A. Title
A Study of the Students’ Competency in the Use of Commisive Act by the XII Grade Students at SMA Negeri 1 Singaraja in Academic Year 2015/2016 B. Introduction
1. Background of the study
The status of English as an international language which is widely used in the world is supported by the fact that English is used almost in all fields such as politis, economic, international trade and industry, technology, and education. Simatupang, 1999 in Lauder (2008) sated that in Indonesia, although English has no wide use in society, it is not used as a medium of communication in official domains like government, the law courts, and the education system, and it is not accorded any special status in the country’s language legislation but it is still seen as a priority, as the most important of the foreign languages to be taught. According to Lauder (2008) nowadays the teaching of English as a foreign language has become increasingly important in Indonesia. It is a compulsory subject to be taught for three years at Junior High Schools and for another three years in Senior High Schools.
In this case, the students in a senior high school are expected to achieve informational level because they are prepared to continue their study to the higher level of education. Generally English language teaching in senior high school has some purpose as it is stated in Competency Standard and Basic Competency (Permendiknas 2006) as follows:
“Mengembangkan kompetensi berkomunikasi dalam bentuk lisan dan tulis untuk mencapai tingkat literasi informational, memiliki kesadaran tentang hakikat dan pentingnya bahasa Inggris untuk meningkatkan daya saing bangsa dalam masyarakat global, mengembangkan pemahaman peserta didik tentang keterkaitan antara bahasa dengan budaya.”
Based on the statements above it is clear that English language teaching in Indonesia has a goal to make the students to be able to use English communicatively in order to make them ready to face the fast changing era and compete with the others. This also can enrich the students’ knowledge because once they learn a language simultaneously they learn the culture of the language itself. It can help the students to use the language as natural as possible like the native speakers do. For that reason, it can be said that speaking is the most essential competency. It is essential because speaking takes a big role in our everyday communication and it is in line with the goal of a language teaching which make the students to be able to use the language communicatively in their daily life. There are some indicators of speaking competency such as pronunciation, diction, coherence, fluency, grammar and content.
The twelve grade students especially those who are in a language program are potentially to speak English in their learning process. It can be seen from the standard competency which states that
“Mengungkapkan makna dalam teks interaksional, dengan penekanan pada percakapan transaksional resmi dan berlanjut dalam konteks kehidupan sehari-hari.”
The basic competency later is described in detail in the basic competency as follows:
In line with the statement above it can be said that the students are expected to be able to use the language in a transactional as well as in an interpersonal communication. According to Hartley (1993, p. 5-7) interpersonal communication involves face-to-face meetings between two participants in varying roles and relationships to one another. This type of communication suggests that our communication is linear and one-way. In other words, it consists of messages flowing from sender to receiver along particular channels although there may be some interference (noise) along the way. As it is cited in Ummah (2013) generally transactional communication has a goal to share information. This type of communication covers such informational transmission between hearer and speaker in a form of actual fact, needs, opinion, attitude, and feeling.
The students usually engage in communication which not primarily to the sentence they utter to one another but the speech acts that those utterances are used to perform: requests, warning, invitation, promises and etc. Speech act theory is firstly stated by the Oxford philosopher, Austin on his book entitled How to Do Things with Word. Austin (1962) as cited in Wardani (2011) defines speech act as the action performed when an utterance is produced can be analyzed in three different levels. These are, Locutionary act, Illocutionary act, and Perlocutionary act. Locutionary act is basic act of utterance. It produces a meaningful linguistic expression. Second, Illocutionary act relates to the performance of an act of saying something. It has force which inform in certain tone, attitude, feeling, motive and intention. Last, Perlocutionary act relates to the act of saying something which often produces certain consequential effect upon this feeling, thought, or action of the audience. It has consequence which has an effect upon the addressee.
In relation to the statements it can be said that when the students communicate with the others the words they are uttered usually followed by some act or there is intention behind the words it self. They perform these acts either in maintaining their relationship with others (interpersonal) or to get something done (transactional). Due to the students at SMA Negeri 1 Singaraja learn English as a foreign language in which they have very few opportunities to use English and they have limited exposure to English-speaking culture. Consequently the students will frequently encounter some problems in speaking English caused by different system of the language and lack of linguistics resources. These problems can be in the form of error in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and etc. However errors are natural in language learning because Corder (1967) in Al-zuoud & Kabilan (2013) states that errors provide evidence that learning is taking place and they provide students with good feedback on their learning.
