US Police Department’s Representation in The New York Times Article “George Floyd’s Brother Pleads with Congress: ‘Make it Stop’”: A Critical Discourse Analysis

The study aims to examine the representation of the US Police Department in a foreign media news article, The New York Times, entitled “George Floyd’s Brother Pleads with Congress: ‘Make it Stop’”. The text itself discusses an incident of brutality and systemic racism involving the US Minneapolis police officers towards George Floyd, an African-American, which leads to his death. This incident can be considered to be one of the biggest news that attracts the most attention, reaction, and action all over the world in 2020. This research uses Critical Discourse Analysis proposed by Teun A. van Dijk, focusing only on the micro-level analysis: macrostructure, microstructure, superstructure. There are four linguistics tools applied in the microstructure, which are rhetorical question, lexicalization, metaphor, and implication. The qualitative descriptive method is the research method used. Since the data are collected by searching for information in the Internet and other printed references, this research is also categorized into a library research for the fact that it has a wide scope of sources, including the academic journal, newspapers, magazine, e-books, relevant web resources, and various multimedia. The result shows that through these three aspects of the microstructure analysis, the author portrays a negative representation of the US Police Department.


Introduction
Language, as a system of communication, contributes to such an essential role in every aspect of human's life, notably in human's nature as a social-being. As one of the most influential features in community, language itself is multifunctional. It allows us to express our ideas, thoughts, feelings, as well as to show one's representation. According to Hall (2013), "representation means using language to say something meaningful about, or to represent, the world meaningfully, to other people" (p. 1). On the basis of showing representation, Journal of Language and Literature ISSN: 1410-5691 (print);2580-5878 (online) `` Sherine Gracia & Trisnowati Tanto language can be used to depict the ideology that one has brought towards certain things, either in a positive or negative way.
In terms of analyzing the language academically to create one's representation, I apply one linguistics theory, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) developed by a famous linguist, Teun A. van Dijk. According to van Dijk (2015), CDA is defined as "discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social-power abuse and inequality are enacted, reproduced, legitimated, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context" (p. 466). These forms of inequality are considered to be sociopolitical problems; thus, the main aim of a critical discourse analysis is addressing these problems. Consequently, approaches employed in CDA are diverse and interdisciplinary and they apply many linguistics areas such as stylistics, rhetoric, and sociolinguistics (van Dijk, 2008). CDA is divided into three major approaches: macro-level analysis, meso-level analysis, and micro-level analysis; however, the scope of my research will be limited only to the micro-level analysis, focusing on the macrostructure, microstructure, and superstructure analyses.
van Dijk (as cited in Anwar, Rasyid, & Visiaty, 2021, p. 62) explains that the macrostructure covers the main idea of a discourse and gives the portrayal of what the text is about to the audience. It is analyzed from the lead and the headline of the text. Furthermore, the microstructure is the actual and direct structures of the discourse that is expressed in the text. It differentiates between meaning and its expression in the surface structures, which are in the forms of words, phrases, clauses, and sentence constructions. The third aspect, the superstructure analysis, deals with the schematic form or categorical structure that organizes the global content of a discourse.
With regard to showing the issue of socialpower abuse and inequality in a social and political context, one of the media that can be chosen is a newspaper. A newspaper article belongs to a news report genre. According to Tanikawa (2017), a news report delivers "the first-instance news on a daily news cycle: Whatever happened on a given day". To maintain the objectivity in a news report, a journalist should portray the issue in a neutral and unbiased manner, regardless of his or her personal belief. However, once subjectivity is involved in writing a news report, the writer's ideology and belief is conveyed to a certain party, group, or individual, increasing the possibility of the news report to be biased. Considering this reason, taking a news report as the data source will be a very intriguing source for the research.
One recent event that catches lots of attention is George Floyd's death in 2020, which may be one of the biggest news that attracts the most attention, reaction, and action all over the world. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a black man who was arrested for the report of using a counterfeit of $20 bill, died in the hand of white police officers after continuously shouting 'I can't breathe' for approximately nine minutes (British Broadcasting Corporation, 2020). Supported by the high level of social media use nowadays, the video of Floyd's dying in police custody was spread widely through YouTube, Instagram, and other similar platforms only in a short period, which also led to more and more videos showing police brutality towards black men that apparently had happened before.
