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 ELT FORUM 5 (1) (2016) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 

 

http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 

 

PRESIDENT JOKO WIDODO’S INTERPERSONAL STRATEGIES IN HIS 

SPEECH IN THE 2014 APEC CEO SUMMIT 

 

Putri Apriliani Arif Suryo Priyatmojo  

 

English Department. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Semarang. 

 

Aticle Info 

________________ 
Article History: 

Received in April 2016 

Approved in April 2016 

Published in May 2016 

________________ 
Keywords: 

Speech, Interpersonal 

Meanings, Appraisal, Joko 

Widodo, APEC CEO 

SUMMIT 2014. 

____________________ 

Abstract 
___________________________________________________________________ 
This study aims at describing the way President Widodo used his interpersonal strategies in his speech in the 

2014 APEC CEO SUMMIT. In this study, the discussion was limited by finding out the interpersonal meaning 

of the speech which can be used to dig up speaker’s hidden meanings through what he is saying in the speech. 

This is a descriptive qualitative study. The concept of discourse analysis from the perspective of Systemic 

Functional Linguistic (SFL) is employed as a tool to reveal the hidden motivations behind a text. The analysis 

reveals that in terms of context of situation, President Widodo delivered persuasive speech. Meanwhile, grammar 

analysis shows that President Widodo was delivering speech in the name of Indonesia and in the name of 

Indonesian people who need a lot of economic capital in order to achieve the economic goals of Indonesia. In 

delivering his speech, President Widodo also strongly believed that he would be able to reach his goals. The 

appraisal analysis shows that Appreciation is the most frequent appraisal devices used in the speech. In that 

sense, President Widodo’s stance or attitude towards the goals he wants to achieve is strongly positive. It can be 

concluded that by the elaborate use of interpersonal strategies, President Widodo successfully projects his ideas 

and messages to the audience and also build a persuasive speech.  

 

© 2016 Universitas Negeri Semarang 

 
 Correspondent Address:  

   B3 Building  FBS Unnes  

   Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229 

   E-mail: peapriliani@gmail.com 

 

 

 

ISSN 2252-6706 



 

Putri Apriliani / Journal of English Language Teaching 5 (1) (2016) 

2 

INTRODUCTION 

President Joko Widodo’s speech at the 

summit had quality to gain world’s attention. He 

was in global spotlight since many world leaders 

praised his speech. Many world leaders gave 

positive response to his speech. One of them was 

Charles Morrison, president of the non-profit 

East-West Center. As cited by The Wall Street 

Journal, November 10 2014, he wrote in his 

twitter account, “President Widodo’s speech was 

excellent, simple English and his noticeable lack 

of notes”. Although his heavy Javanese accent 

could be heard clearly during his speech, the way 

of President Widodo in delivering his speech at 

the summit was actually an eye-opener. His talk 

was clear and to the point, introducing Indonesia 

as a country that is open and safe to invest. 

However, President Widodo’s Javanese accent 

and various errors that can be heard clearly in his 

English made Indonesian people gave mixed 

reactions. Some of them were proud and said that 

his speech was excellent, but many people also 

judged him because he did not speak English 

fluently.  

This controversy about the ability of 

President Widodo in English had been debated 

since he became one of candidates of president. 

Back then, some people believed if the president 

could not speak foreign language, especially 

English, he or she would be tricked, dumbed, and 

intimidated easily. They were also afraid if it 

would make our country easily harmed and 

embarrassed too. Therefore, during the campaign 

before he became a president, those people tried 

to stop him by highlighting his English 

proficiency.  

It is true that foreign language skill is 

required for leaders to strengthen the 

international relations and to avoid duping action 

by external partners. However, foreign language 

proficiency does not determine that the leaders 

also have good communication skill since 

communication skill is also important to be 

required. A leader should have intelligence too to 

think and speak correctly as the main asset that 

must be possessed to make him or her to have 

great communication skill. Therefore, the 

analysis about his speech is required to expose his 

strategies that are reflected from the speech. 

