An Analysis of Speech Act Found in Bernie Sander’s Speech: A Pragmatics Case

Speech Act is the utterance that used by speaker in his communication that used to convey meaning from speaker to the listener that essential in communication. Speech act consist of three types, those are Locutionary Act, Illocutionary act and Perlocutionary Act. The researchers choose Bernie Sander’s speech because it deems as worthy to be analyzed to find its speech act. (1) What kinds of illocutionary acts does Bernie Sander use in his speech, ask the researchers, as a result of the research problems? 2. What are the most prevalent illocutionary acts used by Bernie Sander during his speech? 2. This study was done using qualitative research and the method of document or content analysis. The researchers used script speech by Bernie Sander’s speech in his speech about staying in Presidential race to be analyzed to find its types of illocutionary act used Searle Speech Act theory, there are Assertive, Directives, Expressive, Commisive, and Declarative. The researchers found twenty-one (21) data from Bernie Sander’s speech that show the existence of types of illocutionary act. There are 4 types of illocutionary act which found in the speech, such as Assertives, Directives, Expressives, and Commisives, and only Declarative type not exist in the speech. And based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that assertive acts account for 72% of all illocutionary acts used in speech, followed by directives with 4% and expressive with 3%. (12 percent)