Despite those similar cases resembling Floyd's, George Floyd's case turns out to be the climax of this long-standing issue. It triggers criticism against the US Police Department, which questions the police's systemic racism and brutality. This also leads to massive protests done by numerous groups of society and it is considered to be the biggest Black Lives Matters movements in the US history (Waite, 2020). For the reason that it is such a controversial issue, analyzing the representation of the US Police Department in a news report will be an interesting topic to discuss.
This research examines a news report taken from a foreign newspaper The New York Times, published on 10 June 2020 with the title "George Floyd's Brother Pleads with Congress: "Make It Stop"'. The New York Times, founded in 1851, is a worldwide recognized daily newspaper distributed throughout the United States (Oxford Learner's Dictionary, n.d.). It is said that the purpose of The New York Times is "to help people understand the world through on-the-ground, expert and deeply reported independent journalism" (Nytco.com, n.d.).
Although research regarding Critical Discourse Analysis has been extensive, still, this research is expected to give an impactful contribution on the development of linguistics, especially in the field of Critical Discourse Analysis.
In 2018, a Critical Discourse Analysis study is conducted by Risdaneva (2018), which explores the portrayal of women in two different newspapers from different cultures, which are The Jakarta Post and The Guardian. The representation is portrayed through the choice of lexical items in representing the main news actor. The writer focuses on the use of naming as part of Critical Discourse Analysis. van Leeuwen (as cited in Risdaneva, 2018) explains that naming is a tool used to investigate how social roles are portrayed in particular contexts. Here, the research focuses on comparing the portrayal of women in two newspapers: How these two media with different cultures can possibly generate different outputs regarding the portrayal of women. The research finding is interesting although it can be made more thorough and complete if there are more linguistics tools used.
Next, research regarding Critical Discourse Analysis is also written by Putra and Triyono (2018). They focus on the threedimensional critical discourse analysis approach by Norman Fairclough, namely micro, mezzo, and macro elements. The data is taken from Kompas.com, which aims to describe the micro, mezzo, and macro as well as the social, political and cultural situation from the linguistic aspects in "Gerakan #2019GantiPresiden di Antara Ambiguitas Hukum dan Syahwat Politik" text. In Norman Fairclough's CDA (as cited in Putra & Triyono, 2018), microelement analyzes the text itself, in the form of cohesion, coherence, grammar, transparency, theme, modality, and lexical structures, while the mezzo element aims to find out the process of production, distribution, and use of text. Lastly, the macro element tends to find out the social context that influences the birth of a text (discourse) which includes situational, institutional, and social levels. With analyzing three different big aspects, the scope of analysis can be considered to be extensive, complete, and thorough. Nevertheless, it makes the analysis of each aspect less specific and focused.
In 2019, another study written by Nurhaliza and Tanto (2019) discusses the representation of Indonesia's Judiciary of Ahok's Blasphemy in the micro-level analysis of The New York Times article "'Rot at Core': Blasphemy Verdict in Indonesia Dismays Legal Experts". The theory is taken from van Dijk's CDA, in which the macrostructure analysis is constructed by the main headline and lead, while in the microstructure analysis, they highlight the analysis on stylistics with the use of one tool: lexical style, through the words damaging, vindictive, and intimidating. Their study is quite similar to this research, as they both are conducted within the same media and use the same theory; however, the use of only one tool in the microstructure makes the research tend to be less miscellaneous in the matter of linguistics tool variation.
Lastly, a study by Garlitos in 2020 uncovers the ideological representation found in the linguistics patterns of eco-news report of national and local dailies in the Philippines. He analyzes twenty-five news reports by using Fairclough's (1992) Critical Discourse Analysis and Halliday's (1985) Systemic Functional Linguistics. Halliday (as cited in Garlitos, 2020), describes that the function bears on representations and recontextualizations of social practices that are achieved through the transitivity system (participants, processes, and circumstances). In the writer's decision of choosing the data, taking more than twenty-five news reports obviously increases the comprehensiveness of the research itself, although, at the same time, it also lessens the sense of details in terms of language use that are analyzed in the finding and discussions.
Compared to the previously-mentioned studies, this research may be smaller in scope. It aims to analyze the representation of the US Police Department in one article published in The New York Times concerning George Floyd's brother who pleads with the Congress. The research will be in the micro level as it will take Journal of Language and Literature ISSN: 1410-5691 (print); 2580-5878 (online) `` Sherine Gracia & Trisnowati Tanto into account the linguistic features and strategies used within the text in order to reveal a representation (van Dijk, 1993).
