The Language in Conversational Writing and Interactional Speaking

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ABSTRACT

The Language in Conversational Writing and Interactional

Speaking

Gilang Adittama

This research investigates some factors that make writing looks and feels like speaking. A database of 200 utterances taken from two subjects (100 utterances from each) in conversational writing (50 utterances per subject) and interactional speaking (50 utterances per subject) during the 6 months of data elicitation period is used. The data were analysed manually based on certain guidance such as The Oxford 3000TM (used for analysing vocabularies), lexical density formula (Halliday, 1985), and Parker’s (1986) classification of speech act. The major planning, the other one says that he directly uses the words he has ever used when writing or reading and remembered. In conclusion, there is no real difference between the language in conversational writing and interactional speaking in vocabulary, lexical density, and speech acts. This also implies that both of them can be used as techniques for developing one another. Therefore, it is suggested that the teachers and students of English use one of them, or even both, to strengthen any required area of productive skills.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

As the very first of everything on this page, let me express my most sincere thank and gratitude to those who have been involved in a life I lived during my being in this campus. Personally, I feel that living in this campus has become somewhat like living in Hogwarts, school of witchcraft and wizardry (hope I do not become the heir of Tom Riddle). Many great people with their great specialities and incomparable uniqueness are here.

The first man I have to thank is my advisor, Dr. Sukirlan. Since the time I first met him, he has always been a father-like man with a shoulder to cry on and words of comfort during the mad times I went through. I just could not find a way to thank him.

It is not complete to have a figure of father without a figure of mother. I therefore have to mention Bu Ari Nurweni, my ‘spicy’ second advisor. Exactly the same as before, I have no idea about how to put my thanks for her in words. If a study is a dish, then her comments and teachings are the spices.

Along with the countless praising for the parents-like lecturers, I also attribute my deepest appreciation and greatest admiration to my dearest professor. Pak Raja with the smell of coffee and cigarette in his room was another shape of Severus Snape and his potion room in Hogwarts. The one who taught me to be critical, that he is.

Another professor is the one I troubled most often, who else if not Pak Cucu ? I hope that he can forgive my bad attitude when I was undergoing the learning process under his wings. I certainly learnt the meaning of patience and good life from him and Mr. Ujang Suparman.

I would also like to thank Pak Bambang Setiyadi who helped me understand what lies behind the teaching process. Pak Sudirman and Pak Basturi are also great men. Both of them gave me enough lesson of academic life. I may never forget Bu Editha when talking about teaching. In our first meeting she told me, “When you come to the classrooms, make your students happy.” In our last meeting before her retirement, she told me, “You remember what I said, keep that, okay ?”. They taught me the philosophy of teaching and being a teacher. Also I thank Mr. Hery Yufrizal who gave me chance to assist him in teaching. Without their help, I might have grown to be a knowledgeable teacher with no manner at all.

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Lastly, I thank a few friends such as Rohmat and Luki. I personally thank them for being the subjects in my research. The next ones are Anwar, Ria, Fitri, Bang Rudy, Sist. Fista, madam Bunny supervisors (Ms. Lela Mulyani my ex English teacher) with the rest of my ex teachers and, Emak kantin ceria and the dwellers and guests of The Noble Asrama 45. They have been my talking partners (sometimes I abuse them and I now feel sorry for that) during the mad times. Some juniors are also counted as people I worth to give thank to. I also hope that Bagus and Unggul who supported me during my seminar would kindly accept my sincere thank.

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CURRICULUM VITAE

The writer was born in Bandar Lampung on December 31st, 1992 as the first son in a family of Wahidun and Levi. He was named Gilang Adittama. His only brother in the family is M. Rangga Awafi who was born in 2003.

He was enrolled to TK Kartini in the age of five. After finishing the study in kindergarten for a year, he continued to SDN 2 Rawa Laut and graduated in 2003. The latter stage of his education was spent in SMPN 2 Bandar Lampung and SMAN 10 Bandar Lampung that he finished in 2010. During the school years, he actively participated in some internal organisations (OSIS and extracurricular activities), national organisation (PFI, the Indonesia Philatelic Society), and also international organisation (World Population Foundation Indonesia) as a delegation to ICAAP 2009.

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MOTTO

“Go ye forth, (whether equipped) lightly or heavily, and strive and struggle (jeehad), with your goods and your persons, in cause of Allah. That is best for you, if ye (but) knew.”

(at Taubah : 41)

“Acquire knowledge and teach it to people. Do not be an arrogant scholar, for scholarship cannot subsist with arrogance.”

(Umar ibn Al Khattab)

“No teacher should get mad in the classroom. The one who gets mad in the classroom is, perhaps, only a crazy man.”

(Prof. Patuan Raja)

“Reading brings me passions, collecting stamps teaches me about patience, cooking sharpens my senses, and teaching engraves them on my spirit.”