President Widodo’s messages, expectations, and 

feelings will be revealed to gain as much as 

possible information of the subject matters. It is 

also needed to be analysed since there are some 

Indonesian people who still underestimate his 

English. By knowing the analysis, they will not 

only focus on his Javanese accent or his lack of 

English, but also will pay attention to the 

meaning of the speech. Furthermore, it also gains 

information about studying text. 

For language learners, the study of text 

becomes important because it is the way in 

understanding language. A text represents the 

idea of the writer or speaker that can be either 

written or spoken. It means that we are 

constructing a text when we speak or write. When 

we create a text, we are also communicating 

because communication happens in a text. 

Nevertheless, there are many language learners, 

especially English learners who still have 

difficulties in studying text, whereas they 

obviously must be able to create a good text in 

order to gain further understanding of language. 

Since communication happens in a text, creating 

a good text is the important part in 

communication. 

In communicating or interacting with 

others, people need to establish relationship 

between them; between they who speak or write 

and they who listen or read. Here, people are 

exchanging their idea or attitude about 

something. Moreover, they are also exchanging 

meaning.  People interact in order to make 

meaning and to make sense of each other. 

Meaning here is created through what speaker or 

writer says and does to listener or reader.  

Exchanging meaning can be done 

successfully by acquiring grammar. Grammar is 

very important for English learners when they 

want to build a communication in English in 

order to exchange meaning. By having a good 

understanding of grammar, they will be able to 

combine words into a good sentence. When they 

can make sentences correctly, they also succeed 

to create a meaning. 

This study deals with analysing text with 

its functions to construct a meaning. Every text as 



 

Putri Apriliani / Journal of English Language Teaching 5 (1) (2016) 

3 

a tool of communication contains three meanings 

–   ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning. 

Ideational meaning is meaning to represent 

experience to each other. Interpersonal meaning 

deals with the meaning to enact relationship. 

Meanwhile, textual meaning is used to organize 

text (Eggins, 1994).  

This study only focuses on interpersonal 

meaning because I am interested in knowing 

President’s attitude, feeling and judgment 

through his speech that can also reveal his 

interpersonal strategies in his speech in APEC 

forum. I will analyse how the clauses in the 

speech are structured to realize the interpersonal 

meaning. By analysing the interpersonal meaning 

of the speech we can find how the speech is 

structured to establish social relationship between 

speaker and audience. It is also important for the 

language students to study about interpersonal 

meaning so that they can express their attitudes 

and feelings to be able to communicate 

successfully. 

Hopefully the result of this study can be 

used in English learning process especially deals 

with discourse analysis. It is also expected to give 

benefit for English Department students who will 

be future teachers on studying functional 

grammar in foreign language context particularly 

dealing with analysing interpersonal meaning in 

speech or any kinds of text. Hopefully, it will help 

them to choose the representative and good 

conversational texts for the students to practice in 

accordance with the appropriate situation given. 

Thus, their future students will have good model 

of text to be performed in the real life. 

Analysing meaning in a text, in this case is 

a speech, can be conducted by applying 

functional grammar approach. Functional 

grammar is a way of looking at language based 

on its function. The main concern of functional 

grammar is not only in word by word but also on 

the meanings of the whole text which is realized 

whether by the speaker, writer, listener or reader. 

It means that the functional grammar views 

language as a resource for making meaning, not 

only words and sentences.  Therefore, it enables 

us to analyse and explain how meanings are 

realized in everyday linguistic interactions.  

Interpersonal meanings focus on the 

interactivity of the language and concern on the 

ways in which we act upon one another through 

language. The interpersonal meanings are 

realized in the lexico-grammar through selections 

from the system of MOOD and Modality. In this 

study, I would like to analyse the propositional 

structure of President Widodo’s speech by 

looking deeply on the MOOD system of the 

clauses in the speech. In doing so, the speech is 

divided into clauses (clause-complexes), in which 

each is analysed interpersonally. The system of 

MOOD consists of two components. The first is 

what we call MOOD component of the clause 

which is indicated by the structure of the Subject 

(is noun or noun phrase) and Finite element (is a 

verb or part of verb phrase that it is affected by its 

surroundings). The other component is called 

Residue. After analysing the clauses, then they 

are classified into different kinds of typical mood 

structure whether it is imperative, declarative or 

interrogative. 