However, this research is believed to be richer in highlighting how language use can be employed in a more detailed way in representing a person or an institution in a news article. All the three aspects in the micro level will be dealt with, namely the macrostructure, microstructure, and superstructure.
By doing this analysis, it is hoped that it can contribute to the development of Critical Discourse Analysis. Moreover, this research is considered to have an essential role in highlighting the significance of assorted language styles in any communicative process in order to achieve a certain purpose, especially when considering that media may intentionally reflect a particular ideology.

Methodology
To find the representation of the US Police Department in the news article, the research applies the qualitative research method. The study itself employs the Critical Discourse Analysis approach, specifically Teun A. van Dijk's framework, as this looks for the analysis of news discourse in a critical perspective. The data are gathered from the Internet and other various types of sources, and thus, it is categorized into library research.
In this paper, there are three aspects to be analyzed in order to find the representation of the US Police Department, namely the macrostructure, microstructure, and superstructure.
It starts with the macrostructures, in which the global topic of the news report is sought through the headline and lead. In these two parts, some of the words will be analyzed further so that the representation can be depicted.
Following the macrostructure, the microstructure will focus on the use of four tools: rhetorical question, lexicalization, implication, and metaphor. Again, the use of these four linguistics features will be examined so as to get the US Police Department representation.
Moving to the superstructure, the news article will be divided into schematic categories, which include summary, main event, background, consequences or verbal reactions, and comments. Each paragraph in the news article will be categorized into the suitable schematic categories. The headline and lead will be categorized into summary. Then, the other paragraphs will also be classified into the right categories. The most dominant category will be analyzed further to reveal the representation the US Police Department.

Macrostructure
The first major finding concerns the negative representation of the US Police Department in the macrostructure, which can be identified from the global topic drawn from the headline, including the main and lower headlines, and also the lead. According to van Dijk (1980), the macrostructure is the higherlevel semantics that explains the microstructure of discourse, which functions to find the global meaning, such as topic, theme, or gist.
In the main headline "George Floyd's Brother Pleads with Congress: "Make it Stop'", the writer refers to the subject as 'George Floyd's brother', instead of mentioning the name of the brother directly. When something is suggested, but it is not stated directly, this indicates something implicit in it (Hornby, 2015). By mentioning the name George Floyd to be part of the subject, it can be implied that the writer attempts to put emphasis on that name, indicating George Floyd plays an essential role in this news article.
Following the subject, the writer uses the phrase pleads, which means "to ask somebody for something in a very strong and serious way" (Hornby, 2015). In accordance with the headline, it can be stated that George Floyd's brother demands something intensely and emotionally to the congress, which in the United States refers to the legislator. According to Hornby (2015), legislator means "a member of a group of people that has power to make laws". In other words, as the one who has the power to make or change laws, the congress is Journal of Language andLiterature Vol. 22 No. 1 -April 2022 ISSN: 1410-5691 (print);2580-5878 (online) believed to be capable of making something being asked by Floyd's brother become a realization.
After reading the first phrase, the reader may be intrigued to find out what Floyd's brother pleads with. Thus, the writer puts a colon (:), which functions to "separate two independent clauses when the second explains or illustrates the first" (The Punctuation Guide, n.d.), as the clause 'Make It Stop' follows afterwards. It can be seen that Floyd's brother asks the congress to make something stop, even though what the word "it" refers to is still unclear yet. By making a particular thing unclear, it is assumed that the writer intends to make the reader curious about the content of the article itself.
The next thing to be analyzed is the lower headline, which says "Philonise Floyd, the star witness at a House hearing on Democrats' policing bill, called for Congress to "stop the pain" caused by the killings of black men at the hands of the police." In this lower headline, the readers' curiosity about the word "it" in the main headline is clarified. "It" in 'Make It Stop' refers to "…the killings of black men at the hands of the police". If it is connected with the context, it can be concluded that George Floyd's brother asks the congress, as the one who can make or change the law, to make the killing of black men at the hands of the police stop, in an intense and emotional way.
