PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI - core.ac.uk fileO.M.I., as the head of Yayasan Pembina...

A THESIS

Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtainthe Magister Humaniora (M. Hum) Degree

in English Language Studies

byYoseph Widirahmaya

126332053

THE GRADUATE PROGRAM OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2015

THE STUDENTS’ PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE OF IMPLICATURE

IN SPOKEN ENGLISH

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJIPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

i

TITLE PAGE


IN SPOKEN ENGLISH

A THESIS

Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtainthe Magister Humaniora (M. Hum) Degree

in English Language Studies

byYoseph Widirahmaya

126332053

THE GRADUATE PROGRAM OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2015


ii

APROVAL PAGES

A THESIS


IN SPOKEN ENGLISH

by

Yoseph Widirahmaya

126332053

Approved by

F.X. Mukarto, Ph.D. _________________

Supervisor Yogyakarata, May 12, 2015


A THESIS

THE sruDENTS, rRAGMATTc coMpETENCE Or rnnplrcATVRE

IN SPOKEN ENGLISH

Chairperson

Members

2.Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M. Pd, M.A.

3. Dr. J. Bismoko

Yogyakarta, 11 August 2015

uate School Director


STATf,MENT OT ORIGINALMY

'-. '/This is to certi$r that all the ideas, phrases, and sentences, unless

otherwise stated, are the ideas, phrases,.senteRces of the thesis writer. The writer

understands the full consequences including degree cancellation if he took

somebody else's ideas, phrases, or sentences without a proper reference.

May l2,20l5

126332053

iv


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LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIA H UN TUK KEP ENTINGAN AKADEMIS

KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:

Nama : Yoseph Widirahmaya

Nomor Mahasiswa : 126332053

Demi perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan

Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:


IN SPOKEN ENGLISH

beserta perangkat yang diperlukan. Dengan demikian, saya memberikan hak

kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan

dalam media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data,

mendistribusikannya secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau

media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya

maupun memberikan royalty kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya

sebagai penulis.

Demikian pernyataan saya ini buat dengan sebenarnya.

Yogyakarta, May 12, 2015

Yoseph Widirahmaya


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my inexpressible gratitude to

God the Almighty who always looks upon my lowliness. It is only because of His

mercy and generosity that I was able to experience the priceless helps from people

around me in finishing this thesis.

I am deeply indebted to my family, especially my beloved mother, Maria

Sudaryati, for she always inspires me to be a better person. Despite my

shortcomings, she used to ensure me that I could make a good teacher. She was a

teacher herself and her stories about her students strengthened my spirit to see

what I could do for the promising youths who study at schools. I also believe it is

her prayers that took the most important role so that I could finish this thesis.

My brothers and sisters were also very supportive, both spiritually and

financially. Christina Widiantarti, who always patiently picked me up in the bus

station every time I went back home from Yogyakarta, Petrus Widiasmoro, who

bought me a new laptop because I lost the old one in the bus, David Widiantoro,

who paid the last semester fee, Yosephine Widiandayani, who is always sure

that I can finish my study just like my other friends, without their supports I could

never finish what I started.

I would like to thank Mr. Kuswandono, S.Pd., M.Ed., Ph.D. as the head

of the English Language Education Program, Sanata Dharma University for

giving me permission to conduct the study in the English Language Education

Program and using the students as the subjects of the study.


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Next, I would like to address my gratitude to Akademi Maritim

Nusantara Cilacap as the institution where I am working at the moment for

giving me the scholarship to take my graduate study and to Fr. Charlie Borrows,

O.M.I., as the head of Yayasan Pembina Pendidikan Kemaritiman Cilacap, who

has believed in me and sent me to study.

My deep gratitude also goes to my dedicated lecturers, especially F.X.

Mukarto, Ph.D. He inspires me in so many ways. As my supervisor, he always

knew the tactful ways in helping me understand better what I was trying to write.

Dr. J. Bismoko, he gave me the priceless knowledge as long as I remembered. I

also thank Dr. B.B. Dwijatmoko, M.A. and Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M. Pd., M.A. for

their valuable guidance.

I also would like to mention my partner, David Wirick, in my

acknowledgements. He is patiently waiting for me and sacrificing his time so that

I could pursue my dream. He also helped me searching the sources I needed in the

internet.

Special thank also goes to Erna Koswara, S.Kom. He helped me editing

my thesis. He taught me how to type better, too.

Last but not least, I owe a lot to my dearest classmates in English

Language Studies. They were always there whenever I needed help. Finally, I

would like to apologize if I have inadvertently omitted anyone to whom the

appreciation is due.

God bless everybody!

Yoseph Widirahmaya


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This thesis is dedicated to:

All my students

One of the most amazing things in the world

is when you learn something and

become a better person


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE ............................................................................................................. i

APROVAL PAGES ................................................................................................... ii

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY............................................................................ iv

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK

KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS................................................................................... v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................................................................................... vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... ix

LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................. xi

LIST OF TABLES.................................................................................................. xiii

LIST OF GRAPHIC ............................................................................................... xiv

LIST OF APPENDICES .......................................................................................... xv

ABSTRACT........................................................................................................... xvi

CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 1

A. Background ............................................................................................................. 1

B. Problem Identification............................................................................................. 3

C. Research Question .................................................................................................. 6

D. Limitation of the Study ........................................................................................... 6

E. Objective of the Study............................................................................................. 8

F. Benefits of the Study............................................................................................... 8

G. Definition of Terms................................................................................................. 9

CHAPTER II : LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................. 12

A. Theoretical Review ............................................................................................... 12

1. Development ..................................................................................................... 12

2. Pragmatics......................................................................................................... 15


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a. Definition of Pragmatics ............................................................................... 15

b. Aspects of Pragmatics................................................................................... 17

1) Speech Acts............................................................................................... 17

2) Politeness .................................................................................................. 19

3) Implicature ................................................................................................ 22

3. Pragmatic Competence ..................................................................................... 28

4. Pragmatic Failure .............................................................................................. 30

5. Language Transfer ............................................................................................ 32

B. Theoretical Framework ......................................................................................... 35

CHAPTER III : METHODOLOGY .................................................................... 38

A. Research Method .................................................................................................. 38

B. Research Setting.................................................................................................... 40

C. Research Instrument.............................................................................................. 42

D. Data Collection ..................................................................................................... 44

E. Data Analysis Technique ...................................................................................... 44

CHAPTER IV : THE RESULT AND THE DISCUSSION ................................. 48

A. The Results of the Study ....................................................................................... 48

1. The Overall Result ............................................................................................ 55

2. The Group Result based on the pattern............................................................. 57

B. The Discussion...................................................................................................... 80

CHAPTER V : CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION........................... 91

A. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 91

B. Pedagogical Implications ...................................................................................... 92

C. Recommendation for Further Research ................................................................ 94

BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................. 95


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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1. A schematic representation of Brown and Levinson’s (1978) ........... 20

Figure 2.2. Components of Bachman language competence (adapted fromBachman, 1990: 87) .............................................................................................. 29

Figure 2.3: Null Hypothesis .................................................................................. 36

Figure 4.1: Null Hypothesis .................................................................................. 48

Figure 4.2: The significant level (α)...................................................................... 49

Figure 4.3: The null hypothesis rejection condition.............................................. 49

Figure 4.4.The figure of overall result .................................................................. 55

Figure 4.5.Figure Result test no.3 ......................................................................... 58

Figure 4.6. Figure Result test no. 5 ....................................................................... 59




Figure 4.10. Figure Result test no. 12 ................................................................... 64




Figure 4.14. Figure Result test no. 1 ..................................................................... 68







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Figure 4.21. Figuret Result test no. 20 .................................................................. 75





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LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1.The blueprint of the test ........................................................................ 44

Table 3.2. The scoring of each answer.................................................................. 47

Table 4.1. Descriptives Statistic............................................................................ 50

Table 4.2. The Means differences ......................................................................... 51

Table 4.3. The Post Hoc Test Result..................................................................... 52

Table 4.4. Answer Table ....................................................................................... 57

Table 4.5. Result Patterns and Implicature Characteristics................................... 79


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LIST OF GRAPH

Graph 4.1.The pattern of the development of the students’ pragmatic competenceof implicature in spoken English. ......................................................................... 51


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LIST OF APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1 Pragmatic Competence in Implicature Multiple .......................... 97

APPENDIX II The Multiple Choice Test Results .............................................. 104

APPENDIX III Level of Difficulty..................................................................... 107

APPENDIX IV Statisics Result .......................................................................... 108

APPENDIX V The Letter of Consent................................................................. 111


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ABSTRACT

Yoseph Widirahmaya. 2015. The Students’ Pragmatic Competence of Implicature inSpoken English. Yogyakarta: The Graduate Program in English Language Studies,Sanata Dharma University.

The goal of the present study was to investigate whether there is any significantdifference of the students’ pragmatic competence of implicature in spoken English. Theconsiderations behind the goal were as follows: Language Competence consists ofOrganizational Competence and Pragmatic Competence. To be able to communicateusing any language properly and successfully, human beings need to master those twocomponents. However, in learning English as the target language especially at school thestudents often result at the unequal proportion development between the OrganizationalCompetence and the Pragmatic Competence. Most of the results show that theOrganizational Competence developed better than the Pragmatic Competence, although itis also possible that the Pragmatic Competence developed better that the OrganizationalCompetence took place. The researcher was interested to investigate the development ofthe students’ pragmatic competence of implicature in spoken English as the targetlanguage. Implicature as one of Pragmatic aspects interested the researcher. Implicature isthe conveyed meaning beyond what is literally said. By conducting the present study, theresearcher expected to contribute for the theoretical benefit as the description of thestudents’ pragmatic competence of implicature in spoken English for the scientific reportthat can be used as a review in the second language acquisition, and in practical, it ishoped that the result of the study can be a meaningful input for schools in helping thestudents acquire the pragmatic competence better.

The present study belongs to the developmental study. To investigate thematter the researcher conducted a cross-sectional study. The population of the presentstudy is the students of the English Language Education Study Program, Sanata DharmaUniversisty. The researcher compared three levels of semester students who werestudying in the English Language Education Study Program of Sanata DharmaUniversity. The researcher gave the same Multiple-choice Test in interpreting implicaturecommonly produced in spoken English to the sample of 90 students as the participants;30 students were the second semester students, 30 students were the fourth semesterstudents, and 30 students were the sixth semester students. The data then was analyzedusing One-way ANOVA in order to see if there is a significant development in thePragmatic Competence of implicature in spoken English between those three levels ofsemester.

The data analysis showed there was a significant difference between the groupmeans, but surprisingly the pattern of the development showed that it was decreasing. Thesecond semester means was 32.83, the fourth semester means was 32.77, and the sixthsemester means was 30.60. In other words, there was a Pragmatic Failure occurred in the


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L2 learning process. The researcher offered some suggestions that led to culturalimmersion in which facilitates the students to completely immerse in the culturalbackground of the target language. The suggestions were offered because according toThomas (1983): “A Pragmatic Failure is usually connected with a cross-culturalcommunication breakdown.”


xviii

ABSTRAK

Yoseph Widirahmaya. 2015. The Students’ Pragmatic Competence of Implicature inSpoken English. Yogyakarta: The Graduate Program in English Language Studies,Sanata Dharma University.

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk meneliti apakah ada perkembangan kemampuanprakmatik mahasiswa yang signifikan khususnya dalam implicature dalam bahasa Inggrislisan. Latar belakang tujuannya adalah sebagai berikut: kemampuan bahasa terdiri daridua komponen utama yaitu Organisational Competence dan Pragmatic Competence.Untuk dapat berkomunikasi menggunakan bahasa apapun, manusia perlu untukmenguasai ke dua komponen tersebut. Tetapi dalam mempelajari bahasa Inggris,khususnya di sekolah-sekolah, sering didapati ketidakseimbangan hasil dalam proporsiperkembangan ke dua komponen tersebut. Kebayakan kasus menunjukkan OrganisationalCompetence berkembang lebih baik dari pada Pragmatic Competence, meskipun ada pulakasus di mana Pragmatic Competence-lah yang berkembang lebih baik. Penulis tertarikuntuk meneliti perkembangan kemampuan prakmatik mahasiswa, khususnya dalam halimplicature dalam bahasa Inggris lisan. Implicature adalah salah satu aspek dalamprakmatik. Implicature adalah maksud yang tersirat dalam apa yang diucapkan.Diharapkan melalui penelitian ini penulis dapat memberikan sumbangan deskripsikemampuan prakmatik mahasiswa, khususnya dalam hal implicature, dan dapatmemberikan masukan bagi sekolah-sekolah dalam mengembangkan kemampuanprakmatik dengan lebih baik.

Penelitian ini termasuk dalam studi perkembangan. Di dalam melaksanakanpenelitian, penulis menggunakan studi cross-sectional. Populasi penelitian ini adalahmahasiswa S1 Universitas Sanata Dharma jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris. Penulismembandingkan hasil tes pilihan ganda tentang implicature dari tiga semester yangberbeda yaitu semester 2, 3, dan 4 sebagai sample dan untuk tiap semesternya diambil 30partisipan. Hasil tes kemudian diproses menggunakan kaji statistic One-way ANOVAuntuk mendapatkan deskripsi statistic perkemebangan antara ke tiga semester tersebut.

Hasil data analisis menunjukkan bahwa ada perbedaan signifikan, tetapi polaperkembangannya menunjukkan grafik yang menurun. Nilai rata-rata semester 2 adalah:32.83, semester 4: 32.77, dan semester 6: 30.60. Dengan kata lain, terjadi yang disebutPragmatic Failure dalam proces belajar. Penulis mengusulkan beberapa gagasan yangmengarah pada proses di mana mahasiswa benar-benar masuk ke dalam latar belakangkebudayaan dari bahasa Inggris dalam proses belajar mereka. Gagasan-gagasan tersebutmuncul berdasarkan theori Pragmatic Failure yang mengatakan bahwa menurut Thomas(1983): “Pragmatic Failure pada umumnya berhubungan dengan kegagalan komunikasiantar budaya.”


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CHAPTER I : IN TR ODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents respectively seven sections namely the background,

problem identification, research questions of the study, limitation of the study,

objective of the study, benefit of the study and definition of terms. The first

section gives a general background why it is needed to conduct this study. The

second section provides the existing gap from similar pragmatic studies that

inspires the researcher to conduct the present study. The third section shows the

research question of the study. The forth section sets forth the clear boundary of

the study. The fifth section exposes the objective of the study and the sixth section

conveys the benefits of the study result as a scientific report and a meaningful

consideration to ponder about in English learning process in the class. The

seventh section discusses the definition of terms mostly used in the study.

A. Background

It is an irrefutable phenomenon that learning English becomes such a must,

particularly because English is the Lingua Franca in this globalization era in

which English is used as an international language of technology, science, and

commerce. Hutchinson and Waters (1986: 6) state that a whole new mass of

people want to learn English not only for pleasure or prestige of knowing the

knowledge, but also because English is the key to international currencies of

technology, science, and commerce. As a consequence, English is learned in


2

almost every country around the world whether it is learned as the first language,

a second language, or even a foreign language.

Indonesia which also has to survive its existence in the world like the other

countries for example for its economic survival, of course, needs English to exist

in the economic competiveness in a globalised era. The only effective and

efficient way to make the Indonesian people acquire English is through education

whether it is done at schools or courses. English has become one of the

compulsory subjects in schools in Indonesia since 1975 especially starting from

secondary school level up and the government of Indonesia always renews the

curriculum of national education periodically without leaving English as an

important subject.

In relation with the Four Pillars of Education recommended by UNESCO,

which are Learning to Know, Learning to Do, Learning to Live Together, and

Learning to Be, English is not only one of the courses that need to be mastered in

order to be knowledgeable or to reach a certain goal such as passing a test and

getting a job. English is also supposed to be means of communication in leaving

together harmoniously in this global village so called the world. Although we do

not stay in English speaking countries, still English is the Lingua Franca which

somehow, somewhere, we use it in communication with other people around the

world. In other words, it is not the knowledge of English language, or

Organizational competence (Bachman, 1990: 87) that we need, but the

competence of communicating using English, in this case, the pragmatic


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competence (Bachman, 1990: 87). Increasing the pragmatic competence of

English enables us to live together harmoniously in this global village.

