The particular dialect or language that a person chooses to use on any occasion is called a code Copyright © 2021 The Author IDEAS is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 License Issued by English study program of IAIN Palopo 366 IDEAS Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, Linguistics and Literature ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) Volume 9, Number 2, December 2021 pp. 366 – 381 Macron’s Euphemism and Speech Acts in Prophet Cartoons Political Interview Used for Teaching Reading Comprehension Fitri Rahmawati Astiandani1, Slamet Setiawan*2,Ali Mustofa3 *slametsetiawan@unesa.ac.id 1 English Education and Literature, Postgraduate Program, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Surabaya, Indonesia 2, 3 English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Surabaya, Indonesia Received: 21 November 2021 Accepted: 14 December 2021 DOI: 10.24256/ideas.v912.2311 Abstract The prophet’s cartoon is an immense controversy for France and a country with a Muslim majority. As the France President, Emmanuel Macron has rarely gained critic toward the use of language when conveying his political discourse in the prophet cartoon case. Thus, this study aims to explore Macron’s euphemism expressions in his political interview with Al Jazeera on the prophet cartoon. This paper also examines the effect (perlocutionary act) of Macron’s euphemism and then uses them as a means of teaching inferential reading comprehension in secondary school. This qualitative study employed transcription and documentation techniques to obtain the data. Macron’s euphemism was taken from his political interview on October 31, 2020 with Al-Jazeera, and comments of Macron’s political interview on YouTube are also used for the sample of the perlocutionary act. Moreover, Macron’s euphemism in YouTube is associated with euphemism in Jakarta Post online newspaper to be used as a means of teaching inferential reading comprehension. This study relied on the kind of euphemism by Rawson (1981), euphemism formation by Šebková (2012), perlocutionary act by Austin (1962), and inferential reading theory by Westwood (2008). The findings found that Macron utilized many positive euphemisms with widening formation to maintain his ideology and to shape the views of the world’s Muslims. Two perlocutionary acts (expression of acceptance and rejection) were also discovered, and Macron’s euphemism could be used as a means of teaching inferential reading comprehension. Keywords: euphemism; inferential reading comprehension; prophet cartoon; http://u.lipi.go.id/1457703302 mailto:*slametsetiawan@unesa.ac.id IDEAS, Vol. 9, No. 2, December 2021 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 367 Introduction The emergence of the language is designed as a means of delivering or receiving information in a social context. Through the language, people share their notion and attitude to attain social goals such as discussing something, persuading someone, and even predisposing someone (Olimat, 2020; 2019; 2018). Therefore, having a good comprehension of the style, purpose, and usage of language in communication both in speech and in interviews is considerably noteworthy, peculiarly in hypercritical circumstances. At this time, a French satirical weekly magazine featuring cartoons, reports, polemics, and jokes, creates an international scandal over caricatures for the umpteenth time. Charlie Hebdo has recently published a caricature of the prophet Muhammad which provokes the wrath of Muslims. All political and religious leaders respond to this scandal by expressing their thoughts through speeches and interviews to clarify and find a solution. Essentially, an interview means a form of public communication that still exists today in the world. Several types of interviews are presented based on their functions, such as celebrity talk-out interviews whose primary function to entertain the audience, and political interviews or survey research interviews, which focus on gaining information. An interview also has two standard features, namely an interview pattern consisting of questions and answers and people involved in the interview named interviewer and interviewee (Šandová, 2010; Lauerbach, 2007). In political interviews, institutional settings such as TV or even a YouTube news channel can be the place for interviews. As dialogue controllers, the interviewer must be a professional journalist to reveal the hidden truths from the interviewee. In such a case, politicians utilize various linguistic devices to express their notions and viewpoints. They present their arguments conscientiously to convince their audience to have the same viewpoint as them. The noteworthiness of this research is Macron’s reaction as the France President, where Charlie Hebdo magazine published caricatures of the prophet Muhammad emanated. Macron’s response, which is broadcasted in various mass media worldwide, becomes the spotlight of world citizens. He has the authority to elucidate the controversy that has arisen. In political