Available online: https://jurnal.ustjogja.ac.id/index.php/ELLy
Communicative strategies employed by the eleventh- graders in writing personal letter texts
Meliyani Meliyani *, Luky Tiasari
Universitas Sarjanawiyata Tamansiswa. Jl. Kusumanegara No. 157 Yogyakarta, 55165, Indonesia
*Corresponding author. Email: meliyani61@gmail.com Received: 3 March 2022; Revised: 14 May 2022; Accepted: 03 January 2023
Abstract: Communicative strategies are strategies which used by learners to overcome their problems during communication both in spoken and written form. This study analyzed the types of communicative strategy and the factors that affected the eleventh-graders of SMAN 2 Bantul, Indonesia in writing personal letter texts. This study used discourse analysis. It analyzed 31 personal letter texts written by the eleventh-graders. Data were collected the documentation technique. In analyzing the data, this study used Tarone’s classification (1980) to analyze the types of communicative strategies and Widiarini’s classification (2019) to classify the factors. The finding showed that three types of communicative strategies used by the eleventh graders of SMA N 2 Bantul were paraphrased (element approximation)
= 19%, transfer (literal translation element) = 58%, and Avoidance (message abandonment element) = 22%. Additionally, three factors were affecting the students in using communicative strategies targeting the language proficiency = 81%, gender differences 6%, and learner’s personality = 14%. Based on the findings, the highest occurrence of communicative strategies was literal translation, and the lowest is approximation. Meanwhile. the highest occurrence of factor affected the use of communicative strategies was target language proficiency, and the lowest was gender differences. It can be concluded that the choices of literal translation strategy were mostly affected by target language proficiency factor.
Keywords: Communicative Strategies: Type and Its Factors, Personal Letter Text How to Cite: Meliyani, M., & Tiasari, L. . (2023). Communicative strategies employed by the eleventh-graders in writing personal letter texts. English Language Literacy, 1(1), 1-7.
https://doi.org/10.36597/elly.v1i1.14252
Introduction
The 21st century is the age of the rapid advancement of science and technology. The lifestyle and the way of the interaction of each other have significantly changed after developing digital technology. That situation affects the educational system in Indonesia. The 21st century learning is assumed as a solution to face the industrial revolution 4.0. The purpose of education in the industrial revolution 4.0 is to prepare the students in using technology, which language is closely related. That is why the purpose of the existence of English subject is to prepare the students can face the modern era and use technology well. When the students are using technology without understanding the language, there will be a gap between the students and the technology itself and it causes problems. Therefore, English becomes very important in the use of technology today.
In learning English, students have to master four skills that are listening, speaking, reading, and also writing. Writing is one of the skills that has a very important role in the language learning process because it is related to the ability of the students in doing communication in a written way. Among the four language skills, “Writing is the most difficult skill for second or foreign learners to master” (Richards & Renandya, 2002). It is because writing is considered as
a complex process of putting ideas down on paper to transform thoughts into words (Brown, 2001). To deliver the ideas and messages in a written way is not easy. The students cannot use their expressions and gesture to help them when they have difficulties in delivering the messages. The students also need learning context when they begin to use the language (Tiasari, 2019). In writing, the students have to use not only their concentration and precision to write well but also their understanding to use context in their writing based on the situation.
Based on the basic competence of eleventh grade of SMA N 2 Bantul, one of the objectives of the English subject is students are able to write a personal letter text. In writing a personal letter text using English, the students need to be aware that there are rules to arrange the sentences and convey the ideas. Even though the students have many great ideas and observations, if they do not express them, those ideas are never born (Olson, 2009:1). The students have to have good ability in writing and delivering the message, so the reader can understand the message that the writer wants to deliver. The specialty of writing a personal letter text is that students use their ideas and experiences to share stories and ask stories to others. However, the students still have many problems in writing using English such as lack of vocabulary mastery, or lack of understanding of grammar. To overcome that problem, the students need a strategy. One strategy of the strategy that students use is communicative strategy. It is very helpful for the students because they can manage which term they want to use. Besides, students can use an alternative way of delivering their ideas. In the use of communicative strategies, each student may use different types because they have different problems. The choice of the use of communicative strategies by each student can be affected by many factors. Therefore, the researcher analyzed the types of communicative strategies that students used in writing personal letter text and the kinds of factors that affect them in using those types of communicative strategies.
