THE DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF

PRESUPPOSITION ON BARACK OBAMA’S SPEECH

AT ISLAMIC SOCIETY OF BALTIMORE

By :

Ricky Ade Saputra

NPM. A1B013066

STUDY PROGRAM OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF BENGKULU
2020
 DAFTAR ISI

I INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 1
1.1 Background .................................................................................................. 1
1.2 Problem Statement ....................................................................................... 3
1.3 Limitation of Problem .................................................................................. 3
1.4. Objective of this Research .......................................................................... 3
1.5. The Significance of Research ...................................................................... 3
1.6. Definition of Key Terms .............................................................................. 3

II LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................ 4

2.1. Theoretical Framework ............................................................................... 4
2.1.1 Pragmatics ................................................................................................. 4
2.1.2 Presupposition............................................................................................ 5
2.1.3 Kind of Presupposition............................................................................... 5
2.1.4 The Definition of Speech........................................................................... 8
2.1.5 Previous Study........................................................................................... 8

III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ................................................................... 12

3.1. Research Method ......................................................................................... 12
3.2. Object of the Research ................................................................................ 12
3.3. Instrument of the Research........................................................................... 12
3.4. Procedure of the Research ........................................................................... 13

REFERENCE .......................................................................................................... 14

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 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background
People need to communicate to each other. Communication is needed to
convey message to other people. In communication we also need a device to do this
process and the device is language. Every single person has message that they need to
convey to other people, this is the reason of each community to form a language.
There is a study enables us to analyze the speaker’s meaning. This study called
Pragmatics. George Yule (1996: 1) states that Pragmatics is a study of the relationship
between linguistics form and the users of those forms. One kind of topic in pragmatics
is presupposition.
Many people realize mistaken in communication because the hearer can’t
capture the meaning of statement from the speaker, usually the hearer has many
assumptions based on statement of the speaker as the source of information. There are
many languages components that must be learned. One of them is presupposition that
has the relationship with technical word in studying languages.
A presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to
making an utterance (Yule, 1996:25). The presupposition is talking about the
assumptions that may accompany statements. Many statements said by speaker have
ambiguity in meaning. Presupposition is important means to structure information. It
is shown when a speaker states the sentence to the listener and the listener can assume
what the meaning is from the sentence whether it is true or not.
For example: 1) Speaker: I bought Mr. Tere Liye’s book yesterday.
Listener: Get a 30 % discount right?
2) Statement: Mary’s dog is cute.
From the examples above, in first example speaker assumes that the listener
has known who Tere Liye is. In second example, the presupposition is Mary exist,
Mary cherish a dog.
Presupposition is an assumption by a speaker or writer about what is true or
already known by the listener or reader. There were some previous study which
explored presupposition. Humardiana (2009) in her research “A Study on
Presupposition Used in Weekender Magazine’s Advertisement”, she found 51
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existential presuppositions that often used in the advertisement. Then Marlisa (2008)
“Analysis of Types Presupposition Used in the Editorial Articles of the Jakarta Post
Newspaper”, the result of her research is the researcher have found the dominant of
presupposition. It is lexical presupposition.
Although this research also about presupposition based on Yule’s theory, the
researcher finds similarity and difference between these researches. The differences
from the previous findings above, the other researchers use magazine, movie, and
advertisement while the researcher will study on speech. Speech has an important
presupposition. Therefore the audiences or listeners should have good knowledge of
presupposition in order to get good interpretation. To be able to derive the meaning
from any speech in a more appropriate way, this study needs to use the pragmatic
approach of meaning analysis. In this research, the researcher focuses on the Barrack
Obama’s speech at Islamic Society of Baltimore (2016) based on George Yule’s
theory.
Barrack Obama was the 44th president of the United States of America. He is
very famous around the world especially in Indonesia because he has spent his
childhood in Indonesia. Barrack Obama entered Occidental College in Los Angeles in
1979. After two years, he transferred to Colombia University in New York,
graduating in 1983 with degree in political science. He graduated magna cum laude
from Harvard Law 1991 (Biograpy, 2020). His speech seems to be considered as an
interesting current issue and Barrack Obama has special characteristics rather than
others in terms of being speaker. Barrack Obama’s speech at Islamic Society of
Baltimore talked about the Muslim in America.
According to the statement about presupposition above, the researcher will
find and classify the utterances of presupposition in Barrack Obama speech at the
Islamic Society of Baltimore based on George Yule’s theory. Barrack Obama’s
speech at Islamic Society of Baltimore is the object of this research because Barrack
Obama has special characteristic rather than others in terms of being a speakers. It is
also good media to learn Pragmatics especially presupposition.
1.2. Research Question
Based on the background of the study, the researcher formulates the problem
as follows: “What kind of presupposition are used by Barrack Obama Speech at the
Islamic Society of Baltimore?”

