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1. ANALYSIS OF SPEECH ACTS IN THE MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH “TED
TALKS: THE SECRET OF LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE”
Tatag Priambada1
, Senowarsito2
, Jafar Sodiq3
University of PGRI Semarang
ABSTRACT
Tatag Priambada. 2020. Analysis of Speech Acts in The Motivational Speech
“Ted Talks: The Secret of Learning A New Language” Final Project,
English Education Study Program, Faculty of Language and Arts
Education, University of PGRI Semarang. Advisor I: Dr. Senowarsito,
M.Pd., Advisor II: Dr. Jafar Sodiq, S.Pd., M.Pd.
Keywords: speech acts, analysis, Lýdia Machová, The Secret of Learning A New
Language, Ted Talks, motivational speech
This research is conducted to analyze speech acts typed on motivational speech
performed by Lýdia Machová on Ted Talks. The reseacrh describes the type of speech
act by John R. Searle. The objectives of the research are to identify types of speech
acts found in the video “The Secret of Learning A New Language” and the second
one is to find out the dominant types of speech acts in the video “The Secret of
Learning A New Language”.
The research used descriptive qualitative. The data of the research were taken
from all the utterances of Lýdia Machová in the video “The Secret of Learning A
New Language”. There are 102 data that are analyzed using John R. Searle's
speech act theories.
The research findings of this final project can be seen in the following: There are
5 types of speech acts found in the video “The Secret of Learning A New
Language”, the types are: representative or assertive, directive, declarative,
expressive, and commissive. Which are the representative or assertive type found
64 utterances (62.8%), the directive found with 22 utterances (21.62%), the
declarative type found 2 utterances (2.02%), the expressive type found 8
utterances (7.86%), and the commissive found 6 utterances (5.94%). The assertive
or representative type is the most dominant type of speech act performed by Lýdia
Machová is with 64 utterances (62.8%) from 102 data.
The researcher proposed two suggestions: First, to linguistics students especially
English education students of Universitas PGRI Semarang, need to learn about
pragmatics and explore deeper about the speech act study. Next, the linguistics
students should understand the use of the elements in pragmatics study. Second, to
the next researcher, the next researcher must explore the speech act theory from
other linguistic experts. Then, the next researcher must select the specific and
interesting object of research.

2. INTRODUCTION
People as social beings need a tool call language. The language helps
them to do communicate or interact. Language plays a role in carrying out
human communication. In languages, there are the smallest element of
language itself is called word. The function of words can use by people to do
many things like conveying their thoughts such as when they express opinions
and feelings, asks for help, apologizing, etc. By use language, people can
communicate with any expression. In social life, people do not always or even
usually never say what they mean in each utterance. Communication
interactions that occur between speakers refer to speech acts which are also
part of the language that concerns what speakers say through language. Yule
(1996: 3) has cited that Pragmatics deals with the study of meaning as
communicated by a speaker or a writer and interpreted by a listener or reader.
Pragmatics takes an important role in the use of language as a factor of human
communication, namely communication between speakers and listeners. The
essence of language is the activities of humans to make themselves understood
by others through utterance. Therefore, people must learn language knowledge
to be able to obtain and understand the meaning in certain situations.
This research discusses the speech acts found in a motivational speech.
The utterances in motivational speech carry persuasive information. Persuasive
speech aims to make the listeners carry out a certain activity or to do some
action. Speech acts play a key role in the communication process between
speaker and listener during a motivational speech. Speech act also helps us to
understand the message we receive because sometimes the language we use

