Appraisal Analysis of Football Press Conference: A Case Study of Patrick Kluivert’s Interview

Abstract

This thesis investigates evaluative language in Football press conferences during the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying tournament. The study focuses on Attitude and Graduation as defined by Martin and White's (2005) Appraisal Theory. The aim is to show the ways in which Indonesian national football coach, Patrick Kluivert, expressed plenty of his attitude through his evaluations and Graduation to determine whether or not Patrick conveyed his ideas using the degree of emphasis he employed to demonstrate his values. A descriptive qualitative design and content analysis are used in this study to examine two chosen press conference transcripts that were posted on Kompas TV's YouTube channel. This study revealed that Patrick Kluivert’s press conference utterances were dominated by positive Attitude resources (61.43%), with Judgement being the most frequent (28.57%). Graduation resources, mainly Force and Intensification (30%), were also used to strengthen his positive statements. These findings show how Kluivert strategically used language to build a supportive atmosphere and uphold the national team’s image. The research contributes to sports discourse studies and demonstrates the role of evaluative language in building trust and unity.