135 Celtic: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching, Literature and Linguistics Vol. 9, No. 1, June 2022 http://ejournal.umm.ac.id/index.php/celtic/index ASSERTIVE ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS ON INTERRUPTION BY JOE BIDEN IN THE 2020 FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE 1Fania Yulistiana*, 1Widyastuti Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Indonesia* ABSTRACT In a debate, interruption is a vital element because its utterance carries a distinct meaning. This study aims to demonstrate the presence of assertive illocutionary acts in Joe Biden's interruptions in the 2020 First Presidential Debate by identifying the type of interruption and assertive function contained within each interruption. This study utilizes the theory of assertive illocutionary acts by Searle and interruptions by Ferguson. The data were derived from Joe Biden's remarks in the 2020 First Presidential Debate. The results indicate that Joe Biden's interruption contains all functions of assertive illocutionary acts that aid in communicating the meaning of his utterances. The outcomes reveal that Joe Biden performed 21 interruptions, with the most parts being overlap interruptions (13 times), followed by simple interruptions (6 times), and the fewest being butting-in interruptions (2 times). In the interruption conducted by Joe Biden, assertive illocutionary speech acts were found with stating being the most dominant type (11 times), followed by claiming (5 times), complaining (2 times), reporting (1 time), explaining (1 time), and suggesting (1 time). Keywords: Assertive Illocutionary Acts; Interruption; Joe Biden; Pragmatics; Presidential Debate ABSTRAK Dalam sebuah debat, interupsi merupakan elemen vital karena ucapannya membawa makna tersendiri. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menunjukkan adanya tindak ilokusi asertif dalam interupsi Joe Biden dalam Debat Presiden Pertama 2020 dengan mengidentifikasi jenis interupsi dan fungsi asertif yang terkandung dalam setiap interupsi. Penelitian ini menggunakan teori tindakan ilokusi asertif oleh Searle dan interupsi oleh Ferguson. Data tersebut didapat dari pernyataan Joe Biden dalam Debat Presiden Pertama 2020. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa interupsi Joe Biden mengandung semua fungsi tindak ilokusi asertif yang membantu dalam mengkomunikasikan makna ucapannya. Hasilnya menunjukkan bahwa Joe Biden melakukan 20 interupsi, dengan sebagian besar interupsi tumpang tindih (13 kali), diikuti oleh interupsi sederhana (6 kali), dan interupsi mengikut (2 kali). Pada interupsi yang dilakukan oleh Joe Biden, ditemukan tindak tutur ilokusi asertif dengan tipe dominan menyatakan (11 kali), mengklaim (5 kali), mengeluh (2 kali), melaporkan (1 kali), menjelaskan (1 kali), dan menyarankan (1 kali). Kata Kunci: Debat Presiden; Ilokusi Asertif; Interupsi; Joe Biden; Pragmatik; Tindak Tutur E-ISSN: 2621-9158 P-ISSN:2356-0401 *Correspondence: Submitted: 3 April 2021 Approved: 3 April 2021 Published: 3 April 2021 Citation: Inayati, N. (2021). The Template of CELTIC Journal 2021. Celtic: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching, Literature and Linguistics, 8(1), 1-21. Doi: 10.22219/celtic.v9i1. xxxx E-ISSN: 2621-9158 P-ISSN:2356-0401 *Correspondence: faniayulistiana@gmail.com Submitted: 26 May 2022 Approved: 29 June 2022 Published: 30 June 2022 Citation: Yulistiana, F., & Widyastuti (2022). Assertive illocution acts on interruption by Joe Biden in the 2020 first presidential debate. Celtic: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching, Literature and Linguistics, 9(1), 135-148. Doi: 10.22219/celtic.v9i1.21208 Fania Yulistiana, Widyastuti Assertive Illocutionary Acts on Interruption by Joe Biden in the 2020 First Presidential Debate 136 INTRODUCTION The United States of America (USA) exerts major influence throughout the world, not just in economic, military, and foreign policy matters. A presidential election is also a critical event that the entire world should follow, especially when leadership is the approach by which an individual influences others to accomplish goals collectively (Osnos, 2020;Merrita, 2021). A political campaign is critical in an election because it informs the public about the candidates' ideologies (Suwandi & Thoriqussuud, 2021). In addition to Merrita (2021), the attitude and value of nationalism is an important scourge for a country's leader. The presidential debate is one in a series of campaigns in which presidential candidates present their self- image and attempt to elicit sympathy from potential voters. The United States (US) has become the focus of global attention, including determining presidential candidates, because the political policies of the President of the United States significantly impact numerous countries, allies, and adversaries (Sartika, 2021). Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on November 20th, 1942 with the name Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., Joe Biden is the current president who won his election over Donald Trump in 2020 and was elected in January 2021. He was confidently known as the fifth youngest senator in history when he was elected back in 1972 (Osnos, 2020). After decades of dedicating himself to the laws, he finally pursued the presidential chair in 1988 as he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination (Allen & Parnes, 2021). He was then elected as Barack Obama’s vice-president in 2008, doing an astonishing job by playing an active role in the administration (Krames, 2022). After two terms of working with Obama as the vice-president, he stayed in the public’s eyes as one of the front-runners in the Democratic party primaries. Nominated as the Democratic party presidential nominee, he won in the 2020 presidential election over the former-then president, Donald Trump. Biden had notably managed to maintain the government aid to low-income communities, being somewhat ambitious on several points, such as the climate change legislation, affordable child care, and the expansion of the federal health insurance plans (Krames, 2022). Each utterance made by Joe Biden in response to a question during the presidential debate had a contextual and situational significance. During the presidential debate, candidates create sentences with the intent of eliciting future action. A context must be viewed in terms of the general state of the public. Context and circumstance contribute to a clear understanding of the utterances (Husain et al., 2020). There is a widespread belief that debate is fraught with interruptions and that participants frequently "talk over one another," failing to listen to what the other is saying (Sidnell, 2010). The failure to listen and understand what the other person is saying may be due to the fact that people communicate in diverse manners depending on their beliefs, ethnicity, and gestures, all of which influence their language use and comprehension (Hidayah, 2021). The majority of interruptions are accepted as part of social interaction's natural give-and-take (Crystal, 2020). Zimmerman and West (1975) asserted that interruption demonstrates strength and dominance. This was also conveyed by Zhang (2010) that men are more likely to deprive other individuals of the right to speak by employing specific male dominance strategies. Interruption is an encroachment, a Celtic: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching, Literature and Linguistics Vol. 9 No. 1, June 2022 http://ejournal.umm.ac.id/index.php/celtic/index 137 trampling on another's right to the floor, an attempt to exert dominance, and to signal the lack of interest or support or the current speaker (Tannen, 1990; Zhang, 2010). Additionally, Tannen stated that interruption violates someone's right to speak (1990). Equally, Zhao (2011) stated the majority of interruptions are viewed as competitive since the interrupters are proactive to stop the other’s speech and seize the floor. In addition, Yule (1996) stated that actions carried out through utterances are commonly referred to as speech acts. Levinson added that utterances are not merely a carrier of meaning but also, in a literal sense, perform or carry out actions (Levinson, 2016). According to Searle (1969), speaking or using a language entail engaging in speech acts, which include making statements, giving commands, asking questions, and making promises. Pérez-Hernández (2021) stated that people can and frequently do attempt to influence the behavior of others primarily through the use of language and the action can be encouraged by their interests (by advising or warning them), our own interest (by commanding, demanding, or begging them), or mutual benefit (by suggesting a typical course of action). The theory of speech acts takes a holistic video of utterances, capturing the speaker's intentions, the utterance's meaning, the speaker's attitude, and the actions elicited by the utterances. As reported by Austin (1975), Speech Acts are classified as locutionary, illocutionary, or perlocutionary. A locutionary act is one that involves the production of an utterance. Illocutionary acts are the primary focus of any theory of speech acts, and they are identified explicitly through performatives. Meanwhile, the perlocutionary act refers to the impact or influence that a speech act has on the listener's feelings, thoughts, or actions. Searle (2002) asserts that there are five fundamental primitive forms of an illocutionary act, namely assertive, directive, commissive, expressive, and declaration. Only the assertive type of illocutionary act will be used for analysis purposes in this study. The assertive illocutionary act tell people the truth about how things are (Searle, 1979). It suits this study because politicians are expected to be able to provide statements, explanations, and assurances that they will do everything conceivable to improve the situation. A study conducted by Khodijah (2020) reveals that presidential candidates frequently used facts in their assertions to demonstrate their assertiveness. The assertive point or purpose is to commit the speaker (in varying degrees) to something being true, to the expressed proposition's truth (Searle, 1979). As stated by Searle (1979), assertive acts commit the speaker to the expressed propositional truth. The use of assertive has a truth value that binds the speaker to the veracity of the conveyed propositions (Pérez-Hernández, 2021; Putra et al., 2019). Several verbs that can be used to create assertive acts, are claim, state, complain, suggest, explain, and report. Several researchers have critically examined the studies on interruptions and assertive illocutionary acts. Rohmah and Suwandi (2021) analyzed the interruptions made by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, concluding that Trump engaged in all types of interruptions to a much greater degree than