The Verbal Strategies in Jokowi – Prabowo Debates

A Pragmatics Perspective

Pahriyono Damanhuri

1,2

, Sri Samiati Tarjana

, Joko Nurkamto

and Sri Marmanto

Sekolah Tinggi Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan PGRI Jombang, Jl. Pattimura III/20, Jombang, Indonesia

Universitas Sebelas Maret Surakarta, Surakarta, Indonesia

pahriyono@gmail.com

Keywords: Verbal Strategies, Pragmatics, Speech Acts, Politeness, Presidential Debates.

Abstract: The verbal strategies are variously performed by the politicians, as well as by Joko Widodo and Prabowo

Subianto in presidential debates in 2014 to attract the voters or to make a certain impression to their

prospective voters. This study aims to investigate Joko Widodos’ and Prabowo Subiantos’ verbal strategies

in acclaiming, attacking, and defending themselves from pragmatics perspective. The data are utterances

containing or implying three speech acts which are acclaiming, verbal attacking and defending. The data

collected through indirect observation, also through listening and note-taking. The data then broken down

by using a pragmatic analysis method, particularly called the ‘means-end’. The results revealed that Jokowi

used more acclaims (69%) and attacks (59%), but less defends (38%). On the other hand, Prabowo used

more defends (61%), but less attacks (41%) and acclaims (30%). The previous prefers performing a

negative politeness, when the latter prefers performing a positive politeness.

1 INTRODUCTION

Presidential debate of Indonesia is a relatively new

event of political life over the decade. It is organized

by Committee of General Election of Indonesia

dealing six segments of debate, such as vision and

mission statements, vision and mission discussion,

questions and answers (moderator-candidates),

questions and answers (candidates), questions,

answers, and rebuttals (candidates), and closing

statements. Presidential debate of Indonesia in 2014

was attended by Joko Widodo and Prabowo

Subianto as the candidates.

Joko Widodo – Prabowo Subianto debate has

many speech acts to investigate. The study focuses

on the speech acts of acclaims, attacks, and defences

and the verbal strategies related with politeness

strategies employed by the candidates. It is due to

such political debate drives the candidates to

perform such acts. The three acts are considerably

interesting aspects in the political debate to study

and attracts audiences to follow it (Benoit, 2004,

cited by Napierala, 2014). In fact, the other

dominant acts are also done, such as commissive

acts covering promises, wants, and pledges, but they

are excluded in the study.

The act of acclaims, attacks, and defences are

performed inherent with verbal strategies which are

particularized in politeness strategies proposed by

Brown and Levinson (1987) refer to two folds of

faces, i.e. positive face focused on positive

politeness and negative face focused on negative

politeness. The candidates are both born in Java who

behave in a different ways in producing speech acts

and politeness. Distinctively, Joko Widodo is the

real Javanese who keeps a Javanese tradition in

speaking and politeness bound. Prabowo Subianto is

famous of a national leader who mostly spends their

time in the army tradition and consequently affects

his speaking stereotypes and politeness strategies.

Thus, the politeness as the verbal strategies inherent

with the acts of acclaims, attacks, and defences are

considered important to investigate.

The study is conducted also based on the

previous researches to convince the gaps and the

novelties. The previous were done with the objects

of presidential debates organized in other countries,

such as the United States (Napierala, 2014; Jabber

and Jinquan, 2013; Jessica and Ewald, 2013;

Pakzadian, 2012; Utomo, 2010; and Wang, 2010),

Spain (Garcia, 2014), French (2010), and Nigeria

(David, 2013). All of them do not discuss the speech

acts of acclaims, attacks, and defences related with

Damanhuri, P., Tarjana, S., Nurkamto, J. and Marmanto, S.

The Verbal Strategies in Jokowi – Prabowo Debates - A Pragmatics Perspective.

DOI: 10.5220/0007174307410748

In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference

on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017) - Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pages 741-748

ISBN: 978-989-758-332-2

741

the politeness as the verbal strategies. Specially,

Napierala (2014) investigated the verbal strategies in

the perspective of discourse analysis using Gigot

Theory, while the study is done on the pragmatics

perspective using Grice Theory, and Brown and

Levinson Theory. It is aimed at looking into the

politeness strategies as the verbal strategies

employed by the candidates in performing the

speech acts of acclaims, attacks, and defences.