Literature Review
In learning a language, especially a foreign language, the learners have to understand how a language is used in communication. Communication helps individuals understand and interact with each other in daily life. During communication, a language is used as a tool to express the speaker's mind, feeling, and intention. In Linguistics, there is one of the branches that deal with meaning and language use. Which is very important in communication. That branch is usually called as pragmatics. Yule (1996) defines that pragmatics is about the explanation of utterance meaning. It means that pragmatics talks about the meaning that the speaker or the writer wants to deliver and the meaning that the listener or the reader got after doing a communication. In this case, how the speaker or the writer arrange what she/he wants to say is very important remembering that different arrangement of sentences can make different meaning. In communication, students may have difficulties. It makes the students use strategy in communication. That strategy namely communicative strategy.
Tarone (1980) classified communicative strategies into three. The first is the Paraphrase.
Paraphrase is a strategy which the learners do not have enough linguistic knowledge. It has three elements that are: (1) Approximation is the use of a target language vocabulary item or structure that the learner knows it is not right, but that shares semantic characteristics with the desired item to satisfy the speaker. (2) Word coinage is when the learner creates a new word to communicate the desired concept. (3) Circumlocution is when the learner describes the characters or elements of an object or action instead of using the appropriate target language structure. The second type is the Transfer strategy. Transfer indicates factors from first language (L1). It has four elements that are: (a) Literal translation happens when the learner
translates word for word from the native language. (b) Language switch happens when the learner uses the native language term without bothering to translate. (c) Appeal for assistance happens when the learner asks for the correct term or structure. (d) Mime happens when the learner uses nonverbal strategies in place of a meaning structure. The last type is Avoidance strategy. Avoidance is a strategy where the learners avoid language difficulties. It has two elements that are: Topic avoidance is the use of passing concepts for which the vocabulary or other meaning structures are not known to them and Message abandonment happens when learner begins to talk about a concept but being unable to continue due to lack of meaning structure, and stopping in mid-utterance.
Communicative strategies may happen because of many factors. Each student may be affected by different kind of factors. According to Widiarni (2019), there are five factors that may affect learners in using communicative strategies. Target language proficiency1 is the students’ ability in using the target language, Jidong (2011) argues that second language (L2) learners use communicative strategies because their language ability still developing and insufficient to communicate well. Some research also indicated that the target language proficiency can affect the second language learner in using communicative strategies. It is supported by some research found that high target language proficiency and low target language proficiency used different types of communicative strategies. Learning and communicating contexts2, using of communicative strategies affected by the situation of the use (Jidong: 2011). Task types3 occur the learners may use different communicative strategies when they faced a different type of task. It may happen because the purpose of each task is different. Gender differences4 become one of the factors because people (male or female) use a different way of communication. It can be seen from how they deliver the ideas. Learners’
personality5 consists of (Jidong, 2011): Extrovert learners usually seem more interactive in conversation than the introvert one and introvert learner is more calm and shy in delivering the ideas. Therefore, Suparman (2010) stated that the extrovert learners tend to be better speakers than the introvert. That is why the learners' personality may affect the use of communicative strategies.
Methods
This research was a discourse analysis. According to Tonkiss (2006), discourse is defined as a concept used to describe syntactic linguistic order consisting of certain principles, rules, terminology, and conventions. While discourse analysis is a comprehensive research method that deals with meaning output derived from verbal and written texts. Discourse refers to the processes of language practice that turns into action through meta-act, ideology, knowledge, conversation, narration, expression, negotiation, power and power shifts from one to another (Sözen, 1999). The purpose of discourse analysis is to understand how language is used in real life and real situation
The data in this research were the sentences written by the students as the results of student worksheets in writing personal letter texts. It was written by eleventh graders of SMA N 2 Bantul consisting of 34 students. The researcher collected the data using documentation technique.
