Emotional Languages in Donald Trump’s Campaign Speeches: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Approach
Abstract
Abstract: The victory of Donald Trump in 2016 US Presidential Election marks the rise of Post-truth era at which objective truth is less important than the emotional truth. The present study investigates his use of emotional languages during his campaign. The investigated emotions are fear, warmth, and humour. The data on emotions which derives from the transcripted campaign speeches of Donald Trump are detected using prototype scenario theory developed by Wierzbicka (1992). They are, then, analyzed using Halliday and Matthiessen’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (2004). The findings show the speaker has four (4) ideational patterns in expressing his emotions. Those are material, relational, mental, and conditional relation. The emotions are communicated mostly in declarative sentences with dominant use of modality will as median value of obligation. His communication style reveals dominant use of repetition varying from lexical item to clausal level. The messages of the emotions contain the problem and its solution. The problem is represented by the exploitation of common noun Hillary Clinton while the solution is represented by the use of pronoun we as the unmarked topical theme. Furthermore, the study modifies Halliday and Matthiessen’s SFL theory of emotion.
Abstrak: Kemenangan Donald Trump pada Pemilu Presiden Amerika Serikat Tahun 2016 menandai bangkitnya era paska kebenaran dimana kebenaran obyektif dikalahkan oleh kebenaran emosional. Kajian ini meneliti penggunaan Bahasa – Bahasa emosi saat ia berkampanye. Emosi yang diinvestigasi adalah ketakutan, kehangatan, dan humor. Data kajian yang diperoleh dari transkip pidato Donald Trump saat berkampanye dideteksi menggunakan teori skenario prototipe yang dikembangkan Wierzbicka (1992). Data tersebut dianalisis menggunakan teori Linguistik Sistemik Fungsional milik Halliday dan Matthiessen (2004). Hasilnya, penutur memiliki 4 pola ide dalam mengekspresikan emosi antara lain pola materi, pola hubungan, pola mental, dan pola hubungan pengandaian. Emosi tersebut disampaikan umumnya menggunakan kalimat deklaratif dengan dominasi penggunaan will sebagai nilai tengah kewajiban. Gaya komunikasinya menunjukkan seringnya pengulangan yang bervariasi dari kata hingga kalimat. Pesan – pesan dari emosi yang disampaikan berisi masalah dan solusinya. Masalah diwakili banyaknya penggunaan kata benda umum Hillary Clinton sedangkan solusi diwakili penggunaan kata ganti benda we sebagai topik tema yang tidak ditandai. Lebih lanjut, kajian ini memodifikasi teori emosi yang dikembangkan oleh SFL milik Halliday dan Matthiessen.
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