communication, two figurative languages that are often utilized are euphemism and dysphemism. According to Djennat (2019), Prasetyo (2017), and Mofarrej & Al-Haq (2015), euphemism is a kind of rewording to evade words that negatively connote. Also, euphemism is a similar expression to convey speech as an alternate of harsh words (Wahyuningsih & Nirmala, 2020; Dewi et al., 2019). Thus, it can simply be interpreted as word or phrase used as a replacement to a dispreferred expression (Halmari, 2011; Allan, 2001). Conversely, dysphemism denotes the words that have references more abusive, offensive, outspoken, and less polite (Felt & Riloff, Fitri Rahmawati Astiandani, Slamet Setiawan, Ali Mustofa Macron’s Euphemism and Speech Acts in Prophet Cartoons Political Interview Used for Teaching Reading Comprehension 368 2020; Iswara & Sastaparamitha, 2020). In the case of the prophet cartoon controversy, euphemism has a significant role in conveying the speech. This is in line with several studies which revealed that language is utilized to manipulate reality through euphemisms (Chovanec, 2019; Crespo-Fernández, 2014, 2018; Kiš, 2014). Fundamentally, there are two kinds of euphemism proposed by Rawson (1981), namely positive euphemism and negative euphemism. Stylistic euphemisms and exaggerating euphemisms are other names for positive euphemisms. The function of positive euphemism is to create euphemistic items that appear more remarkable and more significant than they really are. For instance, ‘sanitation engineers’ is used for garbage man. On the contrary, negative euphemism is known as traditional euphemisms or tightening euphemism functions to deflate and diminish. This euphemism is highly archaic and closely related to the taboos. Generally, taboo is the avoidance of the public from behaviour that is believed to cause anxiety (Wardhaugh, 2010). This term correlated with negative phenomena such as religion, politics, intoxication, sexual reason, warfare, wickedness, and destitution (Gao, 2013). For instance, ‘harvesting’ is used in place of killing. According to Wardhaugh (2010), euphemism has several functions, such as discussing the unpleasant things, neutralizing the unpleasantness, labeling the unpleasant jobs, and renaming things. This is in line with Rababah (2014)which claimed that euphemistic expressions are used to denote politeness for negative issues. In such a case, Šebková (2012) proposed three ways to form euphemism: (1) borrowing, which derives from other languages, such as ‘lingerie’ for women’s underwear, (2) semantic changes, which is divided into circumlocution (‘postconsumer secondary material’ means garbage), widening (‘growth’ for cancer), and metaphorical transfer (‘blossom’ means pimple), and (3) phonetic distortion, which is classified into clipping (‘vamp’ for vampires), abbreviation (‘BO’ for body odor), reduplication (‘jeepers creeper’ for Jesus Christ), and distortion of pronunciation (‘fudge’ for fuck). Concerning the relation between euphemism and pedagogical implication, inferential reading comprehension is appeared in this study. Reading is the main source to gain more knowledge in all fields of study (Al-Khasawneh, 2019). Through reading, several aspects such as international and multicultural circumstances, academic learning, and independent learning situations could trippingly gained by people (Schmitt, 2010). As a part of basic language skills, reading requires a high level of interpretation and comprehension. Reading without interpretation and comprehension cannot be called as reading since those two elements are the reading goal (Suhadi, 2016). Through reading IDEAS, Vol. 9, No. 2, December 2021 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 369 comprehension, various kinds of knowledge can be easily explored by readers. Basically, there are three different levels of reading comprehension, namely literal, inferential, and critical comprehension (Westwood, 2008). The most basic level is literal comprehension, where readers are presented with the explicit text information, and they are able to understand it. In inferential comprehension, the readers are able to draw inferences concerning the text by using information effectively. Meanwhile, in the highest level, there is critical comprehension where readers are capable of appraising what they are reading. In inferential reading comprehension, readers draw conclusions based on indirectly stated ideas in the text to include inference of main ideas, implied cause-effect relationships, and understanding pronoun and adverb referents. There are three steps to come to the main idea: find the topic, figure out the essential idea, and express them in the own words (Jufri, 2015). Furthermore, inferential comprehension also includes discovering the mood of a text and the author’s purpose in writing it, making conclusions, and interpreting figurative language (Suhadi, 2016). In this case, inferential reading comprehension can be done by reading between the lines and making inferences about things not directly stated