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TABLES AND APPENDICES

TABLES

1. Table of General Similarities... 13-14

2. Table of Words and Expression... 38

3. Table of Tokens and Lexical Items... 39

4. Table of Words Distribution... 40

5. Table of Lexical Density... 42

5. Table of Speech Acts... 51

6. Table of Subjects’ Perceptions... 52

7. Table of Language Summary... 54

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I. INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the discussion concerning the background, objectives,

scope, and definitions of terms will be discussed in order to provide an insight

into the research and justify the significance of this research.

1.1. Background

Speaking is basically a process of building and sharing meaning through

the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of context (Chaney, 1998).

Everyone uses this skill for several purposes, pretty much depending on the need.

Some people speak only to get something or to get their goals achieved, while

some others speak to build a more personal closeness among people. The

speaking activity that is intended to exchange information in order to get the job

done belongs to transactional speaking, while the interactional speaking is

intended to establish and maintain social relation (Brown and Yule 1983a in

Hedge, 2000 : 264). However, the process of sharing meanings, communicating

with others, is not only through sounds and verbal symbols. In some cases and

situations, the communication is done indirectly by creating an effort to create

dialogue with readers in much the same way as we explore our relationship to

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The linguists, up to now, have been focusing on the differences between

the two skills. One opinion stated by Halliday was that writing does not

incorporate all the meaning potential of speech, writing and speaking are in

practice used in different context for different purposes, and they impose different

grids on experience (Halliday, 1985 : 92). Another comparison proposed by van

Lier showed that speaking is auditory, temporary, prosody, involves immediate

feedback, and its planning and editing is limited by channel. It is totally different

from writing that is visual, permanent, involves punctuation, delayed, and

unlimited in terms of planning, editing, and revision. (van Lier : 1995).

In further consideration, Harmer states that speaking and writing are both

productive skills (Harmer, 2001). So, rather than being separate manifestation of

language, writing and speaking should exist as a continuum (Nunan, 1991 : 84).

Nunan also stated that some spoken text will be more like written text than others,

while some written text will be more like spoken text than others. However, the

transcriptions of spoken language look less structured because they represent ‘unedited’ language. If we could examine all the draft of a piece of writing, it may

also look as unstructured (Nunan, 1991 : 85). As the two belong to the same

category of skill, there must be a close relationship between them that needs to be

analysed and characterised. According to Hammond (1987), it is important to

understand the relationships between writing and speaking for providing helps to

the development of effective pedagogy in teaching. The analysis and

characterisation would probably show more details that may be useful for

integrating both skills for many purposes that may benefit language users and

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1.2. Problems

Based on the background above, the problems in this research are

formulated as follows :

1. What are the similarities between participants’ utterances in conversational

writing and interactional speaking in words ?

writing and interactional speaking in utterances ?

writing and interactional speaking in speech acts ?

4. What perceptions do the participants have of how the conversational writing is

related to the interactional speaking ?

1.3. Objectives

In relation with the problems above, some objectives of this research are

explained below :

1. To find out the similarities between participants’ utterances in conversational

writing and interactional speaking in words.

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writing and interactional speaking in speech acts.

4. To find out the participants’ perceptions of how the conversational writing is

related to the interactional speaking.

1.4. Uses

In accordance with the previously explained objectives, this research is

intended to have some uses as follows :

1. This research is expected to provide a support to the development of

linguistics, especially in the field of spoken and written language study. It is

expected that the findings may enrich the available theories and trigger further

research on related field.

2. More practically, as the interactional speaking and conversational writing are

closely related to English teaching, this research is intended to give ideas for

education practitioners to develop teaching activities and materials.

1.5. Scope

As there is no research that can cover anything, some limitations for this

research were also set. This research mainly deals with interactional speaking and

conversational writing in informal settings. In the setting, the two primary

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academic background, were engaged in some talks in both interactional speaking

and conversational writing.

From the talks, some similarities on word, utterance, and speech acts level

were expected to be elicited. Therefore, this research focuses on the similarities

that appear between interactional speaking and conversational writing, not on

those that are influenced by the other skills.

Other data in form of primary subjects’ perceptions were also taken into

account. The elicitation of these data was done through informal interviews.

1.6. Definitions of Terms

Considering the presence of the non-general terms in this research that

may cause misunderstanding, some definitions of such terms are provided below :

1. Language : the medium for communication that contains meaningful words,

utterances, and speech acts.

2. Conversational Writing: the writing activity that is not for transactional purpose

but for social or interactional purpose

3. Interactional Speaking : the speaking activity that is done in daily life situation

for the purpose of social interaction

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II. LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the literature review for the research is provided. The

discussion will cover writing, speaking, writing-speaking relationship,

conversational writing, interactional speaking, review of relevant research, and

theoretical assumption.

2.1. The Concept of Language

In their lives, humans always intend to share what they have and influence

one another. Sharing and influencing might mean conveying the intended

meanings through certain medium. Goldstein (2008) suggests that language is a

system consists of two media, sound and symbol, for expressing feelings,

thoughts, ideas, and experiences. In addition to that, a definition from Weiten

(2007) that language contains symbols that convey meanings, plus rules for

combining them that are used for generating infinite variety of messages.