2 THEORETICAL REVIEW

There are some primary concepts to deal with

related with the focus of the study, i.e. speech acts,

verbal strategies and politeness strategies,

implicature, and presidential debates.

2.1 Speech Acts

Talking about speech acts surely reminds the author

on the scholar, Austin (1962) who proposes his

statement of the art that speaking something means

doing something. Words and acts occur at the same

time on a particular context. His mind is stated in his

book How to Do Things with Words and the

essential contents are made up by his student, Searle.

Speech acts contains three acts inherent with a

particular utterance and they are not separated each

other in the normal occasion (Austin, 1962). The

acts are locutionary, illocutionary, and

perlocutionary. The previous is saying something

with words, the middle is doing something with

words, the latter is affecting someone (the hearer)

with words.

2.2 Verbal Strategies

Anyone says something surely has a purpose (end)

and to achieve it, he/she needs a way or a strategy

(means). In a pragmatic perspective, the utterance

delivered to the hearer does not only function as

communicating something but also maintaining a

personal contact. To make the functions effective,

the speaker usually chooses politeness strategies as

verbal strategies in pragmatics sense. Utterances

may be said to be polite or impolite whether they

threat the hearer’s face or not or how high they

potentially threat the hearer’s face, both positive

face and negative face (Brown and Levinson, 1987).

Basically, all utterances have potential to threat

faces, the hearer’s face and the speaker’s face as

well. In other words, any utterances have probability

to make hearer offended, angry, disappointed, or

dissatisfied. If so, they are said to be impolite. The

impolite utterance, in turn, causes interpersonal and

social frictions. Thus, the impoliteness is not

preferred because it certainly makes bad sound of

social life. It is obvious that a good speaker always

tries to choose the politeness strategies based on the

hearer’s stereotypes and the context of situation.

Regarding with politeness as the verbal

strategies, Brown and Levinson (1987) propose a

notion of politeness derived from the notion of face.

They urge that there are two faces should be taken

into account, such as a positive face referring to

positive politeness and a negative face referring to

negative politeness. The previous orients to

speaker’s tendency to choose the verbal strategies

that drum in his/her solidarity with the hearer. The

strategies involve claiming common ground with the

hearer, stating that the speaker and the hearer are co-

operators, and satisfying the hearer’s wants. The

latter orients to opt for the verbal strategies that

focus on the speaker’s deference to the hearer. The

speaker who uses such strategy usually performs the

indirectness, hedges, and apologies (Brown and

Levinson, 1987).

2.3 Implicature

Pragmatics is study of meaning bound to contexts

(Mey, 2001; Grundy, 2008). The meaning of

utterance may be stated or spoken and implied. The

spoken meaning of utterance is called explicator and

the implied meaning of utterance is named

implicature (Huang, 2007). The notion of

implicature firstly proposed based on Grice’s theory

of conversational implicature. In a particular

occasion, the maxims of co-operative principle are

not met by the speaker due to a particular

consideration. In other words, the speaker decides to

break the maxims because he prefers maintaining the

personal contact or a good sound of social

interaction which is commonly called a convivial

gregariousness. Such theory of co-operative drives

the concept of implicature focusing the inferred

meaning or the meaning of utterance that are not

said by the speaker but it is intended. The

implicature is grasped or understood only by

identifying the contexts of utterance, both linguistic

context and situation context.

2.4 Presidential Debate of Indonesia

Historically, Indonesia has some periods of

governmental leadership, such as Order Lama (old

order) or Soekarno era, Orde Baru (new order) or

CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology

Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education

742

Soeharto era, and Reformasi (reformation),

Abdurrahman Wahid era and Megawati era.

Afterward, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono held the

governance. Then, today president is Joko Widodo.

Presidential debate was commencing to organize

when electing the last two presidents. In fact, the

debate organization is reaching a better performance

just in the last general election.

Presidential debate of Indonesia 2014 is

distinctively organized by Committee of General

Election of Indonesia, moderated by some

professionals and academicians with the purpose of

encouraging and taking up the candidates’ sense,

skills, capabilities, official achievements, and vision

and mission surely contribute to Indonesian people

and development. The important themes are well

designed covering democracy development, clean

governance, and law supremacy discussed in the

first round. Economy development and social

welfare is dealt with in the second round.

International political affairs and national defence is

discussed in the third round. Then, food, energy, and

environment comes in the last round. The debate

contains many speech acts of acclaims, attacks, and

defences performed by the candidates.