Modality refers to one of the most 

important systems in social communication. 

When we interact, we may communicate degrees 

of possibility, probability or certainty. For 

instance, in conveying utterance, there are times 

when it is not a yes or a total no.  Thus, modality 

fulfills the role of the intermediary that can show 

range of different way in which speakers can 

temper or qualify their messages. Halliday (in 

Martin and Rose, 2003:42) describes “modality 

as a resource which sets up a semantic space 

between yes and no – a cline running between 

positive and negative poles”.  

Modality is a complex area of English 

grammar which has to do with the different ways 

in which a language user’s can intrude on his 

message, expressing attitudes and judgments of 

various kinds. It indicates the speaker’s judgment 

of the probabilities or the obligations involved in 

what he is saying.  Eggins, (1994:180) states 

“Modality can be classified according to the 

degree of certainty or usuality they expreess: i.e 

high (must, certainty, always), median (may, 

probably, usually) or low (might, possibly, 

sometimes)”. There are two general kinds of 

Modality, one for negotiating services, and the 



 

Putri Apriliani / Journal of English Language Teaching 5 (1) (2016) 

4 

other for negotiating information. Two part 

dimensions of modality are Modalization and 

Modulation. 

Moreover, in order to gain further 

understanding about President Widodo’s 

interpersonal strategies in the APEC CEO 

Summit, I would like to analyse appraisal system. 

Since interpersonal meaning discusses meanings 

which express speaker’s attitudes and judgments, 

it also relates to the speaker’s stance in judging or 

evaluating someone or something. The indication 

of the speaker’s evaluation upon something or 

someone more familiarly recognized as the 

system of appraisal (system of evaluation).  

Martin (2000) has developed this particular 

system into a clear framework to analyse 

someone’s attitude and judgment in the domain 

of interpersonal meanings. It is the further 

development theory of interpersonal meanings. 

“We use the resources of Appraisal for 

negotiating our social relationships, by telling our 

listeners or readers how we feel about things and 

people (in word, what our attitudes are). ... 

Attitudes have to do with evaluating things, 

people’s character and their feeling”, (Martin and 

Rose 2003:19). There are three main categories of 

attitudes: affect which is about expressing feeling, 

judgment about people’s characters, and 

appreciation about the value of things. 

Based on the aspects above, Grammar - 

Subject, Finite, Modality and Appraisal System, 

and diction can be used to analyse the 

interpersonal meaning of Presidents Widodo’s 

speech. By analysing the interpersonal meaning 

of the speech using the above approach, the social 

relationship can be maintained, the judgment of 

the speakers throughout a speech can be found 

out and also the interpersonal strategies of 

President Widodo can be revealed clearer. 

 

METHODS OF INVESTIGATION 

In conducting this investigation, the writer 

used a descriptive qualitative research since the 

purpose of this study is to find out how the 

interpersonal meaning works in a public speech. 

The qualitative research requires the investigation 

of the data which is in the form of words or 

picture and it presents the data and research in the 

form of description. The researcher presents the 

report of the investigation descriptively 

throughout the words employed. The report is 

needed to make the researcher be able to clearly 

convey the findings of the research. 

The writer attempts to use qualitative 

approach to analyse the data and the quantitative 

approach is also used to produce quantitative 

data to strengthen the qualitative analysis. By 

using this method, the researcher is expected to 

be able to find out, to identify and to explain the 

topic of the study. 

Discourse analysis will able to reveal the 

hidden motivations behind a text or behind the 

choice of a particular method of research to 

interpret that text. Hence, it is important to bring 

the concept of discourse analysis as one of 

qualitative data collection methods to analyse the 

object in this study in the next chapter. We reach 

this understanding by analysing the process 

through qualitative approach to understand how 

discourse is structured and how it can be 

analysed. 

