A Functional Approach to the 2019 Indonesian Presidential Debate Pendekatan Fungsional pada Debat Calon Presiden Indonesia 2019

The present study aims to describe the proportion of the second Indonesian presidential debate content, evaluate the applicability of functional theory, and express Joko Widodo's (candidate 01) and Prabowo Subianto's (candidate 02) communication styles according to the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse by Benoit (2015). This study analyzed seven hypotheses from the functional theory under the fourth and fifth axioms using content analysis. The data of this study are the forty-one turns spoken by candidates in the second debate. The findings show that functional theory is suitable for identifying the debate content and describing the proportion of the themes, discursive strategies (acclaim, attack, and defense), topics (policy and character), and sub-topics (past deed, future plan, general goal, personal quality, leadership ability, and ideal). Six hypotheses are proven to be consistent with the prediction. However, the third hypothesis is partially confirmed in the debate as candidate 02 uses acclaim more than candidate 01. Further, both candidates utilize different communication styles; candidate 01 favors using acclaim and defense to establish preferability while candidate 02 chooses to claim and attack.


Introduction
Presidential debates are significant political events in democratic countries. The formal events are held between political opponents for several rounds as one means of campaigning. This sequence of official activities acts as a national stage for president and vice president candidates to proclaim and communicate their contrasting messages regarding visions, missions, plans, achievements, and arguments to the masses. Presidential debates, as a form of campaigning, have gained massive attention from scholars and researchers to study the content of debates (Carlin, Howard, Stanfield, & Reynolds, 1991;Benoit, 2015), the effect on voters (Aalberg & Jenssen, 2007;McKinney & Chattopadhyay, 2007;Shaw, 1999), and the coverage by media (Fridkin, Kenney, Gershon & Woodall, 2008). While the impact of voting behavior is the most popular focus, followed by the media's coverage, research on the content of debates is not as famous (Isotalus, 2011). Debate content has been analyzed from a myriad of theoretical perspectives. One of the most popular is the use or applicability of the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse (thereafter, functional theory) developed by Benoit and his colleagues (Benoit, 1999;2015;Benoit, Blaney & Pier, 1999;Benoit & Harthcock, 1999;Benoit & Wells, 1996). This paper attempts to analyze the content of the presidential debate in Indonesia, evaluate the applicability of functional theory, and understand presidential candidates' communication styles attentive to the theory.
Developed through extensive research on American presidential campaigns, the theory is a reliable instrument for studying the content of American presidential debates. However, several findings mention that the generality of functional theory is not particularly suitable for analyzing the debate contents of other countries, especially those with different political systems and cultures (Cmeciu & Patrut, 2010;Hrbková & Zagrapan, 2014;Isotalus, 2011). Isotalus (2011) argues that the theory is culturally limited and at most suitable to describe the American presidential debates or countries with a similar two-party system. Although the theory has also been tested in other debates in different countries such as Finlandia (Isotalus, 2011;Paatelainen, Croucher, & Benoit, 2016), French (Choi & Benoit, 2013), Taiwan (Benoit, Wen & Yu, 2007), South Korea (Lee & Benoit 2005), Slovakia (Hrbková & Zagrapan, 2014), United Kingdom (Benoit & Benoit-Bryan, 2013), Canada and Australia (Benoit & Henson, 2007), research on the use and applicability of the theory has not been extensive in the Indonesian presidential debates. Wahyuningsih & Nirmala (2020) applied the theory application on the first Indonesian presidential debate in 2019 concerning the utterances by Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto. Their research indicates that the functional theory can be used to analyze the debate content and participating candidates' communication styles. Still, one prediction of the frequency of acclaim is inaccurate for acclaims that appear to have a lower frequency than attacks. Nonetheless, this study mainly focuses on using acclaim, attack, and defense in the debates, while the use of policy and character topics and sub-topics is not considered. The present study attempts to address this issue. Benoit (1999) argues that political communication in presidential debates is functional in the sense of a means to a desirable aim. Through debates, participating candidates produce messages and arguments that may affect the political opponents and audiences. A candidate must show a distinguishable impression to appeal to the electorate. An overview of comparison in the debate can help undecided voters to choose their preferred future leader (Benoit & Harthcock, 1999); whether one of the candidates proves to be a more excellent choice. Thus, it is recommendable to analyze presidential debates considering the recognized functions. According to Benoit (2015, pp. 9-22), the functional theory proposes six axioms: A1. Voting is a comparative act A2. Candidates must distinguish themselves from opponents. A3. Political campaign messages allow candidates to distinguish themselves.