This English pragmatic competence is even more needed because we will

soon face the AFTA (Asean Free Trade Area) in 2015. It is not merely our

knowledge of English language that supports us to compete and survive, but our

English pragmatic competence also takes a distinguish role. It is how we

communicate using English and also our understanding of English, especially the

conveyed meaning in what is explicitly said by the speakers, will build a good and

successful communication.

Based on this background, the researcher came into an idea that it is

important to conduct the present study. The present study is on the development

of the students’ pragmatic competence of implicature in spoken English. The

present study is supposedly able to give a description about the development of

the students’ pragmatic competence, because the pragmatic competence also takes

an important part in communication. The notion of implicature is chosen because

implicature normally occurs in almost every language including in English

language.

B. Problem Identification

Learning English language needs a meticulous consideration because

learning language is not merely a matter of gaining knowledge. For centuries

some approaches and methods have been discussed, practiced, and evaluated.

Richards and Rodgers mention that “at least there are three different theoretical


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views of language and the nature of language proficiency explicitly or implicitly

inform current approaches and methods in language teaching” (Richards and

Rodgers, 2001: 20). These are the structural view, the functional view, and the

interactional view.

Linguists also provide meaningful contributions. One of the important

ones is by Noam Chomsky (as cited in Fromkin V, et el, 2003: 3), “when we

study human language, we are approaching what might call the human essence,

the distinctive qualities of mind that are, so far as we know, unique to man.”

Fromkin (2003: 3) explains further that to understand our humanity, one must

understand the nature of language that makes us human. In correlation with this,

Meyer (2009: 1) adds that to study language, linguists focus on two levels of

description: pragmatics, the study of how context (both social and linguistic)

affects language use, and grammar, the description of how human form linguistic

structures, from the level of sound up to the sentence (ibid). This contribution

brings about changes in language teaching approach dating from the late 1960’s to

what so called Communicative Language Teaching which started to be known

after Hyme’s theory of communicative (1972) was elaborated by some writers

such as Brumfit and Johnson (1979) and Savigon (1983).

Later on, Bachman (1990) introduces Language Competence. Bachman

proposes that language competence is subdivided into two components

‘organizational competence’ and ‘pragmatic competence’ (Bachman, 1990: 87 ff).

Organizational competence comprises knowledge of linguistic unit and joining

them together at the level of sentence and discourse. According to Bachman


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(1990), Pragmatic competence is subdivided into ‘illocutionary competence’ and

‘sociolinguistic competence’. ‘Illocutionary competence’ can be categorized as

‘knowledge of communicative action and how to carry it out’, while

‘sociolinguistic competence’ means the ability to use language appropriately

according to context. Fraser (1990) gives further explanation that sociolinguistic

competence includes the ability to select communicative acts and appropriate

strategies to implement them depending on the current status of the

‘conversational contract’.

Dealing with pragmatic competence, there have been some studies

conducted in the second language acquisition field. Some of them are in

producing English request done by Scarcella (1979), Cathcart (1986), Blum-Kulka

and Olshtain (1986), House and Kasper (1987), Hill (1997), and Rose (2000) with

the result as it is stated by Ellis (2008: 176): “One of the strongest findings of

these studies is that even advanced learners do not acquire fully native-like ways

of requesting, in particular, then to produce longer request than native speakers.”

While the students’ refusals production was studied by Beebe and Takashashi

(1989) and also by Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford (1991), and the results are: “First,

L2 learners’ pragmatic behavior is not always in accordance with stereotypical

views. Second, although advanced L2 learners have no difficulty in performing

refusals, they do not always do so in the same way as native speakers.” (Ellis,

2008: 189)

Some other studies on pragmatic competence are also done by Pinyo,

Aksornjarung, and Laohawiriyanon (2010) Pragmatic Competence in Request: A


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Case Study with Thai English Teachers, Heidi Viljama (2012) Pragmatic

Competence of Finnish learners of English which was conducted for his MA

Thesis, and Tarja Nikula (2002) Teacher Talk Reflecting Pragmatic Awareness: A

Look at EFL and Concept-Based Classroom Settings.

However, most of the studies aforementioned are done not on Indonesian

students and do not specifically focus on the pragmatic competence of the

students especially in the notion of implicature. Reading on their studies and

realizing the Indonesian students’ pragmatic competence especially in the notion

of implicature has rarely been considered as an important pragmatic competence

indication to be studied, the researcher feels intrigued to conduct the study. This is

the reason for the present study which will attempt to investigate the development

of the students’ pragmatic competence of Implicature as it has already mentioned

above that pragmatic competence builds the language competence beside the

organizational competence.

C. Research Question

The present of the study is aimed to answer the question:

Is there any significant difference in the pragmatic competence of

Implicature in spoken English among groups of students with different

length of study?

D. Limitation of the Study

Since the present study entitled The Students’ Pragmatic Competence of

Implicature in Spoken English, the study belongs to the Developmental Study.


7

The two most common research strategies applied are longitudinal and cross-

sectional studies. The present study is conducted as a cross-sectional study

basically dealing with the limited time. As Papalia mentions that “Cross-sectional

study is a Study Design in which people of different ages (stages) are assessed on

one occasion,” (Papalia, 2003: 53), so the resent study is conducted on one

occasion and the participants are the students of different semesters namely the

second semester, the fourth semester and the sixth semester.

The present study will focus more on the development of the students’

pragmatic competence. The researcher will not evaluate the students’ pragmatic

competence in the sense of what level of pragmatic competence the students have

already acquired to produce in communication orally or in written production. The

researcher will only investigate whether there is any significant development of

the students’ pragmatic competence in the sense of their understanding on written

context by giving them multiple choice tests.

The aspect of pragmatic competence being investigated in the study is the

notion of implicature – the conveyed meaning of the speaker (Grice, 1975: 43). It

is to find out whether the students acquire pragmatic competence of distinguishing

between “what is said” and “what is meant” by the speaker and whether the

students acquire pragmatic competence to recognize the conveyed or implied

meaning of what is said.

The context of the present study is the students of the English Language

Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University as the participants. The

main consideration of choosing the students of the English Language Education


8

Study Program as the participants is it is assumed that the students do not have

significant problem on their linguistic competence, which means the result of the

study will not be affected by the linguistic competence of the participants. So the

result of the study can portray merely the sociolinguistic competence, in this case

the students’ pragmatic competence in implicature in English language

E. Objective of the Study

Since this present study focuses on the students’ pragmatic competence of

implicature in Spoken English, therefore the main objective of this study is to find

out the pattern of the development of the students’ pragmatic competence of

implicature in spoken English.

F. Benefits of the Study

For the theoretical benefit, the result of the study will show the pattern of

the development of the students’ pragmatic competence in the notion of

implicature for the scientific report that can be used as a review in the second

language acquisition. It is already stated above that the study in the students’

pragmatic competence in implicature rarely done on Indonesian students, the

researcher believes that this present study can more or less give a review on this

case.

In practical, the result of the study can be a meaningful input for the

schools, in particular the English Language Education Study Program of Sanata

Dharma University, to evaluate the content of the syllabus whether it has covered


9

both the linguistic and sociolinguistic competence equally. If the result does not

show any significant development of the students’ pragmatic competence in

implicature between the different semesters, it implicates that the content of the

syllabus needs to add more attention on the sociolinguistic competence in such a

way that improves the students’ pragmatic competence from one semester level to

the higher semester level.

G. Definition of Terms

This part will give brief definition of terms used and discussed in the present

study. The terms are:

1. Development

Development is a notion of good change (Chambers, 2004: iii, 2-3). So,

development involves ‘change’ in a variety of aspects of the human condition.

Development is also a process as Thomas (2004) refers to this meaning of

development as ‘a process of historical change’, which means that development

can be a long term process of structural societal transformation or a short-to-

medium term outcome of desirable target. Papalia mentions that there are two

kinds of developmental change: quantitative and qualitative, “Quantitative

change is a change in number or amount, such as growth in height, weight,

vocabulary, …..or frequency of communication. Qualitative change is a change

in kind, structure, or organization,” (Papalia, 2003: 9). In the present study, the

term development will be more on a good change as a result of short-to-medium


10

term outcome of desirable target. The good change will be shown in a quantitative

change which is a change in the statistical number.

2. Pragmatic competence

Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000:20) propose pragmatic competence as “a

set of internalized rules of how to use language in socioculturally appropriate

ways, taking into account the participants in a communicative interaction and

features of the context within which the interaction takes place”. Rod Ellis (2009)

emphasizes the distinction between linguistic competence and pragmatic

competence as follow: “Pragmatic competence is normally distinguished from

Linguistic competence. Both are seen as relating to ‘knowledge’ and are therefore

distinct from actual performance”. In short, pragmatic competence is more the

knowledge of appropriate production and comprehension of language which is

performed in communication. The present study will see the pragmatic

competence as the knowledge of appropriate production and comprehension of

language which is performed in communication. However, since the present study

only uses a Multiple-choice Test, the pragmatic competence will be discussed is

more on the knowledge of appropriate comprehension of language in

communication which is written in a Multiple-choice Test.

3. Implicature

The word implicature was firstly introduced by Grice: “Implicature is the

conveyed meaning of the speaker” (Grice, 1975: 43). Grice distinguishes between

“what is said” and “what is meant”. Yule (1996: 35) states, “Implicature is an

additional conveyed meaning, that something must be more than just what the


11

word means.” The word implicature in the present study reflects to what is

implicitly meant in what is explicitly said. The Multiple-choice DCTs in the

present study will provide 20 numbers of written spoken English conversations in

which each of the conversations has an implicit meaning in what is explicitly said

by the speaker.


12

CHAPTER II : LITERA TURE R EVIEW

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides the theoretical review which is used in the study and

the theoretical framework of the study. In theoretical review, it will be discussed

the constructs used in the study, namely development, pragmatics, pragmatic

competence, pragmatic failure, and language transfer. Beside the definitions of

pragmatics, the aspects of pragmatics will be discussed such as: speech acts,

politeness, and implicature. Meanwhile, in theoretical framework, all the

constructs and concepts will be built up and synthesized elaborately.

A. Theoretical Review

In this sub chapter, some theories, namely development, pragmatics,

pragmatic competence, pragmatic failure, and language transfer, will be discussed.

1. Development

There are many definitions of development from various perceptions.

Thomas (2004: 1) states, “development is contested, complex, and ambiguous.”

This is because development has been defined from different fields. For example,

from the literature point of view: “development is seen as a vision of the liberation

of people and peoples’ dominated, based on structural transformation in the 1950s

and 1960s,” (Gore, 2000: 794-5). Another perspective is from what Hickey and

Mohan (2003) identify as ‘post-modernists’, “The post-modernists view that

development is a ‘discourse’ (a set of idea) that actually shapes and frames


13

‘reality’ and power relationship,” (2003: 38). Still, there is another concept

suggested by Cowen and Shenton (1998). They see development as: “an

immanent (unintentional of underlying process) development such as the

development of capitalism and imminent (intentional or willed) development such

as the deliberate process to ‘develop’ the Third World which began after World

War II as much of it emerged from colonization,” (Cowen and Shenton, 1998:

50).

Apparently, the definitions of development aforementioned focus more on

the society development with all its aspects. The development discussed in the

present study is more specific on the study of human development. There is a very

simple definition, though, that can be used in almost all study on development.

This definition is suggested by Chambers (2004). Chambers mentions that

“development is notion of good change,” (2004: iii, 2-3). Of course, this very

simple definition raises many questions because it is too wide.

In the study of human development, the definition of development has

something to do with the ways in which people change throughout life. Papalia

and friends (2003) first give the definition of the field of human development as

follows: “The field of human development is the scientific study of the human

being process of development” (Papalia, 2003: 7).

The domains of the development in the human development consists three

areas, namely physical development, cognitive development, and psychosocial

development. Physical development will be about the growth of body and brain

and change or stability in sensory capacities, motor skills, and health. Cognitive


14

development can be seen on the change or stability in mental abilities including

learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity.

Psychosocial development is more on change and stability in emotions,

personality, and social relationship.

So, it is clear that Papalia suggests that in the field of human development

there are two possible situations happen in the developmental process, namely

change and stability. However, it is through change that development occurs.

Furthermore, Papalia also mentions that there are two kinds of developmental

change: quantitative and qualitative, “Quantitative change is a change in number

or amount, such as growth in height, weight, vocabulary, …..or frequency of

communication. Qualitative change is a change in kind, structure, or

organization,” (Papalia, 2003: 9).

Based on some different definitions from some different perspectives

above, we can take a conclusion that development is a good change or, to be more

specific, an improvement that occurs in a human being that can be measured

during the process or as a result at a certain point of time. The good change or the

improvement can be on the physical development, cognitive development, and

psychosocial development. The development can be seen as quantitative change

which is a change in number or amount and qualitative change which is a change

in kind, structure, or organization.


15

2. Pragmatics

In this section, the definitions of pragmatics will be reviewed to help us

understand better what is meant by pragmatics and to construct the working

definition of pragmatics used in the present study. The aspects of pragmatics will

be discussed also, especially to portray the implicature focused in this present

study.

a. Definition of Pragmatics

Meyer (2009) states that “to study language, linguists focus on two levels

of description: pragmatics, the study of how context ( both social and linguistic )

affects language use, and grammar, the description of how humans form

linguistic structures, from the level of sound up to the sentence” (page: 1). He also

suggests that “language has two additional functions-interpersonal and the textual-

that reflect the fact that language is influenced by the social and linguistic contexts

in which it is used” ( Meyer, 2009: 17). He advocates that grammar is closely

related to what so called as Semantics,

“at this level, we are within grammar studying what is known as semantics:how words have individual meaning (lexical semantics) and can be used torefer to entities in the external world (reference)” (Meyer, 2009: 48).

While in pragmatics, he offers the matter of understanding the entire social

context. “a different level of interpretation that is studied within pragmatics,

which explores the role that the context plays in the interpretation of what people

say.” (p. 48)

Meyer also uses Stanley’s opinion in providing further explanation on to

distinguish grammatical meaning from pragmatic meaning. He writes: “as


16

Stanley Fish correctly observes, however, interpretation a sentence goes beyond

understanding its meaning at the level of grammar” (Meyer, 2009: 48).

In his book Pragmatics (1996), Yule states “Pragmatics is the study of

speaker meaning.” He elaborates it as follows: “Pragmatics is concerned with the

study of meaning as communicated by a speaker (or writer) and interpreted by a

listener (or reader)” (Yule, 1996: 4). Yule also adds “this type of study necessarily

involves the interpretation of what people mean in a particular context and how

the context influences what is said,” (Yule, 1996: 4). By adding this explanation,

Yule (1996) emphasizes that pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning.

In the same book, Yule also enunciates that “Pragmatics is the study of

how more gets communicated than is said,” (Yule, 1996: 4). According to him in

this study people investigate how lots of what is unuttered is recognized as part of

what is said. To make it clearer, Yule shows the distinctions among pragmatics,

syntax and semantics by stating as follows:

Syntax is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms, how they

are arranged and which sequences are well-formed.

Semantics is the study of the relationships between linguistics forms and

entities in the world, that is, how words are literally connect to things.

Pragmatics is the study of the relationships between linguistics forms and

the users of those forms. (Yule, 1996: 4)

By stating this, Yule intends to shows that it is only in Pragmatics people discuss

the speakers’ intended meaning, their assumption, their purposes or goals while he

or she is producing utterances.


17

Based on the explanation above, we can take a conclusion that in

semantics we talk about words, how words have individual meaning (lexical

semantics) and how words can be used to refer to entities in the external world

(reference), for example the word “hand” in: second hand book (used), all hands

on the deck (all crew should be on the deck), and the city fell in the hand of the

enemy (control/power). While in pragmatics we study the meaning in social

context which means interpreting sentence beyond its meaning at the level of

grammar. It is more contextual, social, and many other aspects such as

psychological, etc.

b. Aspects of Pragmatics

Since in pragmatics we study the meaning in social context, the aspects of

pragmatics, will be reviewed in this section. The discussion will be on speech

acts, politeness, and implicature.

1) Speech Acts

When we produce utterances or sentences, we perform various “acts”.

Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) called them Speech Acts.

