Assertive acts in John Herdman’s statements as the new head coach of Indonesian national football team

The study is aimed in discovering the assertive acts in the John Herdman's statements as the new head coach of Indonesian national team on press conferences video, which shows the communicative language and its function. There are two questions to be answered in this study, namely: (1) What types of assertive speech acts are used in John Herdman's statements in his press conferences as the head coach of the Indonesian National Team?; (2) What are the functions of assertive acts used by John Herdman’s statements in his press conferences as the head coach of the Indonesian National Team? This study uses qualitative approach in relation to the use of clear and systematic description about the utterances of John Herdman being studied. Descriptive study in textual analysis was applied in this study to analyze the assertive acts in his statements. The data were collected by first transcribing the video on PSSI YouTube official. The transcription was then analyzed by identifying the types of assertive acts by applying suitable codes in the appropriate text. The analysis was continued by identifying the function of assertive acts applied by the John Herdman's statements during the press conferences. This study reveals that all assertive acts types (asserting, predicting, stating, and concluding) and all the functions (giving information, reporting the events, describing situations, expressing belief, explaining or clarifying, evaluating, and predicting future events) are applied in the video. From the occurrence of all assertive, John Herdman, tends to use asserting types which belong to expressing belief, especially when he talked about Indonesian national team career. He applied it because he maintains the confidence, commitment, and leadership in public communication that he expressed and to clearer communication between sports figures and the public. Overall, the way of communication interpreted as the findings helps to show the communicative techniques of the coach in front of national media during the first press conferences.