to conclude. A number of linguists have explored the studies of euphemism in politician speech.Trisnayanti et al. (2018)investigated the euphemism in Donald Trump’s inauguration speech seen from pragmatic study, and Purba et al. (2017)examined a study on euphemism in David Cameron’s political speech in ISIS attacks. Other studies concerning research on euphemism have also been done by Abidi (2015). He investigated the euphemistic constructions in Tony Blair’s political discourse in the Iraqi war 2003. In contrast to several previous studies, this current study discloses the euphemism used by Macron in his political interview as the gap from previous studies. It is highly enticing to examine the form of euphemism and its relation to the perlocutionary acts of world citizens and also the euphemism relation to the pedagogical implication, which is diverse from previous studies. The perlocutionary act is a part of three categories of speech acts proposed by Austin (1962). The perlocutionary act is an act performed by the interlocutors whom the speaker influences, or it is simply defined as the speech effect. In such a case, it can be in persuading, reassuring, and precluding something that leads to the interlocutors’ effect. Since it is a natural phenomenon, there must be an effect that appears and influences the interlocutors’ thoughts when the speaker presents his notion. According to Wahyuningsih & Nirmala (2020), the effect can be either verbal perlocutionary acts (arguing, rejecting, and stating agrees or disagrees) or non-verbal perlocutionary acts (smiling, nodding, and laughing). Concerning to pedagogical implication, in this study, Macron’s euphemism in a political interview Fitri Rahmawati Astiandani, Slamet Setiawan, Ali Mustofa Macron’s Euphemism and Speech Acts in Prophet Cartoons Political Interview Used for Teaching Reading Comprehension 370 is connected to euphemism in Jakarta Post online newspaper to be used as a means of teaching inferential reading comprehension. Thus, this study attempts to reveal: (1) What euphemism expressions are used in Macron’s political interview?, (2) How is the perlocutionary act of euphemism in Macron’s political interview?, and (3) How is Macron’s euphemism used as a model in teaching inferential reading comprehension? Method As this study was conducted based on descriptive data, this study employed a qualitative research design. According to Miles, Huberman, & Saldana (2014), the types of qualitative data are in the form of handwritten, audio or video recordings, and documents. Through a qualitative approach, this study seeks to depict and examine the obtained data, which are in the form of words or phrases. There are three sources of the data used: (1) a visual recording of Macron’s political interview with Al-Jazeera, which is uploaded on November 2, 2020, on YouTube, (2) the comments of Macron’s political interview on YouTube, and (3) the Jakarta Post online newspaper published on October 31, 2020, 08:13 a.m. entitled France Under Attack(Hache, 2020). In the visual recording case, this study was limited to the minute4:20 to minute21:00 of Macron's political interview since that section focused on discussing the prophet cartoon. Macron’s political interview with Al-Jazeera visual recording was chosen due to the comprehensive discussion on related topics and the high number of viewers on YouTube. Besides, for the comments of Macron’s political interview on YouTube, it was taken limited as a representative of each type of perlocutionary acts. The data collection techniques were done by two types: transcription and documentation. As stated by Dornyei (2007)that transcription is a technique to provide a written report of the spoken words to comprehend the data thoroughly. This technique can be done by selecting the required data only. In this study, transcriptions are made to comprehend Macron’s euphemisms. Furthermore, documentation technique is utilized for the perlocutionary acts taken from selecting comments of Macron’s political interview on YouTube, and the Jakarta Post online newspaper which are copied to a word document. This technique assists in enhancing the analytical task currently being carried out and deepening confidence in the final conclusion (Miles et al., 2014). When the transcription of the Macron’s political interview was available, the research procedure conducted as follows: (1) selecting and listing the euphemism data both from visual recording transcriptions and a word documents of Jakarta Post online newspaper, and selecting and listing the comments of Macron’s political IDEAS, Vol. 9, No. 2, December 2021 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 371 interview on YouTube, (2) classifying the data obtained from visual recording transcriptions and a word documents of Jakarta Post online newspaper based on the type and formation of euphemisms, and classifying the comments based on the perlocutionary acts type, (3) analyzing the data by connecting the euphemism in Macron’s political interview with the perlocutionary