any other candidate. Tymbay (2021) examined interruptions as a reflection of the speaker's identity in the presidential debate in a related study. In addition, Atusaadah and Idris (2021) conducted a study to determine the most frequent illocutionary acts Fania Yulistiana, Widyastuti Assertive Illocutionary Acts on Interruption by Joe Biden in the 2020 First Presidential Debate 138 in President Joe Biden's speech. Furthermore, Nguyen studied on the persuasive characteristics of Clinton and Trump's assertive speech acts (2022). Although previous researchers have extensively discussed interruptions and illocutionary acts, studies on the type of assertiveness on interruption during the presidential debate have not been explored in detail yet. In this regard, this present study examined how Joe Biden's interruptions during the 2020 First Presidential Debate employed the assertive illocutionary act. With the exception of the four studies mentioned and their findings, there has been only few study that discusses the various forms of assertiveness in interruption during the presidential debate. As such, the objective of this study is to characterize the various forms of assertiveness in interruption that emerge during the presidential debate. Congruent with the explanation provided, this study makes a significant contribution to the field of linguistics by providing new information and knowledge about assertive illocutionary acts especially in interruptions during a presidential debate for future readers and researchers. This study formula aims to answer two research questions, specifically (1) What are the types of interruptions performed by Joe Biden during the 2020 First Presidential Debate?, (2) How is the assertive illocutionary act used in Joe Biden's interruption during the 2020 First Presidential Debate? Based on the formulation of two research questions, the title of this study is Assertive Illocutionary Acts on Interruption by Joe Biden in the 2020 First Presidential Debate. METHOD This study is a descriptive qualitative study to determine Joe Biden's assertive illocutionary act in interruptions during the 2020 First Presidential Debate by identifying the types of interruption and assertive functions contained within each interruption (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). The data of this study are the utterances in the forms of words, phrases, or sentences that are taken from a video titled "First Trump-Biden presidential debate moderated by Fox News' Chris Wallace | FULL" which was extracted from the Fox Business YouTube channel. The transcript is downloaded from an online website, speakwrite.com. The data for this study were gathered through the use of qualitative audiovisual and digital materials. In accordance with Litosseti (2010), there are five techniques for gathering data those are observation, interview, questionnaire, test, and the last one is documentation. This present study used documentation in the form of audio as a data collection technique to collect the data. In terms of instruments, the checklist for applying the theory serves as the instrument for eliciting responses to the research questions. The researcher also used the data to explain, provide data, and interpret the intent and purpose of the data being managed. For the research technique used in this study, note-taking and observation techniques in recording things were chosen to process the data. The data analysis technique for this qualitative research consisted of five steps (Creswell & Creswell, 2018, pp. 268–270). First, preparing the video used as the data. This step consisted of downloading the transcription of the presidential debate and organizing the data according to the information sources. Second, reading all of the data while watching the presidential debate video. Third, Celtic: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching, Literature and Linguistics Vol. 9 No. 1, June 2022 http://ejournal.umm.ac.id/index.php/celtic/index 139 classifying the data by taking notes, highlighting, and labeling each utterance with the types of interruption and their assertive function by using the types of interruptions theory by Ferguson (1975) and assertive illocutionary acts theory by Searle (1979). Fourth, processing the data by applying the theories that have been prepared. Fifth, representing the data in a descriptive narrative way. This step includes describing the types of interruption done by Joe Biden and the assertive illocutionary act contained in the interruption. FINDINGS This part of the study presents a detailed description of the data analysis. In this section, the two research questions pertinent to this study are answered. The first research question concerns Joe Biden's interruption types during the 2020 First Presidential Debate. Types of Interruption The first research question concerns the type of interruption. As classified by Ferguson (1975), there are four types of interruption particularly simple interruption, butting-in interruption, overlap interruption, and silent interruption. Among 20 interruptions that can be found from Joe Biden's utterances, overlap interruptions are the most frequent 13 times. Followed by simple interruption four times and butting-in interruption two times. Only the silent interruption was not found during the debate. Further explanations and examples are shown in the description below. Overlap Interruption The occurrence of exchange of turns indicates