Furthermore, by mentioning the word "black" in "… the killings of the black men at the hands of the police" stated in the lower headline as the detailed information in attributing the men killed by the police, the writer builds the impression that the race of the men becomes something that matters quite a lot in the act of killing by the police.
In addition, the words killing and pain mentioned in the lower headline imply that the killing of this particular race, which is black, is done deliberately by the police and considered to be such an unpleasant or upsetting action that it raises the feeling of unhappiness. Therefore, the writer portrays the negative representation of the US Police Department through the lower headline.
Lastly, the lead of the news article is as follows: Philonise Floyd, whose brother's death in police custody has inspired two weeks of sprawling protests across the country, made an impassioned plea to Congress on Wednesday to enact sweeping changes to law enforcement in America to address police brutality and systemic racism.
In the lead, the writer states more detailed information about the headline by mentioning what Floyd's brother addresses in the plea to the police. In this case, the writer uses the words brutality and racism to define what makes the US Police Department have to be evaluated. According to Hornby (2015), brutality means "violent and cruel behavior; the fact of being violent and cruel". Besides, systemic racism occurs within "institutions and systems of power and refers to the discriminatory or unfair policies and discriminatory practices of particular institutions" (Jarret, Raj & Breland, 2021).
In addition, it is also noteworthy to see that in the lead the police brutality is connected with systemic racism. When it is called so, it means that police brutality is the manifestation of the racial discrimination that has already been embedded in the police department (Gee & Ford, 2011, p. 115). Thus, the US Police Department is detected to do something bad; not only as an individual's intolerance and cruelty of another race but also as something structural and systemic.
Based on the description above, we can draw the global topic of the article, which is about the plea made by Floyd's brother to stop police brutality and systemic racism towards black men. The words brutality, systemic racism, killing, pain along with the other explanations which describe the things that trigger the plea, carry a negative connotation, which leads to the negative representation of the US Police Department.

Table 1 Data classification based on tools
The negative representation of the US Police Department can also be seen from the microstructure. As stated by van Dijk (1980), the microstructure is "the actually and directly 'expressed' structures of the discourse" (p. 29), which differentiates between meaning and its expression in surface structures; for instance, the words, phrases, clause, and sentence construction (van Dijk, 1980). In this paper, the microstructure will focus on the use of rhetorical question, lexicalization, implication, and metaphor.

Rhetorical Question
The first data is taken from paragraph (3) which uses rhetorical question by quoting Philonise Floyd's utterance. A rhetorical question is the question form that has an obvious answer and which demands no answer from the audience or the hearer (Djatmika, Nababan & Yulinda, 2018). This question is used so as to make certain points or the ideas of the speaker or writer stand out more.
In Philonise Floyd's argument in paragraph (3) He also denounced police unions, accusing them of protecting "bad cops," and saying they would need to "step up to the plate" in rooting out their own bad actors.
Metaphor (para. 19) He also denounced police unions, accusing them of protecting "bad cops," and saying they would need to "step up to the plate" in rooting out their own bad actors.
(para. 21) "The sooner we get the bad cops off the force, the sooner there will no longer be any bad apples to spoil the whole barrel." pic.twitter.com/N4fQy0Pt2e-Sensenbrenner Press (@JimPressOffice) June 10, 2020 Implication (para. 3) "This is 2020. Enough is enough. The people marching in the streets are telling you enough is enough." (para. 6) What happened to his brother, he said, was "a modern-day lynching in broad daylight." (para. 9) "The nation is demanding that we enact meaningful change," Mr. Nadler said. He called for Congress to institute a new paradigm for law enforcement that he described as "a guardian -not warrior -model of policing." Journal of Language and Literature Vol. worth 20 dollars. This argument itself reflects his elder brother's case, in which he dies in police custody after being arrested for the counterfeit $20 bill. By applying a rhetorical question, Floyd's brother wants to persuade and influence the congressmen to make them think that the consequence given to George's fault, which is using the counterfeit $20 bill, is unequal to taking his life, especially due to the fact that he is black. Thus, by quoting directly Philonise Floyd's rhetorical question, the writer actually depicts the US Police Department negatively as it persuades the readers to believe how black men's worth is undervalued by the police's unfair treatment.