3. and hear is unclear. When someone utter utterances usually also do an action.
In each utterance, there are specific meanings such as to request, invitations,
complaints, compliments, compliments, even apologies. According to Doerge (
2006: 75 ) The "speech act" characterize as an act which characteristically
consists the issuance of words in sentences, characteristically succeeds only if
the circumstances are in some way appropriate, and characteristically comes
into being only if the person issuing the linguistic token has certain intentions.
The ability of the speaker to convey a message or utterance also influences
whether or not the message to the listeners in the communication process.
According to Austin in Geis (2006: 3), there are three types of speech
acts: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary. Locutionary act that
refers to an action to convey a certain meaning. According to Austin, this type
of nature intends to say something clearly, namely the speaker's speech is
associated with something that takes precedence in the utterance. Illocutionary
act refers to the action is an appearance of language action in saying
something, which is opposed to a language action by saying something. The
last is perlocutionary is an act of language in saying something to have an
effect, reaction, or response to thoughts or actions on the person spoken to.
Moreover, according to the researcher, many say are deliver with speech acts.
Because when the speakers convey an utterance there is always a message
depend on the utterance and context.
The speech act of motivational speech not only finds in public
communication such as in communication between the teacher and the
students, company leaders, and the employees, motivational speech can also be

4. found in the communication process at a meeting of a forum or organization. In
the digital age, motivational speech can also find on digital platforms such as
YouTube or any digital media. TED regularly holds a forum called Ted Talks
in various countries with topics and speakers or experts in their fields. In
general, in the Ted Talks forum, the speaker gives or delivers motivational
speeches to listeners or Ted Talks participants. TED disseminates information
through websites and social media. TED also uses YouTube as a medium to
disseminate information in the form of "TED Talks" video content to the entire
world community. This website (Youtube) provides a place for users to upload,
watch, and share videos. Based on a brief explanation, in other words,
YouTube is one source of modern information with all the features that can
help its users. One feature is the text or subtitle feature that helps users to
create subtitles in various languages, one of which is English. This feature is
helpful for TED because the speakers in TED Talks as well as the listeners of
TED Talks have a variety of languages throughout the world. TED Talks
through its various videos located on YouTube is one of the communication
media, which gives and conveys messages that are meaningful to the audience.
In stage report and present data, the researcher is interested in
conducting research on the speech acts used by Lýdia Machová in the video
entitled "The Secret to Learning a New Language". Researchers are interested
in analyzing and discussing Lýdia's words in the video "The Secret to Learning
a New Language" because the video contains meaningful messages and
provides educational values that are beneficial to us. Besides, Lýdia Machová's
motivational speech is also very useful for people who are interested in

5. learning a foreign language or people who are in the process of learning a
foreign language. Then in terms of delivering a motivational speech by the
speaker, it is very easy to understand by the audience or listener.
Based on the background above, the researcher is interested in
analyzing the speech acts of motivational speeches delivered by Lýdia
Machová. The source of the research data came from all of Lýdia Machová's
utterances during the video “Secrets of Learning a New Language” on Ted
Talks.
Pragmatics
Jenny Thomas (1995: 23) states pragmatics as meaning in interaction,
since this takes account of the different contributions of both speaker and hearer
as well as that o f utterance and context to the making of meaning. Cruse (2006:
3) states that pragmatics is interested in investigating the meaning of language
which links closely to the context. Yule (1996: 3) believes that pragmatics is
concerned with four main areas. Firstly, pragmatics is concerned with the study of
meanings of utterances as communicated by the speaker and interpreted by the
listener. Secondly, pragmatics has to do with the context that influences how the
speaker communicates their message. Thirdly, pragmatics is the study of how
more gets communicated than is said which explores how the hearer arrives to the
speaker’s intended meaning. Finally, pragmatics deals with the notion of distance
between the speaker and the hearer that determines the choice between the said
and the unsaid.

6. Kreidler (1998: 19) the chief focus of pragmatics is a person’s ability to
derive meanings from specific kinds of speech situations—to recognize what the
speaker is referring to, to relate new information to what has gone before, to
interpret what is said from background knowledge about the speaker and the topic
of discourse, and to infer or ‘fill in’ information that the speaker takes for granted
and doesn’t bother to say. Griffiths
(2006: 1) proposes that pragmatics focuses on how language is used as a
tool to create meaningful communication taking into account the situations or
contexts of use. Thus, three consequences can be drawn from this. Firstly, the
same messages can be conveyed through various ways and the same set of
utterances can carry different meanings. Secondly, there is often left
communicated with just a little having been said. Lastly, it is possible to make
mistakes in interpreting the intended message.
Definitions by experts above show that context influences language use.
Thus, it can be concluded that pragmatics is the study of the use of language as a
means of communication. In this case, the speaker communicates the language
and the listener interprets the language used by considering the context.
Speech Acts
The speech acts as a part of the language, it is a kind of communication with
a certain attitude. J.R. Searle speaking a language is performing speech acts, acts
such as making statements, giving commands, asking questions, or making
promises. In this case, the speech act is the basic or minimum unit of linguistic
communication. Austin (1962), the speech act is a theory of performative

