Ni Nyoman Wartinah. 2017. Medical and Law Students’ Request Acts Strategies: A Pragmatic Study. Yogyakarta: Graduate Program in English Language Studies, Sanata Dharma University
Pragmatic study has always become a key study to investigate the issue on language in use since it satisfies the idea that whenever people speak, they do not merely deliver meaning to the addressee, yet at the same time, perform actions through statements they utter. Thus, using pragmatic study, in this thesis the researcher attempts to closely examine potential use of speech acts that are often manipulated by the speakers particularly in making requests. Further, speaker often utilize various strategies in request as a mean to diminish the force and to increase the possibility of it to be accepted and done by the hearer because request can be threatening and burdensome at some extents.
However, since most similar researches put their concern on studying the use of request acts by the students majoring in English, hence, the researcher feels the need to put forward the challenge to have non-English students from different fields of study under investigation which comprise Medical and Law students. This thesis aims to reveal three problems proposed in this study, namely: (1) What patterns do the request acts of Medical and Law students have?, (2) Do different fields of study contribute to the opting of different strategies employed in making requests?, and (3) What factors underlie the choice of the strategies in making requests?.
To deal with these three problems, the researcher employs mixed-methods of qualitative supported by t-test quantitative. Before conducting the t-test, the researcher does pre-requisite tests of normality and homogeneity as well as data input validity. As data instrument, the Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) are used to elicit data by providing nine different situational contexts supported by a cartoon picture as the illustration for pictorial context. Before distributed to Medical and Law students as the research’ subjects, the researcher has confirmed that DCTs meet face, content, and construct validity as well as inter-rater reliability. The data are further classified based on four request sequence of openers, head acts, internal and external modifications based on which group they belong to. The t-test operation ensues sig.(2-tailed) of less than 0.05 which indicates that there is significant different of request strategies employed by the two groups.
The overall result notes three key points found in this study. First, both Medical and Law students use openers, head acts, internal and external modifications in making request appropriately, thus, it can be inferred that they have good pragmatic competence. Second, despite the results that show both groups used all of the four strategies, some distinctions are clearly found. The most notable distinctions are the greater use of external modifications and hints as conventionally-indirect fashion of request by the Medical students, meanwhile, Law students make greater use of internal modifications and want statements. And, third, seven potential factors are discovered affecting diverse strategies and modifications employed in making requests, such as: sociological variables and politeness, situational setting, pragmatic competence, request size, reciprocal asymmetry, urgency of requests, and motivations of the speakers.
ABSTRAK
Ni Nyoman Wartinah. 2017. Medical and Law Students’ Request Acts Strategies: A Pragmatic Study. Yogyakarta: Program Magister Kajian Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Studi pragmatik selalu menjadi acuan utama untuk mengkaji bagaimana suatu bahasa dipakai dalam berinteraksi berlandaskan ide bahwa ketika seorang penutur berbicara, mereka tidak hanya menyampaikan pesan atau informasi, melainkan melakukan tindakan atau aksi melalui ujaran yang diutarakannya dalam satu waktu. Oleh karenanya, dengan menggunakan kajian studi pragmatik, dalam tesis ini penulis mencoba untuk mengkaji secara lebih dekat dan mendalam tentang penggunaan tindak tutur (speech acts) yang sering kali dimanipulasi oleh penuturnya tertutama dalam meminta (requests) seseorang untuk melakukan sesuatu. Dalam usaha untuk meniminalisir paksaan dan meningkatkan kemungkinan agar request diterima, seorang penutur cenderung mengaplikasikan strategi yang beragam mengingat requests bisa saja mengancam dan juga membebani si pendengar.
Kebanyakan studi sebelumnya dilakukan oleh para ahli linguistik memfokuskan studi mereka dalam meneliti penggunaan requests oleh peserta didik jurusan Bahasa Inggris, oleh karena itu, penulis tertantang untuk mengkaji peserta didik jurusan non Bahasa Inggris khususnya pada area studi yang berbeda yaitu jurusan Kedokteran dan Hukum. Adapun tesis ini bertujuan untuk menjawab tiga permasalahan, yakni: (1) Pola apa sajakah yang ditemukan dalam penggunaan tindak tutur oleh mahasiswa Kedokteran dan Hukum dalam requests?, (2) Apakah perbedaan kajian studi berpengaruh terhadap pemilihan strategi requests yang berbeda? , dan (3) Faktor-faktor apa sajakah yang mendasarinya?.
Guna mengungkap ketiga masalah diatas, peneliti memakai metode gabungan kualitatif didukung oleh pendekatan kuantitatif t-test. Namun sebelum prosedur t-test dijalankan, penulis mengadakan tes wajib sebagai prasyarat melakukan t-test, diantaranya adalah tes normalitas, homogenitas, dan validitas data yang dipakai. Sebagai instrument pengumpulan data, penulis menggunakan Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) dengan sembilan konteks situasi berbeda yang didukung ilustrasi kartun/animasi. Terlebih dulu penulis telah memastikan bahwa DCT telah memenuhi face, content dan construct validitas beserta inter-rater reliabilitas. Kemudian data yang diperoleh dari DCT diklasifikasikan ke dalam empat rangkaian requests yakni openers sebagai pembuka, head acts atau tindak tutur utama request, modifikasi internal dan eksternal berdasarkan masing-masing grup. Hasil operasi t-test pada akhirnya menunjukkan adanya perbedaan yang signifikan diantara kedua grup dalam pemakaian strategi requests yang dibuktikan dengan koefisien sig.(2-tailed) lebih kecil dari 0,05.
MEDICAL AND LAW STU
DENTS’ REQUEST ACTS
STRATEGIES: A PRAGMATIC STUDY
A THESIS
Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Magister Humaniora (M. Hum) Degree
in English Language Studies
by
Ni Nyoman Wartinah Student Number: 156332020
THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
i
MEDICAL
AND LAW STUDENTS’ REQUEST ACTS
STRATEGIES: A PRAGMATIC STUDY
A THESIS
Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Magister Humaniora (M. Hum) Degree
in English Language Studies
by
Ni Nyoman Wartinah Student Number: 156332020
THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
ii
A THESIS
MEDICAL AND LAW STUDENTS’ REQUEST ACTS
STRATEGIES: A PRAGMATIC STUDY
by
Ni Nyoman Wartinah Student Number: 156332020
Approved by
Dr. B.B. Dwijatmoko, M. A.
iv
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY
This is to certify that all ideas, phrases, sentences, unless otherwise stated, are the
ideas, phrases, and sentences of the thesis writer. The writer understands the full
consequences including degree cancellation if she took somebody else’s ideas,
phrases, sentences without proper references.