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 1.3. Limitation of Problem
The researcher limits this research on the speech by Barrack Obama’s at
Islamic Society of Baltimore (2016).
1.4. Objective of this Research
To describe the kinds of presupposition used by on Barrack Obama’s at
Islamic Society of Baltimore.
1.5. The Significance of Research
1. Theoretically
To give information and to add knowledge about utterances and kinds of
presupposition on Barrack Obama’s speech at Islamic Society of Baltimore.
2. Practically
The practical benefit is this research gives feedback in teaching and learning
English Linguistic that is kinds of presupposition.
1.6. Definition of Key Terms
1. Presupposition
Presupposition is something that the speaker assumes to be the case prior to
making an utterance.
2. Speech
Speech is communication through talking or a talk given to an audience.

CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Theoretical Framework

2.1.1. Pragmatics
One of the aspects related to the linguistic is pragmatic. Pragmatics is a branch
of linguistics, which is the study of language. Pragmatics focuses on conversational
implicature, which is a process in which the speaker implies and listener infers.
Pragmatics studies how words can be interpreted in different ways based on the
situation. “Pragmatics is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a

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speaker (writer) and interpreted by a listener (reader)” (Yule, 1963:3). So pragmatics
concern with aspects of information which conveyed through language.
Pragmatics refers to the study of relations between language and context that
are grammatical, or encoded in the structure of a language (Levinson, 1983:9). It
means, pragmatics is study of the relationship between language and context that are
relevant to the writing of grammars.
Bublitz (2011:4) states that pragmatic is fundamentally concerned with
communicative in any kind of context. This perspective raises the question of what
determines the choice between the said and the unsaid. The basic answer is tied to the
notion of distance. Closeness, whether it is physical, social, or conceptual, implies
shared experience. On the assumption of how close or distant the listener is, speakers
determine how much things needed to be said. Pragmatic is the study of the
expression of relative distance. There are four areas of Pragmatics concerned with;
entailment, deixis, implicature, and presupposition. The researcher in this case will
analyze presupposition.

In other explanation Yule (1996:4) say that pragmatics is the study of

relationship between linguistic forms and the users of the forms. In this three-part
distinction, only pragmatics allows humans into the analysis. The advantage of
studying language via pragmatics is that one can talk about people’s intended
meanings, their assumption their purpose or goals, and the kind of action (for
example, request) that they are performing when they speak.
In linguistics, pragmatics applied to study the language of the user point of
view, especially of the choices they make and the obstacles that they face in using
language in social interaction. Through pragmatics someone could speak of intent,
assumptions, goals and type of action. The main purpose of pragmatic theory is to
explain how successful communication can be done and how utterances can be
understood. From definition above, it can be concluded that pragmatics is a branch of
linguistics which concern with language use in context and the study of meaning
related to the context or situation. It can explore some understanding about the facts
with which pragmatics deals:
a) Facts about the objective facts of the utterance: who the speaker is, when and
where the utterance happened.

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 b) Facts about the speakers intention; what language the speaker intends to use
and what meaning they intends to be using.
c) Facts about beliefs of the speaker and those to whom they speaks and what
they are talking about.

2.1.2. Presupposition
According to Yule (1996: 25), a presupposition is something the speaker
assumes to be the case prior to making an utterance. Speaker, not sentences, have
presupposition. It means that when the speaker states that the sentences, automatically
the speaker has a presupposition.
According to Levinson (1983: 168), the term of presupposition refers to those
assumptions which appear to be built into the linguistic structure of text. It means that
it can relate to the linguistic structure to extralinguistic context in terms of the
inferences which are expected to be made about the context. In other words,
presupposition is the assumption that someone has in mind when the person hears,
reads, or utters an utterance or sentence.
Potts (2014:3) says that presuppositions of an utterance are the pieces of
information that the speaker assumes in order for their utterance to be meaningful in
the current context. Theories of presupposition related to theories of what discourse
contexts are like and the ways in which they shape, and are shaped by language use.
There are two kinds of presuppositions; pragmatic presupposition and semantic
presupposition. Pragmatic presuppositions are purely speaker actions, whereas
semantic presupposition trace to conventional aspect of the meaning of specific words
and constructions.