A4. Candidates establish preferability through acclaiming, attacking, and defending A5. Campaign discourse occurs on two topics: policy and character. A6. A candidate must win a majority (or a plurality) of the votes cast in an election.
I consider the fourth and fifth axioms to be the most fitting and suitable to identify the usage of discursive strategies, topics, and sub-topics to establish candidates' preferability, evaluate the theory's applicability through the debate's content, and determine the candidates' communication style. The fourth axiom states that the use of three discursive functions in debates -acclaim, attack, and defense-is necessary for candidates to appear more preferable than the opponents. Each function is described as follows: 1) Acclaims refer to candidates' utterances that show their favorable policy positions and characters; 2) Attacks are statements or rebuttals that put the opposing candidate in a disadvantaged situation; 3) Candidates' efforts to restore their disadvantaged situation and their respond to the opponent's attacks are defenses. The functional theory posits three hypotheses for the frequency of these functions in debates. First, acclaims appear more frequent than attacks. Second, the use of attacks occurs more often than defenses. Further, the incumbent will acclaim more, and attack less, than the challenger.
According to the fifth axiom, the debate content will discuss two major topics (policy and character) with a hypothesis of policy being more common than character. Benoit (1999) argues that potential voters would rather choose a candidate based on their governmental actions than fitting characteristics and vice versa. For this reason, the topics are important to note in the debates. The topic of policy has three sub-topics: past deeds, future plans, and general goals. Past deeds are the previous governmental actions and policy outcomes of a candidate. Future plans refer to the detailed plans that propose a certain goal. General goals are utterances that mention just an end or goal. In addition, the character also consists of three subtopics: personal qualities, leadership ability, and ideals. Personal qualities refer to the candidates' attitudes and personality traits. Leadership ability concerns the candidates' political experience and accomplishment in office. Last, the ideals are the values or principles of the candidates. There are three hypotheses for the sub-topics. First, general goals will appear more often than future plans. Second, candidates will utilize general goals more commonly to acclaim than attack. Third, candidates will use ideals to acclaim rather than attack. Several findings have supported these hypotheses (Benoit, 1999;2015;Benoit et al., 1999;Benoit & Harthcock, 1999;Benoit & Henson, 2007;Benoit & Wells, 1996).
Some studies have indicated that presidential debates have the property to enhance democratic values and influence the public perceptions of candidates (Pfau, 2002), and policy position and character evaluation (Benoit, McKinney, & Holbert, 2001;Benoit & Hansen, 2004;Benoit, Hansen, & Verser, 2003;Jennings et al., 2020;McKinney & Warner, 2013;Winneg & Jamieson, 2017). Due to this competitive and appraisal nature, the presidential debate has particular usefulness and can spark the public's interest, unlike other forms of political campaigns. Furthermore, public debates are broadcasted live in real-time by television channels. Thus, the formal events require the candidates' immediate response to unexpected questions and arguments; this form of campaign is also capable of reaching myriads of voters (Coleman, 2000), who have limited resources to explore details of presidential candidacy. For these reasons, presidential debates represent the most fascinating field to study the functional strategies in candidates' political communication.
According to the Indonesian Constitution and political system, the country adheres to a multi-party presidential system in which several political parties may form a coalition to propose or run for national elections and the public can directly elect the candidates. For presidential elections, the incumbent has a maximum of two terms limit every five years. Indonesian presidential debates in 2019 consist of a sequence of political activities, five in total, for the president and vice president candidates to deliver their visions, missions, questions, and elaborative arguments. The debates were held from January 17 th to April 13 th by the General Elections Commission. There were two pairs of president and vice president candidates, respectively Joko Widodo with Ma'ruf Amin and Prabowo Subianto with Sandiaga Uno.
