114 EEJ 11 (1) (2021) 114-122 English Education Journal http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej The Comparison of Commisive Speech Acts by Trump and Warren Presidential Candidate Viewed from Gender Differences Zulfa Nabila, Januarius Mujiyanto, Dwi Rukmini Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia Article Info ________________ Article History: Accepted 27 September 2020 Approved 28 December 2020 Published 15 March 2021 ________________ Keywords: Speech act, Commissive, Campaign speech, Gender differences ____________________ Abstract ___________________________________________________________________ Politics is not only controlled by male but also female. Commissive speech acts often happen in presidential campaign speeches. This research aims to analyze the comparison of commissive speech acts in English speeches by Trump and Warren presidential candidate viewed from gender differences. Qualitative method is applied in this research. The data are analyzed by using commissive speech acts from Searle (2005), Cutting (2002) and talk theory from Tannen (1991). The findings show that Trump used seven types of commissive: promise, guarantee, pledge, contract, offering, threaten, and refusal. The functions are giving solution, convincing, insulting, threatening, showing care, and encouraging. Warren used three types of commissive: promise, guarantee, and threaten. The functions are giving solution, convincing, threatening, and showing care. There are three similarities of commissive between them: promise, guarantee, and threaten. Promise is the most frequent type used by them. Viewed from gender differences, female and male presidential candidates applied report and raport talks. They tended to use report talks.The differences are that Trump employed more types of commissive than Warren did. Trump used seven types while Warren used three. Viewed from gender differences, Trump’s report talk is more varied than Warren’s. Meanwhile, Warren’s rapport talk is more varied than Trump. This research gives the example to students of English language on how to convince hearers or audience by utilizing commissive speech acts. Correspondence Address : Jl. Krompaan Timur, Gemuh, Kendal, Jawa Tengah 51356 E-mail : zulfabella1@gmail.com p-ISSN 2087-0108 e-ISSN 2502-4566 Zulfa Nabila, et al./ English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 114-122 115 INTRODUCTION The presidential election in the United States is a highly followed event (Arisetiyani & Yuliasry, 2017). American will elect the new president in 2020. In 2019 there are some males and female candidate compete as presidential candidate. The most affecting tool in this moment is language. Anas et al. (2020) stated through language presidential candidates convey the content of information. Through language they express their idea, thought, or intention which can be comprehended by the future voters. . Studying speech acts in particular context offers deep insights into social structure and value system of the target speech community. Speech act is action performed via utterances (Yule, 1996, p.47). Speech acts study how any utterances are produced by speakers so that they have intended meanings which should be understood by hearers not only explicitly but also implicitly (Tauchid & Rukmini, 2016, p. 2). What we utter will influence the hearer’s response. Therefore it is pivotal to be analyzed with a plenty of issues which potentially arise. There are three varieties of speech act according to Austin (1962) those are Locutionary act, Illocutionary act, and Perlocutionary act. Among those speech acts, illocutionary act is the common used and pivotal role in establishing communication. Based on Searle and Vanderveken (1985) illocutionary act category consists of five kinds. They are declarative, assertive, expressive, directive and commissive. This research focused on commissive speech act only. Commissives is illocutionary act whose point is to commit the speaker to some future course of action (Searle in Ulum, et al., 2018, p. 222). The commissive speech act is such as promising, vowing, offering, refusing, threatening, guaranteeing, etc. Commissive speech act is happen in our daily life. It often occurs in the campaign speech to commit the speaker for some future course of action. A campaign speech tries to express a feeling, establish and maintain the relationship, and sell the idea. It is used by politicians to communicate directly with the general public in order to convince them (Priyatmojo, 2012). Now days, politics is not only controlled by male but also female participated in politics. Male and female apply some strategies to achieve power and control people. Their speech styles are different. Tannen (1991, p.85) said that male and female in their ways in communication, male tend to use language to gain status, while females use the language to negotiate closeness and intimacy. This research centered on Mr. Donald Trump from Republic as Male delegate and Mrs. Elizabeth Warren from Democrat as Female delegate. I do not choose the latest campaign because I want to analyze the commissive speech act viewed from gender differences from campaign speech in the 2019 year. For this reason, I chose Mrs. Warren as female politician because American politician who is one of the most dominant women politicians in the 2020 