Illocutionary Speech Acts used by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. during the 2022 and 2023 State of the Nation Address

This study aimed to examine what Illocutionary Speech Acts were employed by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. in his 2022 and 2023 SONAs, classify the identified Illocutionary Speech Acts with the 5 classifications of Illocutionary Speech Acts according to Searle for accuracy, and assess the data to determine the most dominant Illocutionary Speech Acts used and least used to understand what kind of speaker President Marcos Jr. is. This study used the Discourse Analysis Method grounded in the Speech Act Theory of Austin and Searle by process of analysis, categorization, and assessment. The study focused on the 2022 and 2023 SONAs of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The result of the study is that out of 294 utterances in the 2022 SONA, President Marcos Jr. spoke most dominantly in the Assertive Illocutionary 197 times, while in the 2023 SONA, he spoke most dominantly in the Assertive Illocutionary 222 out of 283 utterances. The least used Illocutionary Speech Act Classification for the 2022 and 2023 SONA is the Declaration Classification accounting for only 1 utterance out of 294 in 2022 SONA and 1 out of 283 utterances in 2023 SONA. The result implies that in the 2022 and 2023 SONA, the President’s main intention was to Assert. Despite his utterances of Commissives, Expressives, Directives, and Declarations, his primary intention in the 2 SONAs is to Assert or present information, facts, plans, statements, and opinions. That, in turn, leads to the conclusion of the study that President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. is an Assertive Speaker. Researchers can build on this conclusion, conducting further studies on the Illocutionary Speech Acts used on the forthcoming SONAs of the current Philippine President throughout his term, to create in the future a complete analysis of the Illocutionary Speech Acts used on all the 6 SONAs of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.