The present study is designed to answer the following questions: (1) What proportion of discursive functions, topics, and sub-topics are presented in the debate? (2) To what extent is the theory applicable in the second Indonesian presidential debate? (3) What are the candidates' communication styles according to the theory? Inasmuch as the theory is a creditable procedure for analyzing the American presidential debates and political culture, it is worthy of examining the validity of the said theory in other countries and cultures.

Method
For the need of this study, I analyzed the second presidential debate in accordance with the research objectives. The debate held on 17 February 2019 proposed several themes by the moderators: Infrastructure, Food, Energy, Natural Resources, and Environment. The debate required the participation of two presidential candidates: the incumbent Joko Widodo (candidate 01) and the challenger Prabowo Subianto (candidate 02). The debate's format consisted of six segments which centered on the candidates' turns of talking.
The present study applied the functional theory to analyze the second Indonesian presidential debate in 2019. The video was taken from YouTube, an online video-sharing platform, which is available on the channel of CNN Indonesia (2019). The debate was coded using the content analytic procedure proposed by the theory (Benoit 2015). There were four steps in analyzing the debate after the transcription. First, the utterances by candidates were divided into themes (complete ideas). One advantage of this analytic procedure is to consider each theme contained in different lengths. Due to the nature of the debates, in which a candidate's turns are several minutes long, a turn may contain several themes, functions, or topics. As Benoit (2015, p.28) claimed "discourse is enthymematic." Thus, a single theme may be in a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph. Second, the utterances of participating candidates were categorized by three thematic functions: acclaims (AC), attacks (AT), and defenses (D). Third, I classified the topics of policy (P) and character (C) contained in the functions. Fourth, each sub-topic of policy (past deeds (PD), future plans (FP), and general goals (GG)) and character (personal qualities (PQ), leadership ability (LA), and ideals (I)) were added to the topics.
The data consisted of turns spoken by candidate 01 and candidate 02 during the first to sixth segments in the second Indonesian presidential debate in 2019. The role of moderators was not taken into account because they only organized the turns (approximately up to 3 minutes each) of candidates in the debate and asked the prepared questions from the panelists. After I completed the classifications of discursive functions, topics, and sub-topics, I determined the total number of times each discursive function, topic, and sub-topic occurred in the debate. Next, the result of candidates' utterances was compared to gain a better insight. Then, the findings were analyzed qualitatively to critically evaluate the applicability of functional theory and candidates' communication styles in the Indonesian presidential debate. The transcribed text was analyzed by the researcher alone.

Findings and Discussion
This section intends to answer the research questions constructed in this research. The following parts will present the findings and discussion of the functional outline of the second Indonesian presidential debate in 2019, the applicability of the functional theory, and Joko Widodo's (candidate 01) and Prabowo Subianto's (candidate 02) communication styles.

The functional outline of the second Indonesian presidential debate
There were a total of 44 turns produced by candidate 01 (22 turns) and candidate 02 (22 turns) during the debate. However, the entire three turns (two for candidate 01 and one for candidate 02) out of 44 turns did not have a function. In those 41 turns, I identified nine themes mentioned by the candidates: The Governing Process, Food, Energy, Natural Resources, Human Resources, Economy, Personality Traits, Infrastructure, and Environment. The following table will present the proportion of the nine themes according to the discursive functions: acclaims (AC), attacks (AT), and defenses (D), and topics of policy and character. A total of 197 discursive functions were coded in compliance with the functional theory content analytic procedure. Each function was classified either as policy or character. Further, the policy topic was categorized into subtopics: past deeds, future plans, and general goals. The character topic was categorized into subtopics: personal qualities, leadership ability, and ideals with each discursive function (see Table 4). In the debate, [T1] = The Governing Process received the most attention (45) while [T4] = Natural Resources received the least attention (14). The former theme discussion mostly covered both Joko Widodo's (candidate 01) and Prabowo Subianto's (candidate 02) claims on their current visions, missions, and work programs, also candidate 02's attacks on past governmental actions of candidate 01. The latter theme was brought up by candidates 01 and 02; candidate 01 focused on acclaiming his policy positions of agrarian reform, mine, illegal fishing, and oil field. On the opposite, candidate 02 focused on attacking the outcomes of candidate 01's past policy regarding Indonesia's dependency, agrarian reform, and seaport operation.
