HEDGES

ABSTRACT

Kurniawan, Heri, 2011, A STUDY OF THE HEDGE NOTION IN THE BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA’S SPEECHES. English Departement, Faculty of Languages and Letters, University of Pesantren Tinggi Darul Ulum, advisor I: Nuning Yudhi P., SS. M.Hum and advisor II: Endang Suciati, SS

Barack Hussein Obama as a presidential candidate  decides his ways in making a good public announcement to attract the readers or hearers attention in his campaign. He uses the words choice to verify that how informative, true, relevant and perspicuous information is. Hedges used by Obama in his speeches to reduce mistake or incredibility what he said. Hedges can be defined as word or phrases used to indicate that we are not really sure that what we are saying is sufficiently correct or complete (Yule 89:2006)

This study is to describe the hedge notions in the Barack Hussein Obama’s speeches entitled “The American Promise, A More Perfect Union, North Carolina Primary Night, and Pennsylvania Primary Night”. This study focuses on how Barack Hussein Obama uses the hedge notion in his Speeches.

The researcher uses descriptive qualitative method to analyze the written language on speech based on type of hedges used by Barack Hussein Obama and the meaning of the use of it. The data collected are not in form of numbers, instead of texts or words, as stated by Milles and Huberman (1994:9). The data were taken from the website  by Jim Andersen that provides 100 transcript speeches of USA president Barack Hussein Obama.

The result of this research shows that many verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns;  expressions and comment words indicate the hedges used by Obama. The hedges used by Barack Hussein Obama in his speeches are shields, approximators, expression, Emotional-charges Intensifier, and compound hedges For example : “Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. (The American Promise, sentence :11,12)). Obama says “Americans” or “more of you” to reduce a mistake quantity or number of American people that he knows, because it is impossible for him to calculate one by one. So, the hedges used by Barack Hussein Obama in his speeches.

Key words : Speeches, Hedges,  Barack Hussein Obama,