Lexicalization
Moving to the next data which is taken from paragraph (19), this paragraph will be analyzed by using lexicalization. Lexicalization deals with the underlying concepts and beliefs in specific lexical items (van Dijk, as cited in Rahimi & Riasati, 2011). In paragraph (19), the writer elaborates Jim Sensenbrenner's proposal in Democrats' legislation regarding a national registry of police misconduct as well as denouncing the police unions. According to Hornby (2015), the word misconduct (noun) means "unacceptable behavior, especially by a professional person". If we connect the meaning with the context of the sentence, someone in the definition of misconduct refers to the police, which means that the police as the authority have unacceptable or bad behavior.

Metaphor
The following data use metaphor tool in which the data are taken from paragraphs (19) and (21). A metaphor is a figure of speech which draws implicit comparison between two unrelated things, without the express use of "like" or "as" (Metekohy & Valentino, 2016). This comparison will create connection so as to make the reader understand something at the deeper level than its literal description.
In paragraph (19), it is stated that in order to root out the US Police Department's bad actors, they have to "step up to the plate". The idiom "step up to the plate" is derived from an American sport, namely baseball. The plate in baseball is five-sided and larger than the usual plate which is used as the place of a flat marker where the person hitting the ball stands (Longman Dictionary, 2014). In baseball, this home plate becomes the beginning position where the incoming batter would literally step up to this plate in order to receive the ball from the opposing pitcher. When it is used figuratively in language, step up to the plate means "to do what is necessary in order to benefit from an opportunity or deal with a crisis" (Hornby, 2015) In the context of paragraph (19), this meaning of the idiom, which is taking responsibility or accepting challenge, is obtained from the illustration in baseball, specifically in the momentum when one player should literally step up to the plate. To have a clearer understanding, the condition when one player in baseball literally steps up to the plate, signifying one's taking the responsibility as a player to start the game, is compared with the situation when the US Police Department should also have the bravery to immediately start taking the responsibility and challenge in order to reveal their own bad actors, even if it might be difficult. Accordingly, assuming that revealing the bad actors is the action that should be taken even though it is such a difficult responsibility and challenge to be accepted, it means through the use of metaphor in paragraph (19), the US Police Department is represented in a negative way.
Lastly, the data of metaphor is taken from paragraph (21). In this paragraph, the use of metaphor can be seen from the part of the utterance quoted from Sensenbrenner Press: "Any bad apples to spoil the whole barrel". This phrase is a proverb whose meaning is associated with the quality of a bad apple, in which one bad apple can cause other apples in close proximity to begin to rot as well (Farlex Dictionary, 2015). This usually refers to "one bad person who has a bad effect on others in a group" (Hornby, 2015). and action impact the entire group of people negatively, which in Floyd's case, the concern of a particular member's bad behavior focuses on brutality and systemic racism. Accordingly, by directly quoting Sensenbrenner Press's utterance, which contains a metaphor, the US Police Department is represented in a negative way as it persuades the reader to believe the quality of the US Police Department is being compared with bad apples, which carries the meaning that some US police officers with negative behavior that can influence others should be gotten rid of as soon as possible.

Implication
Moving on to the last one, the data from paragraph (3), (6), and (9) will be elaborated further by using implication. Implication deals with specific information being inferred by the recipients as "only a few meanings are expressed 'on the surface'", while other meanings remain 'implicit' knowledge stored in the mental models (van Dijk, as cited in Rahimi & Riasati, 2011, p. 110).
The implied message in paragraph (3) can be identified from Floyd's utterance "This is 2020. Enough is enough", in which 2020 refers to the year when George Floyd died in police custody due to police brutality and systemic racism. In connection with the fact of George Floyd's death, George, who is black, died in the hand of Derek Chauvin, who is a white police officer of Minneapolis (Mark, 2020). This kind of case regarding white superiority against black itself was still strongly happening even after the United States abolished slavery, when black Americans continued to be marginalized through legal segregation and diminished access in public facilities, housing, and education (History, 2021). On Black's reaction towards this issue, a mass protest, namely the Civil Rights Movement, which demanded the end of racial discrimination and gaining equal rights under the law, was implemented mainly during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1968, this Civil Rights Movement was officially ended with some results being achieved: It broke the segregation of public facilities by one's race as well as achieving the most essential breakthrough in equal-rights legislation for African Americans, which banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin (Britannica, n.d.). This signifies the long period of time to the event of George Floyd's death in 2020, which is approximately 52 years since the time when the Civil Rights Movement ended. By saying "This is 2020", Floyd implies that the racist action done by the police that causes Floyd's death in 2020 is not supposed to happen anymore nowadays since this should have been buried a long time ago. Therefore, in paragraph (3), the US Police Department is represented in a negative way.
