MODALITY AND VOICE IN OPINION WRITING: GRAMMATICAL FEATURES OF EXPERIMENTING WITH EDUCATION IN THE JAKARTA POST
Keywords:
Modality, Voice, Critical discourse analysisAbstract
The objective of this study is to analyze how modality and voice are used in an opinion article from The Jakarta Post titled Experimenting with Education. Opinion writing is an important genre in journalism because it not only informs but also persuades and influences public opinion. This research applies qualitative descriptive method with Critical Discourse Analysis and Systemic Functional Linguistics. The data is one editorial article, published on April 19, 2025, which was chosen because it deals with sensitive issue of education policy in Indonesia. The findings show that modality is expressed mostly through high-value epistemic (will) and deontic (must, let us stop), which give strong sense of certainty and obligation. Modal adjuncts such as consistently and oftentimes also strengthen the critique. Voice choices indicate that active voice is dominant when the editorial assigns blame to policymakers and institutions, while passive voice is used to highlight systemic problems or hide the actor
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