According to speech act theory (Austin 1962; Searle 1969), the performanceof a speech act involves the performance of three types of acts: a locutionaryact (the act of saying), an Illocutionary act (the performance of a particularlanguage function by what is said), and a perlocutionary act (the achieving ofsome kind of effect on the addressee). (Ellis, 2008: 160)

In other words, the locutionary act is the literal meaning, the illocutionary

act is the social function, and the perlocutionary act is the effect. So, for example


18

when we say: “It is cold in here,” the locutionary act ( the literal meaning) is

merely that it is cold in here, the illocutionary act (the social function) might mean

turn off the air conditioner, and the perlocutionary act (the effect) is whether or

not someone turns off the air conditioner. However, Levinson (1983) suggests that

speech act is more to ‘illocutionary act’ as it is stated by Ellis: “Levinson (1983)

pointed out that the term ‘speech act’ is generally used to refer exclusively to

‘illocutionary act’ “ (Ellis, 2008: 160).

Yule (1996) gives a simple definition on Speech Acts as follows: “Actions

performed via utterances are generally called speech Acts,” (Yule, 1996: 47). It

means that people use utterances to act something. He explains further that speech

act commonly includes apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, and

request.

Speech Act also has classification. There are declarations, representatives,

expressives, directives, and commissives (Yule, 1996: 53-54). Declarations are

those kinds of speech act that change the world via their utterance. Some

examples of declaratives are Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife,

Judge: The defendant is proved guilty, and Referee: The winner is Mike Tyson.

The earth is flat; Chomsky didn’t write about peanuts; It was a warm sunny day,

these sentences are example of Representatives, because the sentences state what

the speaker believes to be the case or not. Expressives state what the speaker feels,

for examples: I am really sorry! Or Congratulations! While directives are used

when the speaker wants someone else to do something, such as: don’t touch that!


19

The last one, commissives are those kinds of speech acts that the speaker uses to

commit themselves to some future action, for example: I’ll be back.

On the other hand, Meyer mentions that “A speech act can be explicit or

implicit, direct or indirect, and literal or non literal” (Meyer, 2009: 50), and he

emphasizes that indirect indicates politeness:

Indirect in English is very closely associated with politeness, since issuing adirective requires various strategies for mitigating the act of trying to getsomeone to do something, an act that can be considered impolite if notappropriately stated. (Meyer, 2009: 53).

To give a distinction between direct and indirect here, Searle, as it is stated

by Ellis (2008: 160), distinguishes ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ speech acts.

In a direct speech act, there is a transparent relationship between form andfunction, as when an imperative is used to perform a request (for example,‘pass me the salt’). In an indirect speech act, the illocutionary force of the actis not derivable from the surface structure (Ellis, 2008: 161).

In short, we can summarize that speech acts is dealing with how people

express themselves through the utterances they are producing. Meaning to say,

when they are producing utterances they are not simply making grammatical

structures and words, but they are performing actions.

2) Politeness

One important aspect people consider in using language as means of

communication is politeness. Brown and Levinson (1987: 60-1) argues that

“politeness in language is centered around the notion of face-‘the public self-

image that every member wants to claim for himself’- and the efforts made by

interlocutors to ‘maintain each other’s face’ ”. They purpose the term a Face-


20

Threatening Act (FTA), “an utterance that undermines the tacit understanding that

all language should preserve face” (Meyer, 2008: 62).

Ellis also suggests that politeness is other consideration of a secondary

nature that enters into speech act performance.

Speakers have to take account of their relationship with the addressee and thedegree of imposition imposed by the illocution and its propositional contentin order to ensure that harmonious social relations between the speakers arenot endangered. (Ellis, 2008: 161)

Concerning with this politeness, as also written by Ellis (2008: 161) a

model of politeness was proposed by Brown and Levinson, “Brown and Levinson

(1978) have developed a model of politeness, in which they distinguished a

number of options or ‘strategies’ to the speaker.”

Figure 2.1. A schematic representation of Brown and Levinson’s (1978) politenessmodel(Ellis,2008:162)

Brown and Levinson propose that firstly, the speaker can choose to

perform the act or not to perform it. If the act is performed, it can be ‘off-record’

(i.e. performed in such a way that it can be ignored by the addressee) or ‘on-

record’. On-record act can be ‘badly on-record’ (i.e. performed by means of a

direct speech act) or it can involve a ‘face-saving activity’. The latter can take the


21

form of a ‘positive strategy’ or a ‘negative strategy’. The form of a positive

strategy involves some kinds of attempt to establish solidarity with the addressee

by emphasizing commonality, while the form of a negative strategy involves

performing the act in such a way that difference is shown to the hearer-the aim is

to give the hearer a way out of compliance with the act.

However, this “Politeness” proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) has

been opposed by some researchers as it is also stated by Richard J. Watts (2005).

Immediately after reprint in 1987 opposition was raised against Brown andLevinson’s conceptualization of politeness as the realization of face threatmitigation. Their approach did not seem to account for ways in whichpoliteness had been understood in the English-speaking world prior to the latetwentieth century, nor did it seem to account for ways in which relatedlexemes in other languages were used to refer to equivalent aspect of socialbehavior. (Watts, 2005: xi )

Most of the researchers are questioning the Universality of Politeness proposed by

Brown and Levinson, as it is clearly mentioned by Watts: “The Universality of

Politeness was opposed as in Politeness in a Non-Western Cultural Setting by

Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Sachiko Ide and Florian Coulness” (Watts, 2005: xiii).

Meaning to say the FTA is not always the same between the western countries and

Non- western Cultural setting. Further, Watts suggests that it is not enough to only

focus on pragmatic well-formedness when we talk about politeness. “In studying

politeness, we are automatically studying social interaction and the appropriacy of

certain modes of behavior in accordance with socio-cultural conventions”(Watts,

2005: 6).

Fraser (1990) introduces “the conversational-contract view”. In this

conversational-contract view, the conversational partners may readjust the factors


22

such as distribution of power, goals and intentions of the conversational partners

when the interaction takes place.

During the course of time, or because of a change in the context, there ispossibility for a renegotiation of the conversational contract: the two partiesmay readjust what rights and what obligations they hold towards each other(Fraser, 1990: 232)

That is why Watts suggests: “Politeness is thus a dynamic concept, always open to

adaptation and change in any group, in any age, and, indeed, at any moment of

time” (Watts, 2005: 11).

Referring to the discussion above, we can draw a conclusion that

politeness is not as universal as Brown and Levinson suggest, for it always deals

with the variety of social characteristic that exist in each group of people from

every part of the world which makes politeness such a dynamic concept.

Politeness also can never be separated from the conversational contract as it is

suggested by Fraser.

3) Implicature

The notion of implicature was introduced by Grice (1975): “Implicature is

the conveyed meaning of the speaker” (Grice, 1975: 43). The word implicature is

derived from the verb implicate and the related nouns implicature (cf. implying)

and implicatum (cf. what is implied) (page 44). Grice proposes that there is often

prevalent different meaning between “what is said” and “what is meant”. Meaning

to say, the conveyed or implied meaning brings about the process in which the

hearers manage to understand the difference between what is uttered and what is

implied. The interpretation process involves assumptions, shared knowledge of


23

contextual factors, and shared background understanding of the participants. The

interpretation process is also influenced by the features of the speaker’s utterance.

Yule (1996: 35) states: “Implicature is an additional conveyed meaning,

that something must be more than just what the word means.” He gives an

example as follows:

Charlene : I hope you brought the bread and the cheese.

Dexter : Ah, I brought the bread. (Yule, 1996: 40)

In the example above, Yule would like to show that there must be something that

Dexter intends to convey by not mentioning the cheese and this additional

conveyed meaning which is not literally said belongs to implicature.

Grice suggests there are two types of implicature, namely conventional

implicature and conversational implicature. Conventional implicature happens

when the conventional meaning of the word used determines what is being

implicated (Grice, 1975: 44), for example: “He is an Englishman; he is, therefore,

brave.” In this sentence, its implication is based on the conventional meaning of

therefore, which is the logical result of something that has just been mentioned,

namely He is an Englishman.

Yule also elaborates more about the Conventional implicature. He explains

further that: “Conventional implicature are not based on the Cooperative Principle

and the maxims and do not depend on special contexts for their interpretation,”

(Yule, 1996: 45). He mentions that the Conventional implicature are those

commonly associated with certain words that result in additional conveyed

meaning. According to him, those words can be: but (showing contrast), even

(showing contrary to the expectation), and yet (indicating the present situation is


24

expected to be different). So, the Conventional implicature do not depend on the

special context but on the words which conventionally interpreted.

On the other hand, the Conversational implicature deals with the context

and the shared background knowledge of the speakers (Grice, 1975: 50). One

example for conversational implicature is as follows:

A: I am out of petrol.B: There is a garage round the cornerB implicates that the garage is, or at least maybe open, and the answer for A, etc.(adopted from Grice, 1975: 51)

Another example of conversational implicature is the one which is commonly

known as “Pope Question” because it is given as a response to another question to

which the answer supposedly means to be “Obviously!” as in the situation as

follows:

Mike is trying to find an apartment in New York City. He just looked at aplace and is telling his friend Jane about it.Jane : “Is the rent high?”Mike : “Is the Pope Catholic?”By giving question “is the Pope Catholic?” as a response to Jane’squestion Mike implicates “obviously!” (The Pope, of course, is alwaysCatholic.)(adopted from Rover, 2005: 124)

From the example above, it is clear that the conversational implicature

violate the Cooperative Principle proposed by Grice himself (Meyer, 2009: 55)

that consists of four maxims: quantity (conciseness), quality (truthfulness),

relation (be relevant), and manner (clearness and unambiguousness ). This is

because according to Grice, in order to make the conversation as cooperative as


25

possible, the speakers needs to observe these maxims, however maxims are not

rules but guidelines as he stated as follows:

I have stated my maxims as if this purpose were a maximally effectiveexchange of information; this specification is, of course, too narrow, and thescheme needs to be generalized to allow for such general purposes asinfluencing or directing the actions of others. (Grice, 1975: 47)

In other words, even though conversation observes cooperation, Grice

himself suggests that sometimes speaker can deliberately violate a maxim in order

to imply more than is said using implicature (Grice, 1975: 49). As Meyer also

cites: “When a maxim is violated (or flouted), a conversational implicature

results” (Meyer, 2008: 56)

Bouton (1988) also emphazises that a conversational implicature

commonly violate Principle of Cooperation and Maxims as follows:

In his now famous Principle of Cooperation and the related Maxims ofQuality, Quantity, Relevance and Manner, Grice (1975, 1981) indicates thatparticipants in a conversation in which the primary purpose is the exchange ofinformation expect whatever a speaker says to be truthful, appropriatelyinformative, relevant and clear. When as often happens, a speaker’scontribution seems on the surface to lack one or more of those characteristics,the other participants assume that they are expected to infer some othermeaning that will meet the speaker’s obligations more completely. If theyfind such a meaning, they take that to be all or part of the message that thespeaker intended to convey. This process, and the inferred message that resultfrom it, is what Grice calls conversational implicature. (Bouton, 1988, WordEnglishes vol. 7, p. 183)

According to Grice, conversational implicature (or Implicature as a

shorthand) possesses certain features. Firstly, it is cancellable, as it is clearly

mentioned by Grice: “since it is possible to opt out of the observation of this


26

principle (CP), it follows that a generalized conversational implicature can be

cancelled in a particular case” (Grice, 1975: 57). For example:

A: Mrs. X is an old bag.( there is a moment of appalled silence )B: The weather has been quite delightful this summer, hasn’t it?B implicates that A’s remark should not be discussed.(adopted from Grice, 1975: 54)

Secondly, it is non-detachable. By this Grice means that, as also cited by

Levinson (1983: 116), “the implicature is attached to the semantic content of what

is said, not to linguistic form, and therefore implicature cannot be detached from

an utterance simply by changing the words of the utterance for synonyms”. For

example:

“I cannot say more, my lips are sealed” (adapted from Grice, 1975: 49)

We cannot just change the word “sealed” into “fastened” or “locked”.

Thirdly, it is calculable. This means that” implicata are not part of the

meaning of the expressions to the employment of which they attach” (Grice, 1975:

58), meaning to say that: “the addressee would still be possible to make the

inference in question to preserve the assumption of cooperation principle”

(Levinson, 1983: 117).

Fourthly, the truth of implicature is not required by the truth of what is

said ( what is said may be true – what is implicated maybe false), the implicature

is not carried by what is said, but only by the saying of what is said or by putting

that way.

Finally, as it is elaborated by Levinson (1983: 118): “an expression with a

single meaning can give rise to different implicatures on different occasions, and


27

indeed on any one occasion the set of associated implicatures may not be exactly

determinable”. For example: “John’s a machine” (adapted from Levinson, 1983:

118). This can imply that John is cold, or efficient, or never stop working, or

many others.

Levinson states that implicature is one of the single most important ideas

in pragmatic (1983: 97). Some reasons behind his statement are that “implicature

seems to offer some significant functional explanations of linguistic fact, it also

provides some explicit account how it is possible to mean more than what actually

said, and it seems likely to affect substantial simplification in both the structure

and the content of semantic descriptions” (Levinson, 1983: 97 – 98).

Levinson’s statement is also strengthened by Yule in his book as follows:

“For many linguists, the notion of implicature is one of the central concepts in

pragmatics,” (Yule, 1996: 46). Referring to what primarily the pragmatics dealing

with, an implicature is surely a prime notion of more being communicated than it

is literally uttered.

As a conclusion, we can say that implicature is the conveyed meaning

behind what is actually said, most of the time the conveyed meaning is not

literally uttered, and it is always contextual. Implicature also commonly occurs by

violating the principle cooperation and the Maxims. The effective use of

implicature needs such a similar background of knowledge on the context being

discussed possessed both by the speaker and the hearer. That is why when the

conversation happens between two people from different cultural backgrounds, a

cross-cultural understanding is very prominent. The cross-cultural understanding


28

takes an important role because having the characteristics of violating the

principle cooperation and the Maxims, even in the same cultural background

implicature is also open to the possibility of different interpretation.

3. Pragmatic Competence

Based on Ellis’ that “pragmatics is the study of how language is used in

communication” (Ellis, 2008: 975), Fromkin’s that “Pragmatics is concerned with

the interpretation of linguistic meaning in context” (Fromkin et el, 2003: 207) and

also according to Hymes (1972) that competence doesn’t only refer to knowledge

but also the ability to use it, so it can be concluded that Pragmatic Competence is

the ability to interpret language which is being used during the communication

contextually. In his glossary, Ellis writes: “Pragmatic competence consists of the

knowledge that the speaker-hearers use in order to engage in communication,

including how speech acts are successfully performed” (Ellis, 2008: 975).

Bachman (1990) suggests that language competence consists of

organizational and pragmatic competence. According to him, organizational

competence consists of grammatical competence, which is the understanding of

the structure of language, and textual competence, which is the ability to produce

texts, and what deals with pragmatic competence are illocutionary competence,

which is the relationships among signs, referents and language users and

sociolinguistic competence, which is the context of communication. So, based on

Bachman’s, ”Pragmatic competence is the knowledge of appropriate production

and comprehension of language in communication” (Bachman, 1990). The figure

below shows Bachman’s language competence components:


29

Figure 2.2. Components of Bachman language competence (adapted from Bachman, 1990: 87)

Bialystok (1993) enunciates that although pragmatic competence deals with

the knowledge of rules, it includes the ability to apply the rules appropriately. It is

clearly mentioned in Bialystok’s definition as follows:

Pragmatic competence entails a variety of abilities concerned with the use andinterpretation of language in context. It includes speakers’ ability to uselanguage for different purposes – to request, to instruct, to effect change. Itincludes listener’s ability to get past the language and understand thespeaker’s real intention, especially when these intentions are not directlyconveyed in the forms – indirect requests, irony and sarcasm are someexamples. It includes commands of the rules by which utterances are strungtogether to create discourse. (Bialystok, 1990: 43)

Viljamaa (2012) cited that Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000:20) propose

pragmatic competence as

“a set of internalized rules of how to use language in socioculturallyappropriate ways, taking into account the participants in a communicativeinteraction and features of the context within which the interaction takesplace”.

Language Competence

Organizational Competence Pragmatic Competence

Grammatical

Competence

Textual

Competence

Illocutionary

Competence

Sociolinguistic

Competence


30

From the definitions provided above, it can be concluded that pragmatic

competence is the ability to interpret meaning of utterances contextually based on

the knowledge possessed by the participants. It can also be concluded that the

knowledge of implicature (the ability to comprehend the speaker’s real intention)

is also part of pragmatic competence.