overlap interruptions. There is a simulated speech present from both parties, and the first speaker can complete his utterances (Beattie, 1982). Joe Biden made 13 overlap interruptions during his utterance in the 2020 First Presidential Debate. The overlapping interruptions by Joe Biden primarily extended for more than a clause (3 words or more). Nevertheless, the first speaker completed the utterance, resulting in a buildup of utterances that are classified as overlapping. The example overlap interruption below shows Joe Biden interrupting Donald Trump's response to Chris Wallace about homicides in America. (01) Donald Trump : “… But if he ever got to run this country, and they ran it the way he would want to run it, we would have [our suburbs would be] gone. By the way, our suburbs would be gone.” (02) Joe Biden : “[We would run it the way] …” Source: Biden & Trump (2020) Overlap interruption by Joe Biden contains incomplete sentences as shown in data (02) in response to what Donald Trump said about homicides. The overlap interruption can be seen in how Joe Biden managed to give Donald Trump a six- word interruption, and the overlap interruption did not prevent Donald Trump from completing his utterance. Fania Yulistiana, Widyastuti Assertive Illocutionary Acts on Interruption by Joe Biden in the 2020 First Presidential Debate 140 Simple Interruption Simple interruptions are indicated by the exchange of turns, the presence of simultaneous speech, and the incomplete utterance of the first speaker's turn (Beattie, 1982). In the debate, Joe Biden made 6 simple interruptions. This simple interruption is easily identified by the utterance of the first speaker, which is syntactically, semantically, phonologically, and sometimes intonationally incomplete (Ferguson, 1975). The example below shows Joe Biden interrupting Donald Trump's answer regarding the issue of vaccines that will be distributed to the public. (03) Donald Trump : “… We have our military that delivers soldiers, and they can do 200,000 a day. They’re going to be delivering the [vaccine] …” (04) Joe Biden : “[This is the same man] who told you by Easter, this’d be gone away. By the warm weather, it’d be gone, miraculous, like a miracle.” Source: Biden & Trump (2020) Joe Biden made a simple interruption, indicated by the first speaker, Donald Trump, not finishing his utterance as shown in data (03). Joe Biden's simple interruption (04) demonstrated that there was a rebuttal or argument that casts doubt on Trump's response regarding the vaccine provided. Butting-in Interruption Butting-in interruption happens in simultaneous speech present in which there was no exchange of turn (Beattie, 1982). Joe Biden made 2 butting-in interruptions in his utterance during the 2020 First Presidential Debate. The butting-in interruption by Joe Biden were dominated by incomplete vocal sounds and short utterances such as but, no, it is not, not true, oh, and yes. The example below is a part of the butting-in interruption that Joe Biden made when Trump answered Chris Wallace's question regarding the free-market approach and his de- regulation. (05) Donald Trump : “… Also, they took over something that was down here. All you had to do was turn on the lights, and you picked up a lot, but they [had the] slowest economic recovery since 1929. …" (06) Joe Biden : “[but-]” Source: Biden & Trump (2020) Butting-in interruption is a form of response that Joe Biden wanted to make. In this case, the butting-in interruption is indicated by the absence of an exchange of turns, similar to what Joe Biden did when interrupting Trump. Donald Trump did not give Joe Biden the floor to continue his interruption and continued his simultaneous speech in response to a question from Chris Wallace. Assertive Illocutionary Acts The second research question of this study deals with the assertive illocutionary acts contained in the interruptions from by Joe Biden. Based on what Searle (1979) explained, there are six verbs that can be used to create assertive acts, for instance claim, state, complain, suggest, explain, and report. Of the 21 interruptions that can be found in the utterance data by Joe Biden, the assertive Celtic: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching, Literature and Linguistics Vol. 9 No. 1, June 2022 http://ejournal.umm.ac.id/index.php/celtic/index 141 function of stating is the most dominant, appearing 11 times. In this study, these six assertive functions will be explained along with examples in the data presented below. Stating Stating is a function to express information in a specific and formal form. Status can be known through the process of predicate accomplishment, achievement, and activity (Crystal, 2008, p. 451). There were 11 times stating as an assertive function in Joe Biden's interruption. In the example below, it is a part of Joe Biden's interruption which contains an assertive function stating that Joe Biden's response to Donald Trump's utterance. (07) Donald Trump : “Joe, you’ve had 308,000 military people dying because you couldn’t provide them proper healthcare in the military. So, [don’t tell me about this].” (08) Joe Biden :“[I’m happy to talk about this]” Source: Biden & Trump (2020) In the part of the example shown, data (08) shows Joe Biden performing an overlap interruption with the indication that the first speaker, Donald Trump, successfully finished his utterance even though Joe Biden interrupted at the midpoint. In the overlap