Speech Acts Used by the First Year Students of English Department Islamic University Of Riau
(Tindak Tutur Yang Digunakan Mahasiswa Tahun Satu Pada Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Islam Riau)
Oleh Khulaifiyah
Islamic University of Riau
Abstrak
Dalam pembelajaran kelas bahasa, tindak tutur guru atau apa saja yang seorang guru ucapkan menjadi faktor penting bagi para siswa untuk membangun kemampuan bahasa asing mereka karena semakin banyak tindak tutur yang bisa ditiru maka akan semakin banyak masukan bahasa siswa. Namun siswa sering menerima hanya sedikit input bahasa dalam tindak tutur guru (dalam instruksi/interaksi kelas) Padahal, perkembangan penguasan bahasa siswa sangat tergantung pada seringnya bahasa disosialisasikan, dipresentasikan, dan diperdengarkan serta digunakan oleh guru maupun mereka sendiri dalam kelas. Karena itu, penulis menyadari pentingnya studi tentang bagaimana pesan-pesan diintepretasikan dalam bentuk-bentuk interaksi atau tindak tutur dalam situasi yang berbeda dalam kelas. Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk mendapatkan gambaran tentang tindak tutur siswa dalam kelas bahasa inggris di Program Studi Bahasa Inggris Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan. Hasilnya menunjukkan masih sedikitnya ragam tindak tutur yang dilakukan oleh siswa seperti meminta informasi dan intepretasi, meminta bantuan dan saran, menunjukkan rutinitas , menyapa dan memberi salam serta tindak tutur harian lain; menyatakan setuju atau keberatan. Sepertinya banyak tindak tutur yang belum didengar oleh siswa, sehingga disarankan untuk para pengajar menambah atau memperdengarkan lebih banyak lagi tindak tutur dalam proses pembelajaran bahasa di kelas.
Kunci: tindak tutur, input, interaksi,
INTRODUCTION
In general, speech acts are acts of communication state (Searle,1976). To communicate is to express a certain message, and the type of speech act being performed corresponds to the type of message being expressed. Communication in classroom interaction is intended for learning or pedagogic purposes and for personal interaction, which are achieved through language. In language classroom interaction, Bygate in Rohmah (2006) mention that a teacher can be regarded as a message transmitter and the students as message receivers, so that the teacher is required to transmit knowledge and information about the grammar, the use of the language, the operation of
linguistic skills and the culture of the speaker of the language.
also have to take into account the students’ knowledge of the world and/or of the particular topic of the interaction. This reciprocal nature of the interaction facilitates communication as both the teacher and the student co-operate to ensure a mutual understanding.
In EFL situations the students often receive insufficient input for comprehension as it is only the classroom that provides language use, and such inputs are usually found in the form of teacher-talk (in giving instructions) and the language of textbooks. Whereas, in a language classroom, the development of the students’language depend much on the target language that is exposed to, presented to, and used by the teacher. Therefore, the writer considers that the need to understand pragmatics theories or how to carry out the message as well as interpretation of the meaning in one’s performance is important because pragmatics studies the relationship between sentence forms and the human beings who use these forms and also concerns to contexts, situations, and settings within the language usage occur, especially in L2 classroom.
STUDY SUBJECTS
The subjects of the present study were the first year students of the English Department at Islamic University of Riau, who took Speaking 1 course. Fifty students took the course. These subjects were chosen because their feasibility and suitability with the topic and their English level that is still in the intermediate level. It is an ideal time to work at developing conscious awareness so that they can understand much of the spoken or written language (Bern,R.G., & Patricia, 2001).
DATA AND THE INSTRUMENTS
The data used in the study was the speech acts used by the students’ in verbal interaction in the speaking class which consisted of illocutionary acts that were classified into three categories, namely: type, form and, function. The speakers performed speech acts directly or indirectly and literally or figuratively. The English utterances were recorded in every meeting.
The writer was the main instrument with the help of some other instruments during observations such as: field notes and tape recording, interview, and documentation. All these instruments were documented from the first until the last observation. The writer involved herself in the process of subjects’ activity.
DATA COLLECTION
The data needed for this study were collected through non-participant observation, recording, and interview. In acquiring the data, the following steps were taken. The first step was collecting the needed data namely all utterances spoken by the students in the speaking class. The second step was coding speech acts using serial numbers, topics of dialogues, and classifying the speech acts into type, meaning, and form of speech acts. The third step was classifying the data whether they were direct or indirect. The fourth step was identifying the dominant type of speech acts used. This procedure was conducted in order to obtain the validity and reliability of the data as a study document.