However, the symbols in language are purely human and non-instinctive

and produced voluntarily (Sapir, 1921). They are often used by social groups for

cooperating (Bloch and Trager, 1942). Such symbols are often regarded and

understood not exactly as they are. Searle (1979) believes that there are some

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An example he provided was the statement ‘Can you reach the salt ?’ that is not

produce by means of asking about someone’s ability, but it brings a force that

turns it into a request (Searle, 1979).

In conclusion, language is a system of human communication that consists

of sound and symbols that are expressed and perceived in various ways.

2.2. The Nature of Writing

Writing is a skill in which we express the ideas, feelings, and thoughts

arranged in words, sentences, and paragraph using eyes, brain, and hand (Raimes,

1983). It is a difficult skill to teach as it requires not only of grammatical devices

(dealing with the devices used to create writing based on the correct grammar; the

set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words

in language), and the rhetorical or cohesive devices used to manipulate the language to effectively transmit the author’s message to the reader; such the using

of analogy that compares two pairs which have the same relationship, but also of

conceptual and judgmental elements (Heaton, 1991 : 135).

When someone is writing, s/he is actually creating an effort to create a

dialogue with the readers, and it involves exploring our relationship to our readers

in much the same way that we explore our relationship to people we talk to

(Gould, 1989 : 3) that is why writing involves rational thinking or commonly

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To create a good piece of writing that can bring writer’s idea into readers’

minds, there are some elements for the writer to pay a close attention to. An

effective composition should meet the qualities in some terms proposed by Jacobs

(1981 : 90) below :

1. Content :

The substance of writing, the experience of the main idea, i.e., groups of related

statements that a writer presents as unit in developing a subject. Content

paragraph do the work of conveying ideas rather than fulfilling special function of

transition, restatement, and emphasis.

2. Organization :

The logical organization of contents. It is scarcely more than an attempt to place

together all condition of fact and jumble ideas. Even in early drafts it may still be

searching for order, trying to make out patterns in its materials and working to

bring particulars of its subject in line with what is still only a half-formed notion

of purpose.

3. Vocabulary :

The selection of words that are suitable with the content. It begins with the

assumption that the writer wants to express the ideas as clearly and directly as

he/she can. As a general rule, clarity should be his/her prime objective. Choosing

words that express his/her meaning is precisely rather than skews it or blurs it.

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The use of correct grammatical form and synthetic pattern of separating,

combining, and grouping ideas in words, phrases, clauses, and sentences to bring

out logical relationship in paragraph writing.

5. Mechanic :

The use of graphic conventional of the language, i.e., the steps of arranging

letters, words, paragraphs by using knowledge of structure and some other related

to one another.

Therefore, writing can be seen as a fluency activity, because in writing,

someone tries to use cohesive device, choose various structures to develop

meaning, and raises his awareness of parallelism (Hedge, 2000). In short, writing

can be sort of preparation for facing the speaking situation in which everything is

fast and direct. Writing is also a good activity for improving language accuracy.

According to Raimes (1983), writing reinforces grammar, structures, idioms, and

vocabulary; it is a unique way to reinforce learning.

In writing, the language used is, by some linguists, believed to be different

from the language spoken in some terms. Writing is permanent, clearly delineated,

and readily available for inspection (Hughes, 1996). van Lier (1995) also argues

that writing is visible, permanent, and delayed. When it comes to the matter of

structure, Halliday (in Nunan, 1991) implies that the written language is more

complex compare to the spoken language that is, according to him, more basic.

The written language is also indirect, considering that writing is distant and

writers have to make inferences about the relevant knowledge possessed by the

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To sum up, writing involves many similar components and also different

components to speaking. Despite the way they are different, the writing may

produce characteristics of utterances which are similar to those in speaking.

2.3. The Nature of Speaking

Speaking is encoding process whereby, we communicate our ideas,

thought, and feeling through, one or the other forms of language (Harris, 1974 :

9). Very often people talk in order to tell people things they do not know, or to

find things out from other people (Doff, 1987) or maybe to express oneself in life

situation, or converse, to report acts or situation in practice words or the ability to

express ideas fluently (Lado, 1961).

Speaking is also one of the four basic skills of language and it has an

important role in daily life, because it is the main skill in communication (Welty

and Welty, 1976). Whenever we need something, we interact with others through

language as a medium. In short, when we speak, we have an interactive process of

constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing

information (Burns and Joyce, 1997).

Therefore, in speaking, it is suggested that the speaker deals with some

aspects (Harris, 1974 : 75) :

1. Pronunciation : Person’s way of pronouncing words. One who learns English

as a foreign language must be able to use English pronunciation as well as the

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2. Grammar : A study of rules of language inflection. It is a system of units and

patterns of language (Lado, 1970).