3 METHODS

The data of the study are utterances on acclaims,

attacks and defends produced by the two presidential

candidates. They were collected by downloading

from internet in the form audio-video records. The

debate record was transcribed in the form of ortho-

graphic data for classification and categorization.

The data needed are utterances containing acclaims,

attacks, and defends. Each of them is classified as a

speech act identified by analysing the contexts.

Under the contexts of utterances, the pragmatic

meaning of the utterances and the politeness

strategies used by the speakers are also inferred.

Such method of analysis is called a pragmatic

method of analysis (Grice, 1975).

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The three speech acts of acclaims, attacks, and

defences are identified in the debate with various

percentages and strategies produced by Joko

Widodo and Prabowo Subianto. It is found that

Joko Widodo performs more acclaims (37%) and

attacks (42) than his counterpart, Prabowo Subianto

who performs acclaims 21% and attacks 37%.

However, Prabowo undertakes more defends (42%)

than Joko Widodo who just performs defences 21%.

This explanation is presented briefly in Table 1.

Furthermore, the politeness strategy used by both

candidates is as shown on table 2.

Table 1: The Speech Acts Performed by the Candidates.

Table 2: Politeness Strategy Employed by the Candidates.

4.1 Acclaims

The speech act of acclaim refers to the act of

enhancing speaker’s own credentials as a desirable

office-holder (Benoit, 2004, cited by Napierala,

2014). The spekaer acclaims on policy regarding

with the past achievement. Joko Widodo had been a

leader in Solo City Governance and a governor of

Jakarta afterward. During his governance, he made

some achievements related with his policy and

character and they were acclaimed in the debate to

convince the voters. He performs more acclaims

(37%) than his counterpart, Prabowo Subianto

(21%).

Prabowo Subianto is a prominent person, a

national leader who spends his time more in the

army. He was a commander of special land force of

Indonesia. His background of army organization is

stronger reflected by his communication and

leadership style. In the debate, in fact, he performs

less acclaims on policy regarding with his past

achievements.

The way of performing acclaims between the

two politicians is different. Joko Widodo tends to

acclaims indirectly as stated in the example [1].

[1] (JW) Demokrasi menurut kami adalah

mendengar suara rakyat dan melaksanakannya.

Oleh sebab itu, kenapa setiap hari kami datang

ke kampung-kampung, datang ke pasar-pasar,

datang ke bantaran sungai, datang ke petani,

datang ke tempat pelelangan ikan. Karena kami

ingin mendengar suara rakyat. Dengan cara

No. Speech acts Presidential Candidates

Joko Widodo Prabowo Subianto

1. Acclaims 9 (37%) 4 (21%)

2. Attacks 10 (42%) 7 (37%)

3. Defences 5 (21%) 8 (42%)

Total 24 19

No. Politeness Strategy Presidential Candidates

Joko

Widodo

Prabowo

Subianto

1. Negative Politeness 18 (75%) 10 (53%)

2. Positive Politeness 6 (25%) 9 (47%)

Total 24 19

The Verbal Strategies in Jokowi – Prabowo Debates - A Pragmatics Perspective

743

apa? Dengan cara dialog. Pak JK saya kira

sudah banyak menyelesaikan konflik dengan

cara dialog untuk musyawarah, untuk sebuah

kemanfaatan bagi rakyat banyak. Penyelesaian

Tanah Abang, Waduk Pluit juga kita selesaikan

dengan cara dialog, bermusyawarah,

mengundang makan, mengajak musyawarah

kemudian menemukan manfaat dari pemindahan

itu.

(Democracy, in my opinion), is to hear the

people’s words and execute them. Therefore,

every day we come to the villages, the markets,

the river areas, the farmers, and the fish markets.

We do want to hear their words. What ways to

do? Dialogue. Pak JK, I think, has done it more.

The solution of Tanah Abang, Waduk Pluit have

been accomplished through a dialogue,

discussion, and having a meal together followed

with discussion for the advantages of relocation).

The utterance [1] implies that the speaker

acclaims on character of being closed to the people,

aware of their problems and responsive in solving

their problems. He behaves as what is commonly

called ‘blusukan’ (walking around in the low-

income areas). Such leadership style is not

performed by other politicians who prefer staying in

the office rather than walking around in the remote

areas as done by Joko Widodo. In fact, it is effective

in attracting people to do things what he wants. The

following utterance stated in example [2] explains

his acclaim on policy regarding with the system

employment in his governance.

