1
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents an introduction of the research which describes how
the research is conducted. The fundamental details of the research in this chapter are
described as following topics: Background of the Research, Problems of the
research, Objectives of the Research, Scope and Limitation of the Research, Significance of the Research, Definition of Key Term, and Organization of the
Paper.
A. Background of the Research
Classroom is defined as a particular place that is designed to accommodate for the place of learning process. Classroom is a place for the teachers and students as the main components that having position as the subject and the object of the learning process. Between these two components there is an activity which conducted by teacher in case of delivering the material learning and student’s participation that become the main essence of that learning process
of the classroom.
2
teacher must create the proper conditions that make students are enjoy and wish to follow the learning activities.
According to Froyen and Iverson (1999: 3), there are two dominant roles played by a teacher in the classroom. The roles are first concern with the
contents of education or subject matter that is going to be learned. Second, the
role concerns with the process of instruction or how the students learn, their
attitudes towards learning, and the resources and technology needed to support
such learning and the context in which it occurs. In the classroom teaching,
teachers are challenged to combine these two roles accordingly to build the
proper conditions that make students feel enjoyable and enthusiastic to follow
the learning process in the classroom.
English classroom teaching, included the English classroom happened in
the English as Foreign Language (EFL) in English Education Department of
State Islamic Institute (IAIN) Salatiga is such a unique classroom teaching. It is
because English is not only put as the tool to deliver the lesson in the teaching by
the lecturers, but also functions as the lesson itself. Considering the definition of
language that according to Behnan and Pouriran (2008: 118), language is an
outward extension of thought towards classroom teaching, in the English
classroom as well as happened in the English Education Department, the thought
itself is talking about particular language that is English. The unique of English
classroom teaching is then located on the use of English that becomes the main
language of the classroom to communicate and also the main material of the
3
a communicative activity in order to engage the students towards the classroom
activities that is also important in the classroom.
Communicative activity through the communication in the classroom is important. Widdowson (1979: 118) argued that communications implied in using them into making statements of different kinds, to describe, to record, to classify and so on, or to ask questions, make requests and give orders. As communicative approach concerned on, these implications are suitable to conduct the process of building communicative process in the classroom activity. Moreover, in language learner especially English language learner, these things can underlie knowledge and ability for English use which the speaker-listener possesses.
Considering the arguments of Widdowson (1979) in case of building the communicative activity of classroom teaching, asking questions according to Leven and Long (1981) in McComas and Abraham (2002: 1) is such a tremendously effective way to teach and it can be recognized that teachers are willing to engage the students in the process of asking questions while instructing. This is because questioning plays a critical role in the way instructors structure the class environment, organize the content of the course and has deep implications in the way that students assimilate the information that is presented and discussed in the classroom. Furthermore, according to Leven and Long’s research, teachers able to propose 300-400 question a day to the
students with the varieties or types of questioning in the classroom teaching. Similar to Leven and Long (1981), Chastain (1988: 18) argued that Questions and answers (Q and A) form a high percentage of classroom activities
4
meaning through language. Therefore, not only the creation of learning activity
is made by the teachers but also the students are also having very big
contributions in the activity. They use their tongue to create the words orally that
can also give the students chance to express their ideas, views and opinion that
would make the students are feeling ‘recreated’. It would be happen because the
communications occur not in one side but face to face communication between
teachers and students.
Moreover, according to Brown and Wrag (1997) cited by Mukhid (2009: 2) argued that giving questioning to the students gives more advantages both for students and teachers. Brown and Wragg explained that by giving questions, the students are stimulated the interest and curiosity of one or view topics, focusing the concern towards concepts, help for developing of thinking competency, able to develop the reflection capability and comment or respond to the teacher’s stimulus. Thus, the stimuli given by the teacher trough the questions can be processed by the student’s mind with thinking. Students can understand the
stimuli by viewing the utterance that consists of its stimuli by regarding the understanding the question utterance that structured by the grammatical form. After understanding the questions, later students can express the answers through verbal communications that involve brief, manner and pronunciation.
5
especially to the English classroom teaching, question will encourage the students to generate the structure of the language into communications function that also deliberating the understanding of the structure of the utterance. Due to this case, the English learners will simultaneously receive two advantages. The first one is able to develop and elaborate the material learning by their mind and also second is able to use the theory of language into practical use.
Hence, how is the questions uttered by the English lecturers in the English classroom is such an interested thing to know remembering that the questions are uttered through the grammatical form. That is why then the researcher focusing this research into the research under the title “The Analysis of Questions of the English Lecturers of English Education Department IAIN Salatiga”.
B. Problems of the Research
Based on the background above, the problems of the research are designed to answer the questions as follow:
1. What are the types of question used by the English lecturers of the English Education Department of IAIN Salatiga?
2. How is the distribution of the structure of question used by the English lecturers of the English Education Department of IAIN Salatiga?
6 C. Objectives of the Research
The objectives of the research of Teacher’s Question in English Classroom Teaching are listed below:
1. To describe for the types of question proposed by the English lecturers to the students in the English Education Department of IAIN Salatiga
2. To demonstrate the frequency of the types of question used by the English lecturers of the English Education Department of IAIN Salatiga.
3. To find the dominant type of question used by English lecturer of the English Education Department of IAIN Salatiga.
D. Significance of the Research
The significance of the research according to Creswell (1994:113) should describe the importance of the research for the selected audiences. In this
research, I expect that this will meaningfully contributes to give some benefits to
the question as a linguistic expression on English classroom teaching such as
follow:
1. The results of this research can provide information to the English lecturers of the English classroom towards what they utter in the classroom situations
that demand the teachers to ask or question. By knowing this, teacher could
consider the structure of the question types.
2. The results of this research will give additional information to the readers who are interested in studying a question. They can gain knowledge on the
7
3. The results of this research can be used as a reference for other following studies focusing on the teacher's question or in the branch of any linguistic
expression.