3. Vocabulary : The words used in language. Phrase, clauses, and sentence are

built up by vocabulary. In short, vocabulary is very important because without

words we cannot speak at all (Wilkins, 1972 : 111).

4. Fluency : Language production and it is normally reserved for speech. It is the

ability to link units of speech together with facility and without strain or

inappropriate slowness, or undue hesitation (Hedge, 2000 : 54).

5. Comprehension : The ability of understanding the speakers’ intention and

general meaning (Heaton, 1991 : 35).

6. Accuracy : The use of correct forms where utterances do not contain errors

affecting the phonological, syntactic, semantic, or discourse features of a language

(Byrne, 1988).

The language used in speaking situation can be somewhat similar to the

written language especially in places where a language is learnt through

textbooks. The language learners, who will turn into language users, who are

exposed to the book language rather than the authentic language would often use

the language which resembles the features of written language in speaking

situation as they are lack of language awareness and repertoire. This may happen

because what get included in materials largely defines what may count as ‘legitimate’ knowledge (Young, 1971 in Nunan, 1991). Therefore, learning

materials’ organisation, presentation, content, and activities will shape the

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In conclusion, the way people speak always provides some possibilities, a

talk breakdown or an agreement. The directness of speaking may become the

main cause of someone gets hampered when he is about to express his intended

meanings due to the lack of experience in using the forms.

2.4. Writing-Speaking Relationship

Speaking, together with writing, belongs among productive skills (Harmer,

2001). Writing is simply a way of preserving speech and may be referred to methaporically as ‘frozen speech’ (Moxley, 1990 : 127). Although language and

writing are two distinct systems of signs; the second exists for the sole purpose of

representing the first (de Saussure, 1915/1966 : 23 in Moxley, 1990).

Writing is an effort to create a dialogue with readers, and it is when

exploring our relationship to our readers in much the same way that we explore

our relationship to people we talk to (Gould, 1989 : 30.) While in speaking, we do

not merely know how to assemble sentences in the abstract: we have to produce

them and adopt to the circumstances. This means making decisions rapidly,

implementing them smoothly, and adjusting our conversation as unexpected

problems appear in our path (Bygate 1987, 3). There are also several differences

in language structure: the grammar and vocabulary of writing is by no means the

same as that of speech, nor do the contrasts available in the writing system

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Once a visual word code makes contact with the phonological word code

in reading, we assume that the meaning of the word can be elicited by means of a

direct associative connection between the phonological unit...and the semantic

meaning unit (LeBerge & Samuels, 1985 : 703 in Moxley, 1990). When someone

writes something, he deals with written words by, at least, comprehending the

meanings. As the result of that process, someone can enrich his knowledge on

meanings. With the acquisition of new words, the breadth and depth of semantic

knowledge also increases (Landauer and Dumais, 1997 in Gleason, 2005).

Following the increase, he will somehow be able to use the same forms in a

speaking action, because words spoken are symbols or signs of affection or

impressions of the soul; written words are the signs of words spoken (Aristotle,

1938 : 115 in Moxley, 1990).

The table of comparison below might clearly show how writing is similar

to speaking up to certain extents.

Writing Speaking

Promotes fluency in : using cohesive

device, choosing various structures to

express meanings. (Hedge, 2000 : 326)

Is communicating ideas through forms

of language. (Harris, 1974 : 9)

Gives writers chance to try to

communicate with readers in similar way

to spoken situation. (Gould, 1989 : 30)

Means attempting to get understood or

to give permission to communicate.

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rapidly, implement them smoothly,

and adjust conversation. (Bygate,

1987 : 3) Speaking is a medium for

output.

It can be simply concluded that writing and speaking is influencing each

other and therefore, the influences should be defined and characterised by finding

the similarities between the products of both and by analysing the perception of

someone who uses the language in writing and speaking evenly.

2.5. Interactional Speaking

Interactional speech is communicating with someone for social purpose

(Bailey, 2006). It is something different from the transactional speaking in which

someone only speaks in order to get what he wants to get. Nunan (1991) states

similar opinion that transactional speaking will usually contain highly predictable

pattern and very restricted in kinds, while interactional speaking is more fluid and

unpredictable. Considering that interactional speaking is intended for social

purpose, there must be a need for providing more expressions and different ways

to use them. The language that is used would be very rich, a lot more dynamic,

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transactional speaking, because the most important is that the purpose is achieved,

nothing to do with the social relationship.

In interactional speaking, the speaker needs to be aware of the factors that

make the talk effective and interactive. Someone needs to know not only

linguistic knowledge, but also the culturally acceptable ways of interacting with

others in different situations and relationships (Hymes, 1971). Following that

statement, there are things to be taken into account.

The first thing to deal with is grammar and structure, simply say, accuracy.

Dealing with accuracy, a thing to think about is that irritating errors can result in

impatience (Why can't s/he get it right?) or negative judgements about the

intelligence or social class of the speaker. Another consequence could be that the

listener decides not to make the extra effort required to interpret non-standard

forms (Allen & Waugh, 1986).

