AN ANALYSIS OF ILLOCUTIONARY ACT AS FOUND IN DONALD TRUMP INAUGURATION 2025 SPEECH IN YOUTUBE

This study aimed to examine the illocutionary acts found in Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration speech and to interpret their intended meanings based on the context of situation. The objectives were to identify the types of illocutionary acts used in the speech and to analyze their intended meanings. The study applied Searle’s (1979) speech act theory, which classifies illocutionary acts into five types: assertive, directive, commissive, expressive, and declarative, and was supported by the theory of context of situation proposed by Halliday and Hasan (1985), consisting of field, tenor, and mode. This research employed a descriptive qualitative method, with data consisting of utterances taken from Donald Trump’s inauguration speech delivered on January 20, 2025. The data were collected through observation by transcribing the speech and identifying utterances containing illocutionary acts, which were then classified and analyzed based on Searle’s theoretical framework. The findings revealed that all five types of illocutionary acts appeared in the speech, totaling 111 data. Assertive illocutionary acts were the most dominant, with 56 utterances (50,45%), followed by commissive illocutionary acts with 36 utterances (32,43%), expressive illocutionary acts with 10 utterances (9,01%), directive illocutionary acts with 5 utterances (4,50%), and declarative illocutionary acts as the least frequent type with 4 utterances (3,61%). These results indicate that assertive illocutionary acts were predominantly used to express beliefs, describe conditions, and affirm national identity, while commissive illocutionary acts mainly functioned to convey promises and commitments related to future governmental actions, demonstrating a strategic use of illocutionary acts to influence, persuade, and mobilize the audience within a formal political context