interruption, there is a stating function which is specified by Joe Biden responding that he is happy to talk about proper healthcare in the military. Claiming Claims can also be referred to as argumentative that express a claim to the truth made by the speaker or hearer. The claim in an argument is a logical belief that will help or support the speaker's argument (Leech, 1983, p. 224). A total of 5 claims can be found in the interruptions made by Joe Biden. In the example shown, Joe Biden clearly claimed a number of deaths, which he did during Donald Trump's speech. (09) Donald Trump : “Well, you didn’t do very well on the swine flu. H1N1, you were a disaster. Your own [chief of staff said you were a disaster. A very far less lethal disease, by the way].” (10) Joe Biden : “[14,000 … 14,000 people died, not 200,000. There was no economic recession].” Source: Biden & Trump (2020) The example section above shows Joe Biden doing overlapped interruptions to Donald Trump, indicated by the fact that although Joe Biden interrupted Trump, Trump still finished his utterance. As for the overlap interruption performed by Joe Biden, there is an assertive function in the form of a claim shown in data (10) by highlighting the numerical fatalities. Complaining Complaining is an assertive function that shows dissatisfaction or annoyance. In Joe Biden's utterance, there were no verbs that indicate annoyance. The existence of complaining as an assertive function can be seen in Joe Biden's Fania Yulistiana, Widyastuti Assertive Illocutionary Acts on Interruption by Joe Biden in the 2020 First Presidential Debate 142 intonation when pronouncing the utterance. Two complaints were found as assertive functions in the interruptions made by Joe Biden. Below is an example that shows Joe Biden complaining about Donald Trump's remarks. (11) Donald Trump : “Look what happened in Oakland. Look what happened in Baltimore. Look what happened … Frankly, it was more violent than what I’m even seeing [now].” (12) Joe Biden : “[Oh my lord].” (13) Donald Trump : “But the reason [is the Democrats that run these cities, don’t] want to talk, like you, about law and order.” (14) Joe Biden : “[This is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous].” Source: Biden & Trump (2020) The form of complaining expressed by Joe Biden is contained in the category of overlap interruptions to Donald Trump. This can be seen from how Donald Trump managed to finish his speech even though Joe Biden made a complaint. Regarding the complaining in his interrupt, data (12) and (14) show that Joe Biden is annoyed and feels that Donald Trump's answer is a silly thing. Suggesting Suggesting is one of the assertive functions which presents something to consider. The indications of the suggesting function in Joe Biden's utterance are the forms will you, should, and can you. A total of 1 suggestion was found in the interruptions made by Joe Biden. (15) Donald Trump : “Why wouldn’t you answer that question? You want to put a lot of new [Supreme Court Justices]. Radical left.” (16) Joe Biden : “[Will you shut up, man?]” Source: Biden & Trump (2020) Joe Biden's utterance is in the form of overlap interruption which contains a suggesting function. Joe Biden in data (16) emphatically advised Donald Trump to stop answering and keep quiet. However, Donald Trump ignored Joe Biden's interruption and continued his utterance. Reporting Reporting has the meaning of reporting, informing, and notifying about a specific thing by a speaker. In the utterance spoken by Joe Biden, reporting indications can be found using the verbs inform, state, mention, and point out. There was one reporting function in the interruptions made by Joe Biden. (17) Donald Trump : “Not [by much].” (18) Joe Biden : “[I beat him a whole hell of a lot].” Source: Biden & Trump (2020) Reporting is one part of the assertive illocutionary act which shows the existence of information or things that have been done. In the data above, Joe Biden performeds a simple interruption which is marked by Donald Trump, who continues his answer after Joe Biden's interruption ends. A simple sentence in data (18) showing the reporting function in Joe Biden's interruption as part of notifying that Joe Biden had won against Bernie Sanders. Celtic: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching, Literature and Linguistics Vol. 9 No. 1, June 2022 http://ejournal.umm.ac.id/index.php/celtic/index 143 Explaining One of the functions of assertive illocutionary acts found in Joe Biden's speech is explaining. Explaining is the act of expressing an idea, concern, or issue to the hearer in a more precise and comprehensive manner by describing or revealing pertinent facts and ideas. (19) Donald Trump : “Socialized medicine ….” (20) Chris Wallace : “[Mr. President] ….