E. Definition of Key term 1. Question
Question is a sentence, phrase, or gesture that seeks information
through a reply. It means that question is when the teachers say something
like words, phrase or sentences which are needed to replay by the
interlocutor or listener. Some definition of vocabulary is proposed by some
experts. According to Lynch (1991) states that question is a command or
interrogative expressions used to elicit information or a response or to test
knowledge. In other words, when the people produce sentences to other
people when it involves command and interrogative expression to get any
information or responses means a question.
Long & Sato (1983: 44) states that question is a linguistic expression
used to make a request for information, or the request made using such an
expression. So, the information requested may be provided in the form of an
answer. Cotton (1998: 1) defines question as any sentence which has an
interrogative form or function. In classroom settings, teacher’s questions are
defined as instructional cues or stimuli that convey to students the content
elements to be learned and directions for what they are going to do and how
8
classroom questioning behaviors and a variety of student outcomes,
including achievement, retention, and level of student participation
2. English Classroom
English classroom as a language teaching is defined According to Littlewood (1994: 4) as the teaching process that is conducted in order to make the students realize the relationship between their classroom work and the ability to communicate in real word trough communicative activities by using English. In case of English classroom as well as happened in the English Education Department of State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN)
Salatiga, the ability to communicate in particular language that is English is
the dominant issue that is concerned in the teaching process. The process of teaching in the English classroom teaching will be conducted much to discuss about English. Not merely as the discourse, but the English will be the classroom’s language tool in order to develop the skill of language. As
9
learning, combining the mature of the theory of language and the mature of discourse is the main purpose that is going to be pursued by the process of learning.
F. Organization of the Graduating Paper
This research is systematically divided into five chapters. The short description of each chapter is explained as follow:
Chapter One :Introduction. It includes background of the research, problems of the research, objectives of the research,
significance of the research, research methodology,
definition of key term and the organization of the
graduating paper.
Chapter Two :Theoretical Framework. It discusses about the use of Written Discourse Completion Tasks (WDCT) in the
pragmatic scope as the tool in covering the research
elicitations. In this chapter will also elaborate the
questions as the utterance in pragmatic’s speech act that
consists of: nature of question, the type of question, and
the use of question. This chapter will also discuss about
the review of English classroom teaching; the definition
and the elements of language utterance. The last, the
review of the previous literature will be served to pint
out the distinguish of this research towards the previous
10
Chapter Three :Research Methodology. It includes of what type and design of the research, subjects of the research, how to
collect the data, how to analyze the data, and what is the
procedure of the research.
Chapter Four :Research Finding and Discussion. It includes the description of the data and presents the interpretation.
Chapter Five :Conclusion and Suggestion. It contains conclusion and suggestion for the development on the field of
pedagogical beliefs research from the writer based on
11
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This chapter presents the comprehensive theories which will be the basis for this
research. It takes a part as the foundation in determining the extent of the research.
Since the research concerns on the pragmatic scope with Discourse Completion Tasks
(DCT)’s tool, this chapter definitely covers the discussion of overview of DCT, the
overview of utterance, the overview of speech acts, the overview of questions, language
classroom review and also serving the previous studies.
A. Overview of Written Discourse Completion Tasks (WDCT) in Pragmatics
A Written Discourse Completion Tasks (WDCT) is a kind instrument of
collecting data in a pragmatic deal. In a WDCT instrument, the data collected through
the described situation that is then fulfilled by the respondent of the research. As
teaching and learning second language pragmatics are based on the instinct of educators and/or researchers, many researchers have pointed out that the most
authentic and reliable data in the field of pragmatics is naturally occurring speech
gathered by ethnographic observation (Manes & Wolfson, 1981; Kasper & Dahl,
1991; Rose & Ono, 1995; Rose, 1998; Kim, 2007: 241). However, difficulties in
collecting data with this method are well-documented and have led to the wide use of alternative methods such as interviews, role-plays, think- aloud protocols, diaries, and others (Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989; Kim, 2007: 241). WDCT as another method of an elicitation procedure as part of the the Discourse Completion Tasks
12
Second Language (ESL) and English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners as the
instrument of collecting data in the pragmatic study (Kim 2007: 242).
WDCT is one of the instruments for collecting data in research. Particularly in
pragmatic study, DCT as well as WDCT became one of the most reliable data
collection instrument which produces artificial linguistic action (Beebe and
Cummings, 1996; Nurani, 2009: 669). Nelson, Carson, Al Batal, and El Bakary (2002)
in Nurani (2009: 669) added that DCT and all its branch as well as WDCT is an
appropriate instrument for interlanguage pragmatic research. WDCT can be applied
directly to participants coming from different cultural background whilst natural data
cannot provide such facility since in natural data collection, participants’ variables
such as status and ethnic background are difficult to control.
In a WDCT instrument, the questionnaire requires participant of the research to
read a written description of a situation and then asks them to write what they would say in that situation. WDCTs or production questionnaires were first adapted by Blum-Kulka (1982) to study speech act realization patterns. WDCT items typically consist of descriptions of speech act situations followed by incomplete discourse sequences that the respondents are requested to complete. The informants are requested to write down whatever they would say in a given situation as illustrated by Moon (2006:12) as an example below.
“It is cold outside. You are on the bus. The passenger sitting next to you keeps the window open. You feel extremely cold and other people also seem irritated by the situation. You turn to the person and say?
The respondent would say: _______________________________” As a pragmatic scope has been explained by Searle et al. (1980) that stated:
13
other expression, but rather the performance of certain kinds of acts, such as making statements, asking questions, giving orders, …, etc”
Questions according to Searle et al (1980) take part of the pragmatic discussion. In the method of collecting data, figuring the WDCT as the instrument of collecting data is such an appropriate way. Therefore, in collecting data for this research, the researcher will conduct the research through the WDCT instrument for eliciting the data.
B. Overview of Utterance
According to Purwo (1990:16), pragmatic is a study of utterance contained in the context. However, the consensus of the clear explanation about the definition of an utterance has never existed. Some experts provided several different descriptions dealing with the discussion. Hurford et al. (2007) argued that utterance is any stretch of talk before and after which there is silence on the part of that person. It is used by a particular speaker, on a particular occasion, of a piece of language, such as a sequence of sentences or a single phrase or even a single word.