2.1.3. Kinds of Presupposition

Potts (2014:3) classifies presupposition into two types, namely:
1. Pragmatic Presupposition
Pragmatic presupposition included the preconditions for linguistic interaction
(for example the mutual public knowledge that someone is speaking the same
language), the norms of turn-taking in dialogue, and more particularized information
about conversational plans and goals. The clearest instances of pragmatic
presupposition are those that cannot easily be traced to specific words or phrases, but

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rather seem to arise from more general properties of the context and the expectation of
the discourse participants.

2. Semantic Presupposition
Semantics presupposition are part of the encoded meanings of specific words
and constructions, called presupposition triggers. Semantic accounts are potentially
compatible with pragmatics ones, in the sense that using a presupposition triggers is
an excellent way to achieve the speaker action of presupposing. However, the
semantic view at least allows for the possibility that a speaker’s utterance could
presuppose a preposition p (as a matter of convention) even as that speaker did not
intend to presuppose p, whereas that is impossible in an account founded entirely on
speaker intentions.

Davidson et al (1972:387) explained that there is no conflict between semantic

and pragmatic concept of presupposition: they are explications of related but different
ideas. Presupposition has been treated in a variety of semantic and pragmatic
framework. In particular, semantic treatments of presuppositions have been concerned
with the truth value of the propositions they express the truth of the containing simple,
complex or co-ordinate sentences. Moreover, pragmatic treatments are based on the
inadequacy of truth conditional semantics to account for a lot of presupposition
phenomena and have concentrated on identifying those pragmatic parameters that
affect the survival or failure of presuppositions in specific contexts, Hashim
(2014:57).

Many words, phrases, and structures create presuppositions. Within

pragmatics, some presuppositions are conventional properties of particular words or
sentences. Pragmatic presuppositions are beliefs about the context that must be
attributed to a speaker. It is standard to assume that semantic presuppositions of
sentences become pragmatic presuppositions of speakers, as speaker should believe
that context satisfy the conditions required to allow their utterances to be meaningful.
It is presumed that semantic presuppositions are conventional properties of lexical
items or constructions; and that all presuppositions which appear to be closely related
to particular words or constructions are semantic presuppositions, Simons (2006:1-8).

According to the theory by Yule (1996: 27), the types of presupposition are six
kind of presupposition:

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1. Existential Presupposition
The existential presupposition is not only assumed to present in possessive
construction but more generally in any definite noun phrase, the speaker is
assumed to be committed to existence of the entities name. It is the assumption
assumed to be committed to the existence of entities name by speaker and
assumed to be present in noun phrases. The possessive word likes, my, your, etc.,
lead to a particular presupposition about the existence of something.

Examples:

Example of Sentence Presupposition

Michael’s bicycle is black Michael exist and he has a bicycle

From the example above, Existential Presupposition is Michael

exists and he has a bicycle.

Example of Sentence Presupposition

Your cat is very small You have a cat

The explanation of example above is the statement of Your cat is very

small means there is a cat and the speaker or listener have already known.
Existential presupposition is You have a cat.
2. Factive Presupposition
The presupposed information following a verb like ‘know’, ‘realize’,
‘say’ can be treated as a fact and it is described as a factive presupposition.
And also phrase such as ‘be’, ‘sorry’, ‘aware’, ‘odd’ and ‘glad’.
Examples:
Example of Sentence Presupposition
She didn’t realize he was ill He was ill

The explanation of example above is she didn’t realize he was ill. It

means that in fact he was ill but in this sentence, she didn’t realize and also
word of realize can be treated as a fact. Factive Presupposition is He was ill.