“ (21) Joe Biden : “[Well, I tell] you what. He is not for any help for people needing healthcare. [Because –]” (22) Donald Trump : “[Who isn’t? Bernie?]” (23) Joe Biden : “Because he, in fact, already has cost 10 million people their healthcare that they had from their employers because of his recession, [number one.]” (24) Donald Trump : “[Oh, oh, yeah. Yeah.]” (25) Joe Biden : “Number two, there are 20 million people getting healthcare through Obamacare now that he wants to take it away. He won’t ever look you in the eye and say that’s what he wants to do, take it [away.]” (26) Donald Trump : “[No], I want to give you better healthcare –” Source: Biden & Trump (2020) In a presidential debate, telling information in detail as part of assertive functions is one of many crucial factors. This is due to the fact that explaining is the first step in illustrating to the public the extent to which a candidate can explain things, ranging from simple concepts to matters of general interest. In the data (21), (23), and (26), Joe Biden initially engaged in overlap interruptions in which he interrupted Chris Wallace when Wallace caught the attention of Donald Trump who is constantly talking. The context of Joe Biden's response was his belief that Donald Trump was not the right person to assist individuals in need of healthcare. Joe Biden provided two reasons why Donald Trump was not the right candidate during his interruption, first in (23) and the second in data (25). DISCUSSION This study answers two questions that have been explained in the findings section. Regarding the first research question concerning Joe Biden's interruptions during the 2020 First Presidential Debate, the findings firstly showed that Joe Biden performed three of the four types of interrupts proposed by Ferguson (1975). Overlap interruption is the most dominant type used by Joe Biden (13 times). The results of this analysis are different from the findings of Rohmah and Suwandi (2021). In the previous study, it was stated that the most common type of interruption was butting-in interruption. This difference in result was possibly due to the fact that people have different interruption styles as well as possible differences in understanding context. The same gender factor is another possibility that might lead to this difference, that men are more likely to interrupt women than they are to interrupt men (Miller & Sutherland, 2022). In accordance with Opina (2017), males utilize more interruption than females do, whereas the latter’s utterances manifest verbal fillers, and the gender of the interlocutor indeed influences same-gender interaction. For instance, in data (21) to (26), Donald Trump and Joe Biden took turns uttering utterances that indicate the reluctance of Fania Yulistiana, Widyastuti Assertive Illocutionary Acts on Interruption by Joe Biden in the 2020 First Presidential Debate 144 the interlocutor to take over their floor. In a case, when one speaker thinks that the information conveyed by another speaker is wrong or contradictory, then he will use an interruption by conveying an assertive that is considered correct. Apart from that, long pauses in the middle of a conversation often trigger interruptions, which allows someone to easily convey what they want to convey by repeating or changing previous information (Shalaby, 2006). However, this study not only found the types of interruption but also the function of assertive illocutionary act. The results show that in the 21 interruptions made by Joe Biden, the assertive function that appeared the most is stating which is mostly in the form of imperative sentences. This is in line with an earlier study by Ashfira and Harjanto (2020) who also found that the assertive function was the most dominant in their study. In this study, for example data (04) and (08), stating becomes the most dominant function arises because it is used to express information in a specific and formal form. In proportion to Sofian (2021), the use of stating is to convey the messages of a political speech. This study proves that stating as an assertive illocutionary act is a function that works necessary to ensure the hearer could accept Joe Biden’s interruption message. Data (04) displays Joe Biden's interruption related to Donald Trump, who said he would distribute vaccines to the public. Joe Biden's statement mentioned Donald Trump as the same person who said that COVID would be wiped out by Easter. Stating as an assertive function is an indicator that in his interrupting sentence, Joe Biden conveyed the message that Donald Trump was a liar. Furthermore, the presence of an assertive illocutionary act on Joe Biden's interruption is part of how he expresses his ideas, information, opinions, and facts in his debate responses. Leech (1983) reveals that a claim is a verb with the proportion as belonging to or a claim that can support the speaker's position. In data (10), Joe Biden showed the existence of claiming function by stating the number of deaths. In which the proportion of these claims supported Joe Biden in presenting his argument. The form of a factual statement that mentions numerals is one form of t evidence in an argument that is acceptable to the hearer (Ericson et al., 2003, p. 24). The explanations made by Joe Biden as attached to the data (21), (23), and (25) are evidence that was conveyed his way of explaining information. In this case, the information related to the issue of Donald Trump being the wrong person to assist individuals in need of healthcare. The existence of evidence for the assertive function of explaining in Joe Biden's interruption is in line with what is stated by Atchison (2017, p. 83) that explaining can be crucial evidence for an intricate phenomenon that may have an impact in the future. The outcomes of this study's data result are settled that Joe Biden interrupted as a component of his argument defense during the debate. While the interruption situation appeared only in glimpses during the entire debate, it has its own meaning within the realm of communicative interaction (Kyrychenko, 2017). In agreement with that, the function