The data were analyzed using descriptive qualitative manner. According to Sugiyono (2008), there are three activities to analyze data in descriptive qualitative research. Those activities are data reduction, data display, and conclusion and verification. After collecting the data, the first step that the researcher did was data reduction. Data reduction was the process of selecting, classifying and identifying the data that are considered important. In this case, selecting is the process where the researcher selected which data or texts that used communicative strategies.
It was caused that not all students use communicative strategies in their writing. The text that used communicative strategies and did not use are separated. After selecting and separating activities, the researcher classified to each data. Each sentence was analyzed to find out which sentence included in communicative strategies. Besides, the researcher classified what type of communicative strategies used in the texts. After finishing in classifying the types of communicative strategies, the researcher identified the factors that influence the students in using communicative strategies. Because there are many possible factors, the researcher focused on the theory stated above. The second step was data display. In this process, the researcher displayed the data reduction or the result of the analysis. In this case, the researcher displayed the data using a table. The last steps was conclusion and verification. In this step, the researcher concluded what type of communicative strategies used by the students, and which one is the most often used. Besides, the researcher also concluded what factors that influence students in using the type of communicative strategies.
Result and Discussion The Types and Factors of Communicative Strategies
The data in this research were collected from students’ work of personal letter texts. This data collection was conducted to the eleventh grade students of MIPA 4 class consisting of 34 students. However, there are only 31 students who submitted the works. From 31 personal letter texts submitted by the students, the researcher found there are 20 texts which use communicative strategies. Those 20 personal letter texts are analyzed to find the types of communicative strategies that students used, and what factors affect them in using communicative strategies. Each student may use a variety of types of communicative strategies and the use of communicative strategies may be affected by many factors.
The findings of this research showed the types of communicative strategies used by eleventh grade of SMA N 2 Bantul in writing personal letter texts, and the factors that affect them in using communicative strategies. Those findings are displayed in the Table 1 and Table 2.
Table 1. Types of communicative strategies used by the eleventh graders MIPA 4 No. Types of Communicative
Strategies
Elements of Communicative Strategies
Frequency of
occurrences Percentage
1. Paraphrase Approximation 7 19%
Word coinage - 0%
Circumlocution - 0%
2. Transfer Literal translation 21 58%
Language switch - 0%
Appeal for assistance - 0%
Mime - 0%
3. Avoidance Topic avoidance - 0%
Message abandonment 8 22%
Total 36 100%
From Table 1, it can be seen that from 20 personal letter texts, there are 36 occurrences of communicative strategies. It is classified into three types. The first type is Paraphrase (Approximation element), it happened 7 times. The second type is Transfer (Literal Translation elements), it happened 21 times. The last type is Avoidance (Message Abandonment element), it happened 8 times.
Table 2. The factors that influenced students in using communicative strategies
No. Factors Frequency Percentage
1. Target Language Proficiency 29 81%
2. Learning and Communicating Context - 0%
3. Task Types - 0%
4. Gender Differences 2 6%
5. Learners’ Personality 5 14%
Total 36 100%
By looking at Table 1, there are many types of communicative strategies used by the students. It may happen because they were affected by some factors. Table 2 shows that three factors affect the students in using communicative strategies. The first factor is Target language proficiency, it happened 29 times. The second factor is Gender differences, it happened 2 times.
The last factor is the Learners’ personality, it happened 5 times.