4. Pragmatic Failure

Due to the research question of the present study, it is also important to

know what is meant by what so called pragmatic failure. It is so because the study

is about the development of the students’ pragmatic competence. The expected

result is that there is a significant development, but there is also possibility that

the result is not as expected which means there is no significant development. In

this case, the pragmatic failure will be the crucial thing to be discussed about.

Thomas (1983) suggests that the term ‘pragmatic failure’ refers to the

inability to understand what is meant by what is said (page: 91). She says so based

on her understanding that pragmatic competence is the ability to use language

effectively in order to achieve a specific purpose and to understand language in

context (Thomas, 1983: 92). Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, and Olshtain (1986: 166)

also add that: “pragmatic failure occurs when two speakers fail to understand each

other’s intention”.

Thomas divides this pragmatic failure into two areas or types, namely:

pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. Pragmalinguistic failure takes

place when the pragmatic force of a linguistic structure is different from that

normally assigned to it by a native speaker (Amaya, 2008: 13). In other words,


31

pragmalinguistic failure has something to do with the linguistic form which might

be inappropriately transferred from L1 to L2. According to Thomas, this

pragmalinguistic failure is fairly easy to overcome because it is simply a question

of highly conventionalized usage which can be taught quite straight forwardly as

part of the grammar. Meanwhile, the sociopragmatic failure is much more

complicated to overcome, “Sociopragmatic failure involves the student’s belief as

much as his/her knowledge of the language” (Thomas, 1983: 91).

She then elaborates deeper: “pragmatic failure is an area of cross-cultural

communication breakdown which has received very little attention from language

teachers” (1983: 91). Meaning to say, Thomas believes that language teachers

focus more on the linguistic forms and exposure less on the importance of

understanding any cultural differences between L1 and the target language which

in turns causes the cross-cultural communication breakdown.

Thomas emphasizes on cross-cultural matters because as aforementioned

that sociopragmatic failure involves the student’s belief which, of course, this case

is closely related with the cultural background. Amaya (2008) explains further as

follows: “this sociopragmatic failure is more difficult to correct and overcome by

the students since this involves making changes in their own beliefs and value

system. In other words, when we learn any target language we do not merely learn

and acquire its linguistic form but also the cultural background of the target

language in order to be able to communicate properly using the target language,

“in order to interpret the force of an utterance in the way in which the speaker

intended, the hearer must take into account both contextual and linguistic cues.


32

Often, context alone will determine what force is assigned to an utterance,”

(Thomas, 1983: 99).

The cross-cultural understanding holds an important part in avoiding the

sociopragmatic failure. Amaya (2008: 14) mentions that this failure/error has its

origin in ‘pragmatic transfer’. Amaya has this statement based on Kasper’s

statement, “…..pragmatic transfer in interlanguage pragmatics shall refer to the

influence exerted by learners’ pragmatic knowledge of languages and cultures

other than L2 on their comprehension, production and learning of L2 pragmatic

information” (1992: 207).

5. Language Transfer

In second language acquisition field, the term of language transfer is often

used. The working definition of “transfer” proposed by Odlin (1989: 27) is as

follows: “Transfer is the influence resulting from similarities and differences

between the target language and any other language that has been previously (and

perhaps imperfectly) acquired”. L 1 transfer, according to Ellis (2008: 969),

occurs when the ‘influence’ results from the learner’s mother tongue and there are

two types of transfer, namely: borrowing transfer and substratum transfer. What is

meant by borrowing transfer is when the L2 influences the L1, while when the L1

influences the L2 it is called substratum transfer.

According to the behaviorist theories of language learning (Ellis, 2008:

349), the main impediment to learning is interference from prior knowledge. That

is why there are what so called positive transfer and negative transfer. The

similarities between the L1 and the target language can facilitate the L2


33

acquisition and this is the positive transfer. The differences can cause errors and

avoidance, this is the negative transfer.

Although Oldin (2004) comments that “the problems relating to

crosslinguistic influence are so varied and so complex that it does not exist any

really detailed theory of language transfer” (p.475), Ellis (2008: 397) tries to

identify some of the key elements that a cognitive theory of transfer will need to

incorporate. The key elements are:

1) Transfer occurs in both communication and in learning.

In this part, Ellis emphasizes that a theory of language transfer needs to

explain transfer in both L2 communication and transfer in L1 learning and the

relationship between them. Ellis quoted Ringbom’s claim on the relationship

between transfer in communication and learning as follows:

Transfer in communication is motivated by the learner’s desire tocomprehend or produce messages, but it may also have an effect on theprocess of hypothesis construction and testing, which many scholars see ascentral to interlanguage development. In other words, transfer incommunication may lead to transfer in learning. (Ringbom, 1992: 106)

Using Ringbom’s claim, Ellis takes a conclusion that transfer in production can

also contribute significantly to interlanguage development.

2) Transfer arises as a result of both differences and similarities between the

target language and the L1.

Based on Kleinmann (1978)’s and Major and Kim (1996)’s studies, Ellis

draws the second key element that transfer arises as a result of both differences

and similarities between the target language and the L1. This conclusion is also

strengthened by Ringbom (2007) who states:” transfer can take place as a result of


34

both difference between and similarities with the target language and that it is

similarity that is the more important.”

3) Transfer works in conjunction with other factors.

It is already clear that transfer always works in conjunction with other

factors.

4) Transfer is both a conscious and subconscious process.

Although some studies done by Krashen (1983), Schachter (1983), and

Mohle and Raupach (1989) have different position on how deep transfer play role

in ‘acquisition’ ( a subconscious process ) and in ‘learning’ (a conscious process),

but basically it is mentioned that transfer is both a conscious and subconscious

process.

5) Transfer is both conceptual and linguistic.

The two issues arise for a theory of L2 acquisition that incorporates transfer.

6) Transfer is ultimately a subjective phenomenon.

This key element is strengthened by the studies done by Lado (1957) and

Odlin (2003).

The most important conclusion in the study of transfer is that no theory of

L2 use or acquisition can be complete without an account of L1 transfer (Ellis,

2008: 402). Meaning to say, L1 transfer holds a significant role in the L2

acquisition.


35

B. Theoretical Framework

This part presents the framework used in the present study. It is to connect

and give logical explanation in answering the research question theoretically.

There are some important aspects contained in the research question. The

research question is: Is there any significant development of the students’

pragmatic competence of implicature in Spoken English? First, it is the

development. As it is explained in the previous sub chapter, what is meant by the

development here is a good change or an improvement that occurs in a human

being that can be measured during the process or as a result at a certain point of

time. Since the preset study is cross-sectional study in which the researcher

investigates the pragmatic competence in implicature of the second semester, the

fourth semester, and the sixth semester students of English Language Education

Study Program, the researcher is intended to investigate if there is a significant

development or, in this case, significant quantitative difference in the result of the

Discourse Complement Test given between each level of the semester

aforementioned. Referring to the definition of development used in the present

study, the quantitative difference is supposed to be a good one or an improvement

from the lower level to the higher level.

The other aspect is the students’ pragmatic competence. The pragmatic

competence being investigated in the present study is specifically the ability to

interpreting the meaning in social context which means interpreting sentence


36

beyond its meaning at the level of the grammar. That is why it is not the ability to

produce utterances being investigated in the present study, but more to interpret or

understand the utterances given in context in the DCTs provided.

There are some aspects in the pragmatics. However, present study also only

focuses on the implicature: “the additional conveyed meaning, that something

must be more than just what the word mean” (Yule, 1996: 35). The researcher

focuses only on the notion of implicature because according to Yule, the notion of

implicature is one of the central concepts in pragmatics (1996: 46), beside it is

more interesting because interpreting what is meant by what is literally uttered

involves background of knowledge and cultural backgrounds of the speakers,

especially for learning second language.

The null hypothesis of the present study is that “nothing interesting is

happening” or “there is no significant difference between the group means.”

Figure 2.3: Null Hypothesis

The null hypothesis is that the means of the implicature multiple-choice test result

between the second semester students, the fourth semester students, and the sixth

semester students are more or less equal or do not show a significant difference.

The research hypothesis is there is no significant development of the

students’ pragmatic competence of implicature in spoken English. It is predicted

that the means between groups are more or less equal. The prediction is drawn

inductively from most of the related studies on the pragmatic competence already

mentioned in the Problem Identification (Chapter I: page 5-6) that show the

H0 : µ1 = µ2 = µ3


37

Pragmatic Competence is relatively more difficult to improve comparing the

Organizational Competence in SLA, the result of Kasper’s study (1997) Can

Pragmatic Competence be taught? with the answer is “No” as the conclusion, and

the pragmatic failure theory by Thomas (1983) in which Thomas believes that in

many cases language teachers focus more on the linguistic forms and exposure

less on the importance of understanding any cultural differences between L1 and

the target language which in turns causes the cross-cultural communication

breakdown.


38

CHAPTER III : METHOD OLOGY

METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the methodology and procedure employed in the

study. It consists of five sections. They are (a) Research method, (b) Research

setting, (c) Research instrument, (d) Data collection, and (e) Data analysis

technique. The first subchapter presents the research method used in the study.

The second subchapter discusses the nature of the data. The third subchapter

provides the discussion on the research instrument. The fourth subchapter is about

the data collection. The fifth subchapter talks about the data analysis technique of

the study.

A. Research Method

The present study, which aims to find the answer of this study: Is there

any significant difference in the pragmatic competence of implicature in spoken

English among students with different length of study?, is a developmental study.

There are two types of developmental study, namely longitudinal study and cross-

sectional study (Ellis, 2008: 163). Ellis explains that longitudinal studies are

clearly desirable for plotting developmental pattern, as they are enable change to

be analyzed in a single learner at the micro level. The consequences are beside

they are very time consuming, there is the danger that repeated observation or

interviewing will influence the learner’s behavior (ibid). Cross-sectional studies,

on the other hand, can be conducted quickly and can compare groups of learners


39

with different levels. The weaknesses of cross-sectional study are they do not

permit the analysis of causal relationship and cannot chart individual differences

in development over time (ibid). Papalia (2003) also mentions as follows: “Cross-

sectional study is a study design in which people of different ages (stages) are

assessed on one occasion” (page 53). Due to the limited time, despites the

weakness of cross-sectional study, the present study was conducted as a cross-

sectional study. The present study compared groups of learners with different

levels on one occasion.

The present study is a quantitative research because it will find the

answer based on some numerical data. Grix (2004) mentions “Quantitative

research is predominantly with quantity and quantifying” (Grix, 2004: 32). The

present study used the quantitative technique because the researcher believed that

the exact numerical data is more accountable to describe the students’ pragmatic

competence in implicature. This belief was also based on Neuman’s (2000)

statement which is cited by Grix as follows: “this technique produces precise

numerical information which can be understood as the empirical representation of

the (abstract) concepts”(Grix, 2004: 117).

The present study was conducted using quantitative technique as it was

aimed to give description on the sample without giving any treatment to the

sample. The technique was chosen also based on Creswell’s (2003) definition

about the technique, “A survey design provides a quantitative or numeric

description of trends, attitudes, or opinions of a population by studying a sample

of that population” (Creswell, 2003: 153). Gall (2007) adds that “quantitative


40

researchers attempt to discover something about a large group of individuals by

studying a much smaller group” (Galls, 2007: 166).

Based on the definitions above, the researcher used the quantitative

analysis in conducting the present study. Some conditions taken into consideration

were, firstly the present study was supposed to give a description on the students’

pragmatic competence in Implicature which can be seen through the exact

numerical data. Secondly the present study which described the students’

pragmatic competence in the notion of implicature was done on a sample of small

group of students without giving any treatment before. The numerical data was

taken through a multiple choice Discourse Completion Tasks. The multiple choice

DCTs being used will be discussed in the research instrument section.

B. Research Setting

As it is already stated above that “Quantitative researchers attempt to

discover something about a large group of individuals by studying a much smaller

group” (Gall, 2007: 166), the researcher conducted the study in Sanata Dharma

University, Yogyakarta, with the students of the English Language Education

Study Program as the participants. So, the population was the students who were

preparing themselves in finishing their undergraduate in English Language

Education.

Based on Gall’s statement about the population validity as follows: “To

achieve good population validity, quantitative researchers must select the sample

randomly from the defined population to which they wish to generalize their


41

result” (Gall, 2007: 169), the researcher took the sample randomly without

considering the students’ grades report, gender, and age. All the students of the

English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University, were

considered as members of the accessible population that have an equal chance of

being selected. This consideration was also based on Creswell (2003) who

suggests: “I recommend selecting a random sample in which each individual in

the population has an equal probability of being selected (a systematic or

probabilistic sample)” (Creswell, 2003: 156).

Due to the limited time of the present study, the present study was not

done through the piloting study. The present study directly took the sampling

from the clusters. Since the present study was a developmental Cross-sectional

study, the samples were taken from the second semester, the fourth semester, and

the sixth semester on one occasion. From each semester there were only 30

participants’ results taken randomly. The researcher would like to investigate if

there was a significant development in interpreting implicature commonly used in

English language between those three levels of semesters, and therefore this made

the study a cross sectional study.

Concerning the ethical issues in conducting research, based on the Ethical

Standards of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) which

states:

It is a paramount importance that educational researchers respect the rights,privacy, dignity, and sensitivities of their research populations and also theintegrity of the institutions within which the research occurs. Educationalresearchers should be especially careful in working with children and other


42

vulnerable populations. (American Educational Research Association, 2002:3),

before collecting the data, the researcher consulted and asked the permission from

the head of English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma

University, personally and through the letter of consent dated 14 May 2014. The

letter of consent is attached in the appendixes. For the participants’ rights, the

researcher ensured the participants had a complete understanding of the purpose

and the methods to be used in the study by explaining to the participants before

and after they did the implicature Multiple-choice DCTs. The researcher also gave

a short explanation on implicature to the participant. In this present study, the

researcher used numbers instead of the participants’ names due to the participants’

privacy.

C. Research Instrument

Concerning the research question which aims to see the students’

pragmatic competence, the research instrument being used was a multiple choice

test. The researcher chose a multiple choice test because the researcher was not

intend to investigate the students’ competence in producing or uttering

implicature, but their competence in interpreting and understanding implicature in

spoken English language.

In conducting the research, the researcher did not create the multiple

choice test by himself in order to be able to present the more authentic context.

The assessment of pragmatics contains a tension between theconstruction of authentic assessment tasks and practicality; tests must


43

establish the social context of conversation and learner responses shouldbe productive, but real world situation are difficult to stimulate andscoring by several human raters is often not possible. (McNamara andRoover, 2006: 54).

The researcher also based on Kasper’s (2000) statement as follows:

Spoken interaction includes authentic discourse, elicited conversationand role-plays which produce oral data and allow the examination ofvarious discourse features. Questionnaires, by contrast, includeproduction and multiple choice questionnaires as well as scaled responseinstruments. (Kasper, 2000: 317)

Based on this condition, the researcher decided to combine Roover’s

(2005) and Bouton’s (1988) that have been proved to be valid, although the

researcher provided the blueprint of the questionnaire to prove that the multiple

choice test being used matched with the present study. One example of a multiple

choice test is as follows:

Susan and Mei-Ling are roommates and are getting ready to go to classtogether.Mei-Ling : Is it very cold out this morning?Susan : It’s August.

What is Susan saying?a. It’ll be nice and warm today. Don’t worry.b. Yes, even though it’s August, it’s very cold out.c. It’s so warm for this time of year that it seems like August.d. Yes, we’re sure having crazy weather, aren’t we?

( adopted from Bouton, 1988: 194)

From the example above, we can see that the multiple choice test consists of three

parts. The first part is a situational description, the second part is a brief dialogue,

and the last part contains question which requires the respondents to comprehend


44

the last turn of the dialogue and choose the most appropriate meaning (pragmatic

comprehension).

There were 20 numbers of multiple choice test being used in the present

study, number 1 – 11 were adopted from Rover (2005) and number 12 -20 were

adopted from Bouton (1988). The multiple choice test could be seen in Appendix

1. The blueprint was also made to see the content validity, as Hughes (1989)

suggests “the content validity of the test could also be determined by a blueprint”

(Hughes, 1989: 22). The following table will show the blueprint of the multiple

choice test being used.