Another data of implication is taken from paragraph (6). In this paragraph, the implied message can be found through Philonise Floyd's utterance "a modern-day lynching in broad daylight". According to Hornby (2015), the word lynching refers to "the illegal killing of somebody, usually by hanging, by a crowd of people and without a trial". Regardless of the fact that in 1955 the House approved of labelling lynching as a hate crime under federal law (Daly, 2020) and it now becomes illegal, unfortunately, the practice of lynching itself was still happening years afterwards. The existence of the practice of lynching can be seen through the fact that many black activists, during the Civil Rights Movement on 1960s, were attacked and murdered without due process of law (Carver, 2020). Therefore, Philonise Floyd's utterance "a modern-day lynching" implies that the killing of George Floyd in police custody, without due process of law, resembles the action of lynching back in the 20th century. It brings back the cruelty and barbarity towards black men that is actually illegal in this modern day. Hence, in this case, Philonise Floyd attempts to convey that his brother is cruelly killed in the hand of self-constituted court by the police, which is against the law and should not have happened anymore. For this reason, in this data the writer portrays a negative representation of the US Police Department.
The next data of implication is taken from paragraph (9). In the paragraph, the implication can be found from the quotation of Mr. Nadler, which is "a guardian -not warrior -model of policing". Here, the word warrior has the definition of "a person who fights in a battle or war"; while guardian means "a person who protects something" (Hornby, 2015). In addition, the concept of warriors leads to the perception of traditional concept of police work (Science Daily, 2019), which is "an occupying force, detached and separated from the community" (Rahr & Rice, 2015).
From the explanation, the warrior concept is associated with the idea of carrying out the obligation like militarized police, who is only to conquer, chase and arrest, without having any compassionate feeling towards the citizens. On the other hand, the concept of a guardian is more related to the idea of not only carrying out the obligations, but also demonstrating the feeling of empathy to guard and protect the citizens and being more involved in the community as well. Regarding Mr. Nadler's statement, his demanding a change in policing to the guardian concept, not the warrior one, implies that the police currently play the role only as a warrior, namely to conquer, chase, and arrest, which all contribute to the negative connotation. In this way, the US Police Department is portrayed negatively.

Superstructure
The superstructure analysis deals with the schematic form or categorical structure that organizes the global content of a discourse (van Dijk, 1980). Here, the article is divided into some categories in the news schemata, such as summary, main events, background, consequences, and comments, in which one paragraph can be categorized into more than one category. There are twenty-seven paragraphs in total. However, since some of the paragraphs can be categorized into more than one category of the news schemata, it consequently results in producing 35 data in this superstructure analysis, excluding the lead and headline. Out of the 35 data in total, eighteen data (53%) belong to consequences (verbal reaction), eleven data (31%) belong to main events, and six data (11 %) belong to background. Hence, it can be seen that the most dominant category with the highest occurrence is consequences (verbal reaction).
As stated by van Dijk (1988), a verbal reaction covers the information about the routinely gathered and quoted declarations of either the participants or the politician, as their opinion or comments on the news event. The verbal reaction category in this news article will be analyzed further in terms of the sources. These previously mentioned sources can be differentiated into reliable and unreliable sources, based on its clarity and neutrality.
The sources are said to be reliable if they are regarded as proficient and have no personal interest in this issue, resulting in their comments being considered neutral and objective. Meanwhile, the unreliable sources are the ones whose sources are considered unclear or have interest in the matter being discussed; in this case, it might be the US Police Department or George Floyd's side.
Out of the eighteen paragraphs of verbal reactions leading to the representation of the US Police Department, four paragraphs will not be analyzed due to the source's unreliability. These four paragraphs' sources come from Philonise Floyd, who is the younger brother of George Floyd. Since Philonise Floyd is the one who has much interest in the matter being discussed, his statements will not be analyzed further for they tend to be subjective and therefore, unreliable.  (11) and (12), Lucy McBath, Democrat from Georgia, says "I know your pain", followed by equating the pain to "the sucker punch in the heart and gut". In paragraph (8), Jerrold Nadler, the Democrat of New York as well as the chairman of the committee, also states the phrase "I can't breathe", impersonating the victim's saying while dying in police custody. All these statements demonstrate how the democrats understand the pain and condition experienced by the victim, carrying the same feeling of disapproval against the police brutality and systemic racism as how the victim feels.