The lingual marker of politeness strategy used by

the speaker is a ‘hedge’ of menurut kami (according

to us) indicating that the utterance [1] is performed

politely classified in negative politeness. Moreover,

the utterance is delivered in the form of indirect

speech also referring to negative politeness.

[2] (JW) Pembangunan sistem. Sistem yang seperti

apa? Telah kita lakukan dan telah kita buktikan,

baik waktu kami jadi Wali Kota maupun jadi

Gubernur, ‘e-budgeting’, ‘e-procurement’, ‘e-

purchasing’, ‘e-catalog’, ‘e-audit’, pajak on-line,

IMB on-line. Cara-cara seperti itulah yang saya

kira kita lakukan dan bisa dinasionalkan, Semua

daerah bisa, nasioanl bisa melakukan ini apabila

Jokowi dan JK diberi amanah untuk megang

pemerintahan ini.

(Sytem development. What system looks like?

We had done it and proved it when we were in

Solo and in Jakarta, such as e-budgeting, e-

procurement, e-purchasing, e-catalog, e-audit,

Tax on-line, IMB on-line. Such system will be

done and nationalized. All regions and areas may

be facilitated if Jokowi and JK is trusted to

handle the government).

The utterance [2] states that Joko Widodo

acclaims on policy of implementing successful

system during his governance in Solo and Jakarta.

Also, it will be done for his governance if he is

elected. The system is believed as an effective way

in anticipating the wrong practices for individual

benefits in governmental practices.

In the case of the verbal strategy used in the

utterance [2], Joko Widodo picks up a ‘hedge’ of

saya kira (I think) indicating that the utterance is

performed by using negative politeness. He also uses

the word kita (we) implied the inclusiveness for

which the utterance is soften or politely performed.

Prabowo Subianto also performs acclaims that is

considerably distinctive with what is done by Joko

Widodo. He tends to performs acclaims directly

reflecting a strong sound and words explaining his

acclaims. He states the following acclaim as in the

utterance [3] to answer the moderator’s question on

Bhineka

Tunggal Eka.

[3] (PS) Baik, terimakasih. Pertanyaan tadi adalah

kerangka hukum apa yang akan dibangun untuk

menjamin nilai Bhineka Tunggal Eka. Kalau kita

berbicara itu sebetulnya peranti hukum yang ada

di bangsa kita sudah cukup. Undang-Undang

Dasar 1945 sebetulnya sudah sangat jelas

apalagi dalam versi yang asli tanggal 18

Agustus 1945. Dan kami juga saya kira sudah

jelas dan tegas ya, kami yang mencalonkan

orang minoritas menjadi wakil gubenurnya

saudara Joko Widodo, saudara Ahok waktu itu

cukup kontroversial tetapi saya sebagai

pimpinan partai GERINDRA, ketua dewan

Pembina, sayalah yang keras mempertahankan

waktu ada serangan-serangan bahwa tidak baik

atau tidak mungkin orang minoritas menjadi

wakil gubenur.

(Alright, thank you. The question is what frame

of law that will be built to convince the values of

Bhineka Tunggal Eka. If we talk about it, the law

appliance we have is enough. Undang-Undang

Dasar 1945 is surely obvious for that, especially

the original version of 18

August 1945. And we

are also…, I think it is clear and sure that we

propose a candidate from minority community,

Ahok, as a vice governor of Joko Widodo. It is

so controversial, but I am a leader of

GERINDRA Party, the only person who strongly

defends on attacks stating that it not good and

CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology

Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education

744

impossible for the minority to be a vice

governor).

In the utterance [3] Prabowo Subianto acclaims

that the values of Bhineka Tunggal Eka are high and

he surely appreciates them realized in the form

appreciating the minority communities’ right. It is

because that the values is obviously stated in

Undang-Undang Dasar 1945 so that there is no

doubt for that. As known that Ahok, the vice

governor of Joko Widodo, was from the minority

proposed, supported, and struggled by Prabowo

Subianto till he was elected. This is included in the

appreciation of his for the values of Bhineka

Tunggal Eka as stated in the law. Such acclaim is

categorized as an acclaim on character in which he

behaves to appreciate the values. The acclaim on

policy is also performed as stated in the example [5].

