International Conference on Language, Literary and Cultural Studies (ICON LATERALS) 2016

Abstract

Human right is an old issue but it is really prominent to discuss in a modern democratic society. This issue should be the base of a democratic country. Therefore, it is not only people's duty but also the government's policy to pursue the human right and to form the democratic society. In 2008, the Australian prime minister issued the national apology. He wanted that all Australians to be honest at their history but this might be on the people's superficial consciousness. It should be elaborated in order to find the chief factor behind that act of apologizing. Therefore, this study tries to figure out the ideological construction behind the speech. This comprises the political ideologies constructed in the 2008 Australian National Apology Speech depicted by the speech textual analysis and the functions of the speech ideology in terms of cognitive and social functions. This study used a qualitative approach using critical discourse analysis. The findings reveal that in the 24 data indicating ideological expression, two types of ideological construction of personal cognition and social cognition are found. The personal cognition shapes the speaker's consciousness and expresses the ideas in the form of speech. There are 9 data which are indicated as personal cognition of which 67 % are the general personal cognition comprising personal values, personal ideologies, personal attitude, and personal knowledge. The other 33 % refers to the particular personal cognition in term of models. The other 15 data are constructed by the social cognition in the mind of the speaker. Those contain sociocultural values, systems of attitude, and sociocultural knowledge. In addition, 6 ideologies of democracy, democratic socialism, humanism, historicism, hegemony, and cultural universalism are also found.