CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS This chapter is divided into two sub-chapters consisting of conclusion and recommendation of this research. This research aimed to find the types of attitudes, the impact of the attitudes towards the text and why the attitudes are employed in the text of the presidential debate between Obama and Romney regarding Obama s presidency in 2009-2012. A. Conclusion Based on the finding and discussion provided in Chapter IV, the conclusion can be drawn as follow: 1. Types of attitudes employed in text There are three types of attitudes employed in the presidential debate between Obama and Romney regarding Obama s presidency in 2009-2012. The first text only consists of judgment and appreciation, while the second text consist affect, judgment, and appreciation. The attitudes are taken from the debate session from Obama and Romney in 2012 discussing about Obama s presidency. The first text contains 7.14% positive affect, 21.43% positive judgment, 57.14% positive appreciation and 14.29% negative appreciation. It means that the first text delivered by Obama is dominated by positive attitudes. Meanwhile, the second text consists of 20% negative affect, 20% positive judgment, 6.7% 81
82 negative judgment, 13.3% positive appreciation and 40% negative appreciation. Negative attitudes dominate the second text delivered by Romney. In addition, both texts employed mostly force: raise and a number of focus: softening graduation. Likewise, both texts used more than one voice (heterogloss) in order to evaluate the issue objectively. In summary, the percentage and explanation above show different point of view from both texts. Obama explains his authority positively and provides more positive attitudes than the negative ones meaning that he maintains the issue. Meanwhile, Romney challenges the issue by using more negative attitudes than the positive ones. 2. The impacts of the attitudes toward the texts As explained in Chapter IV, findings and discussions reveal that the application of attitudes from both texts influence the register, prosody, genre, and ideology of the texts. a) Register In the clause level, the use of affect, judgment, and appreciation indicates that the language in both texts is dominated by behavioral process and carrierattribute. In the level of nominal group, epithet-thing dominates both texts. Epithet-thing is an eligible form for affect, judgment and appreciation. In graduation level, attitudinal-lexis, intensifiers, and quantification are exploited more in both texts. This means that strong and sharp attitudes are employed in both texts.
83 b) Prosody Prosody is related to the use of engagement in the texts. Projection is the dominant form in both texts. Moreover, heterogloss is the dominant projection and only few monogloss occurred in both texts. It means that both texts employed more than one voice thus Obama and Romney showed their objectivity when they gave arguments. Since the event is presidential debate, objectivity is needed to project their ideas. c) Genre Prosody influences the genre of the texts. In text 1 performed by Obama, positive attitudes are applied more than negative ones in order to maintain the issue. He judged his own action positively more than the opposition. He also positions American people for moral praise. Obama provided positive and negative attitudes in his arguments and ended his debate by giving positive closure in order to pursue American people to vote for him for the second term. In text 2 performed by Romney, he used a number of negative attitudes more than positive ones in order to evaluate Obama s argument and position him for personal criticism, he rarely judged his own action as an activist or ex-governor. Both positive and negative attitudes are employed in his debate and he closes his rebuttal by providing negative conclusion regarding Obama s presidency. The discussion genre is expected in presidential debate. Both sides provide positive and negative argument and give conclusion leaning towards what their intensions are.
84 d) Ideology In the final stage, ideology can be drawn after analyzing the prosody and finding the genre. Since Obama mostly gives positive attitudes, it means that he tries to maintain the issue. Thus, he positions himself as protagonist-left ideology. Meanwhile, Romney provides mostly negative attitudes to challenge the issue. It means that Romney positions himself as antagonist-left ideology. 3. The reason why the attitudes employed in the text Based on analysis in Chapter IV, the reason why the attitudes employed in text can be found. a) There is a difference in showing the attitudes. Obama employs more positive affect, judgment and appreciation only because he expresses his own behavior when he used to be American president. Meanwhile, Romney employs mostly negative attitudes: affect, judgment, and appreciation because he wants to show that Obama still failed in particular aspects in ruling the country. b) Both Obama and Romney employ force: raise and focus: softening with heterogloss (more than one voice) to reveal their objectivity. It means both express their judgment and appreciation in strong way but there are certain points when they show their attitudes in soft way. In the first text, Obama evaluates his presidency by providing both positive and negative arguments although the positive attitudes are dominant in the first text. Thus, he maintains the issue and positions himself as right-protagonist. The reason is clear because he was the
85 president of USA in 2008-2011 and he tries to ensure the audience to vote him again in the following election. He signed two major tax cuts for middle class families: The Making Work Pay tax credit in 2009 and a temporary reduction in Social Security payroll taxes in 2011. Obama also passed taxes cut for small business, such as: The Affordable Care Act (known as health care law), the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (known as the HIRE act), and the Small Business Jobs Act, signed by Obama in September 2010 (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/sep/07/barackobama/barack-obama-said-hes-cut-taxes-middle-class-famil/0). In February 2009, Obama declared an end to Iraq combat mission in Camp Lejeune, N.C. and several thousand of American troops were sent home in December 2011 (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-we-leave-iraq-with-heads-held-high/). Regarding health care reform, Obama signed the Affordable Insurance Act on March 23, 2010 that improves access to affordable health insurance for American people and protect them from abusive insurance company practices (http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform/healthcare-overview). In summary, Obama provides judgment and appreciation to support his argument that he already served good policy for American people during his authority. In the second text, Mitt Romney as a candidate from Republican Party has arguments as counterparts against Barack Obama. In result, negative attitudes dominate the second text. In his first minute, he expressed his feeling implying that American people are not confident that the next four years will be better if Obama rules again. Followed with his argument regarding unemployment in
86 America, he claimed that there are 23 million Americans without work. Although the actual number of jobless is much lower. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, there was only 12.5 millions of unemployment in August (http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/dubious-denver-debate-declarations/). He also said that Obama hasn t made proposal on reforming Medicare and Social Security. In 2011, White House officials have a private meeting with congressional Republican to discuss about reforming Medicare and Social Security but the negotiators couldn t reach a deal to reduce the federal budget deficit (http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/sb1000142405270230359240457736205209 4040414). Romney said that Obama failed to put out immigration plan that would deal with American immigration challenge. During Obama s campaign in 2008, Obama said that he would pursue immigration reform aggressively. In September 2009, Obama stated that he would prepare the draft legislation before the year ended. However, until the year come to an end, Obama didn t file it. Romney also said that Obama rose up typical family s health insurance premium by $2.500 contrasted with Obama s pledge that he would cut up the cost up to $2.500 (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/521/cutcost-typical-familys-health-insurance-premium-/). Regarding food stamps, the United States Department of Agricultural revealed that there were 31.98 million American people were on food stamps in January 2009. The recipients increased up to 46,681,833 persons
87 (http://rt.com/usa/million-food-stamps-record-665/). Thus, Romney explained in his debate that there were 32 million American were on food stamps and today 47 million Americans are on food stamps. However, Romney also showed positive attitudes to judge his own policy when he used to be a Governor. He gave example about Ronald Reagan s recovery that helped to create twice as many jobs as the president s recovery. The occurrence of positive attitudes is less than the negative ones. Therefore, he positions himself as antagonist left. To sum up, Romney provides dominant negative judgment and appreciation than the positive ones in order to disclaim the opposition. B. Recommendation Based on the finding and discussion in Chapter IV, several recommendations can be drawn from this research: 1. This research still uses two texts for comparison study. The next research is expected to have more than two texts in order to have a more comprehensive appraisal analysis. 2. The next research is expected to do another type of research with oral text as the data such as interview. Interview can be more challenging because the researcher can include ethnography method for their research.