Furthermore, Traum and Heeman (1997) described utterance as stretches of speech bounded by the boundary tones and silent pauses. They attempt to define it with the several factors. These are speech by single speaker, speaking without interruption by speech of the other, constituting a single turn. Then, it has semantic completion, defines a single speech act and separated by a pause.
14
2010:620). It means that when people have a conversation, utterance exists in it. It is also executed in order to have some effects on the hearer. This effect typically involves modifying the hearer’s beliefs or aims. It produced an action and took a
result or effect to perform actions for the hearers. In addition, Capone (2006) cited in Mey (2009) explained the purpose of utterance use in the conversation between speaker and hearer:
“To speak a language is to express thoughts in the form of linguistic utterances that employ words and follow combinatorial rules. When a person A speaks communicatively, she transmits a thought to a hearer H with a certain official aim and possibly with other consequential effects. By an utterance, a speaker can inform the hearer of a certain situation, express an inner state of mind (emotions or feelings), or modify the behavior of the recipient. In all cases, a certain thought is expressed by the vocalization of an utterance.”
In addition, according to Yule (1996:47), he stated that “people perform actions
through utterance and actions performed via utterances is called speech act.”
C. Overview of Speech Acts 1. Definition of Speech Acts
Speech act is a kind of verbal communication. The words speech acts are derived from two words ‘speech’ and ‘act’. Speech is the utterance that occurs and
act means action. People do not only produce utterances which contain grammatical structure and lexical form when they speak, but also perform action through those utterances (eg., Austin, 1962; McCarthy, 1991; Yule, 1996). The functions of the speech act itself is to state the speaker’s intention to the hearer.
In addition, Yule (1996: 47) argued that the discussion of speech act cannot
be separated from speech events. In a conversation, the speaker normally expects
15
speaker and hearer are usually helped in the process of communication by the
circumstances surrounding the utterance. These circumstances are called by the
speech events that will determine the interpretation of an utterance as performing a
particular speech acts.
Moreover, Yule (1996: 54) treated speech acts in to direct speech acts and
indirect speech act. A direct speech act occurs when there is a direct relationship
between a structure and a function. In contrasts, the indirect speech acts occur
when there is an indirect relation between a structure and a function. However,
indirect speech acts are generally associated with greater politeness in English
than direct speech acts.
Austin (in Levinson, 1983:236) divided three kinds of acts, they are:
a. Locutionary act is the real word that is uttered by the speaker and it contains the speaker’s verbalized message.
b. Illocutionary act is the power or intention behind the words that is uttered by the speaker. It indicates the speaker’s purpose in saying something. The
speaker’s expression can be in the form of statement, offer, promise, etc.
c. Perlocutionary act is the effect of the illocution on the hearer, such as the effect on the feelings, thoughts, or action of hearers.
In the other word, locutionary act is the simple act of saying words and the
meaning of those words which are spoken by the speaker. While illocutionary act
is what is done the speaker is saying something, and finally perlocutionary act is
16 2. The Classification of Speech Act
Searle (in Levinson, 1983:240) proposed that in speaking, one can
perform five basic kinds of action namely:
a. Representative
Representative is a kind of speech act that states what the speaker
believes to be the case or not, for example state, conclude, represent, deduce,
etc. By using this utterance, his or her expresses belief that the proportional
content is true.
b. Directive
In this type of speech acts, the speaker wants to ask someone else to
do something. Acts of commanding, ordering, requesting,
asking/questioning, inviting, are all the examples of how the speaker
expressing his or her wants.
c. Commisive
When the speaker uses commisive speech acts, it means that he or
she will commit some future action. Basically, it expresses what the speaker
intends. The examples are promises, offers, threats, and refusals.
d. Expressive
Expressive is a kind of speech acts that states what the speaker feels.
The form of expressive can be statements of pleasure, pain, like, dislike, joy,
or sorrow. In this case, the speaker makes the words fit with the situation
which his or her feeling also includes in it. Acts of thanking, apologizing,
congratulating are all the examples of what the speaker feels.
17
Declaration is a kind of speech acts that change the situation via the
speaker’s utterance. In order to perform a declaration correctly, the speaker
has to have a special institutional role, in a specific context. For example,
appoint, nominate, sentence, pronounce, fire, and resign
In this research, the researcher focuses to analyze the directive function
of the speech act’s classification that will be discussed in the next section.
3. Directive
Directive is used when the speaker wants the hearer to do things for him
or her. Searle (in Levinson, 1983:241) gave the notion of directive as the
utterance which is used by a speaker to get the hearer to do something. Similarly,
Holmes says that directive is a linguistic utterance which is meant to ask
someone to do something (1992:239). Directive can be in a form of
commanding, offering, requesting, asking/questioning, inviting, ordering,
begging, permitting, daring or challenging. Directive include acts of requesting
and asking that lead for further actions of the hearers, and the actions are in
accordance with the speaker’s instruction.
Based on the theory of Gordon and Lakoff (1975) cited in Bovillain
(2003:119) to employ directive, a speaker must fulfill the certain conditions as
follows:
a. The speaker wants the hearer to do some actions.
b. The speaker assumes that the hearer is able to do the act. c. The speaker assumes that the hearer is willing to do the action.
18
Furthermore, Holmes (1992: 290) argued that directive can be performed
directly and also indirectly. When a speaker expresses an utterance in an
imperative form, it means that he or she uses a direct directive and when he or
she expresses in an interrogative and declarative forms, he or she uses an indirect
directive. Request and question are generally expressed in an interrogative form.
The use of interrogative forms in the indirect directive is in order to be more
polite in asking someone. The example (2), (3) and (4) below may clarify the
explanation above:
(1) Sit down!
(2) Could you sit down?
(3) You’d be more comfortable sitting down.