Yogyakarta, 6 February 2017
v
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN
PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:
Nama : Ni Nyoman Wartinah
NIM : 156332020
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
MEDICAL AND LAW STUDENTS’ REQUEST ACTS STRATEGIES: A PRAGMATIC STUDY
Beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin maupun memberikan royalty kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya.
Dibuat di Yogyakarta
Pada tanggal: 6 Februari 2017
Yang menyatakan,
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Astungkara, all praises presented to Ida Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa for leading me through the ups and downs during the process so that I can complete this thesis.
In this proudest moment, I also would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of
those who have supported and facilitated me accomplishing my thesis.
I present my humble gratitude to my advisor Dr. B.B. Dwijatmoko, M.A.
for his guidance and patience. He has been a resourceful person to share ideas and
whose suggestions contributed a lot to the improvement of my thesis. I also greatly
appreciate my reviewers Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A., Dr. E. Sunarto, M.Hum., and
F. X. Mukarto, Ph.D for the useful input and suggestions which enriched my thesis
writing. My deepest gratitude and appreciation are also devoted to all lecturers in
English Language Studies of Sanata Dharma University for being such inspiring
figures in my life. Countless appreciation is also dedicated to rector of Batam
University, Prof. Dr. Ir. H. Novirman Jamarun, M.Sc. and head of Uniba Language
Centre of Batam University, Wahyu Dani P, M.Pd. for the consent and
encouragement to me to pursue my master degree.
This thesis is truly dedicated to my beloved parents, I Wayan Yasa and Ni
Nyoman Mokoh, and my second parents, Gede Agus P. and Nuryuli M. I am
genuinely grateful for their timeless support, prayer, and love. I also thank my
sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews for all boosts and affection. And, my special
thanks goes to my fiance, Eko Gede Septandho, who boundlessly accompanies and
many thanks are respectively addressed to my terrific friends whom I cannot
mention one by one. May God always bless you all abundantly. Swaha.
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ... i
APPROVAL PAGE ... ii
DEFENSE APPROVAL PAGE ... iii
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ... iv
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ... v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... viii
LIST OF TABLES ... xii
LIST OF FIGURES ... xiii
LIST OF APPENDICES ... xiiv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ... xv
ABSTRACT ... xviii
ABSTRAK ... xx
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ... 1
A. RESEARCH BACKGROUND ... 1
B. RESEARCH QUESTIONS ... 10
C. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ... 10
D. RESEARCH BENEFITS ... 11
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW ... 13
A. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ... 13
1. Pragmatic Study ... 13
2. Pragmatic Competence as Communicative Competence ... 16
3. Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP) ... 19
4. English for Medicine and Law ... 21
a. English for Medicine ... 21
5. Speech Acts ... 26
a. Speech Acts Definition ... 26
b. Speech Acts Typologies ... 28
6. Politeness ... 32
7. Request and Request Strategies ... 34
a. Request Definition... 34
b. Request Strategies ... 36
1) Openers ... 37
2) Head Acts (main request acts) ... 37
3) Internal Modifications ... 38
a) Lexical Modifications ... 38
b) Syntactic Downgraders ... 39
4) External Modifications (supportive moves) ... 40
B. REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES ... 41
C. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 45
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 50
A. TYPE OF STUDY ... 50
B. DATA COLLECTION ... 52
1. Type of Data ... 52
2. Source of Data ... 52
3. Instrument of Data ... 55
4. Number of Data ... 62
5. The Selection of Data ... 62
C. DATA ANALYSIS ... 63
1. First step ... 64
a. Openers ... 64
b. Head acts... 64
c. Internal modifications ... 65
d. External modifications ... 66
3. Third step ... 68
4. Fourth step ... 71
D. RESULT VERIFICATION... 73
E. RESULT INTERPRETATION ... 74
CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ... 77
A. FINDINGS ... 77
B. DISCUSSIONS ... 82
1. Request Patterns Produced by Medical and Law Students ... 83
a. Medical Students Request Pattern ... 84
1) Openers ... 84
2) Head Acts ... 86
3) Internal Modifications ... 93
4) External Modifications ... 99
b. Law Students Request Pattern ... 108
1) Openers ... 108
2) Head Acts ... 110
3) Internal Modifications ... 113
4) External Modifications ... 117
2. Comparison of Medical and Law Students’ Request Strategies ... 123
3. Factors Underlying the Choice of the Strategies ... 147
a. Sociological Variables and Politeness ... 147
b. Situation Setting ... 153
c. Pragmatic Competence ... 156
d. Request Size ... 159
e. Reciprocal Asymmetry ... 161
f. Urgency of Requests ... 163
g. Motivation ... 165
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ... 170
B. SUGGESTION ... 176
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 179
APPENDICES ... 187
APPENDIX 1 ... 188
APPENDIX 2 ... 191
APPENDIX 3 ... 216
APPENDIX 4 ... 378
APPENDIX 5 ... 412
APPENDIX 6 ... 442
APPENDIX 7 ... 443
APPENDIX 8 ... 445
APPENDIX 9 ... 454
APPENDIX 10 ... 463
xii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Openers in Requests ... 37
Table 2. Head Acts in Requests... 37
Table 3. Lexical Modifications in Requests ... 39
Table 4. Syntactical Modifications in Requests ... 39
Table 5. External Modifications in Requests ... 40
Table 6. Result of DCT’s Validity and Reliability ... 58
Table 7. Discourse Completion Tasks Situational Contexts ... 61
Table 8. Data Selection Based on Situational Contexts of Medicine and Law Group ... 63
Table 9. Coding of Openers in Requests ... 64
Table 10. Coding of Head Acts in Requests ... 65
Table 11. Coding of Lexical Modifications in Requests ... 66
Table 12. Coding of Syntactical Modifications in Requests ... 66
Table 13. Coding of External Modifications in Requests ... 67
Table 14. Sample of Data Analysis of Each Response ... 68
Table 15. Request Acts Strategies Pattern of Medicine Group ... 69
Table 16. Request Acts Strategies Pattern of Law Group ... 70
Table 17. Data Analysis Result of Request Acts Strategies Pattern of Medicine Group ... 71
Table 18. Data Analysis Result of Request Acts Strategies Pattern of Law Group ... 72
Table 19. Summary of Data Analysis of Request Acts Strategies Pattern of Medicine and Law Group ... 78