The first and second hypotheses of the functional theory indicated that acclaims would appear more frequently than attacks, followed by defenses. This prediction was accurate in the second Indonesian presidential debate, for acclaim (61.4%) appeared in a higher number than attacks (24.9%) and defenses (13.7%). This result is in line with Benoit's previous findings (Benoit, 1999;2015;Benoit et al., 1999;Benoit & Harthcock, 1999;Benoit & Wells, 1996). Each of the discursive functions of the functional theory was deployed continually in the second debate, the proportion will be illustrated in Table 2. The number of acclaim in the debate produced by the candidates did not have a greatly significant difference; candidate 01 delivered 48.8% of acclaim compared to candidate 02 (51.2%). This was due to the fact that most of the candidates' acclaims were responses to the prepared question asked by the moderators regarding their visions and missions for the nation and the populace. Due to the nature of the debate, each candidate had an equal number of turns and time to elaborate their visions and missions. In addition, candidates were not allowed to interrupt each other. For the attack, this function had a notable difference (14.3% for candidate 01 and 85.7% for candidate 02). Candidate 02 utilized plenty of candidate 01's failures related to his past deeds. In addition, candidate 02 emphasized the attack on candidate 01 modest nature which resulted in him being seen as submissive and timid. The high contrast of the number of attacks simultaneously caused the frequency of defenses to have a similar disparity. In restoring his preferability, candidate 01 contributed 88.9% of defenses in the debate compared to candidate 02 (11.1%). The third hypothesis in which the incumbent (candidate 01) would acclaim more and attack less than the challenger (candidate 02) was partially confirmed in this study. Candidate 01 used acclaim (49.2%) less than candidate 02 (50.8%) and candidate 01 did attack (14%) less than candidate 02 (86%). As the running president for four years in the office, candidate 01 utilized acclaim in favor of his previous policy positions focusing on infrastructure (subtheme: the construction of public infrastructures) and the governing process (sub-themes: his vision of Progressive Indonesia, the cabinet's work performance, presidential responsibilities, and the changing of laws for better enforcement). For example, in Excerpt (3), Candidate 01 focused on acclaiming his successful achievements in building many infrastructures for the people and the development of the nation as well as human resources: Excerpt (3) Candidate 01: "Ya, saya kira dalam 4 tahun ini telah kita bangun banyak sekali, baik itu yang namanya jalan, jalan tol, pelabuhan: baru maupun pengembangan, airport: baru maupun pengembangan…. Dan, inilah yang ingin terus kita lakukan agar konektivitas antar pulau, konektivitas antar provinsi, konektivitas antar kabupaten dan kota itu betul-betul tersambungkan dengan baik." Candidate 01: "Yes, I think in the past 4 years we have built a lot, be it roads, toll roads, ports: new or development, airports: new and development…. And, this is what we want to continue to do so that inter-island connectivity, interprovincial connectivity, inter-district, and city connectivity are truly well connected." This turn was located in the second segment of the debate when a moderator raised the first question about candidate 01's strategy to increase Indonesia's competitiveness regarding infrastructure. In his answer, candidate 01 acclaimed his productive past deed (PD) about constructing public infrastructures to reach an effective general goal (GG) in connecting Indonesia's regions. By doing so, Indonesia's competitiveness on a global scale may advance further. In response to this turn, candidate 02 delivered his acclaims and attacks as in Excerpt (4) Candidate 02: "I appreciate Pak Jokowi's intention in leading infrastructure development, but I also have to convey that it is very likely that Pak Jokowi's team is not working efficiently…. Infrastructure must be for the people, not the people for infrastructure. It can't be that the infrastructure will only become a monument but not be used, for example, the LRT in Palembang and Kertajati Airport and various other ports that are not used." While candidate 01 focused on only acclaiming one theme, candidate 02 delivered a variety of discursive functions (AC and AT) on three themes (Personality Traits, The Governing Process, and Infrastructure) to increase his preferability and reduce candidate 01's preferability. Candidate 02 acclaimed his character of respecting candidate 01's work while attacking candidate 01's ineffective work performance in the cabinet under his rule. Next, candidate 02 acclaimed his ideal (I) by saying "Infrastructure must be for the people, not the people for infrastructure," yet also attacking candidate 01's I. In addition, candidate 02 delivered a fact regarding the failure of several infrastructures that did not increase Indonesia's competitiveness and become impractical pieces of monuments. To restore his preferability in reference to candidate 02's attacks, candidate 01 utilized defenses as in Excerpt (5) Candidate 01: "Well, if Mr. Prabowo previously said that without a feasibility study, I think it is a big mistake because this has been planned for a long time…. Of course, everything is there and there is also the DED. Everything is there.
