Sentence forms as Discursive Tactics in John Mccain’s Political Speeches

ABSTRACT

It is undoubtedly valid to say that political speech is not only a series of purposeless voice. It must be purposeful. Therefore, it should be tactical. Tactic, which is usually defined as a trick that people use to optimize their purpose, becomes the main role to achieve success. In such political speech, tactic is employed in the form of discourse through the use of appropriate words to sentence, which is then I call discursive tactic. Two related sentence constructions that often appear to run the tactic are active and passive voice.

In relation to the importance of tactic within political speech, it is interesting
to observe and analyze how those active and passive voice are employed by a political public figure as his or her discursive tactic to intensify his or her purposes. Since I choose to investigate one of presidential candidate’s political speeches of USA; John Sidney McCain III, the specific problems goes as: What types of discursive tactic on active and passive voice that are used by John McCain in his political speeches? How does he use them to intensify his purposes?

To answer the problem, I adopt critical discourse analysis introduced by
Teun A. van Dijk which concerns to discourse structure: micro structure, macro structure, supper structure. I, then, focus on micro structure. Also, I apply a various theoretical perspectives on the use of sentence forms involving active voice and passive voice. Methodologically, I apply descripitive qualitative study as research design. The data are gathered by reading process, and analyzed by appliying a qualitative approach and using the technique of intensive reading.

Eight major types of discursive tactic on active and passive voice are showed in the findings section. Based on the way they are used, I developed label for each types: (1) respective active which refers to the use of active voice as discursive tactic by making a good impression in front of the audience as recognizing and appreciating them, (2) demonstrative active which refers to the use of active voice as discursive tactic by convincing others that he has capability to do or be something such as promoting or showing himself, (3) agentless active which refers to the use of active voice as discursive tactic by making others understand the causal relationship of the events, (4) provocative active which refers to the use of active voice by rising their conciousness to argue for or react against something, (5) respective passive which refers to the use of passive voice by respecting the object or the receiver of the action, (6) personal passive which refers to the use of passive voice by maintaining the topic of the discourse, (7) agentless passive which refers to the use of passive voice by emphasizing what happens to something rather than who or what does something, and (8) provocative passive which refers to the use of passive voice by influencing others to argue for or react against what has stated.

John McCain uses all of those discursive tactics to enhance his reputation as a political public figure and especially to reach his main goal that is to be the next President of USA. As the first step, he has succeeded. It was proven by his elect to be the Republican presidential candidate which is then continued to compete with the others candidate from his opponent, the Democrats.

This study can be further continued by pertaining to the empirical aspects of analysis, as like: use different topics of text as the data, conduct such contrastive or comparative study, or investigate another aspects of language.