Table 20. Result of Data Validity Test ... 79
Table 21. Result of Normality Test ... 79
Table 22. Result of Homogeneity Test ... 80
Table 23. Result of T-test of Medicine and Law Group ... 81
xiii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Pragmatic Competence as the Development of EFL Learners ... 18
Figure 2. The Researcher’s Theoretical Framework ... 49 Figure 3. Sample of DCT illustration with a Cartoon Picture
Adapted and Developed from Rue and Zhang (2008) ... 59
Figure 4. Research Methodology Flow Chart ... 76
xiv
LIST OF APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1 Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) Form ... 188
APPENDIX 2 Data Selection Based on Situational Contexts of Medical and Law Group ... 191
APPENDIX 3 Data Analysis of Each Response ... 216
APPENDIX 4 Request Acts Strategies Pattern of Medical Group ... 378
APPENDIX 5 Request Acts Strategies Pattern of Medical Group ... 412
APPENDIX 6 Data Input for Cronbach’s Alpha Test ... 442
APPENDIX 7 Data Input for T-test Procedure ... 443
APPENDIX 8 Responses of DCTs by Medical Students ... 445
APPENDIX 9 Responses ofDCTs by Law Students ... 454
APPENDIX 10 Learning Contract of Medical Students ... 463
xv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Apol : Apology
Appl : Appealer
Askop : Ask the hearer’s opinion Beg : Begging for help
CIHA : Conventionally indirect head acts
Comm : Commitment indicator
Cond : Conditional
Conf : Confirmation of request
Cost : Cost minimizer
D : Distance
DCT : Discourse Completion Task
Delm : Delimiter
DEM : Downgrading external modifications
DHA : Direct head acts
Disa : Disarmer
DL : Data of Law students
DM : Data of Medical students
Down : Downtoner
Dwngr : Downgrading function
EL : English for Law
EM : External modifications
ES : English students
ESP : English for Spesific Purposes
EUM : Upgrading external modifications
F : Formal
GE : General English
Grat : Gratitude
HA : Head acts
Hedg : Hedge
Hesm : Hesitation marker
Hon : Honorific
Humb : Humbling oneself
I : Informal
ILP : Interlanguage Pragmatics
IM : Internal modifications
Intrd : Self–introduction Intrg : Interogative
Joke : Joking
L2 : Second language
LD : Lexical downgraders
LU : Lexical upgraders
ME : Medical English
Mhin : Mild hints
Mood : Mood derivable (imperative)
Moral : Moralizing
NES : Non-English students
Neutr : Neutral
NIHA : Non-conventionally indirect head acts
Oblig : Obligation statements
OP : Openers
Ord : Order
P : Power
Perf : Performatives
Polm : Politeness markers
Prep : Preparator
Prom : Promise of reward
Prs : Persuade
R : Rank of imposition
Redp : Reduplication of verb
Repr : Reprimanding
Rept : Repetition
SD : Syntactic downgraders
Shin : Strong hints
Sig. : Significant
Subj : Subjectivizer
Sugg : Suggestory formula
Sweet : Sweetener
Time : Time intensifier
Unds : Understater
Upgr : Upgrading function
Want : Want statements
xviii
ABSTRACT
Ni Nyoman Wartinah. 2017. Medical and Law Students’ Request Acts Strategies: A Pragmatic Study. Yogyakarta: Graduate Program in English Language Studies, Sanata Dharma University
Pragmatic study has always become a key study to investigate the issue on language in use since it satisfies the idea that whenever people speak, they do not merely deliver meaning to the addressee, yet at the same time, perform actions through statements they utter. Thus, using pragmatic study, in this thesis the researcher attempts to closely examine potential use of speech acts that are often manipulated by the speakers particularly in making requests. Further, speaker often utilize various strategies in request as a mean to diminish the force and to increase the possibility of it to be accepted and done by the hearer because request can be threatening and burdensome at some extents.
However, since most similar researches put their concern on studying the use of request acts by the students majoring in English, hence, the researcher feels the need to put forward the challenge to have non-English students from different fields of study under investigation which comprise Medical and Law students. This thesis aims to reveal three problems proposed in this study, namely: (1) What patterns do the request acts of Medical and Law students have?, (2) Do different fields of study contribute to the opting of different strategies employed in making requests?, and (3) What factors underlie the choice of the strategies in making requests?.
To deal with these three problems, the researcher employs mixed-methods of qualitative supported by t-test quantitative. Before conducting the t-test, the researcher does pre-requisite tests of normality and homogeneity as well as data input validity. As data instrument, the Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) are used to elicit data by providing nine different situational contexts supported by a cartoon picture as the illustration for pictorial context. Before distributed to Medical
and Law students as the research’ subjects, the researcher has confirmed that DCTs meet face, content, and construct validity as well as inter-rater reliability. The data are further classified based on four request sequence of openers, head acts, internal and external modifications based on which group they belong to. The t-test operation ensues sig.(2-tailed) of less than 0.05 which indicates that there is significant different of request strategies employed by the two groups.
modifications employed in making requests, such as: sociological variables and politeness, situational setting, pragmatic competence, request size, reciprocal asymmetry, urgency of requests, and motivations of the speakers.
xx
ABSTRAK
Ni Nyoman Wartinah. 2017. Medical and Law Students’ Request Acts Strategies: A Pragmatic Study. Yogyakarta: Program Magister Kajian Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Studi pragmatik selalu menjadi acuan utama untuk mengkaji bagaimana suatu bahasa dipakai dalam berinteraksi berlandaskan ide bahwa ketika seorang penutur berbicara, mereka tidak hanya menyampaikan pesan atau informasi, melainkan melakukan tindakan atau aksi melalui ujaran yang diutarakannya dalam satu waktu. Oleh karenanya, dengan menggunakan kajian studi pragmatik, dalam tesis ini penulis mencoba untuk mengkaji secara lebih dekat dan mendalam tentang penggunaan tindak tutur (speech acts) yang sering kali dimanipulasi oleh penuturnya tertutama dalam meminta (requests) seseorang untuk melakukan sesuatu. Dalam usaha untuk meniminalisir paksaan dan meningkatkan kemungkinan agar request diterima, seorang penutur cenderung mengaplikasikan strategi yang beragam mengingat requests bisa saja mengancam dan juga membebani si pendengar.