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3. Non-factive Presupposition
The meaning of Non factive Presupposition is one that is assumed not
be true (Yule, 1996: 29). Some verb likes ‘dream’, ‘imagine’, ‘pretend’,
‘think’, ‘hope’, assume’, ‘believe’, ‘intend’, ‘expect’ and ‘fear’ can show non
factive presupposition.
Examples:
Example of sentence Presupposition
We imagine that we were in Bali We were not in Bali

From the example We imagine that we were in Bali, it is non factive

presupposition sentence because there is the word imagine and in fact we were
not in Bali.
4. Lexical Presupposition
According Yule (1996: 28), generally speaking in lexical
presupposition the use one form with its asserted meaning is conventionally
interpreted with the presupposition that another (non-asserted) meaning is
understood. This presupposition uses some verb like stop, start, tried, begin
and succeed.

Example:
Example of sentence Presupposition
They are started complaining They were not complaining before

From the example it means that in the past, they weren’t complaining
and lexical presupposition is they were not complaining before.
5. Structural presupposition
According to Yule (1996: 28), in case of structural presupposition,
certain sentence structure have been analyzed conventionally and regularly
presupposing that part of the structure is already assumed to be true. For
example, the wh-question construction in English, as shown example in below
is conventionally interpreted with the presupposition that the information after
the wh-form (i.e when and where) is already known to be case.
Example:
Example of sentence Presupposition

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 Where did you buy the pen? You bought the pen

From the example it means that the speaker has been known that you
bought the pen. Structural presupposition is You bought the pen.
6. Counter-factual Presupposition
Yule (1996: 29) states that indeed, this type of structure creates a
counterfactual presupposition, meaning that what is presupposed is not only
not true, but it is the opposite of what is true, or ‘contrary to fact’. A
conditional structure of the type shown example in below, generally called a
counterfactual conditional, presupposes that information in the if-clause is not
true at the time of utterance.
Example:
Example of sentence Presupposition
If I knew you would throw it He doesn’t knew she would throw
away, I would have kept it. it away.

The explanation of example above is the speaker states that If I knew

you would throw it away, I would have kept it. Counterfactual presupposition
is he doesn’t knew she would throw it away. The word if can be used in
counter factual Presupposition.
2.1.4. The Definition of Speech
According to Merriam Webster Dictionary in 1828, speech is the
communication or expression of thoughts in spoken words. Through the
speech, people can persuade, inform, denounce, warn, arouse and entertain. To
persuade is that the speech has purpose to convince the audience of the
concrete of an intellectual position, to stimulate the audience to change
attitudes or values, and to actuate the audience to take some course action. To
inform means the speech that seeks to convince to the audience some
information and understanding. Meanwhile to entertain means that the speech
that has purpose to get the audience’s attention.
2.1.5. Previous Study
There were some previous studies which explored presupposition. The
first research is by Humardhiana (2009) entitled “A Study on Presupposition
Used in Weekender Magazine’s Advertisement”. In this research the

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researcher have found five types of presupposition there were 51 existential
presuppositions, 13 factive presuppositions, 28 lexical presuppositions, 6
structural presuppositions and 2 non-factive presuppositions.
The second research about presupposition was conducted by Havid
(2012) entitled “An Analysis of Presupposition Used in Novel Harry potter
And the Deathly Hallows” who was graduated from State University of
Padang (FBS). To collect the data, the researcher only used non-participant
observation, on his research he focused in the utterance in the novel as the
primary data of the research, but he didn’t use the entire of utterance in the
novel. He took 50 utterances as the samples of the data analysis because their
research was only about the types of presupposition that often used in “Harry
potter And the Deathly Hallows” novel. Based on their research they
concluded that in the “Harry potter And the Deathly Hallows” novel, the
presupposition that most often raised was structural presupposition. As the
data result, they presented the data as follows 5 lexical presupposition, 12
existential presuppositions, 14 structural presupposition, 11 factive
presupposition, and counterfactual presupposition.
The third research is about presupposition was conducted by Yuliana
(2015) with title The Descriptive Analysis of Presupposition in The Maleficent
Movie. The purposes of this research were to investigate the types and
meaning of each presupposition can be found by the writer, and the most
dominant presupposition in “Maleficent” movie script. This research also
applied Yule’s theory (1996). The writer used distributional method to select
utterances in the movie script to classify the data into the kinds of
presupposition and to analyze the data by used distributional method. Analysis
of data that has been done from 73 utterances, it was found that there were 42
utterances of existential presupposition, 7 utterances of factive
presupposition, 1 utterance of non factive presupposition, for counter-factual
presupposition there are 2 utterances, 7 utterances that include of lexical
presupposition, and the last is 14 utterances include structural presupposition.
The result of the data, it can be concluded that the most dominant in the
“Maleficent” movie script is existential presupposition with 42 utterances in
total 73 utterances.