In addition, Holmes (1992:294) stated that there are many factors that
influence the use of a certain form of directive, such as social distance between
the participants, their status, and the formality of the context. To get what he or
she wants from someone else, a speaker must know the rule in expressing his or
her desire and it should be relevant to the socio-cultural context. In choosing the appropriate linguistic form of directive to family, friends, and foreigners, the
speaker involves the dimensions of solidarity/social distance and status/power.
D. Overview of Question 1. The Nature of Question
Quirk et al., (1970) cited in Shomoossi (2004:97) defined a question as a
semantic class used to seek information on a specific subject. Lynch (1991) cited
19
particular illocutionary force. Furthermore, Willen (1991:6) defined questions as
any sentence having either an interrogative form or function. Questions are
instructional cues or stimuli that convey the content elements to be learned and
directions for what students are to do and how they are to do it. Question
functions as a command or interrogative expression used to elicit information or
a response, or to test knowledge.
Longer, Hamblin (1958) argued that questions differ from statements in
an important way. A statement is sometimes true and sometimes false but a
question is never either. Hamblin proposed a set of postulates to get us started,
by relating questions to the statements that we already knew how to handle. The
postulates are as follow:
Postulate I : An answer to a question is a statement.
Postulate II : Knowing what counts as an answer is equivalent to
knowing the question.
Postulate III : The possible answers to a question are an exhaustive set of
mutually exclusive possibilities.
For the first postulate formalizes the idea that a statement (a proposition)
is the basic unit of information. It implies that “fragment” answer, which
communicate information, are really standing in elliptically for the whole
statement.
The second postulate establishes the same kind of foothold for question
that we had with statements. It means just as the content of a proposition which
is known when the conditions under which it is true are known (its truth
20
is answered are known (its answer hood conditions). A question then picks out a
set of propositions: those that count as an answer. As for the exact constitution of
that set of propositions and how a question picks them out to a divergence
analysis.
Hamblin’s third’s postulate embodies the claim that a question divides all
of the possible worlds (or, at least, hose possible world consistent with common
background assumptions) into non-overlapping compartments. Those, we might say that to ask a question is to present a particular way of compartmentalizing
possible worlds, with a request for information about which compartment the
actual world is to be found in. A simple yes-no question as illustrated (5):
(4) Did Quinn leave?
The (5) divides the possible words picked out by the two compartments,
one containing the possible worlds picked out by the preposition of Quinn left,
and the other containing those picked out by Quinn didn’t leave. These
compartments are exhaustive and mutually exclusive in the sense that in a given
possible world, exactly one of two propositions is true.
Furthermore, according to Cotton (2001), in the classroom settings,
teacher questions are defined as instructional cues or a stimulus of student’s
learning. Teacher questions are also giving a direction of how the students would
think in case of giving an answer toward the question for the best and proper.
This present review focuses on the relationship between teachers classroom
questioning and a variety of student outcomes, including achievement, retention,
level of student participation and surely the level of students cognitive. By the
21
measurement of student’s thinking order and familiarizing his/her question into
the students based on the basis of the mental activity or intellectual behavior
required by the students to formulate the answers of the questions. Voggler
(2008) added that this condition –the students’ answers of the questions at
different intellectual behavior– is the cognitive level that could be measured by
the teacher in order the students in the classroom developing critical thinking
and communication skill.
2. The Types of Question
Structurally, question types are divided based upon the grammatical sentence used to utter the questions. The production of questions is according to the situation and preference of the questioner, yet the organization of the sentence in uttering the questions is uttered in sudden.
According to Dixon (1957: 26-44), there are four types of questions analyzed based on the structure of the sentence of the question. They are:
a) Yes-no questions
A yes no question is the most basic interrogative type. It figures as a
typically seeking information rather than confirmation. The short answer of
the question makes this type of question is simply a delivering information
through simple grammatical form. Dixon (1957:40) explained that in this
type of question, it uses only the subject of the sentence, expressed by a
pronoun, and indicated by auxiliary verb such as follow:
A: “Did you see John?”
B: “Yes, I did”
22
Furthermore, for the grammatical use of this type of question, Dixon
(1957:34) explained the general structure of yes-no question. According to him, there are three rules in making the yes-no question. They are:
1) With Modal
The modals defined used to modify the meaning of the verb.
There are some particular modals and its function in modifying the verb
for a particular purpose that can be seen on the table 2.1.
Table 2.1. The particular purpose of the kinds of modal
Modal Function
Can Ability, permission
Could
May Possibility, permission
Might
Will Willingness, invitation
Would
Shall Willingness
Should Suggestion, advise
Must Prohibition, obligation
Ought to Exactness
In all cases where the regular modal form part of the verb phrase,
yes no question form is putting the modal verb before the subject.
The rules are in the table 2.2 below:
23
interrogative forms, the auxiliary functions to construct the interrogative
sentence. Auxiliary is divided into three types they are: to be, to do and to
have. It can be observed in the table 2.3 below:
Table 2.3. The types of auxiliary
To be To do To have
Is, am, are, was,
were, being, been
Do, does did Has, have, had
Grammatically, these three types of auxiliary are having its own
determination in constructing a sentence. The auxiliary to be is used to
make a continuous sentence that is also applied in the participle. While
auxiliary to do is used to show a simple present and simple past and
indicate a verbal sentence. Furthermore, auxiliary to have is used
together with a main verb to construct a perfect tense.
However, between the three auxiliary in constructing a questions
form having a similar rule. The rules in making a questions or an
24
Table 2.4. The rules of yes no questions with auxiliary
Auxiliary Subject Main verb Adverb
Wh-questions are typically formed with the help of interrogative words (wh words) representing interrogative pro-forms. Referring to some syntactic category, a preform specifies the direction in which the speaker wants to
extend the presupposition implied by the question. Each one of the WH’s
having a reference to a particular thing as explained in the table 2.5 as
follow:
Table 2.5. The references of the interrogative words of whs’ questions
25
Grammatically, the form of wh-question is the developing the yes-no question which embodies the interrogative words. The simple interrogative question of yes-no question is preceded by the interrogative words. Dixon (1957:35) explained the similarity of whs’ Question towards yes no-question in the form of grammatical. Whs’ questions are contained of the information notification that are when, where, what, when, why and how. However, the whs’ questions can be both with auxiliary/to be and modal. The table 2.6 will show the auxiliary and modal.
