Attitudinal Lexemes in Diplomatic Discourse:  An Appraisal Analysis of President Prabowo Subianto’s 2025 UNGA Speech

Evi Endarti

doi:10.18326/jopr.v8i1.138-159

Authors

Evi Endarti Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Faculty of Aeronautical and Industrial Engineering, University of Dirgantara Marsekal Suryadarma, Jakarta, Indonesia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18326/jopr.v8i1.138-159

Keywords:

Attitudinal Lexemes, Systemic Functional Linguistics,, Appraisal Framework,, Rhetorical Diplomacy

Abstract

This study examines how attitudinal lexemes shape Indonesia’s diplomatic stance in President Prabowo Subianto’s 2025 address to the United Nations General Assembly. Drawing on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (1994) and Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal Framework, the analysis examines evaluative patterns across Affect, Judgment, and Appreciation. A total of 60 attitudinal lexemes were identified: 18 Affect lexemes expressing empathy, collective resolve, and shared humanity; 17 Judgment lexemes articulating moral evaluation and leadership expectations; and 25 Appreciation lexemes assessing international institutions, achievements, and global challenges. While the predominance of positive evaluation aligns with UNGA genre conventions, the findings suggest that such positivity also serves a strategic purpose, legitimizing diplomatic authority, reinforcing moral credibility, and preempting dissent through the normalization of consensus-oriented values. This evaluative pattern contributes to the construction of a moralized international identity that implicitly constrains alternative or oppositional perspectives within global governance discourse. By foregrounding linguistic choices rather than political ideology, the study demonstrates how evaluative language operates as a subtle mechanism of diplomatic legitimation on the global stage.

References

Alhuthali, M. (2024). Appraisal theory and interpreting political speech. European Scientific Journal, 20(10), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.19044/esj.2024.v20n10p1

Anisimova, M., & Zikánová, Š. (2022). Attitude in diplomatic speeches: A pilot study. In Proceedings of the 19th Joint ACL–ISO Workshop on Interoperable Semantic Annotation (pp. 137–146). CEUR Workshop Proceedings. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3226/paper17.pdf

Anisimova, M., & Zikánová, Š. (2024). Attitudes in diplomatic speeches: Introducing the CoDipA UNSC 1.0. In Proceedings of the 20th Joint ACL–ISO Workshop on Interoperable Semantic Annotation (pp. 17–26). Association for Computational Linguistics. https://aclanthology.org/2024.isa-1.3

Chilton, P. (2004). Analysing political discourse: Theory and practice. Routledge.

Darong, H.C. (2022). Interpersonal Function of American Political Speech (Systemic Functional Linguistics Approach). IJOLTL (Indonesian Journal of Language Teaching and Linguistics), 7(1), 58–71. https://doi.org/10.30957/ijoltl.v7i1.626

Fairclough, N. (2015). Language and power (3rd ed.). London, UK: Routledge.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.

Halliday, M.A.K., & Matthiessen, C.M.I.M. (2014). Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar (4th ed.). Routledge.

Herman, H., Saputra, N., Ngongo, M., & Fatmawati, E. (2022). Delivering A Good Speech by Identifying the Interpersonal Meaning Found in Joe Biden’s Victory Speech: A Case on Systemic Functional Linguistics. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 22(3), 65-73. https://doi.org/10.36923/jicc.v22i3.77

Lian, Y. (2018). Analysis of Xi’s diplomatic speeches from the perspective of Appraisal Theory. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 9(4), 759–764. https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.0904.12

Li, L., Dreyfus, S., & Don, A. (2025). An appraisal analysis of judgement values on a Chinese political web forum. Text & Talk, 45(5), 633–655. https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2023-0177.

Martin, J.R., & White, P.R.R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Palgrave Macmillan.

Prabowo Subianto. (2025, September 23). Statement at the General Debate of the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly [Speech transcript]. United Nations. https://gadebate.un.org/en/80/indonesia.

Prabowo Subianto. (2025, September 23). Statement at the General Debate of the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly [Video]. United Nations Web TV. https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1s/k1sdt1al24.

White, P. R. R. (2015). Appraisal theory. In K. Tracy, C. Ilie, & T. Sandel (Eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction (pp. 1–7).

Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118611463.wbielsi041

Wodak, R. (2015). The politics of fear: What right-wing populist discourses mean. SAGE.

Xiao, Z. (2016). The discourse analysis and translation method of diplomatic speeches in Chinese and English from the perspective of the appraisal system. In Proceedings of the 2016 2nd International Conference on Humanities and Social Science Research (MEICI 2016) (pp. 108–111). Atlantis Press. https://doi.org/10.2991/meici-16.2016.23

Zhang, S., & Pei, Z. (2018). Analysis of political language based on Appraisal Theory: The mutual construction of language and power—Taking Xi Jinping and Donald Trump’s speeches at World Economic Forum as examples. In Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (Vol. 248, Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Science and Education Reform [ICSSER 2018]). Atlantis Press. https://doi.org/10.2991/ic sser-18.2019.70