Table 3.1.The blueprint of the test

No. Implicature Characteristic Questionnaire number

1 Relevance 3, 4, 7, 8, 12, 17

2 Pope Question (relevance) 6, 11, 13, 16,

3 Manner 1, 5, 10, 20

4 Quality 2, 9, 14

5 Quantity 15, 18, 19

The Multiple-choice test used can be seen in the Appendix I.

D. Data Collection

The data was collected separately for each semester level, and each level

had the same length of time duration. The time duration given was 30 minutes.

All the participants could manage to finish the Multiple-choice test in time.

E. Data Analysis Technique


45

The data was analyzed using statistics because the study was a

quantitative research. Gall (2007) mentions that “statistics are mathematical

techniques for analyzing numerical data to accomplish various purposes, and

statistics are used in virtually all quantitative research, but in many qualitative as

well” (Gall, 2007: 125). The type of scores is continues scores, “Continuous

scores are values of a variable located on a continuum, rating from high to low

level of the variable and along with there are an indefinite number of points at

which score can occur” (Gall, 2007: 130). Since the study was to see the students’

pragmatic competence, so the scale measurement was interval, “competence is

always interval, because everybody must have some competence” (ibid).

There were some steps in doing the data analysis. Firstly, the researcher

distributed the multiple choice test to the participants. The participants’ response

or answer to each statement was presented in the table of data frequency and data

percentage. The scoring of each option in the multiple choice test was based on

measurement which was used to measure a competence, the interval scale.

The score criteria was partly adopted from the Cohen and Olshtain

Communicative Ability Scales (Cohen, 1994) which was also used in Rover and

Bouton’s study, because the present study was only measuring the participants’

pragmatic competence in implicature through the Multiple-choice test while the

Cohen and Olshtain Communicative Ability Scales was intended to measure

almost all pragmatic competence aspects through Oral Discourse Completion

Tasks (DCTs).


46

The Cohen and Olshtain Communicative Ability Scales as follows:

0 = No answer

Wrong answers

Answer irrelevant to the given situation

Answer which do not convey a speaker’s intention at all or change

the speaker’s intention

1 = Acceptable answers which contain one or more of the following

characteristics but still can convey the speaker correct meaning and

intention: too much or too little information, grammatical or lexical

errors impairing but not preventing the interlocutor understanding

the meaning or intention of the utterance, too polite or rude linguistic

expression.

2 = Appropriate answers which fully convey a speaker’s correct meaning

and intention and contain the following characteristics: proper

amount of information, grammatical and lexical correctness or minor

errors which do not affect the interlocutor’s ability to understand the

meaning or intention of the utterance, polite linguistic expression.

Since the present study was only done using a Multiple-choice test in

which the participants were not to produce linguistic expression and the language

competence being measured was only implicature in which the possibility of

misinterpretation can normally occur, the present study adopted the same score

criteria, namely: 0, 1, 2 for different reasons. Zero (0) score was given because the

participants did not choose any option given which meant the participants did not


47

show their competence. The score 1 was given to any incorrect answer, because

although the participants answered incorrectly it did not mean that the participants

did not have any competence, it only showed that the participant misinterpreted

the implicature which was explained in the theoretical review that the possibility

of implicature misinterpretation is always open. Whereas for any correct answer

was scored 2. So, the scoring ranged from 0, 1, and 2.

Table 3.2. The scoring of each answer

No Score The meaning of the score

1 2 Any correct answer based on the implicature given in the context.

2 1 Any incorrect answer chosen by the participants

3 0 No option chosen by the respondents

Then, all the data collected was analyzed mainly quantitatively using

SPSS statistics for Windows so that the Means, the Standard Deviation, and

minimum and maximum values of the scores could be seen. The data was

analyzed using One-way ANOVA, because the researcher intended to determine if

there were any significant differences between the means of three independent

(unrelated) groups, namely the second semester students, the fourth semester

students, and the sixth semester students. The next step was to determine which

specific groups differed from each other. In this step, a post hoc test was applied.

Finally, the result was deeply discussed based on the theoretical framework of the

present study.


49

CHAPTER IV : THE R ESU LT AND THE D ISCU SSION

THE RESULT AND THE DISCUSSION

This chapter provides the result of the study from the SPSS analysis in

answering the research question and the discussion. The result is the collected data

which was analyzed using One-way ANOVA to investigate whether there was any

significant development of the students’ pragmatic competence in the notion of

Implicature between the three groups, namely: the second semester students, the

fourth semester students, and the sixth semester students. The discussion is the

result being analyzed based on the theoretical review and the theoretical

framework of the study.

A. The Results of the Study

To see whether there is a significant difference between groups, One-way

ANOVA is usually used. The present study also applied One-way ANOVA to

compare the means between the three groups to examine if there was a significant

different between the groups.

The null hypothesis is that “nothing interesting is happening” or “there is

no significant difference between the group means.”

H0 : µ1 = µ2 = µ3

Figure 4.1: Null Hypothesis


49

The null hypothesis states that the three groups, namely the second semester

students, the fourth semester students, and the sixth semester students, give a

relatively equal means result from the implicature test given.

The alternative hypothesis will show that “the population means are not

all equal,” which indicates there is a significant difference between the three

group means. This does not have to mean that all three groups have different

means, but it shows that “at least one of the population means differs significantly

from the others.”

This present study used the significant level (α) = 0.05.

(α) = 100% - the confidence interval = 100% - 95% = 0.05

Figure 4.2: The significant level (α)

Since the present study examined three different groups and took 30 respondents

for each groups, so the degree of freedom: dfbetween = 2 and dfwithin = 87. The F

critical ( F table) which was taken from the table based on dfbetween and dfwithin of

the present study was 3.098. The significant level (α) and the F critical (table) are

also important in determining whether there is a significant difference between the

group means.

The null hypothesis will be rejected if :

F value ˃ F critical (table) and sig ˂ α

Figure 4.3: The null hypothesis rejection condition


50

The present study compared the means of the three groups of students.

Each group consists of 30 students, so overall the number of the students (N) is

90. All the 90 students had the same Implicature test in the same length of time

duration which was 30 minutes, though each group did the test in different time

because the data was collected during the class hour and the three groups came

from different levels of semester. Then data analysis of the present study was

done in the SPSS program. The result of the data analysis shows as follows:

Table 4.1: Descriptives Statistic

Score

N Mean

Std.

Deviation Std. Error

95% ConfidenceInterval for Mean

Minimum Maximum

LowerBound

UpperBound

second semester 30 32.83 2.306 .421 31.97 33.69 26 36

fourth semester 30 32.77 2.609 .476 31.79 33.74 27 37

sixth semester 30 30.60 3.024 .552 29.47 31.73 25 36

Total 90 32.07 2.832 .298 31.47 32.66 25 37

Table 4.1: Descript ives Statistic

Table 4.1 shows that the means of the three groups. The second semester’s mean

is 32.83, the fourth semester’s mean is 32.77, and the sixth semester’s mean is

30.66. This shows that the means are decreasing from the lower semester to the

higher semester. It indicates that there is no development in the sense of a good

change in the statistical numbers from the lower semester to the higher semester.

To make the difference of the means between the three groups more

clearly comprehensible the means can be displayed in a graph. The graph of the


51

means of the three groups can also represent as the pattern of the development of

the students’ pragmatic competence of the implicature in spoken English that

occurs. The graph is as follows:

Graph 4.1.The pattern of the development of the students’ pragmatic competence

of implicature in spoken English.

To analyze if there is a significant development of the students’

pragmatic competence of implicature in spoken English, the following table from

the One-Way ANOVA analysis is needed:

Table 4.2: The Means differences

Score

Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 96.867 2 48.433 6.832 .002

Within Groups 616.733 87 7.089

Total 713.600 89


52

Table 4.2 shows that: F value = 6.832, and Sig.value = 0.002. When the

result was applied to the null hypothesis rejection condition (figure 5.3), the result

of the study rejected the null hypothesis because: F value ˃ F critical ( 6.832 ˃

3.098 ) and sig.value ˂ α (0.002 ˂ 0.05). Meaning to say, there is a significant

difference between the three group means, or at least one of the population means

differs significantly from the others.

Since the result of the present study rejected the null hypothesis, the next

step was conducted to determine which specific groups differed from each other.

In this step, a post hoc test was applied. The post hoc test was also conducted

using SPSS, it was a called Tukey HSD.

The result of the post hoc test done is as follows:

Table 4.3: The Post Hoc Test Result

Multiple Comparisons

Score

Tukey HSD

(I) semester (J) semester

Mean

Difference

(I-J) Std. Error Sig.

95% Confidence Interval

Lower Bound Upper Bound

second semester fourth semester .067 .687 .995 -1.57 1.71

sixth semester 2.233* .687 .005 .59 3.87

fourth semester second semester -.067 .687 .995 -1.71 1.57

sixth semester 2.167* .687 .006 .53 3.81

sixth semester second semester -2.233* .687 .005 -3.87 -.59

fourth semester -2.167* .687 .006 -3.81 -.53

*. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.

From table 4.3, it is clearly seen that the significant value between the second

semester and the fourth semester is 0.995, which means the significant value is


53

higher than 0.05 (0.995 ˃ 0.05 = s ˃ α). It proves that there is no significant

difference between the second semester and the fourth semester.

While the significant value between the fourth semester and the sixth

semester is 0.006, which is lower than 0,05 ( 0.006 ˂ 0.05 = sig ˂ α ). So, this

proves that there is a significant difference between the fourth semester and the

sixth semester.

When we examine the difference between the second semester and the

sixth semester, we can see from table 4.3 also that the significant value between

the second semester and the sixth semester is 0.005, which is also lower than 0.05

(0.005 ˂ 0.05 = sig ˂ α). Again, this also proves that there is a significant

difference between the second semester and the sixth semester.

To summarize the result analysis above, the results show:

1) Between the second semester and the fourth semester as already

metioned: the significant value is higher than 0.05 (0.995 ˃ 0.05 = s ˃

α) which proves that there is no significant difference between the

second semester and the fourth semester.

2) Between the fourth semester and the sixth semester: is lower than 0,05

(0.006 ˂ 0.05 = sig ˂ α ). So, this proves that there is a significant

difference between the fourth semester and the sixth semester.

However, the significant difference here does not show an improvement

or a good change. This is indicated from the Mean Difference ( sixth

semester – fourth semester = I – J ) in table 5.3 = - 2.167 (minus),


54

which means that the sixth semester has lower mean value than the

fourth semester.

3) Between the second semester and the sixth semester: it is lower than

0.05 (0.005 ˂ 0.05 = sig ˂ α) which also proves that there is a

significant difference between the second semester and the sixth

semester. Again, the significant difference here does not show an

improvement or a good change either. Based on table 4.3, the Mean

Difference between the second semester and the sixth semester = the

sixth semester – the second semester = - 2.233 ( minus ), which also

means that the sixth semester has lower mean value than the second

semester.

Based on the result analysis above, the answer of the research question is

YES, there is a significant different of the students’ pragmatic competence of

implicature in spoken English. However, surprisingly the pattern of the

development showed that it was decreasing from the lower semester to the higher

semester.

To make the One-way ANOVA analysis above more tangible and clearly

comprehensible, the overall result of the multiple choice Implicature test is also

presented in a figure. The figure was taken from the overall result of the test from

the second semester students’, the fourth semester students’, and the sixth

semester students’. The second semester students’ result was shown in a blue

color, the fourth semester students’ result was shown in a red color, and the green

color was for the sixth semester students’ result.


55

1. The Overall Result

The chart of overall result of the multiple choice test shows as follows:

Figure 4.4.The figure of overall result.

The vertical line in the chart 4.1 shows the number of the students, and

the horizontal line shows the question number in the multiple choice test given to

the students. From the chart, we can see that in almost every number of the

multiple-choice test does not show a significant development happens between the

students of the second semester, the fourth semester, and the sixth semester

students. For some numbers of the multiple choice test, namely number 3, 5, 9,

14, and 19, the result even shows a steep decrease number of the students who can

answer the implicature multiple choice test correctly. Number 3, it is answered

correctly by 26 students out of the 30 second semester students, 23 students out of

the 30 fourth semester students, and 15 students out of the 30 sixth semester

students. Number 5, it is answered correctly by 10 students out of the 30 second

semester students, 6 students out of the 30 fourth semester students, and 3


56

students out of the 30 sixth semester students. Number 9, it is answered correctly

by 11 students out of the 30 second semester students, 10 students out of the 30

fourth semester students, and 6 students out of the 30 sixth semester students.

Number 14, it is answered correctly by 29 students out of the 30 second semester

students, 28 students out of the 30 fourth semester students, and 27 students out of

the 30 sixth semester students. Number 19, it is answered correctly by 16 students

out of the 30 second semester students, 10 students out of the 30 fourth semester

students, and 8 students out of the 30 sixth semester students.

The only number that shows a significant development that happens

between the second semester, the fourth semester, and the sixth semester is

number 11. For this number of the implicature multiple test, which is the Pope

Question (relevance) type of implicature that implies the “yes, of course” answer,

15 out of the 30 semester 2 students answered correctly, 16 out of the 30 semester

4 students answered correctly, and 20 out of the 30 semester 6 students answered

correctly.

The other numbers show some diversity but none of them shows any

significant development that happened from the lowest level (the second

semester) to the highest level (the sixth semester). The analysis of each number

will be presented as to make clearer description.


57

2. The Group Result based on the pattern

In this sub topic, the group result based on the pattern will be presented.

However, before the presentation of the group result based on the pattern, it is

good to see the answer table.

Table 4.4. Answer Table

Questionnumber

Semester 2 Semester 4 Semester 6Correct % Correct % Correct %

1 28 93.3 29 96.7 26 86.72 7 23.3 11 36.7 9 303 26 86.7 23 76.7 15 504 20 66.7 23 76.7 13 43.35 10 33.3 6 20 3 106 25 83.3 22 73.3 18 607 13 43.3 16 53.3 9 308 27 90 27 90 25 83.39 11 36.7 10 33.3 6 2010 15 50 23 76.7 14 46.711 15 50 16 53.3 20 66.712 28 93.3 28 93.3 20 66.713 22 73.3 19 63.3 22 73.314 29 96.7 28 93.3 27 9015 7 23.3 9 30 5 16.716 27 90 27 90 26 86.717 16 53.3 20 66.7 16 53.318 15 50 11 36.7 14 46.719 16 53.3 10 33.3 8 26.720 28 93.3 25 83.3 22 73.3

Table 4.4. shows the number of students out of 30 participants from each

group who interpreted the Multiple-choice test the same as the answer key and its

percentage for each question number. From table 4.4. it also can be seen that each

question number has different pattern of development. It is very interesting to see

the pattern of development in each number and to analyze deeper the tendency

that occurred based on the implicature characteristics.


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The results showed there were 4 major different patterns, namely:

decreasing ( ), increasing and then decreasing ( ) , decreasing and

then increasing ( ), and increasing ( ). The result of each multiple

choice implicature test is presented in Groups based on the patterns as follows:

a. Decreasing ( )

The Multiple-choice test numbers that showed the decreasing pattern

are:

3. Jane notices that her co-worker Sam is dirty all over, he has holes in hispants, and scratches on his face and hands.

Jane : “What happened to you?”Sam : “I rode my bike to work.”

What does Sam probably mean?a. Today he finally got some exercise biking.b. He hurt himself biking.c. It’s hard to get to work without a car.d. He enjoys biking.

Figure 4.5.Figure Result test no.3


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The correct answer is: B. He hurt himself biking. This type of

implicature belongs to those which violates Maxims of Relevance (be

relevant). 26 out of the 30 semester 2 students answered correctly, 23 out of the

30 semester 4 students answered correctly, and 15 out of the 30 semester 6

students answered correctly. This result also clearly shows that there is no

significant development, since it shows that the higher semester level the less

number of students answered correctly.

5. Jose and Tanya are professors at a college. They are talking about astudent, Derek.

Jose : “How do you like Derek’s essay?”Tanya : “I thought it was well-typed.”

What does Tanya probably mean?a. She did not like Derek’s essay.b. She likes if the student hand in their work type-written.c. She thought the topic Derek had chosen was interesting.d. She doesn’t really remember Derek’s essay.

