The representation of nature in a political speech in promoting “Indonesia Maju”

Abstract

In spotlighting the relationship between human and nature, ecolinguistics offers a working approach. It requires linguistic data from the language choices in portraying nature in various texts, including political speeches. Topics on nature in political discourse and speeches are strategic not only to gain people’s attention but also to hide agendas. They commonly conceal commodification of natural resources and exploitation under the national advancement and stability. This research intends to reveal the destructive discourse on nature by incorporating Systemic Functional Grammar’s transitivity and Greimas’ actantial analysis. The research object is the former Indonesian President Jokowi’s speech which promotes the notion of “Advanced Indonesia”. Linguistically, the speech emphasizes green economy but neglects indigenous people and environmental concerns. The result shows that the most frequent transitivity processes are material process by 61% and relational process by 29%. They indicate that ideologically the speech focuses on actions, happening, and connections of ideas. However, the material process hides the responsible actors by passive voice sentence construction. The relational process highlights Indonesia as a successful country in overcoming Covid-19. By the actantial analysis, in achieving “Advanced Indonesia” as the goal the speech neglects the nature by maintaining anthropocentric perspectives of the subject.