AN ANALYSIS OF ILLOCUTIONARY ACT PATTERN IN JACK MA’S SPEECH;

WE NEVER GIVE UP

Nanda Setyawati, Riza Agustin N.C, Ravinsky M. D

Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN) Kediri

Abstract
Illocutionary act is one of the speech act types. Illocutionary act is the use of utterance
to express the real meaning of those utterances itself. The aims of this study are to discuss
about illocutionary act in Jack Ma’s speech; We Never Give Up and to determine the most
illocutionary acts pattern that used. This study used descriptive qualitative method to analyze
the data. The researcher use Searle’s theory to find out the kind of illocutionary act that used
by Jack Ma in his speech. The result of this study expected to show that there are many types
of illocutionary act occur in Jack Ma’s speech; We Never Give Up, such as assertive,
directive, commisive, expressive, and declaration. By this study also expected to make people
ease in catching the meaning of his speech, and make them inspired and motivated with the
speech.
Keywords: Pragmatic, Speech act, Illocutionary act.

INTRODUCTION
Language is a medium of communication that is used by humans in this world to
interact with other. The use of language is to establish and maintain a social relationship. It
means that human being need language in every interaction in their utterance. By using
language, they convey their ideas, express their happiness and sadness, make a joke with
others, give information, to persuade someone, command someone to do something and etc.
Language is a tool of communication that is used by people in their daily life. It is because
people cannot be separated to interact with each other. The interaction or communication
between speakers and listener can happen everywhere and anywhere such as road, market,
surrounding environment, bus, teaching learning process, speech, schools/colleges and
offices, and also used for some business such as greeting, meeting, sale-purchase, etc.
According Ba’dulu (2009:1), language is system of vocal symbols used for human
communication. Communication to establish a relationship with individuals and other groups,
and people can learn many things through these communications. Human communications
can also convey a message or information that is useful for others. There are several ways to
convey the information or message such as newspaper, television, magazine, news etc. When
people want to convey information or idea that they have, sometimes they do a speech act to
convey the idea.
How people use language to communicate and reveal their meaning is studied through
pragmatics. Based on Mey (2001) pragmatics is study the use oflanguage in human
communication as determined by the condition of society. Pragmatic is to understand the two
purpose of each speech or action communicative act of verbal communication (Leech,
1993:8). Pragmatic is concerned with meaning as communicated by speaker and interpreted
by a listener, and it has more to do with the analysis of what people mean by their utterances.
In communication indeed, not only do the speakers produce utterances and knowing a
meaning, but they also perform action through the utterances. They are doing things with
their utterances when they speak because language is used not only to explain words, but also
to perform an action which is intended to have a function and effect on the hearer. Those
actions that are performed via utterances are called speech acts (Yule, 1996: 47).
In this study, the speech act is one of the central point of pragmatics. Speech act is a
kind of verbal communication. The word speech acts are derived from two words they are
speech and act. Speech is utterance that occurs and act means action. Rihardi (2005) also
state that speech act is Action inherent when we are revealing something.Speech act is a
concern with the speaker's communicative intention in producing an utterance, and it is
defined by the purpose for which the speakers use the language, for example, to make a
request, to apologize, and to report stated Yule (1996).According to Rahardi (2005:35-36)
said that in practice the use of language there are at least three kinds of speech acts, these
three kinds of speech acts that row can be describe as follow locutionary acts, illocutionary
acts and perlocutionary acts.
Theillocutionary acts is performed via the communicative force of an utterance, such
as promising, apologizing, offering. This act is also called the act of doing something in
saying something(Yule, 1996). There are five types of illocutionary acts based on Searle &
Vandervaken’s theory, they are Assertive, Commissive, Directive, Declarative, and
Expressive from Searle & Vanderveken (2009).The importance of understanding the various
aspects of speech acts is a must, so that communication can be well established. The
existence of understanding between the speaker and the listener is a very important thing that
will indicate that the communication is running smoothly (Latifah, 2016).
 So, because of the phenomenon the researchers interest to analyze a speech by one of
the public figure in the world to make us more motivate by his speech. In this study the
researcher will analyze illocutionary acts in Jack Ma’s speech; We Never Give Up. By this
study, it is expected to determine the real meaning of Jack Ma’s speech by an analysis the
illocutionary acts and also to determine what kind of illocutionary acts that used by Jack Ma
in his speech. The researcher used the speech act theory by Searle (1969) to analyze the data
as a relevant theory. He define illocutionary speech act into five types such as Representative,
expressive, commisive, directive and declarative.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