Table 2.6. The auxiliary and modal
Auxiliary Is, am, are, was, were, being, been (to be); Do, does did (to do); Has, have, had (to have)
Modal Can, could, may, might, will would,
shall, should, must, ought to
Dixon argued that even though some question word is used to produce the question, the question form is still the same; that is, the auxiliary verb must be placed before the subject such as the yes-no question forms. See the example of questions with whs’ on the table 2.7 below:
Table 2.7. The examples of the questions with whs Question with whs’ examples
Wh’s Auxiliary verb Subject Main verb adverb
26
Where Is She now
c) Tag Questions
In the literature, such questions are claimed to be requests for
confirmation of the information presented in the statement, rather than requests for (new) information (Overdiep & Van Es 1949). So it is also for
the question tag, this type of question is a structure used to confirm a
statement. In another occasion, the use of the question tag is also properly to
emphasize to information. The question tag is given via a short question at
the end of the sentence.
The sentence structure in the question tag is following the rules as follows:
1) Negative tag questions
Negative tag questions is a questions with the tag formed as a negative. It
is following the rule as follow:
Positive statement | | Negative tag question Example: Harold found a new job, didn't he?
2) Affirmative tag questions
In contrast of negative tag questions, affirmative tag questions formed by
the affirmative tag. It is following the rule below:
Negative statement | | Positive question tag
Example: Most people in your company couldn't get a raise, could
27
Structural type of questions proposed by Dixon is typically a questions type in which the questions are uttered by a sentence grammatical form. It may an oral in its production but the organizations of the words for questions utterance may be written in a sentence. Therefore, by those utterance the analysis of what grammatical type of questions used in uttering questions is understandable.
From those three structural types of questions, here is the brief explanation of the structural types of questions developed by Dixon (1957). It can be seen on the table 2.8 below:
Table 2.8. The structural types of questions developed by Dixon (1957) Type of
Questions
Structure of Questions Form of the Questions
Yes-no
28 3. The Use of Questions
The principal use of questions is to elicit information from the person being addressed, by indicating, more or less precisely, the information which the speaker (or writer) desires. However questions can also be used for a number of other purposes. Questions may be asked for the purpose of testing someone's knowledge, as in a quiz or examination. Raising a question may guide the questioner along an avenue of research.
Althanasiadou (1991: 3) elaborated that the function of questions are divided into four types. They are:
a. Requesting Information
Questioning for information is the traditional perspective which
considers that a question is a request to supply unknown information. That
what is linked to a question, i.e. a response, is the utterance which provides
this information. In this type, the main motivation for information questions
is to be found in a desire for knowledge. In other words, the speaker wants to
know something and he/she assumes that the hearer knows it.
b. Interrogation
In the type of interrogation purposes, the questioning aims at
establishing a fact and pinning down responsibilities. Used in this sense to
question is to test, to challenge and to control. Some interrogation questions
may be conducted to a positive (24) or to a negative answer (25):
(5) Weren't you at the scene of the crime at 10 o'clock? (6) You weren't at the scene of the crime, were you?
29
speaker when requiring an answer, there is a crucial difference. Exam
questions, the questioner knows the answer, whereas in interrogation
questions the questioner doesn't always know it. But in both cases, the one
who asks the question implies the authority to require an appropriate answer.
c. To Assess of Knowledge
In this function of question, the questioner asks a question not because
he/she assumes that the hearer has some information that he needs, but
because he wants to find out whether the hearer knows the answer or not.
This type of question in other word is called as examination question. The
questioner puts himself as a person in higher position like a teacher in front
of the students to assess the knowledge of students.
d. Emphasizing to an Information
This type of question’s function is the opposite of requesting
information question. The question that is purposed to emphasize the
information is not seeking information but in contrary it is intended to providing the information. The emphasizing to an information question only
happened in the type of rhetorical question.
E. Review of Classroom Language
1. The Definition of Classroom Language
Teaching a particular language like English in the classroom environment
as well as happened in the English Education Department in IAIN Salatig is
simply recall as a classroom language. However, classroom itself is understood
30
conventions governing these activities (Breen and Candlin (1980) cited in
Legutke and Thomas (1991:2). The classroom in the language classroom
teaching designed to establish the environment that having activities governing
to develop the language skill and knowledge regarding the all aspects of
linguistic. The all aspects of linguistics to be taught during the activities in the
language classroom teaching specifically defined by Scarcella (2003) including
the phonology, the lexicon, the grammar, sociolinguistics, and discourse patterns and practices.
The goals of the establishing the language classroom teaching or specifically according to this paper’s theme, English classroom teaching, is the
linguistic competence. Hedge (2001:3) defined the linguistic competence concerned with knowledge of the language itself, its form and meaning. Moreover, stern (1983) cited in Hedge (2001:3) includes these two aspects in the characteristic of what it means to know a language:
“The language user knows the rules governing his native language and he can ‘apply’ them without paying attention to them. The native speaker has an intuitive grasp of the linguistic, cognitive, affective and sociocultural meanings expressed by language forms (Stern 1983: 342-343)”
And of course the linguistic competence involves knowledge of spelling,
pronunciation, vocabulary, word formation, grammatical structure, sentence structure, and linguistic semantics.
Language classroom teaching as the medium in case of mastering such
particular language which the teachers role as the one who is the master in that
environment and the students role as the participant is a condition that is going to
31
(1975) suggested a three tier approach of this case. They are beginning-middle -end, to focus on the distinct moves that take place in discourse. As Mehan (1979)
offered dealing the tier of Sinclair and Coulthard which is Beginning-Middle -End with the other words in the similar definition. Mehan (1979) as cited in Ellis
(1990: 88) offered three the term of Opening-Instructional-Opening which become the structural components of a pedagogic discourse as explained as
follow:
a. An opening phase where the participants inform each other that they are in fact going to conduct a lesson as opposed to some other activity.
b. An instructional phase where information is exchanged between teacher and students.
c. A closing phase where participants are reminded of what went on in the core of a lesson.