The second point of Democrats' verbal reaction discusses their attitude and action that are going to be implemented to overcome the issue. As stated by Jerrold Nadler in paragraph (7), to overcome the police brutality and systemic racism, the nation demands meaningful change, in which one of the actions that should be taken is changing the concept of policing into the guardian concept. In addition, the statements from some paragraphs also portray the Democrats' attitude towards the actions being planned. This indicates the concern as well as the sense of urgency about the issue. For example, in paragraph (7), House Democrats explain that they aim to act quickly on handling this issue, while Lucy McBath conveys a similar idea by saying that finally doing something about the police brutality and systemic racism has become her prayer every single day. Thus, it is clear that these two main points stated through the Democrats' verbal reactions are negative points about the US Police Department.
Furthermore, the Republicans' comments focus on finding the solutions to overcome the misconduct in the US Police Department. The Republicans' comments can be divided into three main points. First, they elaborate the root of the problems that probably become the cause why police misconducts are still happening. In paragraph (15), the Republicans assume that the problem is located on the "bad apples" in the police department. In paragraph (19) Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican of Wisconsin and the former chairman of judiciary committee, adds that he accuses the police unions of protecting bad cops. In line with the previous statement, in paragraph (20), Jim Sensenbrenner says that having only the bad cop database will not make the bad police get fired. It can be inferred that all this time, in the Republicans' viewpoint, the action of ordering the police misconduct has not yet been done maximally so that these "bad apples" still exist in the US Police Department.
The second point is the solutions which Republicans think are needed to be taken so as to overcome the problem of police misconduct. There are four paragraphs unveiling this point. It begins with the Republicans' statement in paragraph (14), saying that the nation's policing needs to be overhauled. Besides, on getting rid of the bad apples, Kevin McCarthy states in paragraph (16) that "the most actionable reforms must focus on three core concepts: simple transparency, training and termination of those rare bad apples in law enforcement." In addition, the last two paragraphs offering solutions come from one source, namely Jim Sensenbrenner. In paragraph (19), he adds that the US Police Department needs to "step up to the plate" in rooting their own bad actors, supported by similar idea in paragraph (21) that he calls for Journal of Language andLiterature Vol. 22 No. 1 -April 2022 ISSN: 1410-5691 (print);2580-5878 (online) cooperation to remove police officers with misconduct on the records.
The last point delivered by the Republicans portrays what is expected to be the result as the congress goes on. Through the use of the verbal reaction in paragraph (14), the Republicans convey the public expectation, in which the public is hungering for the real solutions, real discussions, and real debate, regarding this issue. Additionally, in paragraph (18), Matt Gaetz hopes that the idea can pass into the president's desk, while Jim Sensenbrenner in paragraph (20) expects that speedier resolution can be gotten as this debate goes on. Seeing what is expected through the verbal reactions, all of these lead to the completion of resolving the matter being discussed, which is ending the problem regarding police brutality and systemic racism in US Police Department. Accordingly, these three main points mentioned also refer to negative points about the US Police Department.

Conclusion
The results and discussion clearly show how the US Police Department is represented negatively in the news report through the macrostructure, microstructure, and superstructure. Firstly, in the macrostructure aspect, the headline and lead clearly use words with negative connotation, such as brutality, racism, killing, pain and protests, which become the writer's strategy to explicitly depict the negative portrayal of the US Police Department.
In the microstructure analysis, the writer uses four linguistics tools, namely rhetorical question, lexicalization, implication, and metaphor. The use of various linguistics features shows a good strategy as the negative depiction can be more clearly identified. Last but not least, in the superstructure, the result shows that out of thirty data, there are eighteen paragraphs (53 %) belonging to verbal reactions. The finding also shows that all the quoted sources present the US Police Department in a negative way. Finally, this research still has several limitations, one of which is due to time constraints. This leads to the fact that only one news report is analyzed so that the research result may not be thorough enough. Future researchers should consider taking more than one news article to produce a wider and more trustworthy outcome.