1. Pragmatic
Pragmatics deals with the fact that users use language in context, and language is
limited to culture. Grundy (2008) suggests that the meaning and intent of a user's speech
depends on the presence of context. He also added that culture and background play a role
in communication. Because in the absence of context, the listener cannot understand what
the speaker is trying to say in his words.Grundy's emphasis clearly shows that when users
communicate, culture cannot be separated from language. Every country does not always
have the same culture. When people want to communicate in a particular language that
exists in a particular culture, it is important to recognize the rules, customs, and beliefs of
each culture to get a sound that is understandable and accepted.
Pragmatics deals with context to distinguish between pragmatics and semantics.
Grundy (2000: 13) states that it can help the reader or listener determine the meaning of
what is being said. In this case, the listener can explain the meaning of the language
conveyed by the speaker. The listener must know the object to be aimed at and the
relationship between them, and when or where to communicate.
For example:
What time is it?
Semantically, the meaning of utterance is asking about the time and pragmatically it
has got different meaning if stated by the teacher of school to his students that come late,
base that context the meaning is you are too late to attendant to this class/ it’s too early.
So the readers must know the context or when/where the utterance is stated. And if the
utterance is said in different context the meaning is also would be different. For some
people study about pragmatics is more challenging than others science of linguistics,
 because pragmatics is study about the intended meaning which force someone to interpret
the meaning of sentence/utterances base on the context which has impact in determining
the meaning itself.
2. Speech Act
Based on Baktir (2012: 202), a special method for classifying sound functions based
on sound behavior. Philosophers and linguists followed British philosopher J.L. Austin to
develop it. Austin points out that meaning research should not focus on balding statements
taken out of context, because speech is used in many functions, such as appointments,
invitations, and requests. In some cases, we use sound to perform actions.
Speech act is the smallest unit of function in human communication, because word
(rejection) is the smallest free form found in language, while morpheme is the smallest
unit of language that carries relevant meaning information, and speech act is the basic unit
of communication.
Basra and Thoyyibah (2017: 75) suggest that speech acts are making statements or
problems, issuing orders, refusing, praising, apologizing, etc. Yule (1996) admitted that by
performing speech acts, people should not just speak in this language suddenly. Instead,
they have the intention and power to speak, and speaking influences the behavior of the
listeners.
According to Peccei (1999: 43) a speech act is a speech act performed by a speaker
when he makes a sound. Actions performed through words include three actions. They are
locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. The locutionary is the basic
behavior of speech, it is the first dimension (the literal meaning of speech). Illocutionary
act is the second dimension. This means the purpose of the speech (what the speaker wants
to express). The third aspect is perlocutionary act. Perlocutionary act is a hypothesis and
listener dependency context (the effect of speech on the listener).
3. Illocutionary Act
Based on Hutajulu and Herman (2019: 30), they state that Illocutionary is a complete
speech act, which is an act of doing something that refers to a specific purpose intended by
the speaker, such as promises, announcements, orders, denials, predictions, requests,
proofs, etc. There are five types of illocutionary acts based on Searle & Vandervaken’s
theory, they are Assertive, Commissive, Directive, Declarative, and Expressive from
Searle & Vanderveken (2009).Assertive is used to say how things are. In the utterance of
assertive, the speaker presents a proposition as representing an actual state of affair in the
world utterance. The psychological state expressed in all assertive illocutions is belief.
Commissive is used to commit the speaker to do something. In the utterance with directive,
the speaker attempts to get the hearer to carry out course of action represented by the
propositional content. Directive expresses what the speaker wants. In all directives
illocutions, there is a mode of achievement that the speaker invokes his power or
authority.More details will be discussed as follows:
a. Representative
Representative is a type of speech act that shows what the speaker thinks is true
or not. This speech act makes the speaker match what he is saying. Certain statements
contained in the speech, such as statements, prosecution, acceptance, appearance,
reports, testimony, mentions and speculations. This can be a statement of fact, a
statement, a conclusion, and a description. When using representations, the speaker
speaks according to the world (faith). For example: confirmation, believe, conclusion,
report.
b. Directives
Directive is a speech act used by speakers to get other people to do something.
They express the speaker's needs. In other words, speech acts are meant to make the
interlocutor act as the speaker says. They are orders, requests and suggestions. When
using directions, the speaker tries to adapt the world to the word (through the listener).
In short, instruction is the speaker trying to do something. For example: questions,
challenges, orders, and requests.
c. Commissive
Commissive is a speech act used by speakers to perform an action at a later date.
It is a speech act that leaves the speaker helpless. They are promises, threats, rejections,
and oaths, which the speaker can make alone or as a group member. The speaker seeks
to adapt the world to his own words (through the speaker). For example: bets,
guarantees, promises, oaths, etc.
d. Expressive
Expressive is speech acts that express the speaker's feelings. They express mental
states and can express joy, pain, joy, dislike, joy or sadness. In addition, speech acts
aim to make speech as an evaluation based on what the speaker said. This may be due
to the speaker's actions or the audience's actions, but it is related to the speaker's
experience. Such as saying thank you, complaining, flattering, praising, accusing and
criticizing.
e. Declaration
 Declaration is a speech act that is intended to create something new. It is kinds of
speech act that change the world through their utterance in using a declaration, the
speaker changes the world through words. According to Leech (1983: 105),
declarations are illocutionary whose seccessful performance bring about the
correspondence between the propotional content and reality, for instance resigning,
demising, chistering, naming, excommunicating, appointing, sentencing, etc (Sartika E,
et. al, 2019).