7. language in which to say something is to do something. When the speaker tries to
communicate with the listener. Those speakers use speech to express what they
have on their minds towards the listener. Yule (1996:47) states that the speech act
is an action performed via utterance. In speech act theory, language is seen as a
form of acting thus serves a function in communication. The speaker does not
only speak but has a message to achieve something through utterance. Searle in
Rahardi (2005: 35-36) in the Searle's book, Speech acts An Essay in the
Philosophy of Language state that Locutionary acts are a speech act with words,
phrases, and sentences, according to the meaning contained by words, phrases,
and sentences that. Illocutionary act is an act of doing something with a purpose
and a specific function anyway. And Perlocutionary act is a follow-growing
influence (effect) to the hearer.
Speech Acts Theoris by Searle
There are five basic kinds of the speech act of utterance that one can
perform in speaking which are promoted by Searle in Levinson (1983: 240), they
are representatives, directives, commissives, expressive, and declarations.
1) Representative Act (Assertive)
Assertives or representatives are such utterances that commit the hearer to the
truth of the expressed proposition. It is an illocutionary act which states the facts.
(e.g. asserting, concluding, affirming, believing, concluding, denying, reporting,
etc.)
Example: “The name of the British queen is Elizabeth.”
2) Declarative Act (Decalration)

8. Declarations effect immediate changes in the institutional state of affairs and
which tend to rely on elaborate extra-linguistic institutions. In declarations, the
speaker alters the external status or condition of an object or situation, solely by
making the utterance. (e.g. christening, declaring war).
Example: “I bequeath all my property to my beloved fiancee.”
3) Commissive Act
Commissives commit the speaker to some future course of action. (involves
promising, offering, guarantee, pledging, swearing, vowing, undertaking, warrant,
etc.)
Example: “I promise to come at eight and cook a nice dinner for you.”
4) Directive Act
Directives are attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do something. It is
an illocutionary force that gets things done by the addressee. (involves: ordering,
requesting, asking, begging, challenging, commanding, daring, inviting, insisting,
etc.)
Example: “Would you make me a cup of tea?”
5) Expressive Act
Expressives express the psychological or mental state of the speaker. (thanking,
congratulating, apologizing, appreciating, deploring, detesting, regretting,
thanking, welcoming, etc.)
Example: “Thank you for your kind offer.”
Speech Acts in Motivational Speech
In a motivational speech in speech act communication that involves all

9. verbal utterances is used as a medium. Persuasion is a "speech act", which is
manifested in or by speaking. Persuasion depends on two things aspects:
communication and intention to persuade the audience. Scheidel (1967: 1)
defined persuasion as “the activity in which the speaker and the listener are
conjoined and in which the speaker consciously attempts to influence the
behavior of the listener by transmitting audible and visible symbolic”. According
to George Yule (1996:54), a different approach to distinguishing types of speech
acts can be made on the basis of structure. A fairly simple structural distinction
between three general types of speech acts is provided, in English, by the three
basic sentence types, there are declarative, interrogative, imperative and the
general communicative functions are the statement, question, command/request.
Relatively, persuasion can be achieved through speech acts. Maysaa Shabeeb
(2019) stated "persuasion is related to the perlocutionary act which is the act that
is performed “by saying something”. In persuasion situations, the listeners must
understand the speaker's utterance which represents the speaker's illocutionary
force, then the listeners must respond accordingly to the perlocution effect. Searle
(1969:21) regards persuasion as directive speech act. Directives require the
speaker’s intention to direct the hearer to make some sort of action. A
motivational speech is an act of persuasion. The speaker or motivator has the
power to direct listeners to take certain actions. Persuasive speech does not just
function as a directive act but also occurs in other types of speech acts such as
assertive act, commissive act, expressive act, and declaration act.