As the classroom teaching, the language classroom teaching in its
approach is not quite different with the other common teaching because the
approach is quite universal. The thing that is differentiated the classroom
teaching with the other teaching in its discourse is that the use of the language
itself that is language learned to be used. The language classroom teaching as
studies the language in aim to be used in the practical use for communication
need more just the ordinary teaching. The language, English definitely in this
case, classroom teaching has the elements of language utterance to support the
use of language. The detail elements of language utterance in the practical use in
the language classroom teaching will be discussed in the following sub-chapter.
32
English in the context of English classroom teaching is a practical use for communication. However, there are elements of the language utterance causes the language is behaved in the classroom teaching. According to Harmer (2003: 269) the ability to make the language uttered for communication in the spoken production, there are two elements.
a. Language features; the elements necessary for spoken production are the following:
1) Connected speech: in connected speech, sounds are modified (assimilated), omitted (elision), added (linking) or weakened (through contractions ad stress patterning). It is for this reason that we should involve students in activities designed specifically to improve their connected speech.
2) Expressive devices: naïve speakers of English change the pitch and stress of particular parts of utterance, vary volume and speech and show by other physical and nonverbal (paralinguistic) means how they are feeling (especially in face to face interaction). The use of these devices contributes in the ability to convey meanings.
3) Lexis and Grammar: teacher should therefore supply a variety of phrases for different functions such as agreeing or disagreeing, expressing surprises, shock or approval.
33 b. Mental or Social Processing
Success of speaker’s productivity is also dependent upon the rapid
processing skills that talking necessities such as:
1) Language processing: language processing involves the retrieval of words and their assembly into syntactically and proportionally appropriate sequence.
2) Interacting with others: effective speaking also involves a good deal of listening, an understanding or how the other’s participants are feeling
and knowing of how to take turns or allow others to do so linguistically. 3) On the spot Information processing: quite apart from our response to
other’s feelings, we also need to be able to process the information they
tell us the moment we get it.
F. Review of Previous Literature
There are former researches related to the speech acts of some scholars which
focus on the study such as Pouriran (2009) who conducted a study of Iranian
teachers-learners interaction of EFL classroom correlated to teacher’s questioning behavior, Farahian and Rezaee (2012) who investigated the teacher’s type of
question and Hakim (2015) who analyzed the teacher’s request in an English as
Foreign Language (EFL) Classroom.
Pouriran (2009) conducted the study of the classroom activities related to the
teacher’s questioning behavior in the context of EFL. In the study, Pouriran used the
type of questions proposed by Suter (2001) that is the display and referential
34
research focused to study the classroom interaction in the Iranian task based
classroom. On the result, he found that teacher-learner interaction occupies a
continuum between Display and Referential questions, and the role of a teacher in question asking is a crucial matter. Based on the Pouriran study, the researcher in this research conducts a research using the different type of questions towards Pouriran. The researcher conducts this research using types of question proposed by Dixon. Furthermore, the researcher uses the Written Discourse Completion Tasks (WDCT) to collect the data. It is quite different to Pouriran that used RVTA method.
Farahian and Rezaee (2012) conducted an investigation of teacher’s question
type in an EFL classroom. Their study focused on what are types of question
proposed by teacher in a classroom. They use the three types of question that are
yes-no, open-close and display-referential question. They also count the number of finding and present the result in a percentage form which means that the
investigation analysis was using a quantitative method. Furthermore, the
investigation was also a case study in the Iranian EFL Classroom that needed the
participant to contact with them. Also, they used audio taped of English lesson and
interview in collecting data. According to the investigation of Farahian and Rezaee
(2012), there are three differentiations compared to this research. The first is that this
research even though analyzing the type of teacher’s question in the EFL classroom,
but the theory uses Dixon theory of structural types of questions with its distinguish
each type. The second is that the research is typically a qualitative research which
the result presented much in words rather than holistically in number. And the last is
the method of collecting data by using WDCT’s method that require the respondents
35
Another study had been conducted by Hakim (2015). He analyzed another type
of directive that is request which according to Holmes (1993:91) occupy the same
level toward asking or questioning. Hakim also used the WDCT’s method to collect
the data. In his study, he used the qualitative method in presenting the result of the
data. However, there is a main difference between Hakim’s and this research that is
this research focus in the questioning.
In conclusion, this research is going to be the new research that attempts to
answer the proposed problems of the research about pragmatic questions with its
own characteristics. First, this research will use the WDTC as the instrument to
collect the data. Second, it will be a descriptive qualitative research that is focused
on pragmatic questions. Third, this research is going to step on Dixon (1957) theory
of structural type of questions. And also the last, this research is conducted in the
36 CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents the methodology of the research. It contains the research design, the subject of the research, the technique of the data collection, the technique of the data analysis and the technique of the data interpretation.
A. Research Design
This research is a descriptive qualitative research with data analysis presented in
statistical form. This research uses the descriptive analysis which means that the
research is to analyze the data which has been described. The research is based on the
teachers’ question’s utterances taken from the Written Discourse Completion Task
(WDCT) questionnaire.
This research is qualitative since it describes the phenomena of the research
largely in words and sentences. Kothari (2004:3) stated that “qualitative research is
concerned with qualitative phenomena, i.e. phenomena relating to or involving quality
or kind”. On the another hand, Creswell (2007:37) stated that qualitative research is
defined as a process of investigating human relation issues in comprehensive view,
structured by sentences, presented in detail from information and conducted in natural
settings.
Based on Neville (2007:3) qualitative is more subjective in nature than
quantitative research and it involves examining and reflecting on the less tangible
aspects of a research subject. Santana (2007:32) added that in a qualitative research, the
researcher is like to launch a discussion towards the reader in the report of his research.