Research Method
In this study, researchers used qualitative approaches with descriptive qualitative as a
research design. According to Moleong (2010) state that qualitative method used to study
something deeply and also analyze a motivation, value or perception of the background of
problems. He also state that Descriptive qualitative research is research that intends to
understand phenomena a research subject by describing it in the form of words or writing
(Moleong, 2010: 6). The descriptive design used to describe, explain, and analyze the
phenomenon that occurs in the data. It means that researchers were analyzing the utterance of
the speech using explanation or description.

The subject of this study was the language that used by Jack Ma in his speech about
“We Never Give Up”. The object of the study was the speech act which focused on
illocutionary speech act that used. The researcher choose Jack Ma’s speech to analyze the
kind of illocutionary speech act that usually used in the language of his speech, since he was
a billionaire that has been inspiring everyone with his story in struggling on life and business.
This speech analyzed based on the theories of illocutionary speech act proposed by Searle
(1997) that classified into five types, such as assertive, directive, commisive, expressive, and
declaration.

The technique used in this research is collecting the secondary data. The procedure of
collecting the data included finding the data, classification data and analyzing the result of the
data. The data analyzing by collecting, selecting, and classifying the suitable utterance with
the method and relevant theory especially Searle (1997) on illocutionary act. The process of
collecting the data is done through the following steps:

1. Searching the video of Jack Ma’ Speech and downloading the video.
2. The researcher watched the whole video and writing the script.
 3. Reread the script.
4. Choosing the illocutionary act on the script.
5. The researcher classified the data by grouping the utterances in relation to the type
of illocutionary acts based on the relevant theory.
6. Analyzing the data.
7. Writing the report and make a result based on the analyzed data.

Finding and Discussion

After analyzing the data, reseachers found 120 utterances from Jack Ma’s speech with
Charlie.The findings of illocutionary acts can be seen as follows:

No. Illocutionary acts Utterances Percentage (%)

Representative 52 43,3%
1.
Directive 35 29,2%
2.
Commissive 8 6,7%
3.
Expressive 16 13,3%
4.
Declaration 9 7,5%
5.
Total 120 100%

Based on the table above, it briefly shows that representative are frequently used in Jack Ma’s
speech. There are 52 utterances (43,3%) found in this speech. Representative means certain
statements contained of fact, conclusion, and description. Some example of representative found in this
speech as follows :
NAMBAHIN TIAP MACEM ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS (REP, DIR, COM, EXP, DEC) DIJELASKAN
BERAPA PRESENTASENYA DAN CONTOH TRUS KASIH ALASAN DIKIT.

KASIH KODE CONTOH SESUAI APPENDIX YA.

 REFFERENCES

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Classroom. International Journal of Eductaion. 10(1), 75-81.
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 APPENDIX
The transcript of Jack Ma’s speech
https://youtu.be/CZfp0ZUsBdM

(1) We’ve all become very cognizant of Jack and his history.
(2) I want to talk about his personal story.
(3) I want to talk about how many times he tried and failed and what kept him going.
(4) I want to talk about where he is today and how he got here.
(5) it’s been a long break, for seven years.
(6) it was such a horrible scene and I asked them.
(7) there’s a machine gun, there’s a people checking us.
(8) because we can never win the world by talking, so go back spend seven years.
(9) let’s start with where are you today?
(10) we created 14 million jobs for China directly and indirectly.
(11) we grew from 18 people to 30.000 people.
(12) we grew from nothing to this size.
(13) I want people to see and know about Alibaba.
(14) I hope 15 years later, people forget about e-commerce because we think it’s like
electricity.
(15) nobody thinks it is a high technology today.
(16) you tried to get into three colleges, each time they rejected.
(17) and you never believe in Hangzou, my city. There’s only one middle school that lasts
only one year.
(18) I think we have to get used to it.
(19) 24 people went for the job, 23 people were accepted.
(20) I suddenly fell in love with the language English.
(21) what’s your relationship? I mean, if they didn’t here’s what some say that you have
existed in an government.
(22) I’ve been working at a part time job for 14 months.
(23) and if you convince somebody and you have the chance, so today I’m very talkative.
(24) probably this is why I talk to so many people.
(25) what are you doing in Hollywood?
(26) I love Forrest Gump.
(27) simple. never give up.
(28) I worry about today, young people.
(29) I want to make movie for business-wise, we are an e-commerce company, we have a lot
of products that need logistics, but movie, TV these are things you don’t need a logistic
system.
(30) I don’t worry about it.
(31) so if we have a lot of influence, you know, like Hollywood movie things, and we have
sports and this thingsin GDP, we’d be much better.
(32) I was really not happy.
(33) I never thought.
(34) so, the money’s not mine.
(35) the only thing, we should never give up.
(36) this audience and our television audience around the world, thank you for talking your
time to be with us.

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