Figure 4.6. Figure Result test no. 5

The correct answer is: A. She did not like Derek’s essay. This type of

implicature belongs to those which violates Maxims of Manner (clearness and


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unambiguousness), since Tanya did not answer clearly whether she liked it or

not but she implied by her answer that Derek’s essay was nothing more than it

was well-type. 10 out of the 30 semester 2 students answered correctly, 6 out of

the 30 semester 4 students answered correctly, and 3 out of the 30 semester 6

students answered correctly. This result also indicates that there is no

significant development, since just like the result of question number 1 it

shows that the higher semester level the less number of students answered

correctly. The other similarity is that both of these implicatures (number 1 and

5) belong to the implicature that violates the Maxims of Manner.

6. Maria and Frank are working on a class project together but they won’tbe able to finish it by the deadline.

Maria : “Do you think Dr. Gibson is going to lower our grade?”Frank : “Do fish swim?”What does Frank probably mean?

a. He thinks they should change the topic of their project.b. He thinks their grade will not be affected.c. He did not understand Maria’s question.d. He thinks they will get a lower grade.



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The correct answer is: D. He thinks they will get a lower grade. This type

of implicature also belongs to those which violate Maxims of Relevance which

is presented in what commonly known as Pope Question. 25 out of the 30

semester 2 students answered correctly, 22 out of the 30 semester 4 students

answered correctly, and 18 out of the 30 semester 6 students answered

correctly. This result shows that there is also no significant development, from

25 students from the second semester that answered it correctly decreases to 22

students from the fourth semester, then decreases again to 18 students from the

sixth semester.

4. Max and Julie are jogging together.

Max : “Can we slow down a bit? I’m all out of breath.”Julie : “I’m sure glad I don’t smoke.”

What does Julie probably mean?a. She doesn’t want to go slow down.b. She doesn’t like the way Max’s breath smells.c. She thinks Max is out of breath because he is a smoker.d. She is happy she stopped smoking.



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The correct answer is: C. She thinks Max is out of breath because he is a

smoker. This type of implicature also belongs to those which violates Maxims

of Relevance (be relevant). 27 out of the 30 semester 2 students answered

correctly, 27 out of the 30 semester 4 students answered correctly, and 25 out

of the 30 semester 6 students answered correctly. This result was grouped in

the decreasing pattern. This result shows that there is also no significant

development, because it does not show improvement from the second semester

to the fourth semester, and then the number of the students who answered

correctly decreases to 25 in the sixth semester.

9. At a recent party, there was a lot of singing and piano playing. At onepoint, Matt played the piano while Brian sang. Jill was not at the party buther friend Linda was.Jill : “What did Brian sing?”Linda : “I don’t know what he thought he was singing, but Matt

was playing Yesterday.”What does Linda probably mean?

a. Brian sang very badly.b. She was only interested in Matt and didn’t listen to Brian.c. Brian and Matt were not doing the same song.d. The song that Brian sang was ‘Yesterday’.



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The correct answer is: A. Brian sang very badly. This type of implicature

belongs to those which violate Maxims of Quality (truthfulness) in which the

speaker does not express his answer honestly. 11 out of the 30 semester 2

students answered correctly, 10 out of the 30 semester 4 students answered

correctly, and 6 out of the 30 semester 6 students answered correctly. This

result also indicates that there is also no significant development, because the

number is declining from the lowest semester to the highest semester although

the difference between the second semester and the fourth semester is only one

but the difference between the second semester and the sixth semester is 5

students.

12. Two roommates are talking. One has just been talking on the telephone toa woman that he was going to take to see a play.David : “Darn it! Mandy just broke our date for the play. Now I’ve got

two tickets for Saturday night and no one to go with.”Mark : “Hey, David. Have you ever met my sister? She is coming down

to see me this weekend.”

What was Mark’s reason for mentioning that his sister was coming?a. Mark is just thinking ahead to the weekend and can’t remember whether

David has met his sister or not.b. There is nothing Mark can do to help his friend, so he is mentioning a

problem of his own.c. Mark is suggesting that it might be good for David to take Mark’s sister to

the party.d. Mark wants to make sure that David knows that the woman is talking

about is not his sister.


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The correct answer is: C. Mark is suggesting that it might be good for

David to take Mark’s sister to the party. This type of implicature is the

violation of Relevance (be relevant) because the speaker is not answering the

question relevantly. 28 out of the 30 semester 2 students answered correctly, 28

out of the 30 semester 4 students answered correctly, and 20 out of the 30

semester 6 students answered correctly. The result of this number was also

grouped into the decreasing one with the similar explanation as number 8. This

result also proves that there is no significant development, because although

the number of the students who answered correctly relatively high, especially

in the second and fourth semesters (28 students each), but it declines to 20

students in the sixth semester.

14. Rob and Max are talking about their annoying friend, who always asksfor help, Wilson.

Rob : “Wilson is going to borrow my car tomorrow, what do youthink?”

Max : “Don’t feed the stray dog!”

What does Max probably mean?a. Max suggests pay attention only to Max’s own dog.b. Max reminds Rob about the stray dog in the neighborhood.c. Once Rob helps Wilson, Wilson will always ask for a help.


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d. Once Rob feeds the stray dog, Rob will regret it.


The correct answer is: C. Once Rob helps Wilson, Wilson will always

ask for a help. This type of implicature is the implicature that violates the

Maxims of Quality (truthfulness), Max did not express his opinion honestly, he

replied with a saying instead. 29 out of the 30 semester 2 students answered


of the 30 semester 6 students answered correctly. This result shows that there is

a slight decrease that occurs from the lowest semester to the highest semester,

so this cannot be considered as a significant development either.

16. A mother and her daughter Jenny have been discussing the upcomingweekend. Jenny’s parents are leaving town and this is the first time Jennyhas been left at home alone.Mother : “Are you sure you can take care of yourself this weekend?”Jenny : “Can a duck swim, mother?”

What is the point of Jenny’s question?a. She wants to make sure that all duck can swim.b. She is asking if she can go with her mother for the weekend.c. She is trying to change the subject because she is a bit nervous.d. She is telling that she will be able to take care of herself okay.


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The correct answer is: D. She is telling that she will be able to take care

of herself okay. This type of implicature is the Pope Question (relevance). 27

out of the 30 semester 2 students answered correctly, 27 out of the 30 semester

4 students answered correctly, and 26 out of the 30 semester 6 students

answered correctly. This result also cannot be considered as a significant

development. Although the number of the students who answered correctly in

all semester being tested is relatively high, but the number decreases 1 level in

the sixth semester, so it does not show a significant development.

19. Brenda and Sally have lunch every Tuesday. As they meet on thisparticular day, Brenda stops, twirls like a fashion model, and the followingdialogue occurs:Brenda : “I just got a new dress. How do you like it?”Sally : “Well, there certainly are a lot of woman wearing it this year.

When did you get it?”

How does Sally like Brenda’s new dress?a. We can’t tell from what she says.b. She thinks Brenda has good taste in clothes because she’s right in style.c. She likes the dress, but too many women are wearing it.d. She doesn’t like it.


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The correct answer is: D. She doesn’t like it. This type of implicature is

that which violates the Maxims of Quantity (conciseness), Sally’s response was

too wordy and yet it did not express that she liked the dress. 16 out of the 30


answered correctly, and 8 out of the 30 semester 6 students answered correctly.

It is clear from the chart that the result does not show any development at all.

The result shows the decrease from 16 to 10 between the second semester and

the fourth semester, and from 10 to 8 between the fourth semester and the sixth

semester, which means it decreases 6 students between the second semester to

the sixth semester.

b. Increasing then decreasing ( )

The Multiple-choice test numbers that showed this increasing then

decreasing results are as follows:

1. Jack is talking to his housemate Sarah about another housemate, Frank.Jack : “Do you know where Frank is, Sarah?”Sarah : “Well, I heard music from his room earlier.”

What does Sarah probably mean?


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a. Frank forgot to turn the music off.b. Frank’s loud music bothers Sarah.c. Frank is probably in his roomd. Sarah doesn’t know where Frank is.


The correct answer is C. Frank is probably in his room. This type of

implicature belongs to those which violate Maxims of Manner (clearness and

unambiguousness). 18 out of the 30 semester 2 students answered correctly, 25

out of the 30 semester 4 students answered correctly, and 22 out of the 30

semester 6 students answered correctly. This result clearly shows that there is

no significant development, since it shows that the higher semester level the

less number of students answered correctly.

2. Toby and Ally are trying a new buffet restaurant in town. Toby is eatingsomething but Ally can’t decide what to have next.Ally : “How do you like what you’re having?”Toby : “Well, let’s just say it’s colorful.”

What does Toby probably mean?a. He thinks it is important for food to look appetizing.b. He thinks food should not contain artificial colors.c. He wants Ally to try something colorful.d. He does not like his food much.


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The correct answer is D. He does not like his food much. This type of

implicature belongs to those which violate Maxims of Quality (truthfulness). 7

out of the 30 semester 2 students answered correctly, 19 out of the 30 semester

4 students answered correctly, and 9 out of the 30 semester 6 students

answered correctly. This result clearly shows that there is no significant

development, because although there is an increase in the number of students

who answered correctly between the second semester and the fourth semester

(from 7 to 19), but the number is falling down to 9 in the sixth semester.

4. Felicity is talking to her co-worker Brian during a coffee break.Felicity : “So, life must be good for you. I heard you got a nice raise.”Brian : “This coffee is awfully thin. You’d think they’d at least give us

decent coffee.”

What does Brian probably mean?a. He doesn’t want to talk about how much money he makes.b. He likes his coffee strong.c. He is planning to complain about the coffee.d. He doesn’t care very much about money.


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The correct answer is: A. He doesn’t want to talk about how much

money he makes. This type of implicature also belongs to those which violates

Maxims of Relevance (be relevant). 20 out of the 30 semester 2 students

answered correctly, 23 out of the 30 semester 4 students answered correctly,

and 13 out of the 30 semester 6 students answered correctly. This result

indicates that there is no significant development, since there is no difference

of number students who answered correctly between semester 2 and 4 (both

shows 23), then when it comes to the result of the sixth semester number is

falling down to 13 students.

7. Carrie is a cashier in a grocery store. After work, she’s talking to her friendSimon.Carrie : “I guess I’m getting old and ugly.”Simon : “What makes you say that?”Carrie : “The men are beginning to count their change.”

What does Carrie probably mean?a. She has given wrong change a number of times, so people count their

change now.b. Male customers aren’t admiring her anymore like they used to be.c. The store might lose business if she doesn’t look good.d. It gets harder to give correct change as you get older.


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The correct answer is: B. Male customers aren’t admiring her anymore

like they used to be. This type of implicature also belongs to those which

violates Maxims of Relevance (be relevant). 13 out of the 30 semester 2



result shows that there is also no significant development, although the number

of students who answered correctly increases from 13 to 16 between semester 2

and 4, the number is falling again to 9 when it shows what happens in the

semester sixth.

10. Hilda is looking for a new job. She’s having lunch with her friend John.John : “So, how is the job search coming along?”Hilda : “This curry is really good, don’t you think?”

What does Hilda probably mean?a. She is very close to finding a job.b. She is no longer looking for a job.c. She just found a job.d. Her job search isn’t going very well.


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The correct answer is: D. Her job search isn’t going very well. This type

of implicature also belongs to those which violates Maxims of Manner

(clearness and unambiguousness) in which for some extend it can also be

considered as the violation of Relevance because the speaker is not answering

the question relevantly. 15 out of the 30 semester 2 students answered


of the 30 semester 6 students answered correctly. This result also shows that

there is also no significant development, because although the number shows

that there is an increase from 15 to 23 (from the second semester and the fourth

semester), the number of the students who answered correctly is 14 (which is

one level lower than the second semester).

15. Two friends are looking over the various kinds of food at an internationalsupper and trying to decide which kinds to try.

Nida : “There are so many different kinds of food here that I can’tdecide which to take first. Which do you recommend?”

Trixie : “So far I’ve only had some of that one –the yellow one with thereddish sauce. Certainly is colorful, isn’t it?”


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Is Trixie recommending the dish to Nida? How do you know?a. No, because Trixie talked only about how the dish looked, not how it

tasted.b. Yes, because dishes that are colorful and attractive usually taste good.c. No, because Trixie hasn’t tried any other dishes to compare the colorful

one.d. Yes, since Trixie mentioned the dish, we know she thinks it’s good.


The correct answer is: A. No, because Trixie talked only about how the

dish looked, not how it tasted. This type of implicature is the implicature that

violates the Maxims of Quantity (conciseness). 6 out of the 30 semester 2



result shows that there is a development that takes place between the second

semester and the fourth semester (from 6 students to 9 students), however the

number of the students who answered correctly decreases to 5 students in the

sixth semester, so this also cannot be considered as a significant development.

17. When Abe got home, he found that his wife had to use a cane in order towalk.Abe : “What happened to your leg?”


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Wife : “I went jogging.”

Another way the wife could have said the same thing is ……a. Today I finally got some exercise jogging.b. I hurt it jogging.c. It’s nothing serious. Don’t worry about it!d. I hurt it doing something silly.


The correct answer is: B. I hurt it jogging. This type of implicature is

that which violates the Maxims of Relevance (be relevant). 16 out of the 30



correctly. This result also cannot be considered as a significant development.

Although the number of the students who answered correctly increases from 16

to 20 between the second semester and the fourth semester, but it again

decreases to 16 in the sixth semester, so it does not show a significant

development.

20. Rogers is offered a new job with a much higher salary and he is tellingMatt about it.Rogers : “Wilson brothers offered me a job, and it’s very well-paid.”Matt : “Don’t take any wooden nickels!”


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What does Matt probably mean?a. Make sure that Wilson brothers pay with real money!b. Be wise! Don’t be easily fooled by promises!c. Don’t try to make up such a story to me!d. I am not interested to hear about it.

Figure 4.21. Figuret Result test no. 20

The correct answer is: B. Be wise! Don’t be easily fooled by promises!

This type of implicature is that which violates the Maxims of Manner

(clearness and unambiguousness). 19 out of the 30 semester 2 students

answered correctly, 25 out of the 30 semester 4 students answered correctly,

and 22 out of the 30 semester 6 students answered correctly. Although the chart

shows that there is an increase in the number of the students who answered

correctly from 19 to 25 between the second semester and the fourth semester,

but the number decreases 3 level from 25 to 22 between the fourth semester

and the sixth semester, so this result also does not show a real significant

development.

c. Decreasing then increasing ( )

The Multiple-choice test numbers that showed the decreasing then

increasing results are as follows:


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13. Two roommates are talking about what they are going to do during thesummer.Fran : “My mother wants me to stay home and entertain the relatives

when they come to visit us at the beach.”Joan : “Do you have a lot of relatives?”Fran : “Does a dog have fleas?”

How can we best interpret Fran’s commence?a. Fran thinks her relatives are boring.b. Fran doesn’t have very many relatives.c. Fran does have a lot of relatives.d. Fran is asking Joan if a dog usually has fleas.


The correct answer is: C. Fran does have a lot of relatives. This type of

implicature is another example of Pope Question (relevance). 22 out of the 30



correctly. This result also does not show that there is a significant development,

because the number of the students who answered correctly decreases from 22

to 19 from the second semester to the fourth semester. Although the number


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increases in the sixth semester but it is not higher than the second semester, so

it cannot be considered as a significant development.

18. Bill and Peter have been friends since they were children. They roomedtogether in college and travelled Europe together after graduation. Nowfriends have told Bill that they saw Peter dancing with Bill’s wife whileBill was away on business.

Billy : “Peter knows how to be a really good friend, doesn’t he?”

What does Billy probably mean?a. Peter is not acting the way a good friend should.b. Peter and Bill’s wife are becoming really good friends while Bill is away.c. Peter is a good friend and so Bill can trust him.d. Nothing should be allowed to interfere with their friendship.


The correct answer is: A. Peter is not acting the way a good friend

should. This type of implicature is that which violates the Maxims of Quantity

(conciseness) which also contains ironic feature. 15 out of the 30 semester 2



result also does not show a significant development. The number of the correct

student decreases 3 students from 15 to 12 between the second semester and


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the fourth semester and in the sixth semester the number only increases to 14,

just one level lower than the second semester.

d. Increasing ( )

The Multiple-choice test number that showed the increasing result pattern

is only one number which is number 11.

11. Mike is trying to find an apartment in New York City. He just looked at aplace and is telling his friend Jane about it.Jane : “Is the rent high?”Mike : “Is the Pope Catholic?”

What does Mike probably mean?a. He doesn’t want to talk about the rent.b. The rent is high.c. The apartment is owned by the church.d. The rent isn’t very high.


