State of the Nation Address of President Duterte: An Analysis of Gendered Lexis

 

STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT DUTERTE: AN ANALYSIS OF GENDERED LEXIS 

Jeson A. Bustamante

Introduction

    Various forms of public address became a powerful tool in emphasizing speaker-audience connection, together with looking into how the message is effectively communicated. These addresses are given to deliver strong messages to the public. 

    In the Philippines, with numerous media reports on political, social, and cultural issues, public speeches are vital platforms in advancing foundations for the public to analyze information, issues, and arguments and eventually form evidence-based perspectives (Ancho, et.al., 2020). Dacay (2018) stated that politicians express themselves and their ideologies through language which influences and determines one’s thinking and behavior.

    The State of the Nation Address (SONA) serves as a medium to present to the public the contemporary issues, achievements, and directions while fulfilling identified goals for the people of the country. It becomes an avenue to further capture how the government has provided solutions to the most pressing challenges and issues while highlighting the strategic directions to be taken in the coming years. The way the speech is delivered is carefully crafted in the hope of effectively conveying messages to the people. Most importantly, the contents are meticulously written to fit vital and critical issues in an hour-length speech.

    Pres. Duterte is known to give controversial responses or comments about women. In addition, he also has a unique way of language use when he communicates either in formal or informal contexts. The State of the Nation Address (SONA) is the most important speech given by a President because it presents all the plans, updates, and progress of the President in his current term. It is also disseminated nationwide on all media platforms which makes it very accessible to the nationwide audience. It is very essential to analyze how gendered lexicons are used in the speech of a national leader. because being the person in the highest position, everyone watches and pays attention to whatever he says.

    The findings of this study could consequently give awareness to the conversations related to language and gender. Basically, it provides another perspective on the way we view language and gender, from the perspectives of our leaders. Presidential speeches are powerful platforms for advancing communication and discourse. Philippine presidents, being regarded as the most powerful persons in the country, could create avenues for discourse. These national leaders are capable of directing powerful and strong ideas: their speeches are considered to be a significant substance in affirming their views and ideas. 

    Identifying how the gender (men and women) is represented in his SONA provides an implication of how the president’s language use creates an impact on the listeners. Identifying the dominant gendered lexicon will also add to the growing literature on how gender is revealed in the lexicon of the speeches of national leaders. The transcript of the last State of the Nation Address of Pres. Duterte given last July 26, 2021, was used in this study since its content do not only covers the future plans of the administration but also the current progress of his agenda and the most pressing issues the country is facing. Thus, this last SONA is the most important and recent significant speech of the leader of the country.

Research Questions 

1. How is gender represented in the language use of the speech?

2. What is the dominant gendered lexicon in his final state of the nation address?

Related Studies

    There have been several studies published by scholars among various aspects in investigating the speeches of Pres. Duterte.  

    Gelilang, Tenito, and Varona (2021) analyzed President Duterte’s Speech Acts on the transcripts of March 2020 speeches through discourse analysis. The study found that the dominant speech acts that came out in the press briefing are Assertives with 152 utterances, that is, in most of the statements of the President he described the current state of the government and the whole country. While Utari (2017) described through a political discourse analysis how Pres. Duterte is represented in the BBC News coverage in relation to his policy of war on drugs. The study revealed that Pres. Duterte is drawn in bad representation because the journalist continuously represents most of his bad sides which automatically emerge a kind of human rights disorder to Pres. Duterte and his policy of war on drugs.

    In the aspect of Covid-19, Tamano, Guimba, and Disangcopan (2021) investigated the recent speeches of Pres. Duterte through critical discourse analysis. The findings revealed that covid19 speeches of President Duterte promoted inclusivity and service to the nation, and this was achieved through his dominant use of personal pronouns, present, and future tenses, present progressives, and use of modal verbs will, and through the properties of cohesion found in his speeches.

    Remorosa (2018) also employed critical discourse analysis in examining the political speeches in terms of linguistic features, and rhetorical strategies and uncovering the issues behind these discourses of Pres. Duterte. The study revealed that the linguistic features are personal pronouns that show inclusivity and exclusivity. Passivity, transitivity, and the dominating verb tenses and aspects are also evident.

    These studies have emphasized that the speeches of Pres. Duterte can be analyzed in various aspects. Through these studies, there is a clear substantial foundation of previous works that will make this study have a strong anchor on its focus on the speech of Pres. Duterte.

Methodology

Gendered Lexis refers to words associated with a type of gender either man or woman. This paper investigates the State of the Nation Address (SONA) of Pres. Duterte by identifying specific lexicons associated with men and women, then grouping them the based on the frequency. 

In the book, Feminist Stylistics, Mills (1995) proposes three different levels for analysing texts: word, phrase/sentence, and discourse. In this paper, the analysis is carried out at the level of the words in the transcript or the text of the speech only. This paper uses the lexical analysis framework extracted from Mills’ Feminist Stylistics (1995). 