The Analysis of Types and Factors of Communicative Strategies
Based on the findings of the types and factors above, this research found that the students employed Transfer strategy (in Literal Translation element) in writing personal letter texts. The literal translation is a communicative strategy where the learner translate word for word from the first language (L1) into the target language (L2). This strategy occurred for 21 times. For instance, the student says “By the way, do you plan to come here? I hope yes.” (datum 30, text 18). In that sentence, the student did not use appropriate vocabulary. The student may want to say, “By the way, do you plan to come here? I hope you do” but she said, “I hope yes” for “I hope you do”. She just translated it word for word from the Indonesian language. She did not give attention to S+V agreement in English. However, that sentence is rarely used by native language and it sounds weird. Those implementations of literal translation can be analyzed that the factor that influenced the student to do Literal Translation is Target Language Proficiency factor. It can be seen from the communication strategy that student used. The student lacked knowledge about the target language so she just translated word for word from her first language (Indonesian language) into the target language (English language).
The students also implemented Avoidance strategy (in Message Abandonment element).
Message Abandonment is one of elements of communicative strategy where the learner abandons an idea or message, and move to the other idea or message. It happens because of the learner unable to develop the idea that they wrote previously. In the next sentence, students talked about a new idea. This communicative strategy occurred 8 times. For instance, the student says “I’m glad that you had a good vacation.” “On the first week, I just stayed at home and played mobile legend bang bang, I’m so sad because always lose.” From that sentences, the student wrote two sentences which have different ideas. In the first sentence, it told about the reader’s vacation. In the second sentence, he described his own holiday. Both of them do not correlate each other. The student jumped from one idea to another. In writing, it is important to keep the idea. If the writer uses a lot of ideas and he could not organize it well, the reader feels confused and cannot understand the message well. Based on the analysis using factors classification by Widiarini (2019), this type of Message Abandonment is affected by Learner’s personality factor. It can be seen that the student jumped up the message from the first sentence to the second sentence. It may be caused that the student was too enthusiastic in telling his story. Therefore, he just told what he wanted to say without giving connection one to another messages. When he started to say one message, he cannot continue it. It is caused that he did not think it well. Finally, he decided to abandon that message and
moved to the other message.
The last types of the communicative strategy employed by the students is Paraphrase strategy (in Approximation element). Approximation is the strategy where the learner replaces the target word with another which has the same meaning. It usually uses structure from the first language (L1). This strategy occurred for 7 times. For instance, the student says “At one point, I made a loud noise, and a ….” (datum 14, Text 7). In that sentence, the student used inappropriate vocabulary. The student has lacked vocabulary mastery. The student may want to say
“screaming” but she did not know how to say it. She said with another way “a loud noise” using her native language structure which has the same meaning with the intended meaning, but it is not correct. It is rarely used in writing, it can be used in spoken form. According to Widarini’s classification, the implementation of Approximation strategy may be caused by Target Language Proficiency factor. The student did not master English vocabulary well and she did not know how to say what she wants to say appropriately. Because she could not say the intended word, she tried to use the other word but it has close meaning. It is called Approximation strategy.
Conclusion
This research only focuses on analyzing personal letter texts of eleventh graders MIPA 4 of SMA N 2 Bantul. From the findings that discussed above, the researcher concluded that the eleventh graders MIPA 4 of SMA N 2 Bantul used many communicative strategies. The researcher found there are 36 communicative strategies from 20 personal letter texts. The types of communicative strategies are analyzed using classification proposed by Tarone (1980) that are Paraphrase, Transfer, and Avoidance. The types of communicative strategies that found are 7 Paraphrases, 21 Transfers, and 8 Avoidances.
There are many possible factors influence students in using communicative strategies. Here the researcher found that there are three factors affecting students in using communicative strategies: Target Language Proficiency, Gender Differences, and Learners’ Personality. All of those factors are analyzed by the classification proposed by Widiarini (2019). The result shows that the highest factor in affecting students in using communicative strategies during writing personal letter texts is the target language proficiency factor. While the lowest factor is gender differences. Based on the findings, the researcher concluded that the Literal Translation strategy is affected by Target Language Proficiency Factor.
This research only found several types of communicative strategies used during writing personal letter texts. The other researchers who prefer to the same field to develop to find another type of communicative strategies in other texts written by students and find different factors that affect the students in using communicative strategies during writing texts.
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