakers not only transfer words and ideas to listeners but rather are engaged in a
complex process of attempting to share meanings among diverse members of audience. It is also in line with Griffin 2012:4 who asserts that to be an ethical public
speaker, you must consider the moral impact of your ideas and arguments on others when you enter the public dialogue. Giving a speech is a natural way to enter the
public dialogue because it gives us a chance to clearly state our own perspectives and to hear other people‘s perspectives.
This study has a great deal with what is implied by a speaker and what is interpreted by a hearer, for example, in a speech. A speech can have power to affect
others. Like what most great speakers have done, they certainly have purposes in their speaking, such as to provide instructions, share information, influence decisions, and
many more. Each speech has its objective to impart shared ideas to the audience. Therefore, an effective speech can be evaluated by the audience‘s feedback.
In order to have students who are accustomed to terms used in speeches and who are able to deliver speeches effectively, the English Education Study Program of
Yogyakarta State University provides their students with Speaking IV course. This
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course is aimed at developing students‘ speaking skill in participating in scientific spoken discourse Kurikulum 2002:26. The students are asked to be familiar with
speaking practices, lectures, and discussions related to language teaching, linguistics or literature. The activities are varied, e.g. lectures, assignments, seminars and role plays
as a speaker, moderator, note-taker, and also as active audience. The students are expected to be able to recognise speech papers systematically, deliver speech
effectively and also handle a limited seminar program. However, developing speaking skills in the classroom is not enough so the students need to have enriching activities
outside the classroom as well. One of the activities can be learning from great public speakers through watching, listening, and analysing their speeches.
William Jefferson Clinton is one of great public speakers. The greatness of his speeches is publicly admitted, starting when he became a student leader in Georgetown
University. After that, he also became the Attorney General of Arkansas. He showed more resposibility in becoming the Governor of Arkansas. Finally, he served his nation
as a president of United States of America from 1993-2001. However, two of his speeches remain controversial. The speeches are entitled ―I Misled‖ which was
delivered on Monday, August 17, 1998 and ―I Have Sinned‖ which was delivered on Friday, September 11, 1998. Those two were intended to recover his reputation as the
leader of America who conducted misbehaviour upon his sexual relationship with 22- year old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. However, the use of language in both
speeches are somewhat different. In the first apology speech, the President said that there was nothing to be intervened, because everyone has their own private life. The
audience felt that the speech was merely trying to protect his personal and political lives. By that response, he delivered the second apology speech that was attended by
an audience of more than 100 ministers, priests and other religious leaders in the East
Room at the annual White House prayer breakfast. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was also attending. The speech, hand-written by the President, was finally revealing
the truth that was hard to tell as a president of a powerful state at that time. He did confess that there was a time he had a relationship with the intern Monica Lewinsky.
The speech creates a powerful emotion and subtle content. Many columnists stated that it was a splendid rhetoric speech that could cover five major elements: invention,
arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. The audience also felt that this speech was very effective in diction and meaning. However, this scandal led to the impeachment
of the President by Kenneth Starr in 1998 and his subsequent acquital on all impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, as the result of having a
relationship with Monica Lewinsky. These two speeches are about to be analysed. It is believed that analysing these
speeches are worth investigating eventhough as second language students of English, there might be problems arise due to language variety used in these apology speeches.
The researcher intends to investigate the language variety, especially on the concept of Speech Acts brought by Searle 1969, as the theory was broaden from the concept of
the preceding linguistic philosopher, Austin 1962, in terms of the illocutionary force of the utterance, or in other words, the functional intention of the speaker. The research
is also conducted to portray the surrounding‘s context that might be affected by the
apology speeches and how his speeches contributes towards the very systematical rhetoric speech.
The explanation above is the study under the umbrella of pragmatics. Pragmatics will not only deal with words or utterances in the conversation but will also
deal with the meaning of what the speaker wants to convey in those words or utterances. Cutting 2002: 2 states that pragmatics and discourse analysis have in
common the fact that they are both concerned with functions: the speaker s‘ short-term
purposes in speaking and long-term goals in interacting verbally. The discussion of the functions mentioned above will allow speech acts to be described more. Speech act
theory describes what utterances are intended to do, such as promising, apologising, thanking, describing, threatening and so on.
B. Identification of the Problems
Kategori