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 From some previous studies above, researcher have found the types of
presupposition, the dominant type of presupposition and the using of
presupposition in novel, movie, newspaper and advertisement. This research is
different from some previous studies above. The researcher will find the kinds
of presupposition in Barrack Obama’s speech at Islamic Society of Baltimore
and the researcher will categorize the kinds of presupposition based on Yule’s
theory.

CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1. Research Method

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 In this research, the researcher used a descriptive qualitative method. It aimed to
describe about types of presupposition in Barrack Obama’s speech at Islamic Society of
Baltimore (2016). According to Mack et al (2005; 1), qualitative research especially effective
in obtaining culturally specific information about values, opinions, behaviors, and social
contexts of particular populations. The researcher focused on analyzing types of
presupposition in Barrack Obama’s speech at Islamic Society of Baltimore (2016).

3.2. Object of the Research

The object of this research is the script in the Barrack Obama speech at Islamic
Society of Baltimore (2016). The script was obtained on the internet and taken from
American Rhetoric (https://www.americanrhetoric.com), a trusted web that has captured all
speeches of Barrack Obama both in a text-speech and video.

3.3. Instrument of the Research

Instrument of this research is observational checklist. It means that the researcher
watches the video of Barrack Obama’s speech at Islamic Society of Baltimore. The video can
be function to see context the utterances. The researcher finds the data on the script of
Barrack Obama’s speech. The researcher provides the table of presupposition for analyzing
data. Table of potential presupposition is the instrument used by researcher to put the data, to
classify and to identify the data.
This the example of using the table.
No Utterance Identification Contexts Classification

Andre assumes Andre gives

I am so glad that audience the speech Factive
1. that I made it know that he with smiling Presuppositon
back to lived in
Indonesia Indonesia

3.4. Procedure of the Research

There are some procedure:
1. Watching the video of Barrack Obama’s speech at Islamic Baltimore.
2. Reading the script. The script of this speech was downloaded from the internet.

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3. Taking note and underlining on the script.
5. Making table and put the utterance of presupposition.
6. Classifying the presupposition.
7. Explaining the meaning of utterance of presupposition and the context.
8. Concluding the result.

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 CHAPTER IV
FINDING AND DISCUSSION

This chapter provided the findings and discussion. The researcher presented
further explanation about the analysis of types of presupposition on Barrack Obama’s
speech at Baltimore.
4.1 Finding
The categorized data was based on George Yule’s theory (1996) about
presupposition. Furthermore, it was discussed about the research question to find out
the types of presupposition on Barrack Obama’s speech at Islamic Baltimore.
This part the researcher presented the result of data analysis about types of
presupposition on Barrack Obama’s speech at Islamic Baltimore. Yule explained
about types of presupposition which were existential presupposition, factive
presupposition, lexical presupposition, non factive presupposition, structural
presupposition, and counter-factual presupposition.

4.1.2 Types of presupposition.

No Types of Presupposition Amount
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Total

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 REFERENCES

Bublizt, Wolfram. 2011. Foundations of Pragmatics. Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

Davidson, D. and Harman, G. 1972. Semantics and Natural Language. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Hashim, Suhair Safwat M. 2014. Existential Presupposition in Religious Islamic Texts:
Pragmatics Implications. Dubai.
Havid. 2009. An Analysis of Presupposition Used in Novel Harry Potter and The Deathly
Hallows. Padang: FBS Universitas Negeri Padang Press.
Humardhiana, Ana. 2009. A Study on Presupposition Used in Weekender Magazine's
Advertisement. Yogyakarta: Shanata Dharma Universit Press.
Levinson, Steven C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: CUP.
Mack, Natasha et al. 2005. Qualitative Research Methods. USA: Family Health International.
Potss, Christopher. 2014. Presupposition and Implicature. ONR Grant.
Simon, Mandy. 2006. Presupposition without Common Ground. Cameige Mellon University.
Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Yuliana, Dewi. 2015. The Descriptive Analysis of Presupposition in The "Maleficent" Movie
Script. Salatiga: Diss IAIN.

https://www.americanrhetoric.com
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/speech

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