of assertive illocutionary acts aids the public in understanding what Joe Biden's interruption actually conveyed. The existence of an illocutionary act assertive function helps to classify the meaning of Joe Biden's interruption, which is able to support the hearer in addressing problems of understanding (Rahayu et al., 2018; Sacks et al., 1974). Celtic: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching, Literature and Linguistics Vol. 9 No. 1, June 2022 http://ejournal.umm.ac.id/index.php/celtic/index 145 CONCLUSION This study examines Joe Biden's assertive illocutionary act on interruptions during the first presidential debate of 2020. It was discovered that Joe Biden uses three out of four types of interruptions, with overlap interruptions being the most common followed by simple interruptions, and butting-in interruptions being the least common. This fact demonstrates that Joe Biden has no qualms about using overlap interruptions to express what he believes to be true. Moreover, overlapping interruptions indicate that neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump wishes to be interrupted while presenting their arguments. In Joe Biden's interruptions, all functions of the assertive illocutionary act were found. The distribution is in the form of stating, claiming, complaining, reporting, explaining, and suggesting. The findings and discussion show that Joe Biden was able to use the assertive function in his interruptions during the presidential debate. Joe Biden influenced potential voters by providing evidence and including his ideas and opinions in his argument. Assertive illocutionary act on interruption influenced people’s decision to choose Joe Biden by showing his self-image during the presidential debate. This study only focused on assertive illocutionary acts on interruptions done by Joe Biden in the 2020 First Presidential Debate. Therefore, in future studies should add other aspects of illocutionary acts in the presidential debate in order to know the significant function of each illocutionary act type in the presidential debate. It also suggested that Joe Biden's remarks and speeches should be discussed more using the assertive illocutionary act and interruption theory. Additionally, in future studies, the researcher could also add or combine different significant functions of each speech acts, including the locutionary acts and perlocutionary acts. REFERENCES Allen, J., & Parnes, A. (2021). Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency. Crown Publishing. Ashfira, K. D., & Harjanto, T. D. (2020). Assertive Speech Acts in Donald Trump’s Presidential Speeches. Lexicon, 7(1), 24–39. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.22146/lexicon.v7i1.64574 Atchison, J. (2017). The Art of Debate: Course Guidebook. The Great Courses. www.thegreatcourses.com Atusaadah, M. R., & Idris, Z. (2021). Illocutionary Acts in President Joe Biden’s Speech. Seminar Nasional Ilmu Sosial Dan Teknologi - SANISTEK, 73–80. https://prosiding.politeknikcendana.ac.id/index.php/sanistek/article/view/2 6 Austin, J. L. (1975). How to Do Things with Words (2nd ed.). Harvard University Press. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674411524 Beattie, G. W. (1982). Turn-taking and interruption in political interviews: Margaret Thatcher and Jim Callaghan compared and contrasted. Semiotica, 39(1–2), 93–114. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.1982.39.1-2.93 Biden, J. R., & Trump, D. J. (2020). 2020 Election First Presidential Debate. https://speakwrite.com/transcripts/presidential-debate-2020-01/ Fania Yulistiana, Widyastuti Assertive Illocutionary Acts on Interruption by Joe Biden in the 2020 First Presidential Debate 146 Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (5th ed.). SAGE Publication, Inc. https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/research-design/book255675 Crystal, D. (2008). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (6th ed.). Blackwell Publishing. Crystal, D. (2020). Let’s Talk: How English Conversation Works. In Oxford University Press (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. https://www.davidcrystal.com/GBR/Book-Detail/?bookId=79 Ericson, J. M., Murphy, J. J., & Zeuschner, R. F. (2003). The Debater’s Guide (3rd ed.). Southern Illinois University Press. Ferguson, N. (1975). Interruptions: speaker-switch nonfluency in spontaneous conversation [Edinburgh University]. https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/17288 G. Opina, K. (2017). Verbal Communication Behaviors: How Male and Female University Students Interact in Gendered Talks. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 5(5), 135. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20170505.13 Hidayah, P. N. (2021). The Use of Un/Marked Code To Show Politeness Among Multilingual Customers. Celtic: A Journal of Culture, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.22219/celtic.v8i2.16692 Husain, A., Hamamah, & Nurhayani, I. (2020). Commissive Speech Act in Indonesian Presidential Debate. OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa Dan Sastra, 14(1), 81– 98. https://doi.org/10.19105/ojbs.v14i1.3141 Khodijah, S. (2020). Illocutionary Act in Political Debate. Journal of Language Intelligence and Culture, 2(2), 141–158. https://doi.org/10.35719/jlic.v2i2.39 Krames, J. A. (2022). The Joe Biden Way: How to Become a Bold and Emphatic Leader. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. https://lccn.loc.gov/2021028036 Kyrychenko, T. (2017). A communicative-pragmatic analysis of interruption realisation in modern English dialogical discourse. Lege Artis: Language Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, 2(1), 169–209. https://doi.org/10.1515/lart- 2017-0005 Leech, G. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics (1st ed.). Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315835976 Levinson, S. C. (2016). Speech Acts. In Y. Huang (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110214260.373 Litosseliti, L. (Ed.). (2010). Quantitative Methods: Concepts, Frameworks and Issues. In Research Methods in Linguistics. Continuum. Merrita, D. (2021). Nationalism Ideology: Critical Discourse Analysis of Joko Widodo’s Speech in Indonesian Presidential Election. Celtic: A Journal of Culture, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.2219/celtic.v8i1.16474 Miller, M. G., & Sutherland, J. L. (2022). The Effect of Gender on Interruptions at Congressional Hearings. American Political Science Review, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055422000260 Osnos, E. (2020). Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now. Scribner. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Joe-Biden/Evan- Osnos/9781982174026 Celtic: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching, Literature and Linguistics Vol. 9 No. 1, June 2022 http://ejournal.umm.ac.id/index.php/celtic/index 147 Pérez-Hernández, L. (2021). Speech Acts in English: From Research to Instruction and Textbook Development. In Cambridge University Press. University of Cambridge. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108677073 Putra, A. H. W., Nababan, M. R., & Marmanto, S. (2019). Speech Acts Found in the Movie “The Good Doctor.” International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding, 6(5), 840–848. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.18415/ijmmu.v6i5.1150 Rahayu, F. N., Arifin, M. B., & Ariani, S. (2018). Illocutionary Act in the Main Characters’ Utterances in Mirror Mirror Movie. Jurnal Ilmu Budaya, 2(2), 175– 187. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.30872/jbssb.v2i2.1065 Rohmah, Z., & Suwandi, A. F. (2021). Donald Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s Interruptions in Presidential Debates. JEELS (Journal of English Education and Linguistics Studies), 8(1), 97–118. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.30762/jeels.v8i1.2359 Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation. Language: Linguistic Society of America, 50(4), 696–735. Sartika, T. (2021). Critical Discourse Analysis of Donald Trump’s and Joe Biden’s Language in Use in The 2020 United States Presidential Debates. Proceedings International Conference on Education of Suryakancana 2021, 1, 412–417. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.35194/cp.v0i0.1379 Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge University Press. Searle, J. R. (1979). Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511609213 Searle, J. R. (2002). Speech Acts, Mind, and Social Reality (G. Grewendorf & G. Meggle (Eds.); Vol. 79). Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978- 94-010-0589-0 Shalaby, M. M. (2006). Interruption As a Measure of (Lack of) Conversational Power: a Gender – Dominance Analysis of Interruptions in Egyptian Tv Talk Shows. The Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Comparative Literature, 351–386. Sidnell, J. (2010). Conversation Analysis: An Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell Publishing. Sofian, E. S. (2021). Speech Acts Analysis in Joe Biden’s Victory Speech. International Journal of Arts and Social Science, 4(5). www.ijassjournal.com Suwandi, A. F., & Thoriqussuud, M. (2021). A Study of Systemic Functional Linguistics: Political Ideology of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in First Presidential Debate. Journal of English and Teaching, 5(1), 166–187. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.33369/jeet.5.2.166-187 Tannen, D. (1990). You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. In Paper Knowledge . Toward a Media History of Documents. Ballantine Books. Thanh, N. T. T. (2022). Assertive speech acts of persuasion in English presidential election speeches. Technium Social Sciences Journal, 30, 666–675. https://doi.org/https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6750-0136 Tymbay, A. A. (2021). Interruption as a reflection of speaker’s identity in the 2020 US presidential debates. Suvremena Lingvistika, 47(92), 283–306. Fania Yulistiana, Widyastuti Assertive Illocutionary Acts on Interruption by Joe Biden in the 2020 First Presidential Debate 148 https://doi.org/10.22210/suvlin.2021.092.08 Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford University Press. Zhang, H. (2010). Who dominates the class, boys or girls?: A study on gender differences in English classroom talk in a Swedish upper secondary school [Kristianstad University]. http://www.diva- portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A394795&dswid=-6322 Zhao, F. (2011). An Analysis of Gender Differences in Interruption based on the American TV series Friends [Kristianstad University]. http://www.diva- portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A395161&dswid=-8776 Zimmerman, D. H., & West, C. (1975). Sex Roles, Interruptions, and Silences in Conversation. In Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance (pp. 105–129).