The next thing to get on with is discourse matter. In a talk for interaction,

the language used by both speakers must cover a wide range of repertoire as there

are need to choose which form to use and which one not, based on the situation in

which the talk takes place. To make the speech effective, the speakers should

acquire a large repertoire of structures and discourse markers to express ideas,

show relationships of time, and indicate cause, contrast, and emphasis (Scarcella

& Oxford, 1992).

The last thing to discuss is the sociolinguistic matter. The required

language is the one that meets the rules and norms governing the appropriate

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2002). Understanding the sociolinguistic side of language helps learners know

what comments are appropriate, how to ask questions during interaction, and how

to respond nonverbally according to the purpose of the talk (Shumin, 2002 in

Richards & Renandya, 2002).

As a conclusion, interactional speaking requires at least three aspects, the

grammar, discourse, and sociolinguistics. The three are really essential as they

play an important role in keeping the continuity of a talk for maintaining the

social relationship.

2.6. Conversational Writing

Conversational writing was actually the term proposed by Thornbury

(2005) as paper conversation in which writing can be an attempt to slow down the

process from learning to using the language. In this activity, learners have a ‘conversation’ with their classmates, but instead of speaking, they write the

conversation on a shared sheet of paper (Thornbury, 2005 : 68).

In the real life setting, this activity can be found on chat rooms as what has

been a trend among people nowadays. Thornbury also used a term

computer-mediated chat. Many people do this activity on their cell phones (like messenger

and short message service), computers (on websites). There is a study with an

interesting finding related to this matter. The result shows that people who spend

two hours in a week in chat rooms get their oral fluency increased (Payne &

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However, an emphasis here should be on the product of the activity itself.

The increase of fluency in oral communication that is affected by the

conversational writing must cover some areas of similarities, and therefore, how

the product of this practice is similar to the spoken product must be an interesting

thing to analyse.

2.7. Review of Relevant Research

Previously, there were three studies focusing on writing-speaking and

speaking-writing relationship found by the writer :

The first one is an undergraduate research done by Rizki Amalia from

University of Muhammadiyah Gresik. The research was focused on providing an

empirical evidence in support of a theory of foreign language acquisition and

development addressing the correlation between writing and speaking

proficiencies in foreign language learners. The approach taken was a descriptive

quantitative and therefore there were four kinds of data : nominal, ordinal, interval

and ratio. The collected data were then analysed by using Pearson Product

Moment Formula with SPSS 17.00. The result shows a significant positive

correlation between writing and speaking skill at the secondary year at SMA NU

1 Gresik (Amalia, 2011).

The next one is a dissertation of Ph.D program conducted by Michael

David Hubert from Purdue University that was focused on characterizing the

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speaking proficiencies. Native speakers of English who were learning Spanish as

foreign language at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels were involved as

participants in the research. The findings show a weak correlation between

speaking and writing at beginning levels of study, and a much stronger correlation

at the intermediate and advanced levels. Also, writing was found to be the

modality in which more newly-presented grammatical forms were produced at the

beginning and intermediate levels. Lastly, almost all subjects self-reported as not

engaging in Spanish writing outside the classroom (Hubert, 2008).

And last, the research done by Utami Widiati and Sri Widayati that was

presented at SEAMEO RELC 1997 indicates a presence of a chance for further research on the effect of increased oral skills on students’ writing or vice versa

(Widiati & Widayati, 1997).

Some older research, as cited in Chafe and Tannen (1987), shows that

there are no big difference between the language in speaking and writing. Lull

(1929) recorded both spoken and written language of children in grades one to

eight then classified the data into : content, grammar, and diction. The conclusion

is that children start to write better than speaking i the first half of fifth grade. A

minor conclusion here is that children under fifth grade are unaware of the spoken

and written language.

Blankenship in the early 1960s research recorded a campus lectures by

Allan Nevits, Margaret Mead, Frances Perkins, and Adlai Stevenson then

compared the recording with that of their writings. Only little difference was

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A more unique finding is found when the speed and ways of writing are

compared. Horowitz & Newman (1964) compared the handwriting, typing, and

stenotyping and they found that the faster the mode of writing, the more

spoken-like the language. This phenomenon might have something to do with the writing

strategies. ‘Basic writers’ rely on oral strategy in writing (Cayer and Sacks, 1964).

It was proven in their research when the record of discussion on a controversial

topic among eight college freshmen was compared to their written composition

about the same matter. Ochs (1979) also states that certain communicative

strategies used by children are retained by adults in their unplanned

communication situation (typically spoken language).