US presidential election, Mrs. Warren was the Democratic candidate in the 2020 US presidential election, before Mr. Bidden is selected. They are in the same and equal status (as the president candidate), same event (as presidential announcement speech), and same year in 2019. Some researches conducted relating to those issues, such as Rodiah, et al. (2019) found direct and indirect refusal strategies used by president Trump in five different channels. Maharani et al. (2020) investigated the relations between male and female participants in using assertive speech acts for interactions in the Ellen DeGeneres Show. Shofwan and Mujiyanto (2018) revealed EFL learners of UNNES realize the speech acts of suggestion. Orin and Issy (2016) analyzed representative speech act performed by debaters. Novi et al. (2019) investigated the comparison between evaluative stance of Trump and Clinton Realized in the campaign speeches of US Presidential election 2016. Research on commissive such as Dashela et al. (2019) investigated commissive speech acts in the first debate of South Carolina Governor Election 2018. Nurhasanah et al. (2014) found Zulfa Nabila, et al./ English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 114-122 116 two politeness strategies using direct strategy and indirect strategy, while other data use negative politeness strategy and solidarity strategy. Syafitri (2019) investigated the use of commissive speech act used by the shopping hosts of MNC Shop. Sami (2015) covered to differentiate between the act of threat and promise. However, I revealed the differences and similarities between male and female on the way conveying their campaign speech based on commissive speech act theory proposed by Searle (2005), Cutting (2002) and talk theory proposed by Tannen (1991). In addition, this research can be a learning source for EFL learners because they may face some problems in speaking and writing when their interlanguage is finite whereas, they need to practice English as a foreign language to improve their skills. This research proposed solutions how to communicate with other properly to achieve success if the readers apply it in their social life. Beside, none of previous studies attempt to analyze the comparison of commissive speech act in English speeches by Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren presidential candidate viewed from gender differences. METHODS This research is qualitative method. It means the collected data are in form of words, sentences, or pictures. The subjects are from the video and the transcript of English speeches by Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren presidential candidates. The object of this research is commissive speech act in English speeches viewed from gender differences. The data then were analyzed by using commissive speech act instrument adapted from Searle (2005), cutting (2002) and talk theory from Tannen (1991). There are some steps in analyzing the data such as identifying, classifying, comparing, interpreting, and drawing conclusion RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS There are five aims of this research. Those are: 1) to analyze the use of commissive speech act by Donald Trump presidential candidate in the speech campaign 2019, 2) to analyze the use of commissive speech act by Elizabeth Warren presidential candidate in the speech campaign 2019, 3) to analyze the similarities in English speeches between Trump and Warren presidential candidate viewed from gender differences, 4) to analyze the differences in English speeches between Trump and Warren presidential candidate viewed from gender differences, 5) to analyze the applications of commissive speech act in Teaching English Foreign Language (TEFL). The Use of Commissive Speech Act by Donald Trump Presidential Candidate in the Speech Campaign 2019 From the data analysis, there are 172 commissive speech acts found. It is classified into seven types of commissive speech act. Those are promise, guarantee, pledge, contract, offering, threaten, and refusal. Promise is the most frequent used in Trump’s campaign speech. The total of finding are 144 promises, 22 threaten, 16 pledge, 7 offer, 7 refusal, 3 contract, and 3 guarantee. These seven types of commissive speech act produced some functions such as giving solution, convincing, insulting, threatening, showing care, and encouraging. Here are the example: 1. promise One of the most powerful promises I made to the people of this state was to confront the opioid and drug epidemic. I used to go around New Hampshire more than any state and you’d say, “Sir, the state is infested.” You said, “Sir, we’ll like a drug den.” From the excerpt above, Trump talked about the people conditions. The opioid crisis declared a public health emergency by HHS in 2017. 2.1 million in the U.S. had an opioid use disorder in 2017. Then, at the center of America’s drug crisis is the border crisis. Overdose death dropped 5.1% in US between 2017 and 2018. Based on the context of the speech, Trump promises to solve the problem of health in America which happens at this times. So that, he Zulfa Nabila, et al./ English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 114-122 117 promises by saying “One of the most powerful promises I made to the people of this state was to confront the opioid and drug epidemic”. This utterance is categorized as promise easily because there is performative verb “promise”. The function of this speech act is Trump give the solution to the audience related to the health of American. 