Based on the explanation above, this study focuses on the analysis of commisive act which is used by the twelve grade students at SMA Negeri 1 Singaraja. This study is expected to have benefits for the students as well as the teacher. It is hoped that the students will know how to use the language in order to make them can communicate effectively in their everyday communication.
1.2 Research Question
1. What are the illocutionary acts used by the twelve grade students in commisive at SMA Negeri 1 Singaraja?
2. What errors are committed in their speech in term of grammar, diction and appropriateness at SMA Negeri 1 Singaraja?
3. What are the levels of competency of the twelve grade students in commisive act at SMA Negeri 1 Singaraja?
1.3 Purpose of the study
In general, objective of this study is mapping the speaking competency among the twelve grade students speech act. Specifically, the objectives to be accomplished in the study are as follows:
1.3.2 To map type of error committed by the students in their speech in term of grammar, diction and appropriateness at SMA Negeri 1 Singaraja 1.3.3 To map the levels of competency of the twelve grade students in
commisive act at SMA Negeri 1 Singaraja.
1.4 Scope of the study
The subject of the study is limited to the twelve grade students at SMA Negeri 1 Singaraja. Particularly the subject of the study refers to the twelve grade students who are in a language program in academic year 2015/2016. The object of the study is only focused on the illocutionary act especially commisive act.
1.5 Significance of the study
The result of the study is expected to be useful for developing theory on speech act in EFL learning. It’s determined to give important information about the use of speech act to the teachers, students and other researcher as follows:
1.5.1 Teachers
This study is expected to give contribution to the academic society. It could provide teachers of English foreign language and students to know various types of speech act that can be used to convey the information in communicative way. Then the teacher can use appropriate strategy to improve the teaching and learning process.
1.5.2 Students
This study can provide the information about types of speech act that can enrich the students’ knowledge especially about how to use the language so that they can communicate effectively.
1.5.3 Other Researcher
C. Theoretical and Empirical Review 1. Theoretical Review
Theoretical review is an essential part of any study as the basic ground in conducting the study. In this study, theoretical review is used to provide a strong basic ground which supports this study in terms of theories.
1.1 Theory of speaking
Speaking relates to the speech production which takes place in a real time in which it consists of at least there stages such as conceptualization, formulation and articulation. Moreover during those stages the speaker also engaged in self monitoring (Thornbury, 2005 p. 3-9). The following are the explanation of each stage in speech production:
- Conceptualization
In this stage there is a intention to create speech links to a particular spoken word to be expressed. In this case the speaker must decide on the message to be conveyed. It also called the preverbal message or the message level of representation.
- Formulation
Once the speaker has made decision, then the message or the idea has to be mapped out or formulated. This involves making strategic choices at the level of discourse, syntax and vocabulary. For example, someone wants to tell a story about a particular food to the others. At the level of overall discourse, stories have a typical structure or script in which it has at least the beginning, middle and end part. Discourse scripts are part of our shared background knowledge. Each of the stages of the script then needs to be fleshed out at the utterance level. This is where the specific syntax of each utterance needs to be chosen so that the content of the story is packaged in a way that is consistent with the speaker’s intention.
- Articulation
primarily by the action of the tongue and the lips. Consonant sounds are determined by the point at which the air stream is obstructed, e.g. at the lips or teeth.
- Self-monitoring
Self-monitoring is the process that happens concurrently with the stages of conceptualization, formulation and articulation. Self monitoring at the formulation stage may result in the slowing down, or a pause and the subsequent backtracking and re-phasing of an utterance. Self monitoring in articulation results in the kind of corrections that even fluent speakers have to make when the wrong words pop out or the pronunciation goes awry.
1.2 Speech act theory
Austin is acknowledged as the creator of Speech Act Theory. Austin believed that there is a lot more to a language than the meaning of its words and phrases. Austin was convinced that we do not just use language to say things (to make statement) but to do things (perform action). Austin began exploring his idea by way of the performative hypothesis. One of the reasons why it is worthwhile examining the performative hypothesis is that it demonstrates neatly the distinction between the truth conditional approach to meaning and Austin’s view of “words as actions.” Austin’s first step in How to Do Things with Words was to show that some utterances have no truth condition. Furthermore he claimed that they are not statements or questions but actions in which it was the conclusion he reached through an analysis of what he termed ‘performative verbs.’ (Thomas, 1995 p. 32-33)
(i) I drive a white car. (ii) I apologize.
(iii) I name this ship The Albatross. (iv) I bet you $5 it will rain.