A clearer evidence was found by Hidi and Hillyard (1983) when they

asked children in grade three to five to talk or write about whether children should

be allowed to choose what they watch on TV, and to complete a narrative for

which the researchers provided an introduction. Their findings are : no clear

difference between genre (opinion and narratives), no difference between spoken

and written language in terms of semantic well-formedness, cohesion, and

discourse structure. This result is in line with Biber’s (1984) findings. He applied

a factor analysis to the very large data base from London-lund (spoken) and

Lancester Oslo-Bergen (written corpora) in terms of the distribution of 67

different syntactic and lexical features in several hundred text samples

representing 23 genres. The result shows that there is no single absolute difference

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2.8. Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

The last thing to deal with is the speech acts used in both speaking and

writing, because speech act exists in every utterance. Austin (1962, in Geis 1995)

implies that speech act is kinds of meaning in utterances. When someone says

something, there are three kinds of act s/he produces : locutionary (literal

meaning), illocutionary (social function), and prelocutionary (the effect).

In addition, Searle (in Geis, 1995) provides an example of indirect speech,

which is a part of illocutionary act, as follows :

Student X : “Let’s go to the movies tonight.”

Student Y : “I have to study for an exam.”

By using this example, Searle suggests two illocutionary acts. The first

one is that student Y rejects the invitation, and the second one is that student Y

has to study (Searle in Geis, 1995). Levinson (1983) also provides an example,

that he says beyond theories, of speech act in classroom interaction :

Teacher : “What are you laughing at ?” Child : “Nothing.”

By using this example, Levinson explains that the illocutionary force

behind the literal meaning of the teacher’s utterance is a command for the child to

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More classification was promoted by Parker (1986 in Nadar, 2009). It is

said that an utterance can be literal or non-literal, direct or indirect. Based on the

theories, some examples are made by the writer as follows :

1. Literal and direct act

An utterance “Close the door. I do not want to have any visitor now.” that is said

by a lecturer to an office boy has a literal meaning. It is also an imperative

sentence that is directly addressed to the office boy.

2. Non literal and direct act

An utterance “We have a full house tonight, break a leg.” said by a backstage

staff to the play artists does not mean an order to really break a leg, rather than

that, the true meaning is ‘good luck’ that has a telling function directly addressed

to the stage actors.

3. Literal and indirect act

An utterance “Can you bring me a lunch ?” said by a boy to his roommate has a

literal meaning that he wants a lunch. But the indirectness here lies on the use of

an interrogative sentence with an illocutionary force that means ‘bring me my lunch’ rather than only asking for the roommate’s ability to do so.

4. Non literal and indirect act

An utterance “Can you close the door from the outside ?” said by a teacher to a

student is not a literal utterance as the teacher does not actually have a problem

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interrogative sentence that brings a command for the student to leave the class

rather than a real question about the student’s ability.

2.9. Theoretical Assumptions

In the practice of conversational writing, the language used is closer to the

spoken one because the communication required is the direct one, but not too

direct as the there is always plenty of time can be used for typing and thinking.

However, for some non-native speakers of English who are more accustomed to

having contacts with fabricated language in text books, there is no big gap

between their spoken and written language.

Conversational writing also gives chances for people to deliver the

meanings in a more planned and slower way, the subjects involved in that practice will be able to ‘play’ with some language features they have learnt, generate more

ideas, provide further elaboration for certain topic, select a more appropriate way

of expressing meanings by using speech acts.

As interactional speaking has many elements that are related to those in

conversational writing, there is a possibility that people use the language with

similar features in both writing and speaking, somewhat like restating what they

have written previously.

In terms of speech acts, there could be something sort of habit in using the

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those in their conversational writing when they want to express similar meanings

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III. METHOD

In this chapter, the method of the research will be discussed. The parts of

methodology such as : design; subject; data; and data analysis will be explained

further.

3.1. Design

The present study is an observational case study as the objectives can be

achieved through observation. An observational case study is a study that focuses

on a particular organisation or some aspect of the organisation, like a specific

group of people (Bogdan and Biklen, 1982).

In this research, the group of people who are counted as subjects shares

the same characteristics: age; educational background; ethnicity; and capability to

use English in daily life communication. From the observation that was done

among the subjects, the spoken and written utterances from the subject were

elicited. However, for the conversational writing situation, it was impossible to

observe the subjects actions. In short, the observation stood only for collecting

spoken utterances in interactional speaking.

As the data were obtained through observation, the researcher took a role

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interacting with his subjects. The interactions took place in informal situations

with the natural setting, because the data were elicited in any possible situation in

the daily life.

This research was a longitudinal study. Based on the term proposed by

Ingram (1989 in Raja, 2003) that in a longitudinal study, a definitely particular

goal has been decided in advance before data collection which may last for quite

long period of time. In this research, the goals were set and limited to the

similarities based on the previously formulated research questions. The data

collection also took quite a period of time. Two months before the proposal of this

research was presented in the seminar, the data collection began. The process of

data collection was then extended up to four months after the seminar. In total, six

months were spent for data collection.

