Abstract

This article explored a selection of Instagram captions from Joko Widodo during his presidential campaigns, primarily focusing on his use of negative expressions when delivering his rhetorical political strategy. This research was conducted through a corpus-based comparative keyword analysis and the systemic functional linguistics framework concerned with language evaluation. The data were taken from Jokowi’s Instagram posts during his second electoral campaign between September 23, 2018 and April 13, 2019. In this study, AntConc software was used to collect and carry out the comparative keyword analysis. Qualitative analysis was implemented to interpret Instagram posts after the keyword lists had been determined. The result of this study revealed that Joko Widodo used negative expressions when delivering his rhetorical political strategy, but they did not attack or delegitimize the character of his political opponent.