THE REALIZATION OF POWER THROUGH APPRAISAL SYSTEM OF BARACK OBAMA’S VICTORY SPEECHES

This thesis, entitled “The Realization of Power through Appraisal System of Engagement of Barack Obama’s Victory Speeches”, has two objectives: finding the realization of appraisal device of Engagement and investigating the realization of power in Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 victory speech. The analysis is based on the theory of appraisal by Martin and White (2005) and power by Fairclough (1989). In this study, the researcher used descriptive method since the researcher tries to describe the realization of Engagement and power in every major clause of the written transcription of the video of Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 victory speech that were taken on September 12 and 26, 2014. There are a total of 193 sentences that were analyzed in 2008 and 2012 victory speech with 269 Engagement consisting of 24 monoglossic (17.91%) and 30 ones (22.22%) respectively, and heteroglossic at the number of 110 (82.09%) and 105 (77.78%) respectively. The distribution of heteroglossic in 2008 and 2012 victory speech consists of 57 Entertain (51.82%) and 53 Entertain (50.48%) respectively, 15 Denial (13.64%) and 29 Denial (27.62%) respectively, 21 Counter (19.10%) and 22 Counter (20.95%) respectively, 16 Pronounce (14.54%) and 1 Pronounce (0.95%) respectively, and only 1 Acknowledge (0.91%) in 2008 victory speech. In terms of gradability, there are 7 low-graded heteroglossic, 51 medium-graded heteroglossic and 52 high-graded one in 2008 victory speech; and, there are 9 low-graded heteroglossic, 39 medium-graded heteroglossic and 57 high-graded one in 2012 one. Entertain comes as the most dominant Engagement used by Obama and more than 50% of the Engagement in both speeches graded as high to show that Obama is a powerful person