The correct answer is: B. The rent is high. This type of implicature is

Pope Question (relevance) that implies the “yes, of course” answer. 15 out of

the 30 semester 2 students answered correctly, 16 out of the 30 semester 4

students answered correctly, and 20 out of the 30 semester 6 students answered


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correctly. This result indicates that there is a development, as we can see that

15 of the second semester students are correct, 16 of the fourth semester

students, and then followed by 20 of the sixth semester students are correct.

The grouping of the result above showed a very interesting founding. The

implicature Characteristics, which had been distributed in Table 3.1. The

Blueprint of the test used, were not equally found in each group. Even in some

groups, some implicature Characteristics were not found.

The grouping of the result can be described into the following table:

Table 4.5. Result Patterns and Implicature Characteristics

GroupImplicature Characteristics

Sum

RelevancePope

QuestionManner Quality Quantity

3 2 1 2 1 9

3 0 3 1 1 8

0 1 0 0 1 2

0 1 0 0 0 1

Sum 6 4 4 3 3 20

Table 4.5. showed that all of implicature characteristic which violates the

Maxim of Relevance existed in both of the groups which the sixth semester

students showed lower result (decreasing), and not a single of implicature

characteristics which violates the Maxim of Relevance existed in both groups

which the sixth semester students showed better result (increasing). It means from


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6 numbers of the Multiple-choice test given that contents implicature

characteristics which violates the Maxim of relevance the sixth semester students

mostly failed to interpret correctly. While the groups which showed the sixth

semester students gave better result (increasing), from 3 numbers of the Multiple-

choice test that the sixth semester students showed increasing result, 2 of them are

the Pope Question implicature characteristic which has an exact characteristic.

Apparently, it was easier for the sixth semester students to interpret implicature

which has an exact characteristic and, on the other hand, it was not that easy for

the sixth semester students to interpret implicature which violates the Maxim of

Relevance when it was compared with the second and the fourth semester

students.

B. The Discussion

This following section presents the discussion of the result of the present

study. In this section the result of the present study will be analyzed based on the

theoretical framework of the present study and other related theories which have

theoretical explanation on the result of the present study. This is so due to the

results which showed the unexpected ones.

The results of the present study revealed that there is a significant mean

difference of the students’ pragmatic competence of implicature in spoken

English, especially between the second semester students and the sixth semester,

and between the fourth semester and the sixth semester. However, surprisingly the

pattern of the development showed declining which means the second semester


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students and the fourth semester students showed better pragmatic competence of

implicature in spoken English. This is a very interesting phenomenon because it is

somewhat illogical.

The development which shows a good change or a good increase should

normally occur along with the longer the students study the target language, in

this case the higher semester students are expected to show better result. What is

the reason behind this phenomenon? Is it probably because the students do not

have the same proportion to increase their pragmatic competence as the proportion

that they have to increase their organizational competence along with their study?

Do the second language acquisition processes probably focus more on the

organizational competence, such as: grammatical correctness, pronunciation

accuracy, and pay less attention on the pragmatic competence?

Based on the theoretical reviews, implicature as one of pragmatic aspects

is always contextual. Implicature also commonly occurs by violating the principle

cooperation and the Maxims. The effective use of implicature needs such a

similar background of knowledge on the context being discussed possessed both

by the speaker and the hearer. That is why when the conversation happens

between two people from different cultural backgrounds, a cross-cultural

understanding is very prominent. The results of the study show that implicature

does not have a direct correlation with the level of education. The higher level of

education does not affect the students’ pragmatic competence in interpreting

implicature commonly used in English automatically.


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Based on the researcher’s observation during conducting the study,

however, there were notes that can be considered as the affecting factors for this

illogical result. The notes are:

1. The lower level students ( 2nd and 4th semesters ) were very serious

in doing the test given, it was concluded because the lower students

spent the time provided to complete the test even until the last

minutes.

2. The highest level students (6th semester) were relatively quick in

completing the test given. The time provided (30 minutes) seemed

a bit too long for them, because it was still seven to five minutes

left when all the participants had collected the result of the test.

From the notes noticed by the researcher and the surprisingly illogical decreasing

development, there is a big question if the lower semester students really did their

best in completing the test while the highest semester students just took it for

granted and did not show the real language competence. If this is exactly what

caused the illogical development pattern, then there is a big possibility that the

result does not exactly show the real pattern development.

There is also, as an addition, another affecting factor that makes the

possibility of the inaccurate development pattern of the students’ pragmatic

competence in implicature in spoken English. The affecting factor here is that the

test was presented in written form with no intonation signs which, of course, can

also affect the students’ interpretation of implicature. Yet, this affecting factor is

not very strong concerning the second and the fourth semester students also had


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the same test, but this is still the weakness of the research instrument of the

present study.

Apart from the notes that can be the affecting factors that caused the

illogical development pattern above, theoretically it is a cross-cultural

understanding which is very prominent in interpreting implicature, especially for

the students who learn English as a foreign language. English as the target

language is still considered as a foreign language in Indonesia. Based on Higgins’

(2003) study, Indonesia does not even belong to the Outer Circle linguistic

classification of English speaking countries. Two Southeast Asian countries

considered belong to the Outer Circle linguistic classification of English speaking

countries in the Higgins’ study are Singapore and Malaysia. One of the reasons is

that the people there already use English to communicate and to express their

ideas in most of their daily activities formally like in the offices and at schools,

and informally like in the public notices or announcements, so they are not in the

level of learning how to speak English but learning how to communicate and

express their idea in English. This means that, referring to Bachman’s Language

Competence components, the focus on learning English as the target language for

them is almost equally proportional between the organizational competence and

the pragmatic competence. The more important to highlight here is this learning

process does not merely happen at schools, which makes a difference with what

takes place in Indonesia. In Indonesia, the learning process mostly occurs at

schools and even the students who learn the target language do not use the

language in daily life outside schools to communicate, to express, or even to


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survive comparing in those two countries where the public notices in the bus

stations, the train stations, or other public places are already mostly in English.

It is important to draw our attention to the aforementioned condition,

because what we learn at schools, especially when we learn any target language,

most of the time the materials are not that authentic as what happens in daily life.

Even in the conversation books, the texts are designed in such a way to achieve a

specific purpose of the learning process or topic that makes the texts are not

authentic any more. Whereas Implicature mostly takes place in authentic daily

conversations based on the prompt situation flows naturally.

In his study, “Can pragmatic competence be taught?”, Kasper (1997)

answered the question with “No.” He argues that: “Competence, whether

linguistic or pragmatic, is not teachable. Competence is a type of knowledge the

learners possess, develop, acquire, use or lose,”( 1997: 1). Further he suggests

that: “Pragmatic is the study of communicative action in its sociocultural context.”

(ibid). Some experts such as: DeKeyser (2003), and Housen and Pierrard (2006)

would mention about explicit and implicit FFI (Form-focused Instruction). These

instructions are valuable. However, in implicature which is the conveyed meaning

beyond what is literally said, it needs more than explicit or implicit FFI. To

interpret implicature commonly used in the target language, students need what so

called “immersion”. They need to immerse themselves in the authentic daily

conversation done in the target language and, if it is possible, in an authentic

English atmosphere. They need to immerse themselves in order to possess,

acquire, and use it, since it needs more or less the same background of knowledge


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and culture to interpret implicature in English. Especially for the students who

learn the target language as a foreign language, as it is mentioned in the

theoretical framework of the present study: the cross-cultural understanding takes

an important role. Why is it so? Because even in the same cultural background,

implicature is also open to the possibility of different interpretation.

This can explain why there is no direct correlation between the high

English language education and the pragmatic competence of the students

especially in interpreting implicature commonly used in English. The high

English language education does not automatically mean “cultural immersion”,

cultural immersion in the sense of authentic English daily conversation which is

prompt, spontaneous, and contextual.

When we refer to the pragmatic failure theory (Thomas, 1983), the

pragmatic failure that took place in the present study is more on the

sociopragmatic failure rather than on the pragmalinguistic failure, because the

pragmatic failure here involves the student’s belief as much as his/her knowledge

of the language in interpreting Implicature in the target language. As Thomas also

argues that the cultural background of the target language is important to exposure

to be able to communicate properly using the target language, the present study

perceives that immersion will make a big help, for the students will experience

themselves in the cultural background of the target language which in turns

facilitating the cultural background transfer of the target language to take place

not only naturally but also strongly acquired.


86

Concerning the decrease that showed up in the means between the second

semester students’ pragmatic competence and the sixth semester students’

pragmatic competence and between the fourth semester students’ pragmatic

competence and the sixth semester students’ pragmatic competence, there are

some considerations that might cause it. First of all, it is important to make clear

that there is a difference between knowledge and competence. In general,

knowledge can be defined as what people know gained from previous education,

experiences and is also obtained through other sources such as books, lessons, or

lectures, and other people, while competence refers to the ability to perform the

knowledge, the applied skills practically. Based on the theoretical reviews of the

present study, Bachman (1990): ”Pragmatic competence is the knowledge of

appropriate production and comprehension of language in communication”, and

Hymes (1972) that competence doesn’t only refer to knowledge but also the

ability to use it, in short, knowledge and competence are not the same. It is true

that there is an interconnection between knowledge and competence, and the

assumption that someone with a good knowledge usually has a good competence

is not wrong. However, it is not always equally correlated.

The result of the present study that showed the sixth semester students’

pragmatic competence mean is lower than the second and the fourth semester

students’ pragmatic competence should not be perceived as something wrong or

weird. It is a phenomenon that can be explained. Firstly, the sixth semester

students are those who have studied longer than the second and the fourth

semester students. So, it can be assumed that the sixth semester students are


87

relatively gaining more knowledge and experience than those of the second and

the fourth ones. However, the knowledge and experience they have more are not

solely about implicature. They have more knowledge and experience in many

other things and subjects which are, of course, consequently more difficult and

complicated than the lower semesters. It is very sensible to expect that the sixth

semester students would result higher mean in the implicature test, but on the

other hand it is not fair to blame or question their higher level of knowledge and

experience when it turned out their mean in the implicature test was lower than

expected. After all, implicature is the conveyed meaning beyond what is said

which has also something to do with the same background of knowledge and

culture, even for those who have the same cultural background the possibility to

have different or incorrect interpretation is open.

Secondly, the higher level students are supposed to be more

knowledgeable, logical, and reasonable. Mostly they are expected to use more

intellectual words and read more books which are consequently more

sophisticated and complicated with educational terminologies, concepts, and

philosophies. Implicature does not always use the difficult or sophisticated words.

Commonly it uses very simple words as simple as they may be in the daily

conversation. The purpose of using implicature is conveying meaning through

utterances, which for some reasons violating the Maxims and the Cooperative

Principles to avoid FTAs ( read: Politeness in the Theoretical Review of the

Present Study in the chapter II ). So, the tendency in implicature is using more

simple and understandable words in daily conversation in order not to mislead the


88

hearer in interpreting the conveyed meaning. From the implicature test given we

can see how simple the words are, for examples:

4. Jack is talking to his housemate Sarah about another housemate, Frank.Jack : “Do you know where Frank is, Sarah?”Sarah : “Well, I heard music from his room earlier.”What does Sarah probably mean?

3. Jane notices that her co-worker Sam is dirty all over, he has holes in his pants,and scratches on his face and hands.

Jane : “What happened to you?”Sam : “I rode my bike to work.”What does Sam probably mean?

As we can see, almost every single word is as simple as any words in the

authentic daily conversations, very few are as sophisticated as those words in the

text books for a university student, to be more specific English language

university students semester sixth. What I am trying to say here is: if the sixth

semester students misinterpreted the implicature test given despite their high level

of knowledge and their high level of vocabulary comparing the lower semester

students, it does not automatically mean that there is something wrong. Language

is a habit. When someone is more exposed to something more logic, more exact,

no conveyed meaning such as research text books, report books, and technical

books, it needs a little time for him to manage to capture the conveyed meaning

beyond simple things. Again, we always have to see that the students we are

discussing in the present study are those who learn the target language as a foreign

language, which means the exposure of the target language may not happen in

their daily life outside the school or university, which there is also possibility that


89

the target language input for them is only when they are at school. This can also

answer why the lower semester students gained higher mean in their Implicature

test. The lower students are still having Conversation Class where they are

practicing English conversation such as in a role play, dramas, and some other

conversation class activities which more or less the possibilities for Implicature to

take place are bigger. Meaning to say, it is not very surprising when the lower

semester students found it easier to interpret the implicature in the test given.

Table 4.5. Result Patterns and implicature Characteristics (page 80)

shows that none of the 6 numbers of the Multiple-choice DCTs given which

content the violating Maxim of relevance implicature characteristic existed in the

result patterns which show that the fifth semester students answered better than

the two lower semesters. It shows that the fifth semester students found it easier to

interpret better when something is relevance. This might have connection with

their way of thinking which is more intelligent and logic. Table 4.5. also shows

that from 3 numbers of the Multiple-choice which the fifth semester students

resulted in better means, there are 2 numbers belong to the Pope Question

Implicature characteristic, whereas the Pope Question implicature characteristic

implies things that are more exact and conventional. This also might have

something to do with the tendency that the more scientific people the more precise

their way of thinking.

Although we can use those considerations above to explain the

unexpected result of the present study, still there is a pragmatic failure taken place

here, to be more specific, the sociopragmatic failure. For the L2 learners, the


90

sociopragmatic failure is mainly caused by the less exposure on the importance of

understanding any cultural differences between L1 and the target language which

in turns causes the cross-cultural communication breakdown. There is no other

way than providing the students more and more exposure on the cross-cultural

understanding especially in conversation. The cultural immersion where the

students immerse completely in the target language atmosphere holds an

important key.


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CHAPTER V : CONC LUSION AND R ECOMM ENDATION

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

The present study investigated the students’ pragmatic competence of

implicature in spoken English. This chapter provides the conclusion of the present

study derived from the results and the discussion, the suggestions based on the

findings and the recommendation for the future study related to the similar topic.

A. Conclusion

Based on the findings, it can be concluded that:

1. There is a significant mean difference of the students’ pragmatic

competence of implicature in spoken English between the second

semester students, the fourth semester students, and the sixth semester

students. However, the pattern of the development shows that it is

decreasing (Grap 4.1. page 52).

2. There are some affecting factors that caused this illogical development

pattern of the students’ pragmatic competence of implicature in spoken

English, namely:

a. The 2nd and 4th semester students were more serious in

completing the test than the 6th semester students which leads to

a conclusion that the development pattern shown as the result

does not accurately represent the real development pattern.


92

b. The weakness of the test as the research instrument which was

in the written form could affect on the students’ interpretation of

implicature in spoken English.

3. Based on the result patterns and the implicature characteristics (Table

4.5. page 80), the sixth semester students showed a decreasing

development pattern on the implicature that violating the Maxim of

Relevance.

B. Pedagogical Implications

Since the result of the present study led the researcher showed that there

was a sociopragmatic failure here, the researcher will offer some suggestions

based on the pragmatic failure theory by Thomas (1993) and also Kasper (1997)’s

study entitled “Can pragmatic competence be taught?” Thomas enunciates that

“Sociopragmatic failure involves the student’s belief as much as his/her

knowledge of the language”, and that “pragmatic failure in general is an area of

cross-cultural communication breakdown which has received very little attention

from language teachers” (1983: 91), while Kasper argues that: “pragmatic

competence is not teachable,” (1997:1), so the researcher would not suggest

something closely concerning the content of teaching materials or the syllabus.

Some suggestions the researcher offers are as follows:

1. Relating to Thomas (1993)’ statement that pragmatic failure in general is an

area of cross-cultural communication breakdown which has received very little

attention from language teachers, the researcher offers that it might be helpful


93

to add some more activities which facilitate the cultural immersion to the target

language. The activities can be such as once a week, Friday night or Saturday

night, an English free value-laden big movie screen with no assignment where

any students are free to watch and enjoy. When our mind is fresh and have no

burden, we still can get the target language input. The most important is not on

the assessment, but is on the exposure.

2. Based on Kasper (1997:1)’s argument that pragmatic competence is not

teachable and Adopting Vygotsky’s (one of the sociocultural theorists) view

that language is seen as the means by which humans achieve the goal of social

living, the idea of always activating what so called “English Zone” around the

campus can a supporting atmosphere, too. The more the L2 learners use the

target language not only formally in the class but also informally to achieve the

goal of social living the more pragmatic competence have a room to develop.