2. pledge Republicans believe that a nation must care for its own citizens first. Our pledge to America’s workers has secured commitments to train more than 12 million Americans for the jobs of tomorrow.You know who’s working very hard on that? You probably never heard of her. Ivanka Trump. She’s working very hard. She gave up a lot. She had a very easy life, but she loves doing it. She’s got over, I think, now 12 million people. They’re teaching them the great companies of our country, they’re teaching people how to do it, and it’s an incredible thing to watch. The sentence above is a pledge uttered by Trump. Trump pledges to America’s workers to train 12 millions Americans so that they will have a better job in the future. He pledged by saying “Our pledge to America’s workers has secured commitments to train more than 12 millions Americans for the jobs of tomorrow”. This utterance is categorized as pledge because there is performative verb “pledge” in his utterance. By saying this utterance, Trump made serious promises to the audience that Trump administration will train the America’s workers. The function of pledge commissive speech act conveyed by Trump is to encourage the future voters. Trump encouraged under his administration for American workers will be better. Regarding the view from gender differences, it is analyzed by talk theory from Tannen (1991) which divided into two types, report and rapport talk. There are some features of report talk found in Trump’s commissive speech act during his campaign speech 2019. The feature that are found such as 7 times of longer talk in public context, 27 times of speech includes slang or swear words, teasing and banter, 62 times of giving advices to solve problem, the last 33 times of showing authority. So it can be conclude that total of report talk applied by Trump is 129. Here is the example: (Giving advices to solve problem) Years ago, many cities and states, I remember it so well, closed mental institutions for budgetary reasons. They let those people out onto the street. You probably have your examples up here. I can tell you in New York they closed so many of them and they let really seriously mentally ill people out on the streets, and you see plenty of them today, even today. We’re going to have to give major consideration to building new facilities for those in need. In the excerpt above, after explaining all the problems faced by American at this time, Trump gave the advice to solve the problem as the presidential candidate of US by saying “We’re going to have to give major consideration to building new facilities for those in need”. Then the features of rapport talk of Trump’s commissive speech act. From the data findings Trump only applied the feature of rapport talk establishing relationship 36 times in his commissive speech act during campaign speech 2019. Here is the example: (Establishing Relationship) And every day of my presidency, we will never forget that we are Americans and the future belongs to us. The future belongs to each and every one of you. Right? With your help, your devotion and your drive… Based on the sentence conveyed by Trump, it shows that Trump tried to convince the audience and make audience feel closer to each other because when they choose Trump as the president, he will always remember that we are American. And the future belongs to us. The future belongs to us if American unite. In this utterance Trum as the male presidential candidate showed it by saying “we will never forget that we are Americans and the future belongs to us”. He implemented the feature of rapport talk to establish his relationship with the future voters. Zulfa Nabila, et al./ English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 114-122 118 The use of commissive speech act by Elizabeth Warren presidential candidate in the speech campaign 2019 From the data analysis, there are 46 commissive speech acts found. It is classified into three types of commissive speech act. Those are promise, guarantee, and threaten. The types of commissive speech act “promise” is the most frequent used by Warren in her campaign speech 2019. The data findings are 42 promises stated by her. Then she threatened the audience during her campaign total 3 times and guaranteed once. These three types of commissive speech act produced some functions such as giving solution, convincing, threatening and showing care. The example presented below: 1. promise If you’re going to make any kind of progress in this country, you need allies who know how to fight. And more importantly, you need allies who know how to win. The Working Families Party has been on the front lines of fighting for racial and economic justice and building a grassroots movement to elect the next generation and I am honored to have their support. And tonight with all of you as witnesses, I’m going to make a promise and that is when I’m in the White House, working families will have a champion. Based on excerpt above, Warren announced to be presidential candidate to fight for racial and economic justice to be winner. She made promise to the future voters that she would have a champion in presidential election 2020 by saying “I’m going to make a promise and that is when I’m in the White House, working families will have a champion”. This utturance is including promise commissive speech act because there is a performative verb “promise”. The function of this promises uttered by Warren convincing the American citizen that she will have a champion for presidential election in 2020. 