And, regarding what was said earlier, for example, LRT Palembang or LRT, MRT Jakarta, everything takes time…. It's not easy, it means that if there are still not many people, it's only 4-6 months. Regarding Kertajati, it remains only to complete the connecting toll road between Kertajati-Bandung. Then, it's done. Bandung Airport will all be moved to Kertajati and immediately crowded, Mr. Prabowo." This turn was the last answer in the second segment regarding the first question of infrastructure. It was apparent that candidate 01's entire turn was used for just defense. First, he defended his cabinet performance by simply saying the accusation was wrong. Second, he explained the underlying reasons why the mentioned failures were not losses. Instead, he claimed that the people needed time to adjust and use public transportations. Further, the development of Kertajati airport required the finishing of the toll road. Candidate 01 reasoned that everything would be set in motion when the time and completion took place.
The interpretation of the discursive functions' pattern in the respective Excerpts is as follows; candidate 01 acclaimed, candidate 02 acclaimed and attacked, as well as candidate 01 defended, and vice versa. A large number of discursive functions in the second to fifth segments appeared with this pattern. Meanwhile, the discursive functions in the first and sixth segments (see Appendix) were high on acclaim and low on the attack with no defense found. This is due to the essence of the segments; the first was about the deliverance of candidates' visions, missions, and work programs. To open the debate, moderators gave both candidates a 3-minute time to give an extensive speech in reference to their general tagline: candidate 01 with Progressive Indonesia (Indonesia Maju) and candidate 02 with Glorious Indonesia (Indonesia Menang). Candidate 01's stance was to heighten Indonesia's investment in infrastructure and human resources. On the other hand, candidate 02 had a different standpoint which focused on just economic opportunity for the people's prosperity. In the sixth segment, both candidates should express their closing remarks about the debate. The discursive functions found in the sixth segment were mainly acclaim and defense with a little attack. Both candidates reiterated their achievements and promises for the nation and populace. Last, they addressed some attacks that could not be responded to in the previous segments to restore their preferability.
The fourth hypothesis claimed that policy topics would be more common than character. This was confirmed in the debate as the total of policy topics (73.1%) surpassed the character (26.9%) for nearly three times. This has one explanation; once again, the candidates' turns were largely answers to the questions raised by the panelists but asked by the moderators. There was neither question probing about each candidate's personal quality nor integrity because Indonesians considered the policy topic to be more important than character (Wahyuningsih & Nirmala, 2020). Hence, the topic of character was introduced only by the candidates. As seen in Table 3, there are two results that might seem surprising. Candidate 02 used the topic of policy (52.1%) and character (60.4%) more than candidate 01 (47.9% and 39.6%). This has a threefold explanation. First, candidate 01 never attacked candidate 02's policy topic which decreased the occurrence of the topic on candidate 01 part. Second, candidate 01 only used attacks on candidate 02's character albeit rare, while candidate 02 used attacks in every response regarding candidate 01's policy and character which increased the occurrence of both topics. Third, candidate 02 in his turn both acclaimed and attacked some of the policy and char-acter topics. For the third explanation, candidate 02's used several discursive function switchings under one theme which counted as two functions. Such a case could be seen in the portion of Excerpt (15)  Candidate 02: "Then, for example, I will separate the Minister of Forestry, why was it made into one with the Ministry of Environment? The former, KLH (Minister of Forestry) must supervise the Minister of the Ministry of Forestry. So, why made it into one? So we will soon separate." The interpretation of this Excerpt is as follows; under candidate 01 authority, he merged the Ministry of Forestry and Environment into one. In response, candidate 02 proposed his future plan to separate the Ministries due to their difference in function and responsibility. As seen in Excerpt (15), there was a switch of functions (AC to AT) and sub-topics (FP to PD). This resulted in two different counts. Similar discursive function switching could be noticed in Excerpt (21) under the theme Governing Process with the function switching (AC to AT).