acts gained from the YouTube comments, and (4) linking the euphemism in Macron’s political interview with the euphemism in Jakarta Post online newspaper to explore the Macron’s euphemism as a model in teaching inferential reading comprehension of the news text based on secondary school curriculum. In this process, three online dictionaries are used to reveal the words or phrases’ meaning: Online Cambridge Dictionary,Collins Online Dictionary, and Online Etymology Dictionary. Results and Discussion Macron’s Euphemism and its Perlocutionary Act At this point, the answers to the first and the second research questions are presented. Euphemism types and several euphemism formations are displayed in this part. Macron’s euphemisms that have been discovered are then associated with perlocutionary acts of world citizens. For the data display, the results of euphemisms in Macron’s political interview can be seen in Table 1. Table 1.Euphemism in Macron’s Political Interview Euphemistic Words or Phrases Type of Euphemism Formation of Euphemism P N B Cir W M Cl R D Misunderstandings ✓ ✓ Manipulation ✓ ✓ Terrible polemics ✓ ✓ Our country ✓ ✓ Secularism ✓ ✓ Fruit of the spirit of the Enlightenment ✓ ✓ Emanation ✓ ✓ Sovereign people ✓ ✓ Freedom of conscience ✓ ✓ Christian God, Jewish, Rabbis ✓ ✓ Role ✓ ✓ Official ✓ ✓ Fitri Rahmawati Astiandani, Slamet Setiawan, Ali Mustofa Macron’s Euphemism and Speech Acts in Prophet Cartoons Political Interview Used for Teaching Reading Comprehension 372 Specialist ✓ ✓ Condone ✓ ✓ Legitimizes or … resorting ✓ ✓ Sovereignty ✓ ✓ Water down ✓ ✓ Framework ✓ ✓ Distortions ✓ ✓ In favor of ✓ ✓ Stigmatization ✓ ✓ Condemn ✓ ✓ Falsehoods ✓ ✓ Grievous ✓ ✓ Anti-Semitism and racism ✓ ✓ Revisionism ✓ ✓ Crystal clear ✓ ✓ Endorsed ✓ ✓ Terrible loss of sovereignty ✓ ✓ Journalist ✓ ✓ Mouthpiece ✓ ✓ Propaganda ✓ ✓ Total 27 5 1 0 28 3 0 0 0 Note: P: positive euphemism N: negative euphemism B: borrowing Cir: circumlocution W: widening M: metaphorical transfer Cl: clipping R: reduplication D: distortion of pronunciation As can be seen in Table 1, it is shown that positive euphemisms with widening formation are the most widely used in Macron’s political interview. It is in line with Trisnayanti et al. (2018), which shows that positive euphemisms in the form of widening are mostly used in Trump’s inauguration speech with the intention of exaggerating. Even though Macron and Trump are in a different context of the IDEAS, Vol. 9, No. 2, December 2021 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 373 speech, they tend to exaggerate their message by using positive euphemisms with widening formation. This is because they desire to gain sympathy and support from the public on their conveyed notions. It is in harmony with Abidi (2015)which stated that euphemism is used to ratify one’s political actions and sustain one’s ideology. Besides, euphemisms are also widely used in political discourse to indirectly manifest ideological manipulation (Halmari, 2011; Mihas, 2005). Meanwhile, there are only five euphemistic words or phrases categorized as a negative euphemism with widening formation. The others are included in a small amount of positive euphemism with metaphorical transfer formation and positive euphemism with borrowing formation. For more in-depth analysis, the explanations of each category of euphemisms are explained as follows: Datum 1 “This immediately brings us to one of the misunderstandings that have surfaced in recent weeks.” (00:04:25) Macron frequently utilizes the positive euphemisms with widening formation as in datum 1. The word ‘misunderstandings’ arises when journalists allude to the wound and shock of Muslims when their prophet’s cartoons are published in a French satirical weekly magazine, Charlie Hebdo, many times. Macron’s response to the statement is expressed by using positive euphemisms with widening formation to neutralize the precarious situation that is cornering his country. It is in conformity with Wardhaugh (2010), which stated that one of the functions of euphemistic words is to neutralize the unpleasantness. Essentially, ‘misunderstanding’ denotes an event when a person does not understand something informally but adequately; it means disagreement, argument, or fight (Online Cambridge Dictionary, 2020). Therefore, the informal meaning is often used as a kind of euphemism. The word ‘misunderstandings’ refers to Macron’s argument that France has freedom of speech and does not mean to humiliate Muslims by making prophet cartoons. The euphemism used by Macron gains perlocutionary acts from world citizens as follows: “No, Mr. Macron. You could not clarify ‘the misunderstanding’ - at least to me ... Freedom of expression is certainly a complicated concept with very many exceptions. I still do not understand why it is possible to express hate under the protection of freedom of expression. Since my understanding is that you do not accept hate expressions, as, e.g., hate speech, I would be grateful to you if you could explain the reasoning behind allowing some hate expressions but not others - let me be precise below. I heartily thank you.” (JJB) The above perlocutionary act shows an expression of rejection toward Fitri Rahmawati Astiandani, Slamet Setiawan, Ali Mustofa Macron’s Euphemism and Speech Acts in Prophet Cartoons Political Interview Used for Teaching Reading Comprehension 374 Macron’s euphemism ‘misunderstandings.’ JJB expresses his argument by declaring that ‘misunderstandings’ in the case of freedom of expression is definitely a complex concept due to the absence of clear meaning boundaries. In such a case, JJB attempts to convey his understanding toward freedom of expression since it is diverse from what was conveyed by Macron. As stated by Wahyuningsih & Nirmala (2020) that perlocutionary acts of rejection have occurred when the speaker and listeners have an opposite view and thought. Thus, JJB asks Macron to explain more deeply about the freedom of expression meaning related to hate speech. Datum 2 “And we’ve elaborated our laws, which are the fruit of the spirit of the Enlightenment; our laws which are the emanation of the French people.” (00:05:08) The word ‘emanation’ is borrowed from Latin, emanatio, which means the act of flowing or issuing from an origin; emission; radiation; what issues, flows, or imparts from any substance or body (Online Etymology Dictionary, 2020). Macron makes use of ‘emanation’ as a positive euphemism with borrowing formation to replace the word ‘origin’ to express his notions. In compliance with Wardhaugh (2010), which stated that euphemism could also be used to rename things. In the present case, the word ‘emanation’ appears when Macron discusses the legal basis for freedom of expression in France. He emphasizes that freedom of expression has existed for a long time, and he does not have the authority to transform it even though he is a French President. In response to that, one of the perlocutionary acts toward Macron’s euphemism is as below: “What a polite way of conveying the message. All respect from Indians.” (DN) Both sentences are included in the perlocutionary act, which expresses acceptance or agreement. DN declares that the euphemism used by Macron is quite polite for delivering a message to the extent that he, as the representative of the Indians, sends all the respect to Macron. In this regard, DN agrees with Macron’s use of the word ‘emanation’ as a euphemism so that he shows his reverence. It is in harmony with Wahyuningsih & Nirmala (2020), which stated that the effects of euphemism could be in the agreement types other than in the form of rejection. Datum 3 “But as President of the Republic, it is not up to me to water down that right because some people might be shocked.”(00:10:30) Macron rarely uses the positive euphemisms with metaphorical transfer IDEAS, Vol. 9, No. 2, December 2021 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 375 formation as in datum 3. The word ‘water down’ comes up when Macron talks about his role as a France President, who must protect the French people’s rights and respect one another. Macron expresses his message by using the word ‘water down’ instead of ‘attenuate or weaken’. The positive euphemism with metaphorical transfer formation is employed with the intention to substitute inappropriate utterance. In congruence with Wardhaugh (2010), which said that as figurative language, euphemism could rename the unpleasant things. Literally, ‘water down’ means someone adds water to it to make it weaker, while figuratively, it means to make something weaker or less forceful or less likely to make people angry (Collins Online Dictionary, 2020). In this context, Macron could not change the France law on freedom of expression since French citizens might be shocked. Macron’s euphemism obtained perlocutionary acts from world citizens as follows: “Thanks to the French President for apologizing and making the misunderstandings clear. Peace be upon the world.” (AIS). The perlocutionary act delivered by AIS shows an expression of acceptance toward Macron’s euphemism ‘water down’. AIS’ response to Macron’s euphemism is conveyed with gratitude to the French President for providing clear clarifications to get over the scattered misunderstandings. He also expresses his wishes for world peace. Those expressions indicate that Macron succeeds in using the euphemistic way. It is in line with Wahyuningsih & Nirmala (2020), which argued that unpleasant meanings can be replaced with polite ways. Hence, AIS’ expressions are indicated as the agreement. Moreover, Rittenburg, Gladney, & Stephenson (2016, as cited in Ojo, Ayandele, & Egbeleye, 2020) stated that euphemism is a metaphor cleverly designed to hide the truth of reference and to avoid confrontation, offend, or as a substitute for profanity. Datum 4 “There’s been a lot of talk about that one have mainly caricatured the Christian God, the Jewish religion, Rabbis, etc.” (00:06:10) The word ‘Christian God, the Jewish, Rabbis’ are related to the religion so that they are considered as a taboo. Concerning language, taboo means particular