The four statements are similar syntactically. All are in the first person, declarative, active, and in the simple present tense. Pragmatically the first sentence is different from the other sentences. Sentence (i) is a statement as what Austin called ‘consative’ and it can simply judge empirically that whether or not the statement is true. In fact my car is a rather pleasing metallic grey color and if you discover this fact and heard me utter sentence (i), you could contradict me by saying ‘That is not true, your car is silver.’ Moreover the sentence (ii)-(iv) do not make statements but they belong to a class of utterances called ‘performative’ which cannot be judged true or false but they performing an action. In uttering the words I apologize I do not make a statement, I perform an act, the act of apologizing.
Utterances not only have sense but also force. Austin divided the speech act itself into three component acts which underlie the issuing of an utterance: locutionary acts, illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary acts. A locutionary act “includes the utterance of certain noises, the utterance of certain words in a certain construction and the utterance of them with a certain ‘meaning’” (Austin, 1962, p. 94 as cited in Zhao and Throssell, 2011). In other words locutionary act is the act of saying something in a normal sense or the act of saying something which convey the literal meaning of the words utter. An illocutionary act is viewed as the force or intention behind words or sentences. It is the act performed in saying the locution. The last is perlocutionary act which means the effect of utterance on the hearer. For example, I might say: Do not go into the water! (locutionary act). It has an intention that I warn you not to go into the water (an illocutionary act), and the perlocutionary effect might be someone who heed the warning by not to go into the water.
what the utterance conveys, what the hearer appreciates, and what the rules govern the linguistic elements. Based on these points, Searle concludes that there are indeed only illocutionary acts in that the central linguistic unit is a speech act rather than a sign. Focusing on the illocutionary acts, Searle (1976) defines five classes of speech acts as follow:
1. Assertive/Representative
The point or purpose of the members of the representative class is to commit the speaker (in varying degrees) to something's being the case, to the truth of the expressed proposition, e.g. affirm, believe, conclude, deny, and report. Here is the example: “I inform you that our government makes a wrong policy for rising up the cost of oil.‟
2. Directives
The illocutionary point of these consists in the fact that they are attempts (of varying degrees, and hence, more precisely, they are determinates of the determinable which includes attempting) by the speaker to get the hearer to do something. For example, ask, order, command, request, beg, plead, pray, entreat, and also invite, permit, and advise.
3. Commissive
Commissives then are those illocutionary acts whose point is to commit the speaker (again in varying degrees) to some future course of action, e.g. vow, pledge, promise, swear, consent, refuse, assure, gurantee, contract and bet. The following is the example of commissive utterance: “I promise to do what ever it takes.”
4. Expressive
The illocutionary point of this class is to express the psychological state specified in the sincerity condition about a state of affairs specified in the propositional content. The paradigms of Expressive verbs are 'thank', 'congratulate', 'apologize', 'condole', 'deplore', and 'welcome'. Here is the sample sentence of Expressive: “That is very kind of you for helping me finishing this job, Thank you very much.”
5. Declarative
between the propositional content and reality, successful performance guarantees that the propositional content corresponds to the world: if I successfully perform the act of appointing you chairman, then you are chairman; if I successfully perform the act of nominating you as candidate, then you are a candidate; if I successfully perform the act of declaring a state of war, then war is on; if I successfully perform the act of marrying you, then you are married, e.g. I resign, I baptize, you’re fired, and War is hereby declared.
1.3 Error
When we learn a language we usually commit to several errors which relate to the structure of the sentence, pronunciation and etc. It is due to the different system of language and it can be due to lack of knowledge about the language itself. Corder (1967) in Al-zuoud & Kabilan (2013) states that errors provide evidence that learning is taking place and they provide students with good feedback on their learning. In relation to the statement, it is natural when the students make errors in their learning and the teacher should remind and correct the students’ error so that it will give a good feedback for the students to prevent them to make the same errors in the future and improve their language profcienccy
because it will help the students to express their ideas in a proper wacy There are common grammatical error which are made bc learning such as (Alahmadi, 2014):
ay Singular and plural nouns
In this tcpe of error students usuallc mark plural nouns with singular forms and thec also face difcultc when it comes to certain English nouns, as thec are unable to determine whether these words are singular or pluraly
by Verb tenses
In this tcpes of grammatical errors students usuallc make error in switching between tensesy Thec are usuallc confuse when thec havr to form such a past tense, present tense and future tensey
cy Article
In reference to English language grammar, the use of articles is divided into two main tcpes: defnite and indefnite articlesy These articles are considered to be adjectives, as thec are usuallc used before a noun in the English languagey
2y Literature Review
analysis, she found five types of illocutionary acts used by Dastan as main character in Prince of Persia : The Sand of Time Movie. They are Assertive/Representantive (reporting, stating, and concluding), Directive (ordering, asking, requesting, and command), Expressive (praising and apologizing), Commissive (refusal and pledging), and Declarative (declaring).