37
the researcher to present an issue and solve it with the work without “to play as god” to
find out an absolute truth. It means that there is no absolute truth about the result
presented by the researcher. Furthermore, qualitative is rather to deliver a temporal
knowledge from a subject about the facts that he/she has already known. Also,
qualitative research is often viewed as a research procedure that enables the researcher
to explain the data descriptively using sentences or utterances.
Descriptive in another word can be used to collect data, analyze and draw a
conclusion (Neville, 2007:3). Arikunto (2010:245) added that the research is not
typically a hypothetical research. It means that in the research, the hypothetic is
unnecessary. However, investigation of situation, conditions, circumstance, events and
other activities and result of the research are presented in the research report.
The report of this research also presents statistics in the form of table, percentage
and chart. They are included to make the explanation easier and clearer. Arikunto
(1998:246) stated that the qualitative data are turned into quantitative using number to
help the research easier to be understood and presented, then turn the analysis to
qualitative for drawing the conclusion. This technique is called qualitative with
percentage
Meanwhile in this research, the data is collected with the WDCT’s instruments.
The method of discourse analysis as a tool to analyze a set of selected question’s
utterances of the teachers is coming from WDCT’s questionnaire. Kwon (2004) argued
that the WDCT for a research aims to inform the speakers’ pragma linguistic knowledge.
Houck and Gass (1996) also explain that the use of WDCT allows the researchers to
collect a large amount of data in a short period. Therefore, WDCT is an appropriate way
38
the result of the subject’s utterances of questions and it takes a short time to elicit the
data.
In conclusion, this research is a descriptive qualitative with percentage. The
result of this research is coming from the teacher’s utterance of questions which
collected through WDTC’s instrument and analyzed descriptively. Therefore, the
presentations of the result are served in statistical form such as table, percentage and
chart.
B. Subject of The Research
The subjects of this research are the teachers of Tadris Bahasa Inggris (TBI) or English Education Department from the Teacher Training and Education Faculty of State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN) Salatiga which are for sure conduct the English language education in the classroom. The subjects of the research are the English teachers who are also involved in the teaching English as Foreign Language (EFL).
There are 12 teachers that are included as the research subjects. The number of 12 teachers is acquired by eliciting the subjects through the first questionnaire that attempts to answer the criteria of the subjects of the research. Based on the first questionnaire, those 12 teachers are fulfilling the criteria of the subjects of the research explained as follow:
1. They are the lecturers of the English Education Department in IAIN Salatiga 2. They are Indonesian citizen
39
4. They have ever or is being teaching reading for at least two years in the English Education Department in IAIN Salatiga
5. They are active teachers in the period of this research
6. They should have a background in the English as Foreign Language (EFL) education
The subjects of the research are listed on the table 3.1 below. Table 3.1. The lists of the research’s subject
No Initial Name Sex Length of Teaching
in TBI
R1 NM Female 5 Years
R2 M Male 5 Years
R3 HS Male 2 Years
R4 FR Male 8 Years
R5 MH Male 3 Years
R6 DWM Female 7 Years
R7 SF Female 10 Years
R8 HT Male 18 Years
R9 R Male 18 Years
R10 MU Female 5 Years
R11 YAR Female 5 Years
40 C. Technique of the Data Collection
The data for this research is collected by using a Written Discourse Completion Tasks (WDCT) questionnaire. A WDCT questionnaire is a pragmatics instrument containing a set of very briefly described situations in which it aims to elicit a certain data of a speech act research (Varghese and Billmyer, 1996:40; Kogetsidis, 2013:23). In this research, the lecturers are asked to respond appropriately in written form based on the situational description given on the paper.
There are 15 situations and questions of questionnaire which describe the certain situations that is used to invite the subjects to produce the question’s utterance. The
certain situations are adjusted according to Mehan’s (1979) argument of the pedagogical
phases in classroom teaching, they are opening, instructional and closing phase. Based on Mehan, in this research the situation of each phase are designed by serving the number of questions appropriated to introduction phase, instructional phase and the closing phase in the classroom teaching. The situation is then followed by a particular question to invite the subjects for giving responses by writing what they would say in that situations that is appropriate to teacher’s questions. They have to imagine that they
speak in the real interactions in the classroom teaching so that will be able to produce the appropriate question utterance.
Here are the samples of the questionnaire contain the situation that is used to invite the subject’s question utterance adjusted to the phase in the classroom:
1. Introduction phase
41
you are going to engage the student’s attention to follow your material presentation. Therefore, you need to recall the student’s memory about the previous material.
Question : What question will you utter to make this situation?
Your answer : ……….
………....
2. Instructional phase
Situation : You are teaching a reading subject about a particular topic in a passage. You command your students to deliver the conclusion of the reading after they finish reading the passage. However, for a period, there are no students who want to deliver the conclusion. You are afraid that they do not know the main topic of the reading. Therefore, you need to ask your students.
Question : How will you ask your student?
Your answer : ……….
………....
3. Closing phase
Situation : Imagine that you are in the end of teaching in the classroom. During the lesson you aware that the material is difficult, even according to yourself. However, you do not know exactly your student’s opinion about the material.
Therefore, before you left the class, you want to know your student’s perceptions towards the material you have delivered.
Question : How will you ask them?
Your answer : ……….
42
Based on the situations described, the subjects are guiding to produce questions in the blank spaces provided. They are ordered to answer the WDCT questionnaires in English. The answers of the questionnaires will be the data resources that will be analyzed.
D. The Technique of the Data Analysis
The analysis of this research is using the technique based on Dixon (1957) about the structural types of questions. Dixon (1957) classified the questions based on its structural sentence utterance of questions into three. They are yes no questions whs’ questions and tag questions. Each type of question, further Dixon divide into two kinds.
The structural type of questions is considering the utterance of questions that is consisted of some unique type. By observing it through the grammatical organization, questions utterance consists of particular feature that is distinguish it in the production utterance. Here the researcher will provide the instrument of analyzing the questions utterance collected through the WDCT’s questionnaires. The instrument will be used in determining the data that will be presented and analyzed in the result. It can be observed in the table 3.2.