Regarding with the verbal strategy employed by

Prabowo Subianto, he uses the word baik (alright)

and terima kasih (thank you) at the commencing

utterance indicating that the utterance [3] is politely

delivered categorized as negative politeness.

However, he uses the word sayalah (only me)

indicating that the speaker puts himself as the real

figure excluding inclusiveness. It potentially

decrease the level of politeness of the utterance.

[4] (PS) Saya telah menandatangani deklarasi

bahwa manakala saya menerima mandat dari

rakyat saya akan alokasikan 1 milyar rupiah

minimal satu tahun untuk tiap desa dan

kelurahan di seluruh Indonesia.

(I have already signed a declaration that if I get a

mandate from the people, I will allocate at least

one billions per year for each village all over

Indonesia).

It is inferred that the utterance [4] contains an

acclaim on policy as stated in the act of signing a

declaration. It is a rule and commits the speaker to

allocate at least one billions per year for each village

in Indonesia. Such statement also attracts the people

to vote and motivate them to build their villages

under his governance. The ‘hedge’ of manakala

saya menerima mandat dari rakyat (if I get a

mandate from the people) is the lingual marker of

negative politeness as the verbal strategy for the

utterance.

4.2 Attacks

The speech act of attack refers to the act of

downgrading the opponent’s credentials as an

undesirable office-holder (Benoit, 2004, in

Napierala, 2014). In the presidential debate of

Indonesia, Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto

perform attacks with different ways and frequencies.

The previous candidate performs more attacks

(42%) than the latter candidate (37%). The

utterances of attacks produced by Joko Widodo are

considerably indirect utterances indicating that they

are politely delivered as a reflection of Javanese

politeness referring to negative politeness. Prabowo

Subianto perform less attacks referring to positive

politeness, meaning that the speaker emphasizes his

solidarity with the hearer (opponent).

[5] (JW) Iya. Tradisi yang baru, tradisi yang baru

ini harus kita mulai bahwa yang menjadi capres

tidak harus ketua umum partai, seperti saya dan

pak JK bukan ketua umum partai. Ini tradisi

baru yang harus kita mulai dan saya kira dengan

cara-cara seperti ini nanti yang akan maju

adalah yang terbaik bukan yang ketua partai.

Terimakasih.

(Yes, it is the new tradition. The new tradition

should be commenced that the presidential

candidate must not be a head of party. Pak JK

and I are not the head of party. It is a new

tradition that should be done and I think it is the

way of giving a chance to the capablest to be a

candidate, not the head of party. Thank you).

It is inferred that Joko Widodo performs an

attack on his counterpart as known a head of

Gerindra Party. He is not a head of party proposed

by the Struggling Indonesian Democratic Party as a

presidential candidate and it is considered to be

unusual for political tradition in Indonesia. Indeed,

the head of party takes a priority in any political

opportunities on the common sense. The utterance

[5] also implies that Joko Widodo is proposed to be

a presidential candidate due to his capabilities rather

than his position in his party. Thus, it obviously

attacks on his counterpart although he is the highly

capable figure. However, the distinctive matter, a

head of party, contains an attack on him.

On the other example, Joko Widodo also

performs an attack as a response to his counterpart’s

answers. The euphemistic expression is used to

soften his attack and the other politeness marker as

well.

[6] (JW) Iya. Tadi yang disampaikan oleh Pak

Prabowo belum mungkin. Saking semangatnya

belum disampaikan hal-hal yang kongkrit ke

depan akan dilakukan apa? Dan yang kedua,

juga belum dijawab mengenai masalah

diskriminasi tadi juga ditanyakan oleh Pak Jusuf

The Verbal Strategies in Jokowi – Prabowo Debates - A Pragmatics Perspective

745

Kalla juga belum dijawab karena terlalu

semangatnya menjawab masalah hak asasi

manusia. Oleh sebab itu, kami mohon agar ini

lebih diberikan apa perhatian lagi masalah

pertanyaan yang disampaikan oleh Bapak Jusuf

Kalla.

(Yes, what has been delivered by Pak Prabowo is

impossible. Because of his eagerness, he leaves

the concrete matters to do in the future.

Secondly, the discrimination matters asked by

Pak Jusuf Kalla are not yet answered either

because of his high eagerness to explain about

human right issues. Therefore, we hope that the

matters asked by Pak Jusuf Kalla are more

considered to be a focus of thought).