In this study, the writer chooses Joko 

Widodo's speech in the 2014 APEC CEO 

Summit as the object of the study to be analysed. 

The speech was delivered at China National 

Convention Center in Beijing on November 10, 

2014. It was broadcasted via cable televisions and 

internet which could be watched by all people 

around the world. 

In this research, the role of the researcher 

is a data collector that gathers the necessary data 

as the object of the study. Additionally, the 

researcher is also an analyst and interpreter that 

analyses and interprets the interpersonal 

meanings of the clause within the speech that are 

realized with the system of MOOD, modality and 

also appraisal system to answer the research 

problem. Finally, the researcher works as a writer 

for conveying the research findings and arranging 

the conclusion and then completing the report in 

accordance with the findings. 

The data of the study is the script of 

President Widodo‘s speech in the 2014 APEC 

CEO Summit that were downloaded from the 

official account of Asia Pacific Economic 

Cooperation (APEC) on youtube site. The 



 

Putri Apriliani / Journal of English Language Teaching 5 (1) (2016) 

5 

duration of speech delivery approximately was 13 

minutes. Meanwhile, the speech transcription 

was obtained from Republic of Indonesia Cabinet 

Secretariat official website. 

The interpersonal meaning refers to the 

tenor of discourse which is then identifiable 

through four units of analysis; those are: 

(a) Elements of Context of Situation 

(b) MOOD system 

(c) Modality, and  

(d) Appraisal system 

Before the process of analysis of the 

speech, the writer divides the speech into smaller 

parts, which are into clauses. The clauses will be 

analyzed to find its interpersonal meaning. The 

process of analysis then will be classifying Mood 

elements (Subject and Finite), Modality and 

Appraisal into each category in the table, and 

counting the frequency of each sub-element. In 

order to make it easy to understand, each element 

has its own table of the data. On this stage, the 

writer uses quantitative approach as a supporting 

data of the qualitative analysis. When those steps 

are completed, the next step is interpreting and 

elaborating the result of the data. 

 

RESULT OF THE STUDY 

Analysis of Context of Situation 

Context of situation is a useful term to 

cover the things going on in the world outside the 

text which makes the text what it is. The analysis 

of the context of situation influences the language 

used by President Widodo.  There are three 

variables within any context of situation which 

largely determine the language choices that are 

made in the construction of any language text. 

These variables function together and are 

responsible for the configuration of language 

features found in any text. According to Gerot 

and Wignell (1994:11), context of situation can be 

specified through use of register variables; Field, 

Tenor, and Mode. After reading President 

Widodo's speech transcription, then we can find 

out the Context of Situation Analysis. 

 

Field 

Field answers the question “what is the 

topic of the text?” Field can be divided into three 

areas; Experiential Domain or what the text is 

about, Goal Orientation or what the text is for, and 

Social Activity or what the text is doing. 

Obviously, in terms of Experiential Domain, this 

text is about the speech which delivered by 

President Widodo. President Widodo had the 

opportunity to represent his country, Indonesia, 

to deliver his speech in the 2014 APEC CEO 

SUMMIT in Beijing on November 10, 2014, at 

China National Convention Center. After 

reading the whole speech transcription, and 

examining the lexical choice, the writer found 

mostly the lexical words that President Widodo 

used were intended to persuade the audience or 

investors to invest their money in Indonesia. 

Then in terms of Goal Orientation, the text was 

used to persuade the audience or investors to 

invest their money in Indonesia. Meanwhile, in 

terms of Social Activity, in APEC Summit forum 

which is attended by Pacific-Rim members that 

seek to promote free trade and economic 

cooperation throughout the Asia-Pacific region, 

the speech that is delivered by the leader or 

representative of a country could be a magnet for 

investors seeking places and opportunity to invest 

their money. Therefore, from the Field point of 

view it can be concluded that this text is about 

President Widodo's ideas and messages to gain 

many investors to invest their money in Indonesia 

in order to reach the economic goal of Indonesia 

in the future.  