10. METHODOLOGY OF THE RESEARCH
The researcher uses the descriptive qualitative approach since it is suitable for
analyzing the type of speech acts performed by Lydia Machova in the
motivational speech about the way to learn and master a new foreign language at
the Ted Talks event basis on Searle's theory of illocutionary acts. The researcher
takes some steps to collect data as follows:
1. Select video content
2. Watch video content
3. Write the transkrip
4. Display the data
The researchers uses descriptive techniques to identify the types of speech acts by
utterances such as:
1. Identying
2. Interpreting
3. Classifying
4. Drawing conclussion
RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Research Findings
These research findings are related to types of speech acts according to
Searle. The researcher focuses on 102 utterances performed by Lýdia Machová in
the video “The Secret of Learning A New Language” from the beginning until the
end.

11. 1. Types of Speech Acts Found in The Video “The Secret of Learning A
New Language”
No. Types of Speech Acts F f%
1. Assertive 64 62.8
2. Directive 22 21.62
3. Expressive 8 7.86
4. Commissive 6 5.94
5. Declarative 2 2.02
Total 102 100
The following are the description of each type of speech acts found in the
video “The Secret of Learning A New Language”
1. Representative Act (Assertive)
“I love learning foreign languages.”
D-01/00:13-00:16
Lýdia Machová began the presentation by stating that she was very
interested in learning various foreign languages. This utterance is
intended so that all the attention of the listeners is focused on her. The
speaker shows her confidence through her speech. Through this
utterance, she wants to convey that she is a polyglot. The meaning or

12. message of this utterance is doing activities to master a foreign language
is a such pleasant thing.
2. Directive Act
“If you’re a more introverted person and you can’t imagine speaking
to native speakers right away, you can apply the method of self-talk.”
D-46/05:06-05:13
Lýdia Machová here gives a method or method of learning a foreign
language to the audience or listener. One method that can be used by
quiet people when learning a foreign language is the self-talk method.
The message contained behind this utterance is she wants to convey that
learning a foreign language can be done by anyone, including introverts.
3. Declarative Act
“I decided to meet other people like me and find that out.”
D-11/00:59-01:02
In this utterance, Lýdia Machová uttered the speech as an act of deciding
something. The purpose of this utterance is that she decide to attend and
find out why a polyglot can master a language so quickly.
4. Expressive Act

13. “What an ingenious method, right?”
D-23/02:32-02:34
The first expressive type of utterance is when Lýdia Machová praised
Lucas, who was very interested in learning Russian with his unique
method. Lucas added random Russian speakers on Skype, and then
started chatting with two Russian speakers who didn't know each other.
In this utterance, Lydia Machova also state surprise about Benny's
learning method.
5. Commissive Act
“and the best news is, it’s available to anyone who is willing to take the
learning into their own hands.”
D-50/05:27-05:33
Lýdia Machová promised in this utterance. She promised to listeners
that anyone can be master a foreign language. By state this utterance,
she also encourages listeners to take their learning process willingly.
2. The most dominant types of speech act in the video “The Secret of
Learning A New Language”
The assertive or representative type is the most dominant type of speech act
performed by Lýdia Machová is with 64 utterances (62.8%). The kind
utterances such as 26 utterances for stating facts, 2 utterances for

