the questionnaire. The interview is aimed to confirm the validity of the data regarding the tribe of the students.
1.2 Research Problem
Research Problem in this research based on the background of the study is different tribes contributes different way in certain expression especially gratitude
expression, and mother tongue become the reason that made this differenciation.
1.3 Research Question
1. What are the variations of gratitude expression made by EFL learners from English Department of Faculty of Letters in Jember University academic
year 2010 in expressing their gratitude based on interlanguage pragmatics studies?
2. What are the most performed strategies by the students in expressing gratitude?
3. In what way does L1 affect the choice of L2 of gratitude expression?
1.4 The Scope of the Study
The function of the scope of the study is to avoid abroad discussion of this study. This study focuses on second language use by EFL learners in the way of
expressing their gratitude with different language ethnicity; Javanese, Using and Madurese. The questionnaire of this research uses DCT method and the theme of
the questionnaire focuses on the familiarity and the social status. In this research, familiarity is addressed as the interaction between the participants with their
friends while social status is the interaction between the participants with their elders or with the one with higher social status.
1.5 The Goals of the Study
There are several goals in this research: 1. To find out what is the variation strategy that used by the students in
English Department of Faculty of Letters Jember University academic
year 2010 express their gratitude based on interlanguage pragmatics studies.
2. To know the most used strategies in gratitude expression based on the
taxonomy of thanking by Cheng. 3. To investigate whether there is any distinction in expressing gratitude in
students of English Department academic year 2010 whose L1 background is different in certain situations of DCT
1.6 The Organization of the Thesis
This thesis is organized into five chapters that consists of introduction, theoretical review, research methodology, discussion, and conclusion. The first
chapter presents the background of the study, the problems to discuss, the scope of the study, the goals of the study, and the organization of the thesis. The second
chapter, namely theoretical review, deals with the theories supporting this research and several previous studies on similar research area. The third chapter
contains the methodology for doing this research that involves the process in collecting and analyzing the data. The fourth chapter is the discussion and the
results of the research. In fourth chapter, this research provide the results of the most used strategies of gratitude expression by EFL learners of academic year
2010 in English Department of Faculty of Letters, Jember University, the
variation of gratitude expression made by EFL learners and also in what way does L1 affect the choice of L2 of gratitude expression. The last chapter contains the
conclusion of the analysis of the study.
CHAPTER 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This chapter provides the theory needed to achieve the goals of this research. The main theory used to investigate the problems to discuss is theory of
Interlanguage pragmatics in EFL context. The theory is supported by other theories like Austin’s 1962 theory about speech act and gratitude expression,
Cheng’s theory of taxonomy of thanking, and Vygotsky‘s 1986 theory of socio- cultural. Beside those theories, this research provide Javanese, Madurese, and
Using concept of communication because it plays a crucial role in understanding Javanese, Madurese, and Using speech act performance. Apart from the theories
above, there are also previous researches on the same field of study presented in this chapter.
2.1 Previous Research
There are some researchers that have investigated gratitude expression in their research using Interlanguage pragmatics theory. The first research entitled
“An Interlanguage Pragmatics Research of Expressing Gratitude by Iranian EFL Learners—A Pilot Study” was conducted in 2009 by Suleiman and Farnia,
students from University Sains Malaysia. They investigate the differences of expressing gratitude between Iranian EFL learners and native speakers; and the
level of proficiency in the relationship of Iranian EFL learners and native speakers. The subjects are divided into two groups—intermediate and advanced
learners—that consist of 10 respondents each. The respondents are university students majoring in English language in Iran. Suleiman and Farnia use Discourse
Completion Task DCT adopted from Cheng 2005 that provides 14 questionnaires. In addition to that, they also employ demographic survey to
analyze some characteristics used by the subjects to learn English. This survey invokes interviewing and observing the subjects’ frequency in learning English
through radio and television. There are two findings in their research. First, the Iranian EFL learners and native speakers use the same type of strategy in
responding the 14 questionnaires. Second, the frequency of the use of the strategy