Excerpt (21)
Candidate 02: "Jadi, situasi yang dibutuhkan sekarang adalah suatu pemerintah yang tegas, yang berani untuk menindak...." Candidate 02: "So, the situation that is needed now is a firm government, which dares to take action...." This turn was a response to a question about the environmental problem in which some large companies did not try to restore mining pits and escaped from responsibility. Candidate 02's acclaim indicated his strong disposition (bravery) to stand for Indonesia's interests and punish the companies who did not oblige the law. At the same time, he criticized candidate 01's modest nature that neither designed a firm government nor was swift in taking action.
The fifth hypothesis predicted that candidates would utilize general goals more commonly to acclaim than attack. According to Benoit (2015), general goals (GG) are utterances that mention just an end. In this regard, the hypothesis was proven by the candidates' utterances in the debate for GG held the highest number of occurrences for acclaim (98.1%) while there was no attack using GG (see Table 4). This was due to the fact that both candidates mentioned many strategies and work programs without actually elaborating on the steps or processes. They only delivered the end or goal of the strategies and work programs. Also, most of the attacks were delivered by candidate 02 who focused on finding errors in candidate 01's past deeds (PD).
GG appeared, at least, once in most turns of the debate. However, many GG appeared in the turns of the first segment, when both candidates conveyed their vision, mission, and work programs. Due to the time limit, both candidates just mentioned the goal of their vision. For instance, candidate 01 used this chance to deliver some goals in the future as in Excerpt (2): Excerpt (2) Candidate 01: "Seluruh rakyat Indonesia yang saya cintai, visi kami adalah Indonesia Maju. Dibidang energi, kedepan kita ingin sebanyak-banyaknya mengurangi pemakaian energi fosil sehingga pemakaian biodiesel, pemakaian green fuel akan kita kerjakan…. Yang ketiga di bidang pangan, kita ingin ketersediaan pangan, stok pangan, stabilitas harga harus terus kita jaga. Di bidang lingkungan hidup, kita ingin kebakaran hutan, kebakaran lahan gambut tidak terjadi lagi…" Candidate 01: "All Indonesian people who I love, our vision is Progressive Indonesia. In the energy sector, in the future, we want to reduce the use of fossil energy as much as possible so that we will use biodiesel, and use green fuels…. Third, in the food sector, we want food availability, food stocks, price stability to be maintained…. In the environmental field, we want forest fires, peatland fires to not happen again…." There were several themes (respectively: The Governing Process, Energy, Food, and Environment) contained in the turn but the function was only to acclaim the sub-topic GG. Candidate 01 utilized his vision (Progressive Indonesia) to show the populace a glimpse of his work programs in the near future. First, he acclaimed the potential benefit of decreasing the use of fossil energy and increasing the use of biodiesel and green fuels. Second, he wanted to manage the availability and price stability of food reserves. Third, he promised to erase the possible fire incidents related to forests and peatlands. In those utterances, GG simply means promises for a better future. The sixth hypothesis indicated that candidates would use ideals to acclaim than attack. This was confirmed in the debate for ideals (I) appeared in a higher frequency (44.5%) on acclaim than attacking (33.3%). Last, the seventh hypothesis predicted that general goals would appear more often than future plans. From Table 4, it is obvious that the number of GG (26.4%) is more common than FP (9.1%).