 

Tenor 

Tenor answers the question “who are 

involved?” What kind of person the speaker is, 

what kind of people the expected audience are 

and what the relationship between them is. When 

analysing a tenor of a text, it deals with the status 

of the speaker to each other. The subject of this 

Study is President Widodo who was one of 

speakers in the 2014 APEC CEO SUMMIT. The 

agentive role that occurred in terms of Tenor for 

this text is a President as the speaker – World 

leaders and CEOs who attended the Summit as 

the listeners. The status relations/power of the 

participants may have is unequal status. 

However, there is no superior–subordinate 

relation among the speaker and the audience. 



 

Putri Apriliani / Journal of English Language Teaching 5 (1) (2016) 

6 

This is proved by the choice of words that 

President Widodo used mostly by formal 

statement.  

In terms of Social Distance or the amount or 

nature of contact the participants may have, the 

writer concludes that since physically President 

Widodo rarely meets the audience directly, 

through his speech he build a formal relationship 

(maximal range) with the audience. It can be seen 

from the way he greets the audience, he tried to 

as formal as possible since the relationship 

between President Widodo and the audience was 

temporary relationship. 

 

Mode 

Mode answers how the language is being 

used, written or spoken and formal or informal. 

In terms of Language Role or how important is the 

language in this context, it is constitutive (the 

central element in the context). The medium of 

the text is written, yet President Widodo channels 

the text by speaking orally. In other words, 

President Widodo used spoken mode when he 

delivered his speech in the 2014 APEC CEO 

Summit. It is context dependent and has dynamic 

structure which means that it is part of an 

interaction in which both participants are usually 

present, face-to-face, and the speaker has a 

particular addressee or addressees in mind. 

However, since this speech is classified as a 

monologue, the turn taking or feedback is not 

needed. 

 

GRAMMAR ANALYSIS 

Subject Analysis 

Table below shows the use of Subject 

choices, which are produced by President 

Widodo in the 2014 APEC CEO Summit; 

Subject I You We They It That Who This Others 

Total 15 5 40 2 4 4 1 7 20 

(%) 15,3% 5,1% 40,8% 2,04% 4,09% 4,09% 1,02% 7,1% 20,4% 

 

The most frequent subject choice that was 

used in the speech is ‘We’. Subject ‘We’ gets the 

highest percentage for about 40,8%. Subject ‘We’ 

here shows that President Widodo was not 

delivering the speech as himself. He was 

delivering the speech in the name of Indonesia 

and the people of Indonesia. Thus, he used 

subject ‘We’ instead of ‘I’. ‘We’ here refers to 

President Widodo and also the whole people of 

Indonesia. It means that there is a unity between 

the government of Indonesia and all of the 

citizens in giving responsible to the country. It 

also symbolizes the unity of the people that are 

led by a leader. By mentioning 40 times of using 

‘We’ in his speech, President Widodo implicitly 

tries to invite the responsibility of his people to 

support the country and fight together to reach 

their economic goals. He also tried to show that 

he spoke at the Summit was not for his own 

business but for his country and his people. By 

using subject ‘We’,  President Widodo implicitly 

involved his people and tried to convince the 

audience that his country needs a lot of economic 

capital to achieve the economic goals in order to 

achieve prosperity for the people of Indonesia. 

Besides that, it is also a symbol of possession 

which defines that Indonesia belongs to all 

citizens of Indonesia, not only an individual. 

Therefore, all the goals to be achieved are for the 

sake of nation and state of Indonesia. 

The use of the subject of ‘We’ is also a 

symbol of politeness. President Widodo spoke in 

a formal forum as a representative of a country, 

so it is appropriate for him to use subject ‘We’ 

instead of ‘I’. Subject ‘We’ here represents all of 

Indonesian people, not only President Widodo as 

an individual. It shows that President Widodo 

tried to convey implicitly that the responsibility of 

a president is to represent the country in the name 

of their citizens in national or international level.  