The transcript of the last State of the Nation Address of Pres. Duterte given last July 26, 2021 was used in this study since its content do not only covers the future plans of the administration but also the current progress of his agenda and the most pressing issues the country is facing. Thus, this last SONA is the most important and recent significant speech of the leader of the country.

Results and Discussion

    The discussion of the results of the lexical anaysis is presented in tabular data, frequency of words, and categorization of lexicons based on gender and then grouping them into the type of content words.

Table 1. Word frequency of male-related lexicons found

Gender-related lexicon

Male                                          length                  Count        Weighted Average

1.   Men                              3                    4                28.57

2.   Boy                              3                    2                14.28

3.   Son                           3                    1                      7.14

4.   He                                2                        11                78.57

5.   Sir                                3                    3                21.42

6.   Father                          6                    1                      7.14

7.   Congressman                    11                    2                14.28

8.   Countrymen                      10                    4                28.57

9.   Policemen                      9                    3                21.42

10.Him                              3                    3                21.42

11.Filipino                          8                        48              342.85

12.Tatay (father)                        5                    2                14.28

13.Lalaki (man)                  6                    2                14.28

14.Basurero (garbage man)          8                    1                      7.14

The length refers to the length of each of the words presented on the table, count refers to the number of times the word has been repeated, and the weighted average is the result of the overall usage of each word based on the speech. Analyzing these would benefit the analysis with its linguistic relevance and relevance toward the representation of gender and identifying the dominant lexicon.

    President Duterte’s State of the Nation Address utilizes male nouns and pronouns that give implication and emphasis that majority, if not all, of those who hold high-ranking government positions, are men. Duterte’s SONA addresses the Filipino people, while the word Filipino is understood and used by societall standards and by traditional acceptance of the word as a gender-neutral generalized term for both sexes, in the SONA it is used to segregate the male and female citizens of the country as Duterte acknowledges the women by using Filipina. The collected words of Congressmen, Countrymen, and Policemen are also a general use for both sexes, emphasizing the dominance of the male gender in Philippine society. 

Table 2. Word frequency of female-related lexicons found

Gender-related lexicon      

Female                                    length                   Count            Weighted Average

1.   Women                          5                    3                    30

2.   Girl                                4                    1                    10

3.   Daughter                      8                    4                    40

4.   She                              3                    3                    30

5.   Ma’am                          4                    4                    40

6.   Mother                          6                    2                    20

7.   Beautiful                        9                    2                    20

8.   Filipina                          8                    1                    10

9.   Nanay (mother)            5                    2                    20

10.Babae (woman)                    5                    7                    70

    The table above shows the female-related lexicons gathered and used in the SONA, the majority of the word used is the word Babae, acknowledging the female citizens and workers of the country. While Daughter and Ma’am are second as the most used word in the female category of gender-related lexicons found and used.

    The tables presented show the amount of gender-related lexicons in the male category used compared to the minimal amount in the female category. With the acknowledgment of both sexes in Duterte’s final State of the Nation address, the results shows that the dominant gender present in the state of the nation address are male and that the most used gender-related lexicons are for male constituents and officials of the country all the while acknowledging the female ones with no insinuation of sexism. Generally, Pres. Duterte used more male-gendered words compared to female-gendered words.

Phrases containing gender-related lexicons

1. “I don’t know, but maybe a legislator or a 394 senator or a congressman”

2. “And because they are — they are policemen, the charges simply just, you know, disappear there.”

3. “with due respect to the Senate President, he is a good man”

4. “have gone into 231 prostitution because of drugs and their boys or the”

5. “but that’s the territory of our Vice President Leni 346 Robredo. Are you here, Ma’am? Ah, Zoom.”

6. “it’s a street lingo — they look for families na may mga nanay,”

7. the male are nowhere to be found and 232 into the drug business also.

8. “But kung nagmamadali talaga, halos tumatakbo, babae ‘yan.”

The data above are phrases that present the use of gender-related lexicon in varied contexts. The majority of the phrases shown use male-related words such as man/men and boys, while the female-related terms used are Ma’am, nanay, and babae. In the statements these lexicon are used to emphasize the gender of the person being referred to representing the descriptions given associated with their gender. 

Conclusion

President Duterte, has been known to have strong and firm usage of language, as shown by several media outlets,when presenting in a formal manner, such as the State of the Nation Address. He regards most of the people he has coordinated, worked, and served with for the development of the country. With this, his last state of the nation address not only addressed the attained goals and achievements of his term, but he also addressed the people who have helped him in giving the Philippines a peaceful term and environment, especially with his war on drugs, most with the help of his associates who are dominantly male. 

    Duterte’s final SONA represented both genders as the default male and female with the choice of lexicons used and analyzed in this paper, and it has emphasized the dominant gendered-related lexicon of males, specifically Filipinos which is a generalization of most citizens of the Philippines, but is regarded as a noun which recognizes the male gender. Thus, gender is represented through male related lexicons in his language use during his speech.

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