Kebanyakan studi sebelumnya dilakukan oleh para ahli linguistik memfokuskan studi mereka dalam meneliti penggunaan requests oleh peserta didik jurusan Bahasa Inggris, oleh karena itu, penulis tertantang untuk mengkaji peserta didik jurusan non Bahasa Inggris khususnya pada area studi yang berbeda yaitu jurusan Kedokteran dan Hukum. Adapun tesis ini bertujuan untuk menjawab tiga permasalahan, yakni: (1) Pola apa sajakah yang ditemukan dalam penggunaan tindak tutur oleh mahasiswa Kedokteran dan Hukum dalam requests?, (2) Apakah perbedaan kajian studi berpengaruh terhadap pemilihan strategi requests yang berbeda? , dan (3) Faktor-faktor apa sajakah yang mendasarinya?.
Guna mengungkap ketiga masalah diatas, peneliti memakai metode gabungan kualitatif didukung oleh pendekatan kuantitatif t-test. Namun sebelum prosedur t-test dijalankan, penulis mengadakan tes wajib sebagai prasyarat melakukan t-test, diantaranya adalah tes normalitas, homogenitas, dan validitas data yang dipakai. Sebagai instrument pengumpulan data, penulis menggunakan Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) dengan sembilan konteks situasi berbeda yang didukung ilustrasi kartun/animasi. Terlebih dulu penulis telah memastikan bahwa DCT telah memenuhi face, content dan construct validitas beserta inter-rater reliabilitas. Kemudian data yang diperoleh dari DCT diklasifikasikan ke dalam empat rangkaian requests yakni openers sebagai pembuka, head acts atau tindak tutur utama request, modifikasi internal dan eksternal berdasarkan masing-masing grup. Hasil operasi t-test pada akhirnya menunjukkan adanya perbedaan yang signifikan diantara kedua grup dalam pemakaian strategi requests yang dibuktikan dengan koefisien sig.(2-tailed) lebih kecil dari 0,05.
meskipun hasil menyatakan bahwa kedua grup menggunakan keempat strategi requests diatas, beberapa perbedaan justru nampak jelas. Salah satu poin yang menonjol adalah bahwa mahasiswa Kedokteran memanfaatkan lebih banyak modifikasi eksternal dan hints sebagai strategi konvensional yang tidak langsung. Sementara itu, mahasiswa Hukum cenderung lebih lugas dalam menyampaikan permintaan mereka khususnya dengan memakai lebih banyak modifikasi internal dan want statements. Dan, ketiga, penulis mendapati bahwa ada tujuh faktor potensial yang mempengaruhi perbedaan penggunaan strategi dan modifikasi requests, diantaranya: variabel sosiologi dan tingkat kesopanan, latar belakang situasi dan tempat, kompetensi pragmatik, ukuran permintaan, reciprocal asymmetry, tingkat urgensi, dan juga motivasi penutur.
1
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter begins by introducing the topic of research and nature of the
objects being investigated. Besides, formulation of the problems as well as the
objectives and the benefits of this study, which attempt to clarify what promted the
researcher to conduct study on request acts, are also discussed.
A. RESEARCH BACKGROUND
The study on speech acts is always interesting and worth discussing
realizing that whenever interact with others, people do not just simply make
statements. By selecting particular linguistic units, it is often that speaker carries
out actions at once. Austin has exclusively taken a role in proposing the idea that
utterances uttered by the speakers are satisfying two conditions. Austin (1962:5)
implies:
They (utterances) do not ‘describe’ or ‘report’ or constate anything
at all, are not ‘true or false’; and the uttering of the sentence is, or is a part of, the doing of an action, which again would not normally be described as saying something.
At this point, it can be inferred that speakers do not only deliver meanings to the
hearers, yet, on the other hand, perform actions through statements they uttered at
the same time. Austin prefers to call it as a ‘performative sentence’ or performative
utterance (6). Basically, the notion ‘performative’ is derived from ‘perform’ or
of the utterance is performing of an action, hence, it is not normally thought as just
saying something.
Further, if we explore from pragmatic study perspective, sometimes what
the speakers say can potentially mean something else or more. Theoretically,
pragmatics deals with language in use (Cutting, 2002). It is noted that once people
use language, they have intention to share meanings. Therefore, pragmatics is also
often termed as “meaning in use or meaning in context, or, identically, meaning in
interaction” (Thomas, 2013). Respectively, meanings can be varied depend on
speaker’s intention and interpreter’s or hearer’s interpretation. At the same time,
speakers do not always explicitly express what they mean. A simple example
offered for common Indonesian case is when an Indonesian speaker says: “Have
you any ciggarette?”. This utterance can be an indirect form of expression which
asking for an action to give or to share the ciggarette that the hearer has.
However, a successful communication depends on pragmatic competence
of the participants which contributes to the pragmatic production of speech acts
used in speaking. According to Wang (2011),
Investigating the pragmatic competence of students’ throught their productions and choice of requests is an assesment of their ability to use them as a social tool to promote or aggravate relationships.
Wang’s statement has been supported by Glaser (2009) who implies that “high level
of the pragmatic competence in the target language has a constructive effect for
successful communication within the L2 contexts”. Furthermore, Salgado (2011:7)
suggests that “pragmatic competence focus on two important aspects of the
relationship between language users and the context in which the communication
takes place”. Therefore, the pragmatic competence is important to make request
works as it was intended. And to summarize, Jones and Halenko (2014:37) denote
that making a succesful request is sensitive to linguistic units and organizational
pattern required by certain context in different situation.
Furthermore, it is often that people misunderstand and misinterpret
interlocutor’s meaning which leads to pragmatic failure directed by the most
possible reason which is lack of pragmatic competence, particularly for non-native
speakers. Essentially, acquiring high pragmatic competence of language learners
influences their successful communication goals. According to Fraser (2010:15),
Pragmatic competence is the ability to communicate your intended message with all its nuances in any socio-cultural context and to interpret the message of your interlocutor as it was intended. … second language speaker who has lack of pragmatic competence may produce grammatically flawless speech that nonetheless fails to achieve its communication aims.
In the same line, a pragmatic competence also enables “theoretical direction
for the measurement of the interlanguage pragmatics” (Yamashita, 2008:202).