DATA ANALYSIS
transcription was done at least two times. The first one was done by the writer herself, again, the writer checked the data, organizing them, breaking them into manageable units, synthesizing them, and searching for patterns interaction and the typology of speech acts. Therefore, first, the data need to be treated through a transcribing process, identifying the students’ speech acts and analyzing them.
The data were analyzed without waiting for all data to be completely collected. Instead, they were analyzed as soon as the data collection process was conducted. Once the data were collected, transcribed, numbered and coded, they were then analyzed. Thus, the analysis of the data was done within the site during data collection
There were three activities conducted in collecting the data; (1) data reduction, (2) data display, and (3) conclusion drawing.
DATA FINDING
This part covers the discussion of (1) the types of students’ speech acts used in verbal interaction in the speaking class, (2) the type(s) of speech acts which was/were dominantly used by the students in the speaking class.
The comparison of the number of interactions and speech acts occurred in the speaking class was good since every interaction had more than sixty percents of speech acts. The linguistic form and grammatical competence, which affected the speech acts was communicative. What was meant by ‘communicative’ here, was the teacher found few ungrammatical utterances, and incomplete sentences but it still could be understood. For example the expressions “what?“, “Etik” or the question “how many member of your family?”, and “where are you study?. (I/S-145, 152) were fully understood.
TYPES OF STUDENTS’ SPEECH
ACTS
There were four types of speech acts found from the students’ response, namely: directive, representative, commissive and expressive, besides, three kinds of linguistic form were also found, namely: affirmative, interrogative, and negative.
During the study, the writer paid much attention to the following aspects:
(a) whether the utterances were followed by the actions or not.
(b) whether the utterances gave different meanings between form and function or not and using performative verbs that named the speech acts.
(c) had its particular basis in reasonable, all were reasonable if all the sincerity conditions were met.
Let us take a look at Table 4.1. TYPES OF STUDENTS’ SPEECH
ACTS
It must be noted that the writer only focused on students-teacher interaction so that she ignored students-students interactions.
There were four types of speech acts found from the students’ response, namely: directive, representative, commissive and expressive, besides, three kinds of linguistic form were also found, namely: affirmative, interrogative, and negative.
2.5 percents and commissive occupied 19 items or 7 percents. Declaration was not found in their verbal interaction since the speaker/students did not have
an authority to bring about a state of affairs specified in the propositional content by saying in effect.
Table 4.1 Shows the speech acts used bythe students’.
Speech Acts Used in Verbal Interaction in Speaking class of English Department Islamic University of Riau
Affirmative 116/ Directive 2 (1) to convey information 42.9% Representative 87 and interpretation.
Commissive 18 (2) to express asking for
s Expressive 9 help and suggestions
t Interrogative 29/ Directive 4 (3) to express routine such as
u 10.7% Representative 25 greeting, and leave taking.
d Negative 16/5.9% Representative 16 (4) to express daily needs such e Imperative 3/ 1% Representative 1 as an agreement and objection
n Commissive 1
t Directive 1
s Expression 105/ Expressive 102
38.8% Representative 3
Total 269 Total 269
1. Directive
(a) Affirmative Form and Directive Meaning
126 S3 Is it right that you were angry with ….I think she needs your help. 127 T What do you mean?
128 S3 If you are angry for long time, it will disturb our program. 129 T :>So what do you want from me<.
130 S3 <Please forgive her and forget it>.
131 T Ok…. Finish. It’s ok.=You are very serious.
Utterance“I think she needs your help” was called affirmative forms because they were grammatically used in statement forms. However, sometimes, affirmative refers to directive when the speaker believed that an action (forgiveness) had not been done yet by H (the teacher), S believed that H was able to forgive, S also believed that H was about to do forgiveness for S, and S wanted forgiveness to be done. Therefore, it was indirect speech act meaning request. The response that might be needed was forgiveness (see I/S-130).
(b) Interrogative Form and Directive Meaning
When interrogative sentences are used as utterances, they are prototypically used to ask questions. However, not all interrogative sentences are used to ask questions. Sometimes interrogative are used indirectly to make a request. Let us see the example (1/S-107)
103 S2 Who is your favorite actress. 104 S5 I don’t have favorite artist,
because artist is e:: 105 T =Thing.
106 S5 =No:: because they are so glamour.
107 S2 Can I ask one more?
The utterance “Can I ask one more” and “May I ask” meant requesting the teacher’s permission to ask another question to the student. Let us see the felicity condition of request that (1) the students predicated a future action (permission) from the teacher, (2) the teacher here was having an authority to give permission, (3) the student wanted the teacher to permit her to ask more and (4) these was an attempt to get the teacher to permit her to ask and get more chance to ask. Since the condition was fulfilled, then those categorized directive “request” meaning.
