Deixis in Gusdur’s Presidential Speech Government Statement on the 2000 Draft State Budget

Abstract

This research investigates the use of deixis in Presidential Speech: Government Statement on the 2000 Draft State Budget to the House of the People’s Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia delivered by Abdurrahman Wahid. The primary objective of this study is to analyze the deictic expressions employed in the speech and to explain how they construct meaning within the political and socio-historical context of Indonesia’s reform era. Drawing on the pragmatic framework of Levinson (1983) deixis is categorized into personal, temporal, spatial, discourse, and social deixis. The method used is qualitative descriptive analysis, in which the speech text is examined to identify deictic expressions and interpret their functions. The findings reveal that personal deixis, particularly the pronoun we, is frequently used to build a sense of solidarity and collective responsibility between the government and the people. Temporal deixis, such as today and in the future, situates the nation’s economic challenges and policies in a temporal framework that emphasizes continuity and planning. Spatial deixis highlights the institutional setting of the address, while discourse deixis organizes the flow of argumentation. Social deixis, including honorific forms and respectful address, reflects Indonesia’s cultural norms of politeness and institutional hierarchy. This study concludes that deictic expressions in Wahid’s speech are not merely linguistic devices but powerful rhetorical tools. They construct meaning by framing national identity, affirming political authority, and fostering unity in a period of democratic transition. The analysis underscores the significance of deixis as both a pragmatic and political strategy in Indonesian presidential discourse.