PRAGMATIC METAPHOR IN THE STATEMENT OF ELITES OF THE ACEH GOVERNMENT WHEN CONTROLLING COVID-19 IN ACEH PROVINCE

Abstrak

This study discusses the style of communication of the Aceh Government elites during the Covid-19 response in Aceh Province. The statements of the government elites are important to study because the government elites have a role, power and authority in the form of policies. What is the policy and wisdom of the speech acts of the Aceh Government elites during the response to Covid-19 in Aceh? This is the focus of the research so that a comprehensive description of the language style and speech acts of the Aceh Government elite will be obtained in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic. The statement of the Aceh Government elites when responding Covid-19 Pandemic actually contains many metaphorical elements that have led to various interpretations and perceptions in the wider community. On the one hand, the Aceh Government issued a statement with the aim of wanting to reduce and break the chain of the spread of Covid-19 while at the same time controlling the social life situation of the community to keep it safe and under control, on the other hand it turns out that this statement can be interpreted differently by many people. Therefore, this study aims to identify and analyze the pragmatic function of metaphors in the speech of the Aceh Government elites during the Covid-19 response in Aceh Province. Data collection was carried out through mass media coverage. The statements of the Aceh Government elites in the mass media are collected, identified and classified so that they compile statements that lead to a metaphor. Furthermore, the data is analyzed in terms of the pragmatic function as a knowledge and learning social communication for the wider community. The mass media which is used as a reference source for data collection is representative mass media read by the people of Aceh, both printed and online media. The statement of the Aceh Government elites that has gone viral in the social life of the community will be prioritized as the primary data source. Thus, the stages of this research are (1) providing data; (2) data description; (3) and data analysis. Data analysis was carried out by coding (Saldana, 2009), then interpreted with a semantic approach. The results showed that the statements of the Aceh Government elites when responding Covid-19 Pandemic generally contained assertive, directive, and expressive pragmatic functions. This function shows the existence of a linguistic strategy in the social communication of the Aceh Government elites to provide services to the community as well as an effort to break the chain of the spread of Covid-19 in Aceh. This pragmatic function is also related to the politeness of language in the Acehnese government elite in the face of a disease that has plagued globally.