14. explaining, 11 utterances for confirming, 7 utterances for reporting, 1
utterance for predicting and 1 utterance for claiming.
Discussion
The researcher found 5 speech act types according to Searle's speech act
theory performed by Lýdia Machová when she conveys the motivational
speech in Ted Talks are assertive with 64 occurrences out of the data. The
second is directive with 22 occurrences. The third is declarative with 2
occurrences. The fourth is expressive with 8 occurrences and the last type of
speech act is commissive with 6 occurrences.
The assertive or representative type was the most often found. An assertive
act or representative act is speech acts that express the involvement of the
speaker in the truth of the proposition. Assertive became the most dominant
type during Lýdia Machová's presentation. As a polyglot, Lýdia Machová gave
an overview and explanation about the learning methods of polyglots when
they learned a foreign language. In the assertive type found 64 utterances. In
this case, Lýdia Machová as the main speaker of motivational speech in Ted
Talks expressing utterances such as 31 utterances for stating, 14 utterances for
informing, 12 utterances for confirming, 4 utterances for claiming, 2 utterance
for predicting and 1 utterance for explaining.
The directive type was the second most frequently found. The directive
was a kind of speech act performed by Lýdia Machová to get listeners to do
what she said. During the ,otivational speech, the directive performed 22
utterances. In the directive type, the speaker uttered some utterances to
encourage listeners to learn a foreign language. Some utterances in directive

15. type performed by the speaker such as 7 utterances for suggesting, 5 utterances
for ordering, 6 utterances for asking, 2 utterances for persuading and the last is
advicing with 2 utterances.
The third is the declarative type for the most often found. Declarative is a
kind of utterance that causes reality to settle to the proposition. The declarative
type was performed with 2 utterances. Lýdia Machová uttered 2 utterance
about deciding.
Next for fourth was the expressive type. Expressive was a kind of speech
act to state the psychological expression of the speaker. In the expressive act
performed by Lýdia Machová related to Searle's speech act theories. There
were 8 utterances included 4 utterances of state a feeling, 2 utterances of state
a joy, 1 utterances thanking and, 1 utterance for praising.
For the commissive type, there were found 6 utterances performed by
Lýdia Machová. In the commissive act, Lýdia Machová uttered some
utterances to commit the speaker to some future course of action. Promising
was the most dominant performed by the speaker with 6 utterances to state a
promise.
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
Conclusion
Based on the data analysis and research findings in the previous chapter,
the researcher draws the following conclusions:
1. The type of speech acts according to John R. Searle's theory performed by
Lydia Machova in giving motivational speech in video “The Secret of

16. Learning A New Language on Ted Talks”. They are assertive or
representative, directive, declarative, expressive, and commissive. The
assertive act performed with sixty-four occurrences, the directive act with
twenty-two occurrences, declarative act with two occurances, expressive act
with eight occurrences, and for the commissive act with six occurrences.
2. The most often found in Lydia Machova's utterances in "The Secret of
Learning A New Language" on Ted Talks is the assertive act with 64
utterances (62.8%). Because the assertive act frequently performed by
Lydia Machova in the video “The Secret of Learning A New Language”
Suggestion
Based on the research findings and the conclusions, some suggestions are
proposed as follow:
1. To linguistics students.
Linguistics students need to learn about pragmatics and explore deeper
about the speech act study. By comprehending the study of speech acts, the
linguistics students are expected to be more knowledgeable in using
language and understanding messages conveyed by the speaker. Linguistics
students also need to study pragmatics and understand the use of the
elements in pragmatics. Because basically communication is a mechanism
that supports human life. By understanding the use of language in
communication, it is hoped that linguistics students can use language wisely
and correctly in their daily lives. In connection with this research, linguistics
students are expected to learn more about the study of speech acts with the
elements that exist in learning speech acts. Because speech acts are one of

17. the important points in using language. Therefore, linguistics students are
expected to understand the elements of speech acts, because as the use of
human language, they can act as speakers and listeners.
2. To the next reseacrhers
The objective of this study is limited to identify the types of speech acts
based on the theory of speech acts from Searle. The next researcher must
explore the speech act theory from other linguistic experts. Then, the next
researcher must explore pragmatics studies so that other pragmatics
elements can be used as material for further research. The next reseacher
also must choose a specific and interesting research object. The object of
reseacrh besides being research material, the object of research can also be
a source of information for the readers.

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