2. Guarantee You built a great fortune here in this country, worked hard, stayed up late, unlike anyone else. Yeah, you worked hard, you built a great fortune, or you inherited one. Good for you. But I guarantee that any great fortune in America was built, at least in part, using workers all of us helped pay to educate. Built at least in part getting your goods to market on roads and bridges all of us helped pay to build. Built, at least in part, protected by police and firefighters. All of us help pay their salaries. Based on the excerpt above it can be seen that Warren guarantee the great fortune in America was build using workers all of us helped pay to educate. By paying 2 cents, we can make technical school, community college and four year college tuition free for everyone who wants to get an education. The real opportunity, not just opportunity for people born into privilege, opportunity for everyone. She guaranteed it by saying “I guarantee that any great fortune in America was built, at least in part, using workers all of us helped pay to educate”. This utterance can be categorized guarantee easly because there is a performative verb guarantee. Guarantee means that Warren makes a firm promise that she will do something and what she said is true. The function of guarantee commissive speech act uttered by Warren is giving solution to the Americans. Under her administration, she will manage education better. Regarding the view from gender differences, it is analyzed by talk theory from Tannen (1991) which divided into two types, report and rapport talk. There are some features of report talk found in Warren’s commissive speech act during his campaign speech 2019. Those are 3 times of speech includes slang or swear words, teasing and banter, 33 times of Giving advices to solve problem, and only 1 showing authority. The total is 37 features of report talk. Here is the example (giving advise) No one should be surprised that public confidence in our federal courts is at an all time low, but we can fix it. We will rewrite the basic code of ethics for federal judges Based on the example above, Warren talked corruption in the federal judiciary. Public confidence in federal court is low because federal judges made decision in favor of corporations and against the interests of American consumers. It is include feature of report talk since she said “We Zulfa Nabila, et al./ English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 114-122 119 will rewrite the basic code of ethics for federal judges”. She giving advise to solve the problem that happening in the America. The features of rapport talk is found. The feature that are found such as once of thanking, 5 times of Maintaining an appearance on equality, downplaying qualification, and 3 times of establishing relationship. So, the total is 9 times. (thanking) I’m going to make a promise and that is when I’m in the White House, working families will have a champion. Thank you Maurice and thank you to the Working Families Party. From the data above it can be seen Warren apply the feature of rapport talk that is thanking. The similarities in English speeches between Trump and Warren presidential candidate viewed from gender differences From the findings of Trump’s and Warren’s commissive speech act above there are three similar types of commisive speech act viewed from gender differences. They are promise, guarantee, and threaten speech act. Promise is the most frequent types used by them. Trump used promise speech act total 114 times while Warren total 42 times. O’connel, et al (2013) said that election is season of promise. Then Sallama and Rushdy (2015, p. 491) argued that the effect of promise is to cause the hearer believe that the speaker will undertake to do promise. It makes the promise that conveyed by the candidate in campaign speech is used to influenced the way of the future voters think and make them believe in the candidate they will act in the future. There are similarities in term of gender differences of commissive speech act used by Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren during campaign speeches 2019. Both of female and male presidential candidates from every party used the feature of report and raport talk theory. Then both of them also tend to use report talk in conveying their ideas, vision and mission in the future. The similarities are located in the most frequent report talk of commissive speech act uttered by Donald Trump as male politician and Elizabeth Warren as female politician that is giving advice to solve the problem. Trump uttered 62 times and Warren with 33 times. Both of them conveyed giving solution/advice to solve the problem through promise commissive speech act. Then both of them are indicated also using speech includes slang or swear words, teasing and banter. The total data from Trump are 25 times through threaten, promise, and refusal commissive speech act while Warren only 3 times through threaten commissive speech act. Afterward, showing