things that cannot be said, or particular objects can be referenced only in specific circumstances (Wardhaugh, 2010). Macron uses those words as a negative euphemism with widening formation to replace in uttering taboo words. Instead of directly saying ‘Christ’ and ‘Jesus’, Macron uses ‘Christian God’. Macron also uses the term ‘Jewish religion’ instead of ‘Judaism’ and ‘Rabbis’ instead of ‘Jewish religious leader’. Those negative euphemisms appear when Macron explains the cartoon issue of political and religious leaders, which is being controverted by the Fitri Rahmawati Astiandani, Slamet Setiawan, Ali Mustofa Macron’s Euphemism and Speech Acts in Prophet Cartoons Political Interview Used for Teaching Reading Comprehension 376 public. Macron emphasizes that the cartoons problem does not only happen to Muslims but also other religions such as Christian and Jewish. In response to that, one of the perlocutionary acts toward Macron’s negative euphemism is as below: “I still cannot believe that this is really happening. Freedom of religion is the same as freedom of speech or any other freedom. Even though he does not always agree with the drawings, he still respects the artist's right to draw from his/her heart. That is why he does not censor the press. They have to make up their own ideas about what to write. He kinda reminds me of Obama.” (JL). Some of the above sentences are included in the perlocutionary act, which expressed acceptance or agreement. JL expresses admiration for Macron’s decision to respect the artist’s right to draw as well as the euphemisms used by Macron in conveying religious cases. At the end of her response, she said that he thought of Obama when she noticed Macron’s actions in dealing with the current issue. In such a case, Macron once more denotes his mastery in using euphemisms for expressing his ideas. As argued by Wahyuningsih & Nirmala (2020)that politicians often use vague meanings to hide taboo realities. Euphemism for Inferential Reading Comprehension On this point, the answers to the third research question are provided. Macron's euphemism in the interview has been adjusted in advance to the news text. As a basis for further explanation in teaching inferential reading comprehension through news texts, the similarity of Macron’s euphemism in interview and euphemism in news text is presented in Table 2. Table 2. The Similarity of Macron’s Euphemism in the Interview and Euphemism in News Text Macron’s Euphemism in Interview Euphemism in News Text Misunderstandings Misinterpretation Secularism Secularism Condone Condone Stigmatization Stigma Condemn Condemned Propaganda Propagating Based on Table 2, there are six similarities of Macron’s euphemism in the interview and euphemism used in the news text entitled France Under Attack. All euphemisms have the same root words except for ‘misunderstandings’ and ‘misinterpretation’, which are linked by synonyms. For further analysis, the IDEAS, Vol. 9, No. 2, December 2021 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 377 elucidation of euphemism word in the news text is explained as follows: Datum 5 But the controversy surrounding the satirical magazine, including the 2015 killings and the most recent attacks, appears to have unveiled the tensions in France, home to about 6 million Muslims. The majority of French Muslims do not condone Islamic extremism and have condemned the stabbings in Nice and Paty’s killing, but experts fear they are prone to stigma and labeling. The general topic presented is the satirical magazine controversy. However, the paragraph specifically addresses various attacks carried out by extremists in France. To come to the inferential reading comprehension, three details to reveal the main idea are given: (1) does not condone Islamic extremism, (2) have condemned the stabbings in Nice and Paty’skilling, and (3) prone to stigma and labeling. Those three details contain euphemistic words so that the literal meaning of these words must be known first and then consider the author’s purposes. It is in accordance with Suhadi (2016)which stated that inferential comprehension also includes interpreting figurative language, the author’s purpose in writing it, and making conclusions. The word ‘condone’ is similar to ‘forgive’ (Collins Online Dictionary, 2020). For the word ‘condemned’, it has the synonym of ‘curse’, and ‘stigma’ is the same as ‘brand’. These three details are interrelated to each other so that the conclusion can be drawn. In this case, the author’s main point is extremism occurred in France have an impact on stigmatization Muslims as a terrorist. Datum 6 Following the serial attacks, social scientists have pointed to a misinterpretation of France’s long-held faith in secularism. While on the one hand, it cannot force someone to follow a religion, on the other hand, it is not supposed to prevent people from following their religion, which is what occurs when the wearing of the niqab and burqa by Muslim women is banned. The general topic presented above is secularism in France. However, the