The utterance [6] is implied that Joko Widodo

performs an attack after his counterpart answers Pak

Jusuf Kalla’s question on human right issues. Jusuf

Kalla is the vice presidential candidate standing next

to Joko Widodo. However, his answers are

considered not to touch some points also asked, i.e.

the real plans to do in the future and the

discrimination issues related with the human right.

Using the word ‘eagerness’, Joko Widodo tries to

soften his attack and he uses the word ‘hope’ as a

politeness marker for a request.

At the other occasions, Prabowo Subianto

performs some attacks on his counterpart, Joko

Widodo, concerning the regional development, the

budget leak, and the other countries’ acclaims on

Indonesian’s lands. His attacks are stated in the

example [7], and [8].

Regarding with Joko Widodo’s acclaims on free

education and health service and other programs,

Prabowo Subianto as stated in example [7] performs

an attack focusing on the budgets that are over or

leak due to malpractice of governance. He sees that

there are so many good programs for the people, but

the budgets are not promptly considered. Of course,

they will get any serious problems of

implementation.

[7] (PS) Saudara moderator, saudara Joko Widodo

calon presiden nomor urut dua. Malam ini kita

membahas pembangunan ekonomi dan

kesejahteraan sosial. Kita mengerti bahwa

tujuan kita bernegara adalah untuk mencapai

kemakmuran bersama. Masalahnya adalah

bagaimana mencapai itu. Banyak program

indah, bagus, kita harus begini, kita harus

begitu, kita harus membangun ini, membangun

itu, pendidikan gratis, kesehatan gratis dan

sebagainya. Dari mana uangnya? Dari mana

sumber daya untuk kita pakai, untuk kita

tumbuhkan kesejahteraan itu?

(Brother Moderator, brother Joko Widodo, the

presidential candidate, the list number two. This

night we discuss about economy development

and social welfare. We understand that our

governmental goal is to achieve a common

welfare. The problem is how to achieve that.

There are many beautiful and good programs: we

should do this, we should do that, we should

build this, build that, free education and health

services, etc. Where do we get the money?

Where do we get the resources for those, directed

to realize the welfare?

The utterance [7] also implies that Prabowo

Subianto focuses on financial safety of our country,

maintaining and preventing the wrong use of

budgeting that potentially makes people sorrow. He

perceives that great leak of the budgets is so serious

so that he is intended to struggle harder maintain and

close it which in turn people will get a better lives

and welfare if the budgets are sufficient for all

programs.

Related with the international issues, Prabowo

Subianto also performs an attack on his counterpart

especially what happens in the sea of South China. It

closely touches the international relation, the defend,

and Indonesia roles as a member of Asean. Such

attack is stated in example [8] below.

[8] (PS) Masalahnya Pak Joko Widodo adalah

bahwa sebagian wilayah maritim kita termasuk

di klaim oleh salah satu Negara yang, yang jadi

masalah di laut Cina selatan. Itu masalahnya.

Jadi, yang saya ingin tanya bagaimana

sebaiknya kita bersikap dalam hal itu karena kita

juga bagian dari Asia. Ada empat Negara Asean

yang punya klaim, bagaimana kita sebagai

katakanlah Negara terbesar di Asian, apakah

kita absen sama sekali atau kita membela empat

kawan-kawan kita di Asean itu dalam masalah

laut Cina selatan itu. Terimakasih.

(The problems, Pak Joko Widodo, are a part of

our marine area is acclaimed by one of the

countries, it becomes a problem at the sea of

South China. That is the problem. Thus, my

question is how is our attitude to such condition

as known we are part of Asian countries? There

are four Asean countries whose acclaim on that.

How to do as a the biggest Asean country?. Are

we absent at all or do we support the four

countries in the case of the sea of South China.

Thank you).

CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology

Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education

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The utterance [8] contains a question that

potentially attacks Joko Widodo which is out of his

field. The speaker is more considered to know it

well because it relates to national defend as his field.

It is inferred that it contains a speech act of attack

delivered in the form of directive. The speaker

realizes such act politely by providing some

alternatives for answers and of course each of them

has a consequence to deal with. Finally, the speaker

closes his utterance using the word ‘thank you’ to

soften the utterance or avoid face threatening act.