In addition, subject ‘We’ also indicates an 

ownership of the people who participated in the 

2014 APEC CEO Summit. The people who 

attended the event were discussing topics of 

common problems in economic and have several 

goals in terms of economic issues to be achieved 

in the future. Therefore, subject ‘We’ here 

belongs to them who attended the Summit. 

 



 

Putri Apriliani / Journal of English Language Teaching 5 (1) (2016) 

7 

Finite Analysis 

The next MOOD element is Finite. The result of Finite Analysis can be seen as follows; 

FINITE 
Simple 

Present 

Present 

Continuous 

Present 

Perfect 

Present Perfect 

Cont. 

Simple 

Past 
Modal 

Total 71 2 2 1 12 10 

% 72,4% 2,04% 2,04% 1,02% 12,2% 10,2% 

 

To be easily understood, the writer 

summarizes the findings of Finite Verbal 

Operators into primary tense. According to Gerot 

and Wignell (1994:27), primary tense means past, 

present or future at the moment of speaking. It 

indicates the different times at which action takes 

place. By analysing the tense of the text, we will 

gain the information about when the speech event 

is running. Then, the Finite Modal Operators are 

classified into different type. From the primary 

tense, we can summarize the result of finite 

analysis into; 

Present Past Modal 

76 12 10 

77,5% 12,2% 10,2% 

 

From Present Tense point of view, 

President Widodo tends to convey his economic 

goal of Indonesia through the verbs.  Moreover, 

by using present tense, it also expresses President 

Widodo's hopes and expectations to make a 

better life for Indonesian people by developing 

the economic condition of Indonesia. The finding 

also indicates that President Widodo gave the 

general truth at the moment of the speaking. 

What President Widodo shared was the real 

condition at the time of speaking. 

 

Modality Analysis 

From the previous data analysis of Finite, 

the frequency of Modality used in the speech for 

about 10,2%.  

MODALITY High Medium Low Total Percentage (%) 

Modalization 

   Probability 

 

0 

 

6 

 

4 

 

10 

 

90,9 % 

   Usuality 1 0 0 1 9,1 % 

Modulation             

   Obligation 

 

0 

 

0 

 

0 

 

0 

 

0 

   Inclination 0 0 0 0 0 

   Ability 0 0 0 0 0 

 

From the recapitulation above, it can be 

concluded that President Widodo also used 

modality that reflected his certainty of probability 

towards the topic of the speech. Some of the 

Modalization in the speech indicates President 

Widodo‘s attitude towards what he was saying. 

President Widodo uses modalization to talk 

about the probability of the subject matter. The 

degree of certainty of what he said indicates 

President Widodo‘s attitude which describe 

probabilities what he may do for a better future. 

Then, Modulation was not revealed in the 

speech. From the counting, there are 6 of 11 

modalization elements used by President 

Widodo which showed the medium intention 

which implied his scale of sureness of what will 

happen and what he does for Indonesia in the 

future. 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Putri Apriliani / Journal of English Language Teaching 5 (1) (2016) 

8 

Mood Types 

Speech 

Function 

Mood Element Quantity 

Declarative 

Interrogative 

Imperative 

Statement 

Question 

Command 

Subject + Finite 

Finite + Subject 

Wh/Subject + Finite 

Subject + Finite, Subject only, Finite 

only, or no Mood element at all 

132 

- 

- 

1 

Total Clauses 133 

 

Mood Types Analysis 

These tables below are the result of analysis of mood type from the script; 

Mood Types Speech 

Function 

Mood Element Quantit

y 

Percenta

ge 

Declarative Statement Subject + Finite 95 96,9% 

Interrogative Question 

 

Finite + Subject 1 1,02% 

Imperative Command Subject + Finite, Subject only, Finite only, 

or no Mood element at all 

2 2,04% 

Total   

 

From the data above, it showed that the 

majority of the Mood type of the speech is 

declarative for about 95,9%. There are 95 

declarative clauses found in the speech. By using 

declarative clause, a speaker may give some 

information and statement about something. 

