INTERPERSONAL MEANING OF BARACKOBAMA’S SPEECH AT UNIVERSITY OF INDONESIA: THE STUDY OF BARACK OBAMA’S ATTITUDESAND JUDGMENTS TOWARDS INDONESIA

Wulandari, Noor Aini Dhiah. 2011. Interpersonal Meaning of Barack Obama’s Speech at University of Indonesia : The Study of Barack Obama’s Attitudes and Judgments towards Indonesia. A Final Project, English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Semarang State University. Advisor I Dr. Djoko Sutopo, M.Si. and Advisor II Widhiyanto, S.Pd, M.Pd. Keywords: Discourse Analysis, Systemic Functional Linguistics, Barack Obama’s Speech, Interpersonal Meaning, Appraisal System This study deals with analyzing language used for communication. It analyzes a speech by Barack Obama at University of Indonesia some months ago from the perspective of SFL especially dealing with the Tenor of the discourse of the speech. In other words, this study is about interpersonal meaning of the speech which can be used to dig up speaker’s attitudes and judgments towards what s/he is saying in the speech. In conducting this study, I had two objectives to achieve. First, this study tried to understand the interpersonal meaning of Barack Obama’s speech by looking deeply on the Mood system of the clauses of the speech which means analyzing the two constituents of Mood which are Subjects and Finites of the clauses in the speech. Second, it also tried to uncover Barack Obama’s attitudes and judgments towards Indonesia by applying the Appraisal theory proposed by Martin. Appraisal offers an ideal analytical framework to systematically identify interpersonal meanings in language. The result of analysis showed that the most subject found in the speech was I – Obama which meant that Obama himself was responsible to what he was saying in the speech. The Finites in the speech were mostly stated in Simple Present Tense which was meant that in delivering his speech, Obama gave the general truth at the moment of the speaking. Since most of the clauses were declarative clauses, Obama was considered to share information to the audience. That shared information was further analyzed with the Appraisal theory which led to the conclusion that Obama gave positive attitudes and judgments towards Indonesia. However, Obama still gave his critics towards some unstable phenomena appeared in Indonesia. Based on this study, finally I come to an understanding that it’s important to understand any kinds of speech well. One among ways to do it is by analyzing that speech through its interpersonal meaning and its appraisal system. Hopefully, this study can be useful for readers, especially English Department students in order to be able to understand the meaning behind a text well. It’s also better for us – Indonesians to introspect ourselves in order to be better.