Political Debates and the Power of Textuality: Analyzing the First Debate of Indonesia Presidential Candidates' Election in 2023 from a Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed  to find out the types of textual meaning of the first debate of the Indonesia presidential candidates’ election in 2023

Methods: This research used descriptive qualitative which the data were obtained through presidential candidates’ election debate about human rights (HAM), government and improving public service, and corruption eradication. The subject of this research was the presidential candidates’ election in 2023. The data collection instrument used takes a note to look carefully and is directed in finding the textual meaning of the first debate presidential candidate’s election to the desired data.

Results: The result of this research showed that the presidential candidates’ election debate used topical theme 85 with the percentage (25%), textual theme 114 with the percentage (33%), interpersonal theme 29 with the percentage (8%), unmarked theme 115 with the percentage (34%), and marked theme 1 with the percentage (0%). The types of textual meaning dominant are unmarked themes. To analyze data, the researchers used the DeepL translate tool.

Conclusions: According to the aforementioned data, it can be concluded that using textual meaning on the first debate of Indonesia presidential candidates’ election in 2023 it showed that the presidential candidates’ election debate dominant used unmarked theme and topical theme in their debate to express the arguments/opinions.