These speech acts had direct perlocutionary act like giving the student permission to ask more and get chance to ask.
(c) Imperative Form and Directive Meaning
(1)
134 S4 SometimeI feel afraid because I don’t have good English.
135 T You have, so what’s your question.
136 S4 About e:::your opinion to me 137 T You ask me about you and
your friend about the speaking test or about your English.. 138 S4 >Me<
The utterance “your opinion to me”(S-136) meant requesting because typically a request was performed sometimes in imperative. It was indirect speech act which did not contain any performative verb of request. The act that might be expected was the teacher’s opinion about the student’s English mastery. The student
believes that the teacher’s opinion about her English had not been got yet. She believed that the teacher was able to give an opinion about her English mastery. She also believed that the teacher performed the action (giving an opinion) for her. Finally, the student also wanted an action (giving an opinion) to be given.
(2)
128 S3 If you are angry for long time, it will disturb our program. 129 T :>So what do you want from
me<.
130 S3 <Please forgive her and forget it>.
131 T Ok…. Finish.It’s ok.=You are very serious.
Another Directive meaning occurred as the students’ response was: begging. The utterance “please forgive her and forget it” was the speech act that expressed the feelings of the speaker to get the listener to do something. It expressed solidarity with another person. In this case, the student really wanted the teacher to give Sita forgiveness. The word “please “explicitly and literally marked the primary illocutionary point of the utterance as directive and was used to introduce a request.
There were only five directive meanings which applied in affirmative, interrogative and imperative. There was two speech acts performed indirectly “I don’t have good English and I think she need your help”. Meanwhile, the rest were direct within formal statement or request (Can I, May I, and Please).
2. Representative
(a) Affirmative Form and Representative Meaning
29 T Five similarities, five things in common… five things in common. Three things you don’t have in common.
“I think it is a big problem” was affirmative form and did not give direct response because it was representative of “worrying” of the speaker’s believes. The speaker believed that finding five similarities and three differences among friends was not easy.
(b) Interrogative Form and Representative Meaning
12 T If it is about heart,you may ask your friend, whatever they love. May about girlfriend::
boyfriend> if it is about J-club, you may ask about their idea:: job. something like that. If the card about diamond you may ask them about their hobbies. The last, if you got spades?: you may ask about their family. >Ok<
Now if you got for
example:: >diamond< ok. in this caseyou will ask about someone heart.
You may choose whoever you want to ask>Sifa: about Sifa heart..if you get a joker you may ask anything here only to me:only if you got joker, so ask anything.
13 S3 How many questions?
14 T =Just one::> two minutes<. for example: Sifa you may ask about:::and you may ask based on your experience or your imagination. Ok>
The utterance “How many questions?” (I/S-13), was in the form of interrogative and had representative meaning namelyquestion.It was a real question since S3 did not know the truth about number of questions permitted, and S3 wanted to know the truth about the number of questions. Besides, she also believed that H was able to supply the information about the number of questions that S3 wanted. The other function of representative occurred were: confirming, accepting, stating, concluding, explaining, and etc.
(c) Negative Form and Representative Meaning
64 ((A student came too late)). 65 T Waalaikumussalam, =what do
you think guys::nice? 66 S7 =There is no< motor cycle>,
and I wait for mine.
67 T Ok::If you want to go to school you have to go by motorcycle,if you don’t have any motorcycle will youwait your father’s motorcycle?
68 S7 =No, I don’t think that today my motorcycle is used by somebody, it’suncommon day.
The utterance “There is no motorcycle”(II/S-160) was in the form of negative sentence and had representative meaning namely explaining. S7 prevented himself from being innocent by giving the reason why he came late to the class. This speech acts did not give any acts to hearer unless acceptingthe explanation.
(d) Imperative Form and Representative Meaning
44 T Kiki as Gary, thirty six years old, male, a truck driver, you like football and beer and you hate with children.
Now. You gather, what kind of character you have to think over, about plot. Which one will be antagonist, protagonist or something like that
You think it over, make a kind of story after that you
presented here
45 S4 So, you mean, we must make opera
46 T No, not like that, you just to try to link with those characters and what kind of setting you set up,for
Just think it over.You have these characters and have to think about… what is it… plot or something like that..who will be protagonist, antagonist, so up to you.