4.3 Defences

Defending in the debate refers to the act of

responding to the attacks with the purpose of

repairing the image by some strategies, such as

denial, evading responsibility or reducing

offensiveness (Benoit, 2004, cited by Napierala,

2014). The following example [9] is defend

performed by Joko Widodo and example [10] is

performed by Prabowo Subianto.

[9] (JW) Tadi sudah saya sampaikan kalau kita

berperan dan peran itu kita bisa memberikan

keuntungan pada Negara kawan kita itu, kita

lakukan tetapi kalau kita tidak mempunyai

sebuah solusi yang benar, tidak mempunyai

sebuah jalan keluar yang benar, proses

diplomasi yang ingin kita lakukan tidak

memberikan manfaat, untuk apa? Setahu saya

apa yang terjadi di laut Tiongkok itu kita tidak

mempunyai konflik sama sekali. Masuk harus

ada manfaatnya, harus bisa memberikan solusi

agar konflik itu tidak meluas.

(I have said that we play a role and it should be

beneficial for the neighbour. We should do it.

However, if we do not have a right solution, not

provide a right way out, and the process of

diplomacy of ours is considerably not useful,

what for. As I know that what happens in the sea

of Tiongkok does not take us to a conflict at all.

Deciding to involve in should bring fort a good

solution so that the conflict is not getting wider).

The utterance [9] is performed as a defence for

the attack stated in the utterance [8]. Joko Widodo

denies involving in the case of South China problem

because Indonesia does not have any conflicts for

that area. He prefers not being involved as long as it

is considered not advantageous, there is no best way

proposed for the solution. It is inferred that he is so

careful in deciding to enter such uncertain case.

A surprising defence comes up from Prabowo

Subianto who performs a distinctive act of defence

as stated in the example [10]. It is inferred that he

uses a positive politeness indicating that he

perserves the positive face of the counterpart by

emphasizing his solidarity with him and claiming

common sense with him.

[10] (PS) Iya saya kira tanggapan Pak Joko Widodo

sebetulnya sejalan dengan jawaban saya ya.

Bapak bilang trans, saya bilang mereka curiga,

sama kita. Kita harus yakinkan mereka bahwa

bukan ancaman sama mereka, kita ingin menjadi

good neighbour. Kita ingin jadi tetangga yang

baik, jadi sebetulnya dalam hal ini kita sama

pak. Loh!, bukan kalau baik ya baik ini pak?

Penonton lebih galak dari pada kita ya pak? Ya

penonton galak galak kayak nonton bola aja.

Jadi, dalam hal itu benar kita harus ber-trans,

kita harus, kita ingin damai, kita tidak mau

macam-macam tetapi bahwa kita dianggap

lemah, kita harus cek ke diri kita jangan-jangan

memang kita lemah saudara-saudara.

(Yes, I think Pak Joko Widodo’s response is

really in a line with mine, ya. Bapak says ‘trans’,

I say they are suspicious. Thus, we are the same.

We should convince those (Australians) that we

are not a threat for them, we want to be a good

neighbour. Thus, in this case, we have the same

ide pak. Loh! If it is good, it will be good, won’t

it, pak? The audiences are more impudent than

us, aren’t they, pak? Yes, the audiences are more

impudent like football supporters. Thus, in this

matter, we should do ‘trans’, we must do it, we

want a peace, we do not want to do the worst.

However, if we are perceived as the weak, we

must introspect ourselves for ensuring that

whether we, in fact, are weak, brothers).

Thus, it is obvious that the utterance [10] is

performed on the focus of similarity in idea or sense.

It is also soften with politeness markers such as saya

kira (I think), Pak and bapak. The appreciation and

claim of close personal matter is marked with his

joke of Penonton lebih galak dari pada kita ya pak?

(The audiences are more impudent than us, aren’t

they, Sir?).

5 CONCLUSIONS

The study is concluded that Joko Widodo (Jokowi)

used more acclaims (69%) and attacks (59%) but

used less defends (38%). On the other hand,

Prabowo used more defends (61%), but used less

attacks (41%) and acclaims (30%). In the case of the

The Verbal Strategies in Jokowi – Prabowo Debates - A Pragmatics Perspective

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verbal strategies, the previous prefers performing a

negative politeness (negative face) and the latter

prefers performing a positive politeness (positive

face). The lingual markers used by Jokowi in

softening his utterances for politeness are hedges,

inclusiveness, thank-giving, and indirect speech acts,

while Prabowo prefers using hedges, inclusiveness,

and thank-giving.

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