In practice, the researcher was frequently engaged in a conversation with

the two subjects. There was no specific timing for data elicitation, so this process

went pretty straightforward as how the subjects usually interact in campus life. In

the beginning, the researcher wanted to elicit the data as often as possible, but

such way was found to be ineffective. Then the elicitation went more steadily, not

more than three conversations were done in a week. The basic reason for this is

avoiding fabricated language, which is regarded as non-natural language. As hard

as possible, the researcher attempted not to elicit the data when the subjects were

found to have just read a book or watched a movie in order to avoid utterances

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In conclusion, this study was planned and done as an observational case

study and longitudinal study that aimed at finding the similarities, in the level of

words, utterance, and speech acts, between subjects’ written and spoken

utterances in daily informal interaction.

3.2. Subjects

There were two types of subject in this research, the primary and

secondary subjects. The primary subjects involved were students of English

Language Education Department of Lampung University with sufficient level of

fluency and accuracy in both written and spoken language and actively using

English in daily life. The secondary subject in this research was the researcher

himself who acted as a participant-observer. Those subjects were chosen through

homogenous purposive sampling method that focuses, reduces variation,

simplifies analysis, and facilitates group interviewing (Patton, 1990).

3.2.1. Primary Subjects

The first primary subject in this research was a twenty-one-year-old man

named L. He had been well known for his well-balanced capability in using

English in both spoken and written situation, and importantly, he never hesitates

to use the language in every possible situation.

His first language is ‘ngoko’ Javanese, and his second language was

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currently a student of English Education Department, together with R (another

primary subject) and G (secondary subject, participant-observer), the three are in

one class. Another primary subject was R. He acquired the same languages as L.

Similar to the first primary subject, this subject also speaks English in every

possible situation.

Therefore, the two of them were taken as primary subjects because they

shared similarities in backgrounds and capability in using English as foreign

language.

3.2.2. Secondary Subject

The secondary subject in this research was the researcher himself. G was

born on December 31st, 1992. He is a Chinese-Javanese descendant, but he does

not speak Chinese. This subject speaks ‘ngoko’ Javanese as his foreign language

and informal Bahasa Indonesia as his first language. Another language he has is

English which he got when he was placed in an English course when he was

twelve of age. No real problem for him in using this language in both written and

oral.

As he had a role to play, as a participant-observer, he was involved in

interactions with subjects. He played the role by becoming a talking partner for

the primary subjects. Both primary and secondary subjects were involved in

many conversations, in canteen, campus, and dorms, also on social media and cell

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3.3. Data

The primary data in this research were subjects’ written and spoken

utterances. Any components in the utterances that were out of words, average

lexical density, phrase, clause, and direct and indirect, literal and non-literal

speech acts as response to secondary subject’s utterances were not regarded as

data. The data were considered to have shown similarities when there have been

some patterned and frequent similarities in both written and spoken products

during the six month period.

As how people make sense out of their lives is a major concern to

qualitative researcher (Fraenkel and Wallen, 2006 : 431), subjects’ perceptions of

the influence of the conversational writing on their interactional speaking

performance were also taken as secondary data. The perceptions stood for the sake

of providing a clearer picture that shows the motive behind subjects’ tendency or

habit in producing utterances.

Another importance was that the subjects’ perceptions might show what

makes their language in interactional speaking and conversational writing similar.

The similarities between written and spoken utterances probably came from two

factors, the inability to differ the language or the influence of the settings.

In brief, the similarities covered the grammatical, vocabulary, and speech

acts aspects. The perceptions were regarded as valuable additions to support the

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3.4. Data Collection

In relation to data collection, the setting, instruments, and procedures for

collecting the data will be discussed below.

3.4.1. Setting

The data were collected in informal situations because the subjects were

more often involved in informal situation and also to avoid the fabricated

unnatural (bookish) language that was produced during the formal situation.

3.4.2. Instruments

The main instrument in present study was the researcher himself. The

presence of researcher as a participant observer made his presence regarded as the primary subjects’ friend, not known and as natural as possible according Fraenkel

and Wallen (2006). He was also supported by some more instruments, the

fieldnotes and the informal interview.

The fieldnotes were used for collecting and recording the data for

answering the first, second, and third research questions. The first type of

fieldnote is the descriptive fieldnote, in which there will be condensed accounts to

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The interview was used for collecting the data related to the perceptions.

Some informal interviews with spontaneously given questions were done with the

subjects in order to get the most natural result as the subjects were not aware that

they were being interviewed (Setiyadi, 2006 : 243). Although the questions were

given quite spontaneously, there were still some guides used. The questions given

were related to subjects’ awareness of settings and their planning before

producing the utterances.

3.4.3. Procedure

The data were collected in approximately six months. There were no

specific procedures as the data elicitation and collection took place in any possible

setting.

3.5. Data Analysis

There are some important things to discuss regarding the data analysis :

in-field analysis, stages of data analysis, and matrix analysis.

3.5.1. In-field Analysis

In a qualitative research, the data should be analysed during and after the

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should analyse the data simultaneously and the collected data should later be once

again analysed or verified by collecting more data.