Table 3.2. The type of questions based on its structure according to Dixon (1957)
Type of Questions
Structure of Questions Form of the Questions
Yes-no Questions
With Modal Modal+Subject+Verb+Adverb With Auxiliary to be Auxiliary+Subject+Verb/Adjective+
43 With Auxiliary to have
WHs’
Questions
With Modal WHs+Modal+Subject+Verb+Adver b
With Auxiliary to be WHs’+Auxiliary+Subject+Verb+Ad verb
With Auxiliary to do With Auxiliary to have
Tag Questions Negative tag Possitive | Negative Affirmative tag Negative | Possitive
Furthermore, in the process of analyzing the data, the researcher follow the instruction explained as follow:
1. Determining the interrogative words of the question utterances and indicate it through the types of questions
2. Adjusting the used indicated interrogative words according to the theory of Dixon. 3. Matching the interrogative words into the type of structural type of question 4. Counting the number of finding into the analysis report
E. The Technique of the Data Interpretation
44 CHAPTER IV
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
This chapter has two sections that present the data findings and the discussion of
English lecturers’ questions. The first section is the presentation of data findings. It
consists of lecturers’ questioning strategy, the lecturers’ perspective in questioning
strategy and the indicated interrogative words on questioning strategy. The second is the
discussion of the data findings that will answer the research problems. It consists of the
discussion about the type of questions uttered by the English lecturers of English
education department, the distribution of the questions’ type and the explanation of the
most dominant type of question. And finally, the researcher also summarizes the data
findings and discussion of the data. This section consists of the brief explanations of the
data findings and discussions.
A. Data Findings
In this section, the researcher presents the main data that have been elicited
from WDCT questionnaire of teachers’ questions in the research. The data presents
that the finding of the teacher’s questions in the classroom based on the situation of
classroom activity is different. The research of the describing situation in the
classroom which is using the method of WDCT questionnaires is according to
Mehan (1979) that divide the classroom activity into three kinds. They are opening,
instruction and closing that according to Mehan is the common and natural
classroom activity. Therefore, in eliciting the responds from the respondents, the
45
The data finding of this research is then grouped in based upon the taxonomy
of question according to Dixon (1957). According to Dixon, there are three types of
questions that further derive into ten types. The three type of questions according to
Dixon are the questions that categorized based upon it structure of question
utterance. They are yes no question, whs’ question and tag question. Between the
three types, each type according to Dixon then elaborated based upon the
interrogative signal which used in the utterance of the question whether a modal,
auxiliary or even interrogative whs’ questions.
1. Questions Strategies of English Lexturers’ Question
From the data, the researcher finds that globally English lecturers of
English Education Department propose the question in the classroom using all
types of the questions types’ proposed by Dixon. The total amount of the data
counted by multiplying its total description of the situations and the total
subjects of the research. Based on the research, there are 15 described situation
on the questionnaires multiplied by total subjects of the research which was 12
respondent. By those count, found that the total data that are analyzed as the
data finding gain 180 data. Those 180 data in another word is the question
production of the lecturers that is acquired in order to be data collection to be
analyzed in this research.
Based on the findings, the total amount of the data shows that between
the three type of question based on grammatical structure that further it is
derived into ten structures is found in the lecturers when they are teaching and
46
questions proposed by Dixon uttered as the strategy in questioning by the
English lecturers with the amount of the numbers that are different. For detail,
we can see in the table 4.1 presented below.
Table 4.1. The amount of the types ad structure of questions found on
English lecturers of English education department.
Type of Questions
47
the structure of questions are all used. The finding on the table shows us that yes no questions gain 129 number or 71,7% in its production of question utterance by the English lecturer in the English education department. It is followed by the second most used of question type in the classroom whs’ question in the number of 46 or 26,5%. Also the last type of question that is tag question gain 5 times or 2,8% off the total in its production of the question utterance by the English lecturers in the English education department.
From those findings, we can see that the question types proposed by Dixon (1957) are the appropriate types in making a production of the question in the classroom. Lecturers in the English education department which is a class of higher students in the college that form English as the English as Foreign Language (EFL) form question in the different type of structure. It is the right for the lecturers in the making the questions utterance in the types of structural utterance according to their self. The teachers in producing the questions utterance probably see the context of the situation that stimuli the teachers in making a questions focus on the content of the question intended. However, the structure of the utterance is not quite noted as one thing that is should be considered as long as the purpose of the questions is delivered. Moreover, the hearers, in this context the students, will give an answer of the questions proposed after they understand of what is the point of the questions. They will not consider structurally how the teachers deliver the questions in an utterance.
48
the structure made in giving a convenient during making a question. It is possibly in reason that structurally, there are ten structural types of questions as elaborated in the table 4.1, used as a strategy that gives an ease in constructing of an idea that formed into a question utterance. As the finding has shown in the table 4.1, it can be seen that forming a question structurally can be divided into 10. The English lecturers in the process of making a question follow those instructions. It is shown that between 10 structures of question derived by the three types of questions that are yes no questions, whs’ questions and also tag questions gain the numbers of finding with different numbers of production. It shows that lecturers making a construction of their question’s production.
2. Lecturer’s Perspective on Questioning Strategy
From the data findings, it can be seen that the data distributed in a different amount of number. The types of questions gained total 180 data which is distributed into three types of question based on grammatical structure. The three types of question gained the different number in findings. Also, it’s derived structure that functions as the strategy in questioning shows the number between derivations is different according to the lecturer’s perspective of preference in
producing a question. In this section will be elaborated the three types of questions based on grammatical structure in detailing the gained number of the data findings.
a. Yes no Questions
49
questions gained the number with amount high. It can be observed in the table 4.2 that show the gained number of the ye no questions and its derived structure of questions.
Table 4.2. The amount of the yes no questions and its derivation
Type of Questions
Structure of Questions Number
Yes-no Questions
With Modal 52
With Auxiliary to be 17
With Auxiliary to do 57 With Auxiliary to have
3
Total 129