Very few English language programs in almost all Universities around

Indonesia hold a special program such as English day comparing with some

Senior or Junior High Schools that have started to practice it, just because they

feel that they have enough using the target language in all classes, but language

is not only to communicate in the class which tends to be formal, language is

the means by which humans achieve the goal of social living. The English

atmosphere might surprisingly arise the students’ inner feeling to practice and

transfer their L1 pragmatic competence when they speak using the target

language.


94

Those are two simple suggestions that the researcher offers. The researcher

believes the suggestions can give more or less the cultural immersion a space to

take place.

C. Recommendation for Further Research

In the last sub chapter, the researcher can only give a recommendation for

the extensive future study on the similar topic. The present study which is on the

development of the students’ pragmatic competence, particularly implicature, in

Spoken English is a cross-sectional study which compares only three groups,

namely: semester 2, semester 4, and semester 6. The extensive future study on the

similar topic can be much more holistic if it is done by comparing 4 groups,

namely: semester 2, semester 4, semester 6, and semester 8. This is to see whether

the pattern of the development is more or less the same, or the pattern of the

development shows an increasing significant development with the semester 8.


95

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Dornyei, Z., 1997, Pragmatic awareness and instructed L2learning: An empirical investigation, Paper presented at the AAAL 1997Conference, Orlando, March.

Ellen, B., 1993, Symbolic Representation and Attention Control in PragmaticCompetence, In Kasper & Blum-Kulka (eds): 43-57

Bouton, L. F., 1988, A Cross-cultural Study of Ability to Interpret Implicature inEnglish Word Englishes vol. 7 (p.183-196), England, Pergamon Pressplc.

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Cowen, M., and Shenton, R., 1998, Doctrines of Development, London,Routledge.

Creswell, J.W. , 2003, Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed-method, California, Sage Publication, Inc.

Ellen, B., 1993, Symbolic Representation and Attention Control in PragmaticCompetence, In Kasper & Blum-Kulka (eds): 43-57

Ellis, R. 2008. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. New York. OxfordUniversity Press

Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., Hyams, N. 2003. An Introduction to Language. Boston.Thomson Corporation.

Gall, M.D., Gall, Joyce. P., and Borg, W.R., 2007, Education Research: AnIntroduction, Boston, Pearson Education, Inc.

Gore, C., 2000, ‘The rise and fall of the Washington consensus as a paradigm fordeveloping countries’, World Development, 28(5):789-804.

Grice, H.P.,1975, Logic and Conversation .in Cole,P.& Morgan, J. Syntax andSemantics 3: Speech Acts. New York Academic Press.

Grix, J.,2004, The Foundation of Research, New York, Palgrave MacMillanHickey, S. and Mohan, G., 2003, Relocating Participants within a Radical

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to Transformation? Exploring new approaches to participation indevelopment,’ 27-28 February 2003, Manchester, University ofManchester.

Higgins, C. , 2003, “Ownership” of English in the Outer Circle: An Alternative tothe NS-NNS Dichotomy, TESOL Quarterly Vol. 7. No. 4. Winter 2003.

Hutchinson and Waters, 1987, English for Specific Purposes, Cambridge,Cambridge University Press.

Hymes D. H., 1972, On Communicative Competence, Philadelphia, University ofPennsylvania Press.

Kasper, G., & Blum-Kulka, S., 1993, Interlanguage Pragmatics, New York,Oxford University Press.

Kasper, G. , 1992. Pragmatic Transfer. Second Language Research 8 (3): 203-231Kasper, G. 1997. Can Pragmatic Competence be Taught?. NFLRC Network # 6.

University of Hawai’iLevinson, S., 1983, Pragmatics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Meyer, Charles F., 2009, Introducing English Linguistics. New York. Cambridge

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Inc.Richards and Rodgers. 2001. Approach and Methods in Language Teaching.

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MA: Blackwell Publishing.Viljamaa, H. 2012. Pragmatic Competence of Finnish Learners of English ( An

MA Thesis, University of Turku School of Languages and TranslationStudies English, English Philology).

Vygotsky, L., 1978, Mind in Society:The Development of Higher Psychologicalprocesses (M. Cole, V. John-Streiner, S. Scribener, E. Superman, Eds. )Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Watts, R., 1992, Politeness in Language, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter Gmbh & Co.


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APPENDIX 1 Pragmatic Competence in Implicat ure Multiple Choice Test

Pragmatic Competence in Implicature Multiple Choice Test

Name :Sex :Age :Semester :

Choose the right answer according to your understanding !

1. Jack is talking to his housemate Sarah about another housemate, Frank.Jack : “Do you know where Frank is, Sarah?”Sarah : “Well, I heard music from his room earlier.”

What does Sarah probably mean?e. Frank forgot to turn the music off.f. Frank’s loud music bothers Sarah.g. Frank is probably in his roomh. Sarah doesn’t know where Frank is.

2. Toby and Ally are trying a new buffet restaurant in town. Toby is eatingsomething but Ally can’t decide what to have next.Ally : “How do you like what you’re having?”Toby : “Well, let’s just say it’s colorful.”

What does Toby probably mean?e. He thinks it is important for food to look appetizing.f. He thinks food should not contain artificial colors.g. He wants Ally to try something colorful.h. He does not like his food much.

3. Jane notices that her co-worker Sam is dirty all over, he has holes in hispants, and scratches on his face and hands.Jane : “What happened to you?”Sam : “I rode my bike to work.”What does Sam probably mean?

e. Today he finally got some exercise biking.f. He hurt himself biking.g. It’s hard to get to work without a car.h. He enjoys biking.


98

4. Felicity is talking to her co-worker Brian during a coffee break.Felicity : “So, life must be good for you. I hear you got a nice raise.”Brian : “This coffee is awfully thin. You’d think they’d at least give us

decent coffee.”

What does Brian probably mean?e. He doesn’t want to talk about how much money he makes.f. He likes his coffee strong.g. He is planning to complain about the coffee.h. He doesn’t care very much about money.

5. Jose and Tanya are professors at a college. They are talking about a student,Derek.Jose : “How do you like Derek’s essay?”Tanya : “I thought it was well-typed.”

What does Tanya probably mean?e. She did not like Derek’s essay.f. She likes if the student hand in their work type-written.g. She thought the topic Derek had chosen was interesting.h. She doesn’t really remember Derek’s essay.

6. Maria and Frank are working on a class project together but they won’t beable to finish it by the deadline.Maria : “Do you think Dr. Gibson is going to lower our grade?”Frank : “Do fish swim?”

What does Frank probably mean?e. He thinks they should change the topic of their project.f. He thinks their grade will not be affected.g. He did not understand Maria’s question.h. He thinks they will get a lower grade.

7. Carrie is a cashier in a grocery store. After work, she’s talking to her friendSimon.Carrie : “I guess I’m getting old and ugly.”Simon : “What makes you say that?”Carrie : “The men are beginning to count their change.”


99

What does Carrie probably mean?e. She has given wrong change a number of time, so people count their

change now.f. Male customers aren’t admiring her anymore like they used to be.g. The store might lose business if she doesn’t look good.h. It gets harder to give correct change as you get older.

8. Max and Julie are jogging together.Max : “Can we slow down a bit? I’m all out of breath.”Julie : “I’m sure glad I don’t smoke.”

What does Julie probably mean?e. She doesn’t want to go slow down.f. She doesn’t like the way Max’s breath smells.g. She thinks Max is out of breath because he is a smoker.h. She is happy she stopped smoking.

9. At a recent party, there was a lot of singing and piano playing. At one point,Matt played the piano while Brian sang. Jill was not at the party but herfriend Linda was.Jill : “What did Brian sing?”Linda : “I don’t know what he thought he was singing, but Matt was

playing Yesterday.”

What does Linda probably mean?e. Brian sang very badly.f. She was only interested in Matt and didn’t listen to Brian.g. Brian and Matt were not doing the same song.h. The song that Brian sang was ‘Yesterday’.

10. Hilda is looking for a new job. She’s having lunch with her friend John.John : “So, how is the job search coming along?”Hilda : “This curry is really good, don’t you think?”What does Hilda probably mean?

e. She is very close to finding a job.f. She is no longer looking for a job.g. She just found a job.h. Her job search isn’t going very well.


100

11. Mike is trying to find an apartment in New York City. He just looked at aplace and is telling his friend Jane about it.Jane : “Is the rent high?”Mike : “Is the Pope Catholic?”

What does Mike probably mean?e. He doesn’t want to talk about the rent.f. The rent is high.g. The apartment is owned by the church.h. The rent isn’t very high.

12. Two roommates are talking. One has just been talking on the telephone to awoman that he was going to take to see a play.David : “Darn it! Mandy just broke our date for the play. Now I’ve got

two tickets for Saturday night and no one to go with.”Mark : “Hey, David. Have you ever met my sister? She is coming down

to see me this weekend.”

What was Mark’s reason for mentioning that his sister was coming?e. Mark is just thinking ahead to the weekend and can’t remember whether

David has met his sister or not.f. There is nothing Mark can do to help his friend, so he is mentioning a

problem of his own.g. Mark is suggesting that it might be good for David to take Mark’s sister to

the party.h. Mark wants to make sure that David knows that the woman is talking

about is not his sister.13. Two roommates are talking about what they are going to do during the

summer.Fran : “My mother wants me to stay home and entertain the relatives

when they come to visit us at the beach.”Joan : “Do you have a lot of relatives?”Fran : “Does a dog have fleas?”How can we best interpret Fran’s commence?e. Fran thinks her relatives are boring.f. Fran doesn’t have very many relatives.g. Fran does have a lot of relatives.h. Fran is asking Joan if a dog usually has fleas.


101

14. Rob and Max are talking about their annoying friend, who always asks forhelp, Wilson.Rob : “Wilson is going to borrow my car tomorrow, what do you

think?”Max : “Don’t feed the stray dog!”

What does Max probably mean?e. Max suggests pay attention only to Max’s own dog.f. Max reminds Rob about the stray dog in the neighborhood.g. Once Rob helps Wilson, Wilson will always ask for a help.h. Once Rob feeds the stray dog, Rob will regret it.

15. Two friends are looking over the various kinds of food at an internationalsupper and trying to decide which kinds to try.Nida : “There are so many different kinds of food here that I can’t

decide which to take first. Which do you recommend?”Trixie : “So far I’ve only had some of that one –the yellow one with the

reddish sauce. Certainly is colorful, isn’t it?”

Is Trixie recommending the dish to Nida? How do you know?e. No, because Trixie talked only about how the dish looked, not how it

tasted.f. Yes, because dishes that are colorful and attractive usually taste good.g. No, because Trixie hasn’t tried any other dishes to compare the colorful

one.h. Yes, since Trixie mentioned the dish, we know she thinks it’s good.

16. A mother and her daughter Jenny have been discussing the upcomingweekend. Jenny’s parents are leaving town and this is the first time Jenny hasbeen left at home alone.Mother : “Are you sure you can take care of yourself this weekend?”Jenny : “Can a duck swim, mother?”

What is the point of Jenny’s question?e. She wants to make sure that all duck can swim.f. She is asking if she can go with her mother for the weekend.g. She is trying to change the subject because she is a bit nervous.h. She is telling that she will be able to take care of herself okay.


102

17. When Abe got home, he found that his wife had to use a cane in order towalk.Abe : “What happened to your leg?”Wife : “I went jogging.”

Another way the wife could have said the same thing is ……e. Today I finally got some exercise jogging.f. I hurt it jogging.g. It’s nothing serious. Don’t worry about it!h. I hurt it doing something silly.

18. Bill and Peter have been friends since they were children. They roomedtogether in college and travelled Europe together after graduation. Nowfriends have told Bill that they saw Peter dancing with Bill’s wife while Billwas away on business.Bill : “Peter knows how to be a really good friend, doesn’t he?”

What does Billy probably mean?e. Peter is not acting the way a good friend should.f. Peter and Bill’s wife are becoming really good friends while Bill is away.g. Peter is a good friend and so Bill can trust him.h. Nothing should be allowed to interfere with their friendship.

19. Brenda and Sally have lunch every Tuesday. As they meet on this particularday, Brenda stops, twirls like a fashion model, and the following dialogueoccurs:Brenda : “I just got a new dress. How do you like it?”Sally : “Well, there certainly are a lot of woman wearing it this year.

When did you get it?”

How does Sally like Brenda’s new dress?e. We can’t tell from what she says.f. She thinks Brenda has good taste in clothes because she’s right in style.g. She likes the dress, but too many women are wearing it.h. She doesn’t like it.

20. Rogers is offered a new job with a much higher salary and he is telling Mattabout it.Rogers : “Wilson brothers offered me a job, and it’s very well-paid.”Matt : “Don’t take any wooden nickels!”


103

What does Matt probably mean?e. Make sure that Wilson brothers pay with real money!f. Be wise! Don’t be easily fooled by promises!g. Don’t try to make up such a story to me!h. I am not interested to hear about it.


104

APPENDIX II The Multiple C hoice DCTs Results

The Multiple Choice Test Results

DATA

Score semester

1 34 second semester






























31 27 fourth semester









105























61 27 sixth semester



























106






107

APPENDIX III Level of Diffic ulty

Level of Difficulty

Questionnumber

difficulty index Criteria

Semester 2 Semester 4 semester 6 Semester 2 Semester4

semester6

1 0.93 0.97 0.87 very easy very easy easy2 0.23 0.37 0.30 Difficult moderate moderate3 0.87 0.77 0.50 Easy easy moderate4 0.67 0.77 0.43 Moderate easy moderate5 0.33 0.20 0.10 Moderate difficult difficult6 0.83 0.73 0.60 Easy easy moderate7 0.43 0.53 0.30 Moderate moderate moderate8 0.90 0.90 0.83 very easy very easy easy9 0.37 0.33 0.20 Moderate moderate Difficult

10 0.50 0.77 0.47 Moderate easy Moderate11 0.50 0.53 0.67 Moderate moderate Moderate12 0.93 0.93 0.67 very easy very easy Moderate13 0.73 0.63 0.73 Easy moderate easy14 0.97 0.93 0.90 very easy very easy very easy15 0.23 0.30 0.17 Difficult moderate difficult16 0.90 0.90 0.87 very easy very easy easy17 0.53 0.67 0.53 Moderate moderate moderate18 0.50 0.37 0.47 Moderate moderate moderate19 0.53 0.33 0.27 Moderate moderate difficult20 0.93 0.83 0.73 very easy easy easy


108

APPENDIX IV Stat isics Result

Statisics Results

Oneway

Descriptives

Score

N Mean

Std.

Deviation Std. Error

95% Confidence

Interval for Mean

Minimum Maximum

Lower

Bound

Upper

Bound

second semester 30 32.83 2.306 .421 31.97 33.69 26 36

fourth semester 30 32.77 2.609 .476 31.79 33.74 27 37

sixth semester 30 30.60 3.024 .552 29.47 31.73 25 36

Total 90 32.07 2.832 .298 31.47 32.66 25 37

ANOVA

Score

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 96.867 2 48.433 6.832 .002

Within Groups 616.733 87 7.089

Total 713.600 89


109

Post Hoc Tests

Multiple Comparisons

score

Tukey HSD

(I) semester (J) semester

Mean

Difference

(I-J) Std. Error Sig.

95% Confidence Interval

Lower Bound Upper Bound

second semester fourth semester .067 .687 .995 -1.57 1.71

sixth semester 2.233* .687 .005 .59 3.87

fourth semester second semester -.067 .687 .995 -1.71 1.57

sixth semester 2.167* .687 .006 .53 3.81

sixth semester second semester -2.233* .687 .005 -3.87 -.59

fourth semester -2.167* .687 .006 -3.81 -.53

*. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.

Homogeneous Subsets

Score

Tukey HSDa

semester N

Subset for alpha = 0.05

1 2

sixth semester 30 30.60

fourth semester 30 32.77

second semester 30 32.83

Sig. 1.000 .995

Means for groups in homogeneous subsets are displayed.


110

Score

Tukey HSDa

semester N

Subset for alpha = 0.05

1 2

sixth semester 30 30.60

fourth semester 30 32.77

second semester 30 32.83

Sig. 1.000 .995

Means for groups in homogeneous subsets are displayed.

a. Uses Harmonic Mean Sample Size = 30.000.


111

APPENDIX V The Letter of Conse nt

The Letter of Consent


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