authorities are used by Trump and Warren through promise commissive speech act. In addition to show authority Trump employed threaten commissive speech act also. Trump showed authority total 33 times and Warren showed only once. This case similar with Cameron and Shaw (2016) in his book entitled Gender, power and political speech: Women and language in the 2015 UK General Election. He found that there are similarities in linguistics behavior among men and female. Then, Suciati (2018) also found a woman namely Khofifah Indar Parawansa tend to use masculine language in her campaign. So, Obviosly the context and the theme are affected the language style used by female and male. Therefore in campaign speech both of them tend to use report talk. Meanwhile the features of rapport talk are also used by Trump and Warren. Both of them during campaign speech 2019 want to establish relationship with their audience. there are 36 times Trump utterances and total from Warren are 3 times to establish relationship. In addition both of female and male politician do not apply the feature of rapport talk such as using quantifiers, apologing, taking blame and downplaying authority. The differences in English speeches between Trump and Warren presidential candidate viewed from gender differences The difference are located on various types of commissive used and their frequency. Trump used commissive speech act more frequent rather than Warren does. Trump used commissive speech acts total 172 utterances while Warren 46 utterances. These 172 Trump’s commissive Zulfa Nabila, et al./ English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 114-122 120 speech acts are categorized into seven types. Those are promise, guarantee, pledge, contract, offering, threaten, and refusal. Whereas from 46 commissive speech act used by Elizabeth Warren, it is categorized in to three types. Those are promise, guarantee, and threathen. So, during campaign speech 2019 Trump did not use four types of commissive speech act Those are vow, covenant, swear, and volunteering while Elizabeth Warren did not use eight types of commissive speech act during campaign speeches 2019. They are pledge, vow, covenant, swear, contract, offering, refusal, and voluntering. The findings commissive speech act in term of gender differences based on the theory of report talk proposed by Tannen (1991) showed that the report talk of Trump’s commissive speech act are more varied rather than Warren’s. Male politician talk more in public context. There are 7 data finding categorizing as the feature of report talk that is talk more in public context while Warren did not apply it. From the whole campaign speeches done by Trump, he speaks longer duration time than Elizabeth Warren done in campaign speeches 2019 which indicates that male politician talk more in public context than female politician. Other differences are from rapport talk. The rapport talk of Warren’s commissive speech act are more vary rather than Trump’s. Female politician which represented by Warren implementing thanking once and Maintaining an appearance on equality, downplaying qualification five times while Donald Trump did not do that. The applications of commissive speech act in Teaching English Foreign Language (TEFL) The applications of commissive speech act in Teaching English Foreign Language have been applying by the lecturers and the students of UNNES in Semantics subject in commissive sub- chapter. This can be proven from the RPS. In the process teaching and learning process which taught by Prof Dwi Rukmini and Prof Warsono, the students learn commissive speech act in chapter speech act. Meanwhile, based on Cahyono’s study (2000) in Ulum, et al (2018) shows that the students in Senior high school level, some of the students still have difficulties in arranging a good persuasive text. The comparison of commissive speech act in English speeches by Trump and Warren viewed from gender differences give the example to the readers and students how to convince the readers and the hearers in spoken or written communication based on different gender so we can eliminate misunderstanding between male and female communication. CONCLUSION Based on the finding and discussion, it can be concluded Trump and Warren applied various commissive speech act during their campaign speech 2019. They have different language styles in conveying commissive speech act. Trump used commissive speech acts total 172 utterances while Warren 46 utterances. The similarities from them are first, there are 3 similar types of commissive speech act such as promise, guarantee, and threaten. Second, promise is the most frequent types used by them. Thrid, viewed from gender differences female and male presidential candidates applied report and raport talk. They tended to to use report talk in conveying their ideas, vision and mission in the future. Beside the similarities there are also differences found that Trump employed more types of commissive speech act rather than Warren done. Trump used seven types of commissive while Warren only use three. In term of gender differences, it is known that the report talk of Trump commissive speech act is more vary rather than Warren’s. In addition the rapport talk of Warren’s commissive speech act are more vary rather than Trump’s. 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