Another research about speech act was conducted by Sudewi (2014). She conducted a research about the use of speech act among front office students in learning EFL at SMK Negeri 2 Singaraja. Particularly the research was intended to analyze the locutionary act used among front office students in learning EFL at SMK Negeri 2 Singaraja, the speech styles used among the students and the errors committed by the students in their students in performing the front office task. This is a kind of qualitative research and used some method of data collection such as data elicitation, recording, data transcription, and coding. The study founf that the highest frequesncy of speech acts which were produced by the students was directives (67.8%), and then followed by acknowledgment (14.9%), constatives (14.4%), and the lowest frequesncy was commisive (2.9%). In performing their speech act the students usually found some problem that result on the grammatical error such as when they use verb in forming tenses like present tense and past tense. This is because English is taught as a foreign language in which it has different system with the national language in Indonesia.
in week 6 required students to describe a specifed person (eygy their mother) to the course instructory The second role plac conducted in Week 11 focussed on apologies and invitations while the third role plac in the fnal week of the semester involved bucer-seller interactionsy Error analcsis of 126 oral interactions showed that the fve common grammar errors made bc the learners are preposition, question, article, plural form of nouns, subject-verb agreement and tensey Based on Dulac, Burt and Krashen’s (1982) surface structure taxonomc, the main wacs bc which students modifc the target forms are misinformation and omission, with addition of elements or misordering being less frequenty The results also showed an increase in grammatical accuracc in the students’ spoken English towards the end of the coursey
D. Research Method 1. Research Design
This research is a qualitative research. The data of the research will be listed and analyzed in some ways. This research belongs to descriptive research in which the finding of the research will be analyzed descriptively and systematically. The source of data can be categorized into two types namely spoken and written sources. In this case, the source of spoken data is collected through recording the utterance between the speaker and interlocutor during the conversation, interaction, communication, that can be found in daily life. The source of written data is collected through some written information or documents.
2. Setting of the study
Negeri 1 Singaraja who take language program are expected to be able to speak English and can communicate in English effectively.
3. Subject of the study
The subjects of this study are twelve grade students at SMA Negeri 1 Singaraja particulary students who take language program. The students are EFL students and they are also agreeing to be observed and tested. They have adequate time for being asked some information by the researcher.
4. Research instrument
There are several instruments used by the researcher to gather information in this study namely, data elicitation, recorder, performance assessment. Data elicitation is a way of getting information by asking people some questions about what they do, think and feel. Recorder is any type of tool that can be used to record something. The data are obtained through students’ spoken communication. Performance assessment is a method of teaching and learning that involves both process and product. Performance assessment measures what students can do with what they know, rather than how much they know (Glencoe, 2000). These instruments are used in order to collect factual information and document.
5. Data collection method
Various methods are utilized in order to obtain the data in this study such as eliciting data, recording and data transcription.
5.1 Eliciting data
Eliciting data is conducted in order to obtain certain data. Data elicitation is conducted by asking the students to speak in accordance to the commisive act. This elicitation is conducted based on the reason that students will produce particular speech act on their speech. The data are categorized based on Searle since the types of illocutionary acts especially commisive act is the focus of this study.
5.2 Recording
5.3 Data transcription
After researcher asks students to do a spoken communication and record their speech then the researcher transcript the data recorded. It can be used to analyze the data based on the focus of the study in which the type of illocutionary act especially commisive act used twelve grade students at SMA Negeri 1 Singaraja.
6. Procedures of data analysis
When the data have been collected then it will be analyzed through some procedures such as:
6.1 Data analysis and categorize
The data is in the form of spoken communication produced by the twelve grade students who take a language program at SMA Negeri 1 Singaraja. After collecting the data then the data are analyzed and categorized. The data analysis will help the researcher to analyze the data to get better understanding about the data itself. Based on the focus of the study the data will be classified into several indicators of commisive act such as vow, pledge, promise, swear, consent, refuse, assure, gurantee, contract and bet. In line with the goal of the speaking competency in which the students are expected to use the language communicatively either in transactional or interpersonal communication, then each utterance which is produced by the students are categorized into transactional and interpersonal communication. This study also focus on the error commit by the students in their speech in which if the data already classified into types of communication then it will be analyzed categorized in term of the error.
6.2 Speaking rubric
wrong if the students do mistake in term of grammar, pronunciation and spelling.
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