The utterance “So, you mean, we must make opera” (S-45) had representative meaning (confirming) although the utterance was in the form of imperative. The speaker just wanted to convey their understanding about the teacher’ speech. There was not any act occurred then.
(e) Expression Form and Representative Meaning
The other students’ response were“yes” (II/S-17),“no …no” (II/S-19) or “oooh…” which meant
accepting, objecting and
understanding. These acts sounded ungrammatical but if we look at the contexts and the situation we explicitly understand what the meaning of them was.
T (pointing a student opinion). Adit… do you have some commentwith in him, have many things.
S4 Yes.
T How many things. Maybe the hair or the way how you… what it is… dress up or some things.
Soyou have to mention those thingsor perhaps the way you handle the problems and so on. Ok (clap the hands). Finished. You may ask some questions one to another.
Ask some questions one to another. Five minutes (means the time is almost up).
Ok… you have tosay all or you better to see what your friend work is first.
It doesn’t give any changing(means the score or the representative of the speaking score).
Ok..let me have yours. Ss No…no… (objection).
3. Commissive
(a) Affirmative Form and Commissive Meaning
Commissive meaning occurred in affirmative, imperative and passive voice sentences such as the utterances;
“We’ll wait until the rain stop..” , and
“You said that you will build base camp” . From the felicity condition, they had functions aspromise.
(b) Imperative Form and Commissive meaning
There is one item of this kind of form and meaning found from the students’ response.
171 T =Now, tell me about an ideal boyfriend.
172 S4 Ok… my ideal husband to be: the first of course, he is smarter than me. Because in :every activity we need money.
I want my husband can work by himself, I mean he doesn’t depend on other people.
The utterance “I want my
husband can work by himself..” (I/T-172) was imperative in form but the meaning was hope. It was commissive since the speech acts commit to some future action. Moreover, the word “to be” indicated future action.
4. Expressive
(a) Negative Form and Expressive Meaning
206 T Is it true that you never crying
207 Defly Yes… never
(b) Expression Form and Expressive Meaning
Expression forms often occurred in the beginning of the class as students gave response to routine activity such as greeting, “ Good morning”, fine and you; closing “see you and Wassalamualaikum”( III/T-157). These speech acts had functions to begin interactions or to acknowledge the presence of others. The primary goal of stating these routine greeting was a social interaction, a part of closing and leave takingin speech acts. The Students’ Dominant Speech
Acts
Although the students’ speech acts (269) were not as much as the teacher’s. but, here the writer found representative meaning (110 or 41 percents) and expression (105 or 38 percents) had the highest level in use. Therefore, there was a tendency that the utterances used were mostly in these form and meaning types. The students’ speech acts were still under average or less than fifty percent from all the interactions. Representative was the second great (87 or 32 percents), commissive was only 19 or 7 percents, and directive meaning reached the smallest items (5 or 1.8 percents). It seemed that the students were very careful in using directive at the time they were having interaction with the teacher or whoever they assumed to have higher social rank or someone who is older then they are. There was L1 culture, especially about the politeness of communicating to the teacher. Their speech acts occurred in formal request in order to minimize unfavorable behavior or to increase favorable consequences toward the hearer.
SUMMARY
The result of total acts showed that the speaker and the hearer performed fifty speech acts during classroom interaction. They occurred in five linguistic forms and five types of speech acts (affirmative, interrogative, negative, imperative and expression; directives, representative, commissives, expressives and declarations).
From the data transcript revealed that, there were 269 students’ speech acts out of 798 utterances. Although the teacher functioned as a means of facilitator but the role of teacher’s utterances was still considered to be important. At functioned as guide, as a model and a motivator to encourage students’ thinking. Even, sometimes, teacher was also regarded as judge who gave the students right directions.
The types of perlocutionary acts were identified from the types of actions performed by the hearer while he or she was performing the conversation using some indicators of possible actions. These actions were obtained from the five meaning of illocutionary act utterances. Among the five forms, the students’ speech acts were dominated by expression of form and representative meaning.
REFERENCES
Allwright, D., & Bailey, K. M. 1991. Focus on the Language Classroom: An Introduction to Classroom Study for Language Teachers. London: Cambridge University Press.
Berns, R.G., & Patricia, M. E. 2001. Contextual Teaching and Learning: Preparing Students for the New Economy. (Online), http://www.kennesaw.
edu/english/ContextualLearnin g/Gavant/SurfaceArea.pdf; accessed on January 12, 2004)
Rohmah, Z. 2006. Verbal Disagreeing Strategies and Responses in the Doctorate Classroom Discussion Context at the State University of Malang. Unpublished Dissertation. The State University of Malang.