Gerot and Wignell say that (1994:22) “If a 

speaker gives you some information, as we are 

trying to do now, he or she is inherently inviting 

you to receive that information.” Thus, President 

Widodo was inviting the listeners to receive his 

point of view through the speech about kinds of 

issues. In those examples, we could find some 

information given by President Widodo about the 

recent situation of Indonesia, the infrastructure 

development that President Widodo will do in 

the future, and also invitation to the audience as 

the future investors to invest their money in 

Indonesia. 

 

Appraisal Analysis 

In this study, a system called ‘appraisal 

system’ is used to determine the speaker stances 

towards the issue. Since interpersonal meaning 

discusses meanings which express speaker’s 

attitudes and judgments, it also relates to the 

speaker’s stance in judging or evaluating 

someone or something. Referring to the findings 

as an appraisal analysis, we can take a look at the 

result of the data as follows; 

Appraisal Affect Judgment Appreciation 

Frequency 5 3 11 

Percentage 26,31% 15,78% 57,89% 

 

The most frequent appraisal used is 

Appreciation. In the appreciation we come with 

aesthetics; assessment of the form, appearance, 

composition, impact, significance, etc. of human 

artefacts of natural objects as well as human 

individual. Based on the appraisal analysis, it can 

be concluded that President Widodo showed his 

positive appreciation, positive stance, and 

positive feeling toward the opportunity for him to 

speak in economic forum and also toward several 

things about Indonesia. It shows that President 

Widodo's speech mostly shares about the quality 

and potential of Indonesia. President Widodo 

also recounted about how he wants to develop 

efficient strategies and plans in order to make his 

people live prosperously. It can be concluded that 

the speech is simply a profound praise for 

Indonesian quality and potential. The writer also 

concludes that the speaker’s stance or attitude 

towards the goals he wants to achieve is strongly 

positive. 

 

CONCLUSIONS 

Finally, from the analysis of findings and 

discussions above, the result found that the kind 

of speech acts used, grammar, and vocabulary 

define the strategies that President Widodo used 

in conveying his speech. It could be summarized; 

from context of situation shows that the speech is 

kind of persuasive speech, because through his 

speech President Widodo tried to persuade as 

many investors as possible to invest their money 

in Indonesia. From grammar analysis, it can be 



 

Putri Apriliani / Journal of English Language Teaching 5 (1) (2016) 

9 

found that President Widodo was delivering 

speech in the name of Indonesia. In delivering his 

speech, President Widodo also strongly believed 

that he would be able to reach his goals. It shows 

that President Widodo was confident to give 

information to his audiences about the topic. 

President Widodo also uses modalization to talk 

about the probability of the subject matter. In 

terms of appraisal analysis shows that President 

Widodo’s stance or attitude towards the goals he 

wants to achieve is strongly positive. 

As the result, the meaning that President 

Widodo wanted to deliver was conveyed 

successfully. It was proved by many attentions 

that he got after finishing his speech. Many world 

leaders gave positive response and praised his 

speech that was different from others. 

Based on the findings, it is worth 

presenting the pedagogical implications that can 

be considered as the contribution of the study of 

English education in a foreign language context. 

For language learners, studying interpersonal 

meaning of a speech means that we are trying to 

understand about the speaker’s intention in 

perceiving something by looking deeply on the 

MOOD and Modality system of the clauses. The 

system of MOOD and Modality are the keys in 

understanding the interpersonal relationship 

between interactants. In addition, by knowing the 

appraisal system, it will be easy for them to 

express their judgments or attitudes toward 

something. 

The study of analysing President Widodo's 

speech can also be used as an example of how to 

make a good text or speech by focusing on what 

communicative purpose they want to achieve, 

how their speech should be structured and what 

linguistic features they need to employ. These 

three features characterize a genre that is needed 

to be studied by language learners in learning 

English in a foreign language context. If language 

learners understand the concept of these aspects, 

it will be easier for them to create good texts and 

also build meaningful communication in real life. 

  

 

 

 

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