CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study As
having interaction, human beings as social creatures need a means to communicate
with others because communication is a central role of life. It refers to the
process of human beings responding to the face to face. It satisfies most of people’s
needs such as physical needs, ego needs, social needs, and practical needs
(Adler and Rodman, 1985:9). The obvious means to communicate is language.
Communication is one of the functions of language besides in order to tell
others about circumstances, to ask information, and to exchange facts and opinions
(Crystal, 1987:10).
Dealing with communication, Cook
(1989:6) examines that the use of language in communication is called discourse
even in spoken or written. And, a discipline to study discourse is discourse
analysis which is necessarily, the analysis of language in use. Brown and Yule
(1983:68) explain that discourse analysis apparently appeared in 1952 by the
popular linguist, Zellig S, who stated his dissatisfactory on grammatical discussion
which only discussed sentence. In his accordance, many issues of language still
had not been discussed by grammatical sentence. Moreover, discourse analysis
was truly developed in 1980s. Hatch and Long assert that discourse analysis is
not only important to understand the essence of language but also to understand
learning process of language and language behavior. Moreover, studying
discourse analysis can express the acquisition of communicative competence
(Rani, Arifin, and Martutik, 1 1980:1).
Hence, the researcher undoubtedly chooses discourse analysis as the subject of
research. And, she takes the type of argumentative discourse as the object of
the research because argumentation is a fact of life according to Hill and Leeman
(1996:1). They say: “No matter who you are, where you life, what your professional goals are, what your religious beliefs are, how old you are,
or how shy you are, you likely engage in argumentation on a daily
basis” Besides,
Al Qur’an also
mentions the term
of argumentation in
surah An Nahl 16:125 that is: The meaning of this verse in the translation
of Yusuf Ali’s (2006) is: “invite (all)
to the way of Thy Lord with wisdom and preaching; and argue with them in ways
that are best and Most gracious: for Thy
knoweth best, who have strayed from His path, and who receive guidance.”
(QS. An Nahl:125) While, Mukhsin Khan (2006) translates the verse with: “invite (mankind,
O Muhammad ) to the
Way of
Your Lord (i.e.
Islâm) with wisdom (i.e.
with the
Divine Inspiration and
the Qur' ân) and
fair preaching, and
argue with them
In a Way
that is better. Truly,
Your Lord knows
best who has
gone astray from
his path, and
He is the
best Aware of those who are guided.” (QS. An Nahl:125) Both these
translations of surah An Nahl:125 are same in defining the word “jaadil” to be
“argue”. The word “argue” is the bare infinitive of “argumentation”. From this
verse, it is known that Prophet Muhammad is allowed to argue with mankind but
in the better way. Argumentative discourse is one of the types of
discourse, based on the purpose of communication perspective, besides
descriptive, expository, persuasive, and narrative discourse (Rani et all,
1989:46), in which its purpose is to change attitudes (Renkema, 1993:128). A
discourse categorized as argumentation
is if it appears from the controversial issues between speaker and his or her
partner. Hence, the speaker attempts to explain logical reasons to convince his
or her partner. In most basic sense, Hill and Leeman (1996:9) define argumentation
as the communicative process in which individuals present and test reasons
(argument) supporting opposing points of view. It occurs when two or more
people express differing points of view, have sufficient motivation to engage in
an argumentative interaction, construct reasons to support their particular
point of view, and test the reasons offered by each other (Keraf, 1982:3).
Basically, the power of argument
is on the ability of speaker in proposing principles of argument. A modern
useful method for understanding argument is good to choose Stephen Toulmin’s
model. It is because Toulmin outlines a new way of thinking about human
argument. Toulmin’s approach is a reaction to the models of formal logic then
popular in philosophical circles. He feels that such models are too static to
deal with something as dynamic as human thought, and so he proposes a better
system adapted to the actual logics used by actual people (Hart, 1990:138).
Therefore, the researcher uses Toulmin model of argumentation to analyze the
object. Toulmin proposes a layout containing six
interrelated components for analyzing arguments those are: Claim, Data,
Warrant, Backing, Rebuttal, and Qualifier. The first three elements “claim”,
“data”, and “warrant” are considered as the essential components of practical
arguments, while the second triad “qualifier”, “backing”, and “rebuttal” are
the complement and may not be needed in some arguments.
Firstly, claim is disputable
assertions that require evidence or backing in order to be accepted, for the
example is “I am a British citizen”. Secondly, data is evidences offered to
support a claim by using facts, examples, narratives, quotations, statistics,
and literal and figurative comparison, for example is if the claim introduced
that is “I am a British citizen”, it can be supported with the supporting data
“I was born in Bermuda”. Thirdly, warrant is justifications or reasoning that
connect the claim and the evidence. To move from the data established in “I was
born in Bermuda”, to the claim in “I am a British citizen”, the person must
supply a warrant to bridge the gap between data and claim with the statement “a
man born in Bermuda will legally be a British Citizen”. Fourthly, qualifier is
words and phrases that limit or narrow the scope of a claim, and some common
qualifier are in most cases, always, never, in males between the ages of… Rebuttal
is arguments that counter or disagree with a claim, for instance “But what
about, unless.., if..so” (Jaffe,
2001:361-362). Finally, backing is data for warrant which explain why the
warrant is legitimated and offers grounds in which the warrant should be
accepted (Hill and Leeman, 1996:36). For the example of backing is if the
listener does not deem the warrant above as credible, the speaker will supply
the legal provisions as backing statement to show that it is true that “a man
born in Bermuda will legally be a British Citizen.” Related
to argumentative discourse, the researcher takes Presidential Debates of USA as
the data source or corpus. Debates share a common purpose.
They are argumentative
interactions designed to allow competing advocates to present and test
arguments (Hill and Leeman, 1996:7). The debates contain about argumentative
statements delivered by Illinois Senator, Barack Obama, and New York Senator, Hillary Clinton, as the 2008
presidential nominees from Democratic Party which have been transcribed.
Mackenzie (1986:63) states that Democratic Party is one of the oldest parties
with Republican Party in USA, arguably, in the world.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
have highest rates in primary elections than those other democratic
presidential nominees. Both nominees compete tightly to be the only one nominee
from Democratic Party. Then, argumentative statements in the debates are
sharply delivered. Graham (2008, para.47) said: “Clinton led the field of
candidates competing for the Democratic nomination in opinion polls for the
election throughout the first half of 2007. Most polls placed Senator Barack Obama
of Illinois as Clinton' s closest competitors in the early caucus and primary election
states”.
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