According to Zhu (2012:218), “L2 pragmatic competence has often focused on the
learner’s speech act behavior”. Thus, the pragmatic competence of L2 students can
be assessed through their proficiency in using speech acts. As stated previously,
speech acts are related to performative expressions or the actions being performed
by utterances that may carry different functions and meanings depend on given
contexts. Moreover, the use of requests acts is the most frequently acts performed
Commonly, request deals with an action to ask someone to do or not to do
something, or to express need or demand for something. Leech (2014:134) states
“of all the utterances types sensitive to politeness, requests are arguably of the most
abiding interest and have been most studied, particularly with reference to the
English language”. Basically, request speech acts or preferred as request acts are
examined from the perspective of the “Face-Treatening Acts” (FTA). Brown &
Levinson, 1987 mention that “the FTA sets the speakers to employ strategies and
modification to diminish the level of force which sometimes threatens the
addressee’s face, and at the same time burdens to some extent”. Hence, in order to
achieve the goals or to make request accepted and done by the hearer, the requester
realizes to select form of obligatory choices as well as level of the directness of
speech acts. For instance, as the sample above, the requester uses less direct speech
acts to ask for cigarette where he employs a question by stating have followed by a
question mark, rather than a direct form of request like can or may. For that reason,
in most cases that we may experience, the researcher encapsulates that the intention
of requesters making requests is to make the request is accepted and done by the
hearer by using sort kind of strategy and modification. Moreover, speakers also
often insert other linguistic units of openers like “excuse me” or “sorry” in the
beginning or other lexical choices to make it sounds less frightening as well as
“thank you” at the end of the utterance as the expression of gratitude which can
potentially create a more positive feeling in the hearer.
On the other hand, Campillo (2007:211) implies that “the choosing of
assessment of some situational factors such as social distance, power, rank, type of
interaction, and type of speech acts”. Thus, through certain contextual settings,
people are driven to adjust their choice of request acts. Many linguists had great
intention in conducting study on English language learners, particularly on their L1
acquisition and their pragmatic competence in applying what they have learned.
After looking and taking a close reading on many pragmatic studies have been
headed previously, the researcher found that mostly all of them took English
students as their objects of research. Therefore, it is motivating for the researcher
to have non-English major students to be investigated in this study.
In this view, the researcher defines non-English students as the students who
are not taking English as their stream, comprise students who majoring Medicine,
Law, Economics, Engineering, etc. Being interested on examining the students
from non-English department, here the researcher initiates to investigate Batam
University students since it has no English specialization of study and department.
One of the other considerations is that it is contemplating to prepare university
students and their capability, covered the English competence, fulfilling the
requirements needed to join the future ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). All
of Indonesian students have to meet the ASEAN professional competencies as have
been formulated in the AEC blue print. In the relation to the competitiveness of
Indonesia compared to the other ASEAN countries, Rahman (2015) assesses, based
on the vision and mission of ASEAN, Indonesia is still not ready to show the
performance compared to the major countries of ASEAN (e.g. Singapore, Malaysia,
human resources needs to be applied in the education of Indonesia. Therefore,
assessing students’ soft skills, specifically mastering English well, is one of the
concerns of the researcher to do this research.
Moreover, situated in the strategic location of the golden triangle ‘Central
Business District’ which connects Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and other
ASEAN countries, Batam is a Free Trade Zone (FTZ) authority of Indonesia. As
signified by United Nations Economics and Social Commission (2005), “a Free
Trade Zone is the established area based on the special value-adding zones with
high expectations of the economic benefits that these zones would bring”. Thus,
regarding its exclusive authority value, Batam benefited a chance to be the electrical
and electronics industries, as well as oil and gas supporting industries,
transshipments, tourisms, and particularly, trading zone across ASEAN countries.
This establishment of special authority area helps the graduated students of Batam
to compete not only domestically, but also in the global contexts.
Taking a review back that in spite of having no English language
department, students of Batam University (Uniba) are supported by the Uniba
Language Centre (ULC). They took English as the obligatory subject in which
divided into two kinds of English, the General English and the English for specific
Purposes (ESP). At the beginning of their first semester, they are regulated to join
the four levels of General English (GE) wherein they take one level of GE for one
semester. The GE is about English for daily routiones communication. Then, after
accomplished four levels of GE, they have to continue to the next English level to
study. To note, Uniba students do not allowed to join ESP if they are considered
not capable enough in terms of General English. Thus, students who take ESP have
confirmed to have good English proficiency, follow the ULC’s grand design, they
place the intermediate level.
In this thesis, the researcher focuses the study on the two most attended
faculties in Batam University, Medicine and Law Faculty, agreeing that these two
faculties are potentially representative sample for the overall population of students.
Therefore, correspond to the same syllabus as well as English competence acquired
by both Medical and Law students, the researcher whom is also the lecturer of them
concluded that they possessed the same English profieciency which positioned the
intermediate level and categorized as able to join the ESP class which in fact
required higher level of English proficiency.
However, in everyday campus life, dominantly, they are not obliged to use
and to speak in English both in teaching learning process of the other subjects and
in their daily communication. Consequently, as the English major and
non-native learners, students Batam University also perchance face the same problems
as the other L2 in producing and interpreting the speech acts in the target language
which is English. Further, request strategies and modifications adapt to the
circumstances as well as the contexts and obviously the intentions of the utterer or
the speakers. Concerning the social distance, power, rank, type of interaction
matter, it is possible that different fields setting of the speakers and addressee, in
this case the Medicine and Law field, may also contribute to different strategies
an effort to find different findings of the speech acts realizations as well as to
enhance the pragmatic study on speech acts which has never been touched before
by other pragmatic researchers.
To be referred, the previous study done by Zhu (2012) on the comparison
of English students and non-English students in using of request acts suggested that
non-English students’ (NES) have lower proficiency in L2 than the English students
(ES) and it contributes to their lower pragmatic competence. It is found that NES
used more direct strategies than the ES. On the other hand, “NES also applied
limited syntactic and lexical mitigation devices for enhancing politeness than the
ES did” (230). As the other speech acts research on requests, conversely, Lee
(2004:58-72) who investigated request strategies employed by Chinese leaners of
English in emails found that when the students have to write an email to their
teachers, they tended to manipulate direct request strategies and requestive hints,
moreover, it is indicated that “there is a strong cultural focus on hierarchical
relationships and respects by the students toward their teachers”. This result agrees
Hymes (1972) and Halliday (1973) who manage that “making meaning through
language cannot be separated from social interaction and culture”. On the other
hand, dealing with the notion of power and request size, Dittrich et al. (2011:3809)
uncovered that “to make a request more indirect and polite, the usage of formal
titles when addressing the listener is to emphasize the social distance and seem to
be more polite in an indirect manner”.