paragraph mainly discusses the misinterpretation of what France had believed so far. There are three steps to come to the main idea: find the topic, figure out the essential idea, and express them in the own words (Jufri, 2015). After finding the topic, two important ideas are displayed to discover the main idea: misinterpretation and secularism. Basically, misinterpretation means an example of a wrong understanding while secularism is the belief that religion should not be involved with the ordinary social and political activities of a country (Online Cambridge Dictionary, 2020). These two details are relevant to one another so that the conclusion can be drawn. In the above paragraph, the author’s main point is France should adjust secularism in the present so as not to interfere with someone Fitri Rahmawati Astiandani, Slamet Setiawan, Ali Mustofa Macron’s Euphemism and Speech Acts in Prophet Cartoons Political Interview Used for Teaching Reading Comprehension 378 who adheres to the guidance of his/her religion. Scrutinized from the data, euphemism can be used as a means of teaching inferential reading comprehension in secondary school. That is because interpreting figurative language (euphemism) is one of the ways to draw a conclusion which is part of teaching inferential reading comprehension. Thus, euphemisms can be one of the figurative language choices in news items to teach inferential reading comprehension. Conclusion A political interview is enlivened with plenty of figurative language insertions with various purposes adjusted to the context, either as weapons or as shields. Macron uses a lot of figurative language in the form of euphemisms in his political interviews. More than half of the total data indicates that positive euphemisms with widening formation are the most widely used by Macron. It is because, in euphemisms, words can be a powerful shield for the speaker to face the public in the midst of controversy, such as the prophet cartoon in France today. As a result of using heaps of positive euphemisms in his political interviews, Macron predominantly obtains perlocutionary acts of acceptance or agreement. However, there are still some perlocutionary acts of rejection due to the opposing view and thought of the speaker and listeners. Euphemism can be used as a means of teaching inferential reading comprehension in secondary school since interpreting figurative language (euphemism) includes one of the ways to draw a conclusion. Thus, euphemisms can be one of the figurative language choices in news items to teach inferential reading comprehension. For future research, exploring other kinds of X-phemism (orthophemism and dysphemism) in Macron’s political discourse is highly recommended. Besides, Macron’s paralinguistic features such as gestures, intonation, and speed of speaking can also be explored. IDEAS, Vol. 9, No. 2, December 2021 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 379 References Abidi, M. (2015). Euphemism in Tony Blair’s political discourse in the Iraqi war 2003 : A socio-cognitive CDA account. International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies, 2(1), 8–28. Al-Khasawneh, F. (2019). The impact of vocabulary knowledge on the reading comprehension of Saudi EFL learners. Journal of Language and Education, 5(3), 24–34. https://doi.org/10.17323/jle.2019.8822 Allan, K. (2001). Natural language semantics. Blackwell. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839429693-021 Chovanec, J. (2019). Euphemisms and non-proximal manipulation of discourse space: The case of blue-on-blue. Lingua, 225, 50–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2019.04.001 Collins Online Dictionary. (2020). https://www.collinsdictionary.com/ Crespo-Fernández, E. (2014). Euphemism and political discourse in the British Regional Press. Brno Studies in English, 40(1), 5–26. https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2014-1-1 Crespo-Fernández, E. (2018). Euphemism as a discursive strategy in US local and state politics. Journal of Language and Politics, 17(6), 789–811. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17040.cre Dewi, W. E., Huda, K., & Supriyatno. (2019). An analysis of euphemism in online written mass media in Indonesia: Jakarta Post and Republika newspaper in political section. Edulitics Journal, 4(1), 46–53. Djennat, C. (2019). Investigating the use of euphemism in enhancing the speaking skill of EFL learners : The case of third year English students at the University of 8 Mai 1945, Guelma. University of 8 Mai 1945 Guelma. Dornyei, Z. (2007). Research methods in applied linguistics. Oxford University Press. Felt, C., & Riloff, E. (2020). Recognizing euphemisms and dysphemisms using sentiment analysis. Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Figurative Language Processing, 136–145. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2020.figlang-1.20 Gao, C. (2013). A sociolinguistic study of English taboo language. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 3(12), 2310–2314. https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.3.12.2310-2314 Hache, V. (2020, October 31). France under attack. The Jakarta Post. https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2020/10/31/france-under-attac k.html Halmari, H. (2011). Political correctness, euphemism, and language change: The Fitri Rahmawati Astiandani, Slamet Setiawan, Ali Mustofa Macron’s Euphemism and Speech Acts in Prophet Cartoons Political Interview Used for Teaching Reading Comprehension 380 case of “people first.” Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 828–840. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.09.016 Iswara, A. A., & Sastaparamitha, N. N. A. J. (2020). The form and use of dysphemism in hoax. 4th International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education, 509, 28–34. https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201215.005 Jufri. (2015). Reading strategies for comprehending literal, inferential and critical meanings in reading. Proceedings of the Third International Seminar on English Language and Teaching, 256–264. Kiš, M. (2014). Euphemisms and military terminology. Hieronymus, 1, 123–137. Lauerbach, G. (2007). Argumentation in political talk show interviews. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(8), 1388–1419. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.04.004 Muthia, D., Hidayat, D., & Alek, A. (2021). Conversational Strategies Used by Women Speakers in Same-Sex Communication: A Research on Noor Tagouri Podcast. IDEAS: Journal on English Language Teaching and Learning, Linguistics and Literature, 9(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.24256/ideas.v9i1.1735 Mihas, E. (2005). Non-literal language in political discourse. LSO Working Papers in Linguistics, 5, 124–139. Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldana, J. (2014). Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications. Mofarrej, O. M. B., & Al-Haq, F. A.-A. (2015). A sociolinguistic study of euphemistic death expressions in Jordanian Arabic. Arab World English Journal, 6(2), 110–130. Ojo, O. K., Ayandele, O., & Egbeleye, S. A. (2020). Euphemisms of corruption among students of higher institutions in South West Nigeria. Journal of Language and Education, 6(1), 72–82. https://doi.org/10.17323/jle.2020.10436 Olimat, S. N. (2018). Developing a model for translating euphemism in the Qur’an: An intratextual- and contextual-based approach. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 9(6), 101–111. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.6p.101 Olimat, S. N. (2019). Euphemism in the Qur’an : A corpus-based linguistic approach. International Journal of Computational Linguistics (IJCL), 10(2), 16–32. Olimat, S. N. (2020). Words as powerful weapons: dysphemism in Trump’s covid-19 speeches. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 26(3), 17–29. https://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2020-2603-02 Online Cambridge Dictionary. (2020). https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ Online Etymology Dictionary. (2020). https://www.etymonline.com/ Prasetyo, H. (2017). Euphemism in oral dialect speech ngeto-ngete District Suralaga. International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Culture, 3(1), https://doi.org/10.24256/ideas.v9i1.1735 IDEAS, Vol. 9, No. 2, December 2021 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 381 65–74. https://doi.org/10.21744/ijllc.v3i1.364 Purba, N. F., Meisuri, & Bahri, S. (2017). Euphemism in David Cameron’s political speech in ISIS attacks. Linguistica, 6(1), 1–18. http://library1.nida.ac.th/termpaper6/sd/2554/19755.pdf Rababah, H. (2014). The Translatability and use of X-phemism expressions (X-phemization): Euphemisms , dysphemisms and orthophemisms in the medical discourse. Studies in Literature and Language, 9(3), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3968/6042 Rawson, H. (1981). A dictionary of euphemism and other double talk. Crown Publisher, Inc. Šandová, ana K. (2010). Speaker’s involvement in political interviews. Masaryk University. Schmitt, N. (2010). An introduction to applied linguistics (2nd ed). Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. Šebková, K. (2012). Euphemisms. Masaryk University Brno. Suhadi. (2016). Exploring literal and inferential reading comprehension on eight grade students. Institut Agama Islam Negeri Syekh Nurjati Cirebon. Trisnayanti, Setiawan, S., & Yohanes, B. (2018). Euphemism in Donald Trump’s inauguration speech seen from pragmatic study. The 1st International Conference on Education Language and Literature, 1, 83–88. Wahyuningsih, W., & Nirmala, D. (2020). Perlocutionary act of euphemism in Indonesian presidential election debate 2019. Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 5(1), 113–127. https://doi.org/10.21462/ijefl.v5i1.230 Wardhaugh, R. (2010). An introduction to sociolinguistics (6th ed). Blackwell Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2003.0268 Westwood, P. (2008). What teachers need to know about reading and writing (1st ed). ACER Press.