The applicability of functional theory in Indonesian presidential debate
In the present paper, the content analytic procedure of the functional theory was applied to the second Indonesian presidential debate in 2019. In this section, the analysis focused on the fourth and fifth axioms of the theory to answer the second research objective which is to evaluate the extent of the applicability of the theory. The fourth axiom stated that candidates will establish preferability through three discursive functions: acclaiming, attacking, and defending (Benoit, 2015). This axiom has three hypotheses: (1) acclaims appear more frequent than attacks; (2) the use of attacks occurs more often than defenses; (3) the incumbent will acclaim more, and attack less, than the challenger. The findings of the present paper reveal that the majority of these hypotheses are confirmed in the debate. However, there was a subtle difference in the frequency of acclaim used by the incumbent (candidate 01). The third hypothesis was partially confirmed in the debate because the challenger (candidate 02) used acclaim (50.8%) more than the incumbent (49.2%). The fifth axiom focusing on the topic of policy and character has four hypotheses: (4) the policy topic is more common than character; (5) general goals will appear more often than future plans; (6) candidates will utilize general goals more commonly to acclaim than attack; (7) candidates will use ideals to acclaim than attack (Benoit, 2015). As presented in the findings, these four hypotheses were all confirmed in the debate.
Based on this result, the functional theory is indeed applicable in analyzing the second Indonesian presidential debate albeit with a slight difference from the third hypothesis. The present discovery is comparatively different from the previous research on the first Indonesian presidential debate which found that attacks were more common than defenses, followed by acclaims (Wahyuningsih & Nirmala, 2020). In addition, Joko Widodo (the incumbent) acclaimed four times, which was less than Prabowo Subianto (the challenger), who acclaimed five times in the first debate. Accordingly, the two hypotheses under the fourth axiom were not applicable in the first debate. This is due to the fact that the previous research does not fully adhere to the content analytic procedure proposed by the theory. One advantage of the content analysis of functional theory is the use of themes for the coding process (Benoit, 2015). Hence, a turn may contain many themes which may have several discursive strategies, topics, and subtopics. However, the previous research considered the entire turn as one function which resulted in the said finding. Interestingly, both the present and previous research confirmed the applicability of the fourth hypothesis; the first and second debates emphasized more on policy than character topics. Both debates were focused on the visions, missions, and work programs proposed by the candidates.

The Communication style of candidates
The proportion of discursive functions (see Table 2) and sub-topics (see Table 4), as a whole, was useful to notice the communication styles of the candidates. Joko Widodo (candidate 01) acclaimed many of his past deeds (PD) to establish a better preferability compared to Prabowo Subianto (candidate 02). His achievements were necessary to gain the upper hand in the debate. In addition, candidate 01 defended counter-attacks made by candidate 02 which showed his defensive impression to restore the loss of preferability during the debate. Candidate 01 rarely attacked candidate 02; this also indicated that he was confident in the outcomes of his policy positions. On the other hand, candidate 02 acclaimed many of his general goals (GG) and future plans (FP) yet he intended to show the populace more satisfactory and efficient work programs than candidate 01. Then, candidate 02 attacked almost every candidate 01' PD to incur the loss of candidate 01's policy preferability. Also, candidate 02 did deliver a few direct defenses concerning his character topics to inform the people that he did not possess inadequate attitudes to be a president.

Conclusion
Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto's turns of the second Indonesian presidential debate were studied using functional theory. The aims were to describe the proportion of the debate content, evaluate the applicability of the theory, and express the candidates' communication styles according to the theory. Under the fourth and fifth axioms, seven hypotheses from the functional theory were analyzed in accordance with the research objectives. In reference to the data analysis, I come to the following conclusions. First, functional theory can be applied as a tool or instrument to analyze the second Indonesian presidential debate. The theory is also appropriate to describe the utterances of the debate in simple terms of three discursive functions (acclaim, attack, and defense). These functions deliver a clear idea to grasp the candidates' intentions. Second, the theory application was predominantly consistent in the debate yet the theory's third hypothesis worked partially with the second Indonesian presidential debate content. The result showed that Prabowo Subianto (candidate 02) acclaimed more than Joko Widodo (candidate 01). Despite this slight difference, this paper supported the applicability or generality of the theory in the second Indonesian presidential debate. Third, the theory is also usable to briefly describe the communication styles of competing candidates. During the debate, candidate 01 preferred to build (acclaim) and restore (defense) his preferability than attack. Meanwhile, candidate 02 chose to acclaim his strong points and attack the consequences of candidate 01's policy positions. There was a difference in the result of this study and the previous one on Indonesian debates. This was due to the dissimilar method of analysis yet both studies aimed to evaluate the applicability of the functional theory. Hence, future studies could explore other Indonesian presidential debates to have a comparative analysis of the application of functional theory. Benoit