Background of Study INTRODUCTION

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter contains five sections that describe the nature of this study. Such sections consist of the background of the study, the problem identification, the problem limitation, the problem formulation, the objectives of the study, and the benefits of the study.

A. Background of Study

English has already become one of the most widely taught, learnt and spoken language in the world today. It is used as a first language by over 300 million people in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA, and as a second or foreign language by over 700 million people in the countries of Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, and of the island nations of the world Kachru and Nelson 2006. Because of the number of English users both native and non- native speakers is high, the use of English as the medium of communication between those people who have different cultural background is unavoidable. This condition automatically makes English as a lingua franca. In order that the communication between native and non-native or non-native and non-native speakers becomes mutually intelligible, a good command on communicative competence is required to both participants. The term communicative competence itself was firstly coined by Dell Hymes Foster, 2013: 8; Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor, 2008; Russell, 1981:1. It can be simply defined as ―what a speaker needs to know to communicate 2 appropri ately within a particular language community‖ Saville- Troike, 2006:100. Later on, it was developed by many theorists such as Celci-Murcia et. al. 1995, Canale and Swain 1980, Bachman 1990, etc. This term was firstly derived from Chomsky notion on Competence Chomsky, 1968. This term, according to Chomsky, refers to the unconscious knowledge that people, at any stage language development, have of the grammatical features they speak. Foster 2013:8 says that the restriction of competence to grammar only was challenged by Dell Hymes. According to Hymes, Chomsky‘s notion on competence is too narrow. It is not only grammar. Speakers have systematic knowledge about how to use their grammar to produce appropriate communications for a certain communication i.e., pragmatic knowledge. Thus, he coined the term ‗communicative competence‘ for a broader notion than that of Chomsky‘s notion on competence. Communicative competence itself consists of several sub-competencies which vary among theorists. Those competencies are linguistic competence, social competence, cultural competence, discourse competence, actional competence, strategic competence, and pragmatic competence. Those competences are required in communication in order