3.5.2. Stages of Data Analysis

The data analysis consists of four stages : selection which was done in the

very beginning, recording of the selected utterances, transcribing the spoken

utterances, and codification. In the beginning, every utterance that was considered

to be able to constitute data, the meaningful and comprehended ones, was

recorded on cell phone, laptop, paper sheets, online message boxes and voice

recorder device. The recorded utterances were transcribed. The utterances that do

not constitute data such as grumbling and humming were discarded, while the

useful ones were put into fieldnotes. The utterances placed in the fieldnotes were

coded based on the developed categories and placed on classified cards (see the

figure below), however, the number of categories were not increased during the

process of data analysis.

The data were put into the table below :

Subject :

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From the tables, the data were several times coded. In analysing the

grammar, every utterance was put into the tables. The token and lexical items

were counted for finding out the lexical density by using the formula based on Halliday’s (1985) theory, lexical density is the number of lexical items as a

proportion of the number of running words, below :

Lexical Density = Lexical Items : Tokens

In analysing the vocabulary, no specific formula was applied. The

researcher only looked thoroughly at the data, trying to find the frequently used

words, phrase, or clause.

In analysing the speech act, font changing was applied. Bold font was for

the illocutionary act used for refusing, italic for agreeing. Blue colour was used

for marking the locutionary act used for refusing, and red was for the same act

used for agreeing.

3.5.3. Matrix Analysis

The very essential principle underlying the matrix analysis was actually a

need to provide visualisation. The very process of preparing a visual

representation often can help a researcher crystallise his or her understanding of

an area, a system, a location, or even an interaction (Fraenkel and Wallen, 2006 :

522).

There are actually two types of matrix, the first is single description and

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analysing and interpreting the data from a single observation (Setiyadi, 2006), this

type is the one used in present study as there was no intention to compare any

collected data from one group to another.

The utterances from the classified cards will first be placed into the

descriptive matrix in order, for the researcher, to find out the average lexical

density, phrase, and clause of every utterance, as follows :

Written Spoken

U W L I L D P C U W L I L D P C

The utterances were also analysed in order to find out the frequently used

words and expression. Those components are considered to be parts of

vocabulary. The following matrix was used for analysing vocabulary :

Subject

Frequently Used

Spoken Written

Word Expression/Chunk Word Expression / Chunk

U : Utterance W : Words LI : Lexical Item LD : Lexical Density P : Phrase

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Act Meaning Frequency Act Meaning Frequency

Direct

above were placed into the last matrix (see the sample below).

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For the result of the interview, subjects’ perceptions, a descriptive matrix

below is used for the same purpose as the previous matrix.

Subject Perceptions

This is the end of discussion in this chapter. Anything related to the

methodology of this research such as design, subject, data, data collection, and

data analysis were discussed. In the next chapter, the findings and discussion will

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V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

This chapter contains the conclusion of the study. There are also some

suggestions provided here. The suggestions are expected to be beneficial for linguists, English teachers, education practitioners, and the next researchers.

5.1. Conclusion

Based on the results of the observation and data analysis, the discussion

was made in the previous chapter. Here, based on the result and discussion there are some conclusion can be taken.

The first concluding statement is that the languages in conversational writing and interactional speaking are not really different, both are spoken-like.

From the average lexical density, number of phrase and clause, the utterances are all closer to spoken language.

Essentially, what was done in the chat rooms and short messages was still considered as writing. The issue here is not just the setting, but also the subjects’

ways of getting their English as a language. The setting made the language turn into less formal. In further consideration the subjects, who are English learners who did not get the language through acquisition, are not aware of the difference between written and spoken language, therefore they used the same language in

any situation, despite the speed of producing utterances and settings.

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used when speaking. Considering that, it is quite safe to say that even adult learners can still improve their language in oral performance up to the native-like level when they are provided with enough writing practice with authentic language to help the form the schemata.

No matter how proficient a writer is, the context and settings always have

a power to determine the characteristics of the language used. The strategies used in writing, however, are relative, no exact rule that governs the mind for this matter. The only one thing that may control the mind is the cultural awareness that defines the way someone says something depending on the communication

setting.

5.2. Suggestions

Based on the findings, discussions, and conclusions, the researcher here

would like to propose some suggestions. The first one is for the linguists and researchers. It is suggested that the role of schemata in determining the language production, whether written or spoken-like, is investigated further. It is also interesting to collect a larger database for investigating whether there are more

tendencies in choosing and using the same words, phrase, expressions, and rhetorical pattern in writing and speaking.

A more interesting study on the difference or similarities between spoken and written language of native and non-native speaker is also suggested to be taken into account. For those who are interested in Second Language Acquisition,

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In regard to education, the English teachers and education practitioners are suggested to try utilising the text message and chat rooms for introducing the ‘new language’ while avoiding a real life contact that might cause students get

nervous. Still on this matter, the applied linguists are also suggested to analyse

further the impact of writing on the development of oral proficiency.

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The Language in Conversational Writing and Interactional Speaking

ABSTRACT