Consequently, the notion of power, social distance, rank, and type of the
these issues are also frequently embedded in working arenas. It might be vary the
strategies and modifications used by people from different fields’ background to
make requests for different addressee concerning their position and status. For
instance, doctor and lawyer possibly apply different modifications to explore their
purpose when it deals with various demands based on their specific zone. Moreover,
doctors have to be accustomed to hospital life and patients in order to gather
accurate information about patients’ records to take appropriate treatment for them.
Equally, in dealing with court life, it is likely for lawyers to face the suspected and
victim to further ask for the information and clarification from others witnesses for
cases they cope with. Potentially, these two distinctive background of fields study
lead to a specific language use which corresponds to their specific fields, where it
hypothectically contributes to different selection of the request patterns and
strategies used for a fruitful communication.
Dealing with the fact elaborated above, the researcher is interested in
exploring Medicine and Law faculty students in making requests in English. Since
they come from English department, hence, they can be categorized as
non-English learners. At this point, the using of request acts among Batam University
students may also divergent related to their English and pragmatic competence. One
of the crucial matters to be examined, different background of working fields may
also affect choice of patterns and strategies in requesting. For that reason, the
researcher tries to investigate strategies and modifications along with the syntactical
and lexical modifications done by Medicine and Law students as well as to
modifications through Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) instrument on different
situational contexts.
B. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Regarding the issue that non-English students possibly produce distinctive
expression of speech acts as the strategies in making requests, thus, the researcher
formulates three research questions as listed below.
1. What patterns do the request acts of Medical and Law students have?
2. Do different fields of study contribute to the opting of different strategies
employed by Medical and Law students in making requests?
3. What factors underlie the choice of the strategies employed by Medical and Law
students in making requests?
C. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
Having put forward that pragmatics of EFL students from non-English
major has been under-investigated, and regarding that few studies conducted in this
topic, the aim of this research is to assess non-English major students pragmatic
competence in producing and using English spesifically in requesting at distinctive
study fields, moreover, since making request is an inevitable frequent routine, in
which, at the same time, could be face-threatening in certain situations. This
research focuses on speech acts of requests which were selected according to the
contexts as the specific acts through which the students’ pragmatic competence is
The researcher classifies objectives of this study into two specific points,
namely: to investigate the requests pattern in certain situational contexts, besides,
to investigate whether non-English students use modifications and strategies
differently in making requests. The reason of exploring the patterns of request done
by Medical and Law students is to examine whether the diverse fields of study affect
the selection of strategies and modifications when dealing with requesting in
English language. Likewise, non-English major students may acquire different
ability to manage requests, in fact, they do not frequently use English in daily
interactions. For this reason, the researcher emphasizes on finding requests acts
used by Medical and Law students contrastively depend on the situations and
pragmatic competence of the students as well as factors motivate the students to
select sort of strategies and modifications.
D. RESEARCH BENEFITS
Taking a close understanding on speech acts and the way people employ
them in daily interaction, this research has some benefits. Theoretically, this
research enriches the pragmatics study of real language in use based on different
situations happen in everyday life. By examining the employment of speech acts on
requests, people can adjust the selection of words to get requests approved and done
by concerning the politeness notion and effects or forces on hearer side.
Additionally, putting concern on different fields of study investigated, this study
also contributes a new idea to interlanguage pragmatic study, even when people
situations may encourage them to employ different pattern of strategies and
modifications in producing requests.
Practically, from the researcher point of view, this research benefits herself
in measuring the pragmatic competence of the students in Batam University. Here,
students’ pragmatic competence deals with their language learning acquisition, and
at the same time, it helps the researcher in adjusting and designing the materials for
future teaching to improve students’ ability in English. On the other hand, for the
students’ importance, the interdependence of grammatical units, pragmatic
knowledge and pragmatic competence of the students affect their pragmatic
production of speech acts and in using English for real interactions. Thus, this
research can be a good start to prepare Batam University students to be able to
compete globally. Further, it supports the students as future doctors and lawyers in
terms of how to make a proper request in English for different situations they might
face in the future working life.
Finally, for the readers and researchers, the findings of this research may
provide beneficial samples of various strategies and modification in requests, and
broadly, in the using of speech acts in real contexts. It is not only for informative
purpose, yet hopefully, this research inspires other researchers to conduct different
study on pragmatics especially on the idea that language is not only to communicate
and connect people, but it has power to be a media to direct or command, to make
13
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
Before proceeding to the problems discussed in chapter one, the researcher
does literature reviews which highlighted in this second part of chapter. Taking into
account that the analysis of utterances regards to language in use research, this
chapter reviews the most relevant theories and related studies to solve the problems
as well as to avoid bias or the limitations of the analysis.
A. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This section of the literature review elaborates the most relevant theories
which provision to the study on request acts strategies done by non-English
learners. Some theories benefited in this research are theory on pragmatic study,
pragmatic competence of the users as the communicative competence which deals
with interlanguage pragmatics. To dismantle the problems stated in chapter one,
here the researcher also refers to theory English for medicine and law, speech acts
definition and typologies, as well as concept of requests and its strategies along with
politeness theory since request has always been concerned to politeness on the other
hand.
1. Pragmatic Study
Pragmatics is a study on language in use, or simply, study on meaning in
producers” (Mey, 2001:5). Generally, the term pragmatics is often used in linguistic
research to refer to the “study of the interpretation meaning”(O’keeffe, Clancy &
Adolphs, 2011:1). As Thomas (2013:2) observes that when we talk about
pragmatics, we tend to focus on two camps: speaker’s meaning and utterances’
interpreter.
However, on the other hand, a more iconic paradigm about pragmatics
suggested by Allan and Jaszczolt (2012:4) that through a pragmatic study “a speaker
can say something without meaning it or she/he can mean something without saying
it, by merely implicating or impliciting it”. In this boundary, pragmatic study allows
us to notice that speaker’s meaning is dependent on the assumption of knowledge
that are shared by both speaker and hearer (Cutting, 2002:2). In other words, it is
implied that speaker constructs linguistic message and intends a meaning, and in
turns, hearer interprets the message and finally infers the meaning from what the
speaker says.
Concerning the implied meaning, Thomas (2013:3) comes to an idea that to
understand the meaning, we can begin to understand the differences between the
levels of meaning. He classifies three levels of meanings: the first level is abstract
meaning; the second meaning moves from the abstract meaning to contextual meaning or also called as utterance meaning by assigning sense and/or reference to
a word, phrase or sentence; and the third level of meaning is force or the meaning
which is reached when we consider the speaker’s intention through the force effect
of the utterance.
Pragmatic includes pattern of linguistic actions, language functions, type of inferences, principles of communication, frame of knowledge, attitude and belief… Pragmatics deals with meaning-in-context, which for analytical purposes can be viewed from different
perspectives (that of the speaker, the recipient, the analyst, etc.). ……
The focal point of pragmatics is linguistic action (and inter-action).
What pragmatics tries to highlight is how the language is used by people in
everyday life interaction. Whenever the speaker speaks, she/he will choose her/his
language variation and adjusts the language based on contexts in different ways to
deliver their intentions. Therefore, it can be underlined that language is not only
simply to deliver information from the speaker to the hearer or interpreter, but also
as the mode which motivates the hearer to do something based on the speaker point.
Focusing that pragmatics concerns about language in use, it is important to
assess the ability of the users in using it, on the other hand. The ability to use the
language contextually in an appropriate fashion is defined as pragmatic
competence. Here the researcher sees that from the pragmatics point of view, the
language which is employed has strongly correlated to the ability of its users.
Basically, to communicate effectively, participants are also required to have
intercultural competence which is also a part of pragmatic competence. According
to Byram et al (2002), “English learners are intercultural speakers who do necessarily have great competences, including pragmatic competence”. Therefore,
as second language learners, Batam University students possibly acquire different
pragmatic competence which supports them in communicating differently using
2. Pragmatic Competence as a Communicative Competence
Choosing and deciding certain language in conveying meaning to the
interpreter require a basic skill known as pragmatic competence. It is true that there
is no correct or wrong way to use language, however, people can certainly define
and adjust whether they appropriately use such language in different circumstances.
Particularly, when individuals make a choice to use sort kind of speech acts, they
employ a pragmatic knowledge called as pragmatic competence. Pragmatic
competence is simply defined by Taguchi (2009) as “the ability to use language
appropriately in a social context”. In a more complete explanation, Barron (2003)
implies:
Pragmatic competence is understood as the knowledge of the linguistic resources available in a given language for realizing particular illocutions, knowledge of the sequential aspects of speech acts, and finally knowledge of the appropriate contextual use of the particular language’s linguistic resources.
Moreover, pragmatic competence is considered as a key ability in communicative
competence in order to create a successful communication between the speaker and
hearer.
Regarding that pragmatic competence constructs the communicative
competence, when a speaker decides to employ certain language rather than others,
Balconi & Amenta (2010) argue that “she/he (the speaker) chooses and builds a
strategy based on the unique properties of pragmatic competence”. They further
explain six properties of pragmatic competence namely: (a) Variability: the property of communication that defines range of communicative possibilities,
possibility of making choices based on flexible strategies; (c) Adaptability: the ability to modulate and regulate communicative choices in relation to
communicative context; (d) Salience: the degree of awareness reached by communicative choices; (e) Indeterminacy: the possibility to re-negotiate the
pragmatic choices as the interaction unfolds in order to fulfill communicative
intentions; and (f) Dynamicity: development of the communicative interaction in
time.
On the other hand, Chomsky in Cook and Newson (2014) sees term of
pragmatic competence as the “knowledge of how language is related to the situation
in which it is used”. He further explains that pragmatic competence places language
in the institutional setting of its use, relating the intentions and purposes to the
linguistic means at hand”. Stay in line with pragmatic study, Cook and Newson
further explain that pragmatic competence also points not only knowing the
structure is matter, but also to know how to use it based on different purposes for
communicating or functions, relative status between the speaker and addressee,
topic area in which participants are communicating (e.g. general or informal case,
business or formal, computing, medicine, etc.), and situations which refer to a
physical locations (e.g. in a bank, at the airport, in restaurant, at a hospital, in the
court, in the office, etc.) are crucial.
Eventually, pragmatic competence of students is an essential matter when
we deal with classroom setting since it is the key to have effective communication.
It is common when we face a reality which gives us a sight that the most important
competence, meanwhile, pragmatic competence and its development are
overlooked. However, to become a successful communicator, students have to
possess pragmatic competence. In summary, the figure below displays the stages of
EFL students’ language competence as suggested by Gass (1997).
Figure 1. Pragmatic Competence as the Development of EFL Learners
Coming with this agenda, it is essential to develop pragmatic competence
of students in EFL classroom. From the first stage of their learning, all L2 students
even at a beginner level may possess communicative competence themselves. One
of the example is when they have to ask for a bag, even when they have very limited
ability in using English, they can make request by simply say: “Bag!” while
pointing at the real bag talked. Once when their grammatical competence starts to
develop with some more vocabularies are acquired, then the syntactical and lexical
choices are also developed that enable them to utter something like “Give me that
bag, please!”. At this stage, we may consider that they have successfully produced
a sentence which is grammatically correct and they can communicate their
intentions the way it is. Yet, on the other hand, there is something miss in their
choice of language use which tends to choose the imperative one. Wierzbicka BASIC
COMMUNICA-TIVE
(IN)COMPE-TENCE communicating without grammatical
structure
ENHANCED
COMMUNICA-TIVE COMPETENCE
using language "correctly" according
to "rules" and increased grammatical competence
PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE using language in a
socioculturally appropriate way
and increased awareness of linguistic structures
(2003) suggests that “the imperative form is generally perceived as being even more
impolite than a swearing in English”.
Then again, we cannot directly mention that they are being impolite. This
matter may happen because of students’ lack of pragmatic competence and
pragmatic knowledge of politeness. Therefore, it is a thoughtfulness for EFL
teacher to guide the students to choose and build their own pragmatic competence
in making polite and appropriate request considering six properties stated above as
well as the strategies and modifications. For instance: “Could you please take that
bag for me, please?” Here, the students conceivable to apply a less direct request
form by employing question or interrogative which has been seen as more polite
than imperative. In addition, when dealing with non-native speaker of English, EFL
students may face some problems because there are sometimes huge differences
both from the language use and cultures as well as area or field they master. This
issue leads the researcher to look deeper on students’ pragmatic competence
principally in making requests which closely relates to interlanguage pragmatics.
3. Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP)
One of the most recognizable issues dealing with second language
acquisition (SLA) is the Interlanguage Pragmatics or ILP. Salgado (2011) notes the
study of pragmatics and SLA has been referred as ILP which has been defined as
“the study of the development of rules of language use in a second language and
their use by non-native speakers”. In a narrow sense, “ILP is the study of how
language” (Kasper & Rose, 2002). For more explanation, Blum-Kulka (1993)
further explains that “ILP is defined as the study of nonnative speakers’ acquisition
and the use of linguistic actions in target language”, which in this matter is English.
Finally, Kasper (1998:184) simplifies these two ideas by defining ILP as “how to
do things with words in a second language”. On this behalf, Blum-Kulka
emphasizes on three aspects of effective communication, which are: (a) culture and
the formation of the intercultural trends as a result of different languages coming in
contact; (b) the setting in which these trends emerge and the conditions leading to
changes in these trends; and (c) the communicative effectiveness of these trends in
fulfilling different functions.
Otherwise, Llinares (2014) implies that one sort of speech acts that has been
widely studied in second language acquisition and interlanguage pragmatics is
request. Considering three points mentioned by Blum-Kulka previously, ILP has
strong upshot in making requests. Request can be face-threatening for the hearer,
thus, Ellis (1994:168) underlines that:
There is also strong correlation with the respect that in formulating or producing appropriate requests based on certain situational contexts which also regards to the connection of power, social distance, and context calls for having a certain level of linguocultural awareness, expertise, and sensitivity on the part of the learners.
However, in making appropriate requests, students need to consider and
choose the most applicable acts since one situation could possibly require different
choice of acts, moreover, they come as the non-English students in which they may
not speak English as they daily basis of language to communicate or to share their
fields of study may influence the use of the linguistic units’ choices by the
non-English students, particularly Medical and Law students of Batam University, when
they do requests.
4. English for Medicine and Law
The non-English students of Batam University, especially Medical and Law
students, take English as the compulsory subject where they have to complete both
General English and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) to enhance their English
skills. The General English covers English used for daily communication,
meanwhile, the ESP focuses on the faculty or the major of the students. Both of
these compulsory English subjects essentially focus on the same basic
communicative competences which integrate students’ skills in listening, reading,
speaking and writing as well as grammar. Here the researcher tries to highlight the
two ESP, namely the English for Medicine and the English for Law.
a. English for Medicine
Medical students are required to master English for Medicine as one of the
special competence subjects. English for Medical Purposes or simply noted as
English for Medicine or Medical English (ME) basically deals with teaching
English for future doctors, midwives, nurses, and other medical personnel. ME is a
subject specifically designed to develop students’ potential to understand and
practice English through integrated skills including reading, listening, writing, and
Completing the ME subject, it is aimed that the medical students are able to
understand medical materials in English and how to properly communicate using
English in any medical situation required. According to Glendinning and
Holmstrom (2005), ME is a subject which aims to develop the speaking and
listening skills primarily but attention is also given to the reading skill which
particularly focus on the use of reference materials and journal articles, at the same
time, ME also challenges Medical students to write referral letters and completing
a range of the medical documents of the patients. In addition, Glendinning and
Howard (2007) intensify that it is expected that students are capable of
understanding and practicing ME which nowadays becomes the qualification
standard to support and improve the professional demands on such accomplished
medical skills, so they can respond to global challenges by having their perspective
and knowledge about medicine in English enriched.
There are some competencies learned in ME for Medical students of Batam
University which concentrate on the area of the doctor-patient communication from
history taking to the treatment. The ME starts English which are needed for
consultations and continues with the examinations, but before coming to the
examinations, the Medical students have to master the vocabularies related to
medical contexts like parts of body, heath and illness, signs and symptoms, as well
as vocabularies related to medical instruments and hospital surroundings. The
following competence is the ability in history-taking of patients. In this stage, the
medical students have to master the common abbreviations list used for medical
detected, P for pulse, Hb for hemoglobin, T for temperature, HS for heart sound, and others.
The most dominant competence relies on the ability of students to discuss
investigations and diagnoses patients. Fulfilling the preceding competencies stated
previously, at the end, Medical students have to be able to do investigations as well
as diagnose the patient’ conditions. Here, the Medical students possibly apply some
strategies to ask the patient about his/her current health status, patient’s history, and
if it is needed, they ask the patient to lay down on the bed and do the physical
checking, however, of course they have to speak in English. Finally, after
examining the patient, the medical treatment then take a place. It is also important
for future doctors, nurse, midwives, as well as other medical personnel to be able
to give suggestions and solutions toward the patient’s condition, such as the simple
thing about what to do and not to do in order to gain a healthy life of patients.
b. English for Law
The same as Medical students, Law students of Batam University also have
to attend English for Specific Purposes which is English for Law (EL). According
to Brown and Rice (2007), EL is the professional English in use especially in Law
concerned that a wide range of people need to use legal English vocabularies in
their work, for example as lawyers or litigators, paralegals or legal researchers, legal
secretaries or trainee lawyers. Practically, the EL exposures to globalize
marketplace, therefore a lawyer or other law practitioners need to enhance their
Law students of Batam University have great chance to compete globally
wherein they need to use legal English to work with foreign colleagues or clients.
The teaching of EL in Batam University is one of the efforts to develop Law
students’ knowledge of legal English especially in legal vocabularies and terms to
assist their Law studies. Further, Brown and Rice (2007) explain that EL benefits
the EFL students particularly in providing the vocabularies in the contexts of the
legal system in the UK because the meaning of any legal terms and the conceptual
relationship between terms is located within a specific legal system. Thus, EL helps
the students in terms of deciding whether to use a legal term in English as an
equivalent to a concept in our own system or to employ an approximation of it.
There are some competencies to be accomplished in EL. These
competencies incorporate the integrated skills of reading, listening, speaking, and
writing in English. The basic competency is understanding the vocabularies and
terms used in legal English. Other competencies are understanding legal system,
legal professionals in practice like explaining client care procedures and
corresponding to the clients’ emails and letters, and forming a legal contract.
Completing these major competencies, the Law students are expected to be able to
use and understand appropriate legal English terms and collocations, interpret
English legal documents, make a legal contract, and negotiate the contract terms in
English.
However, in dealing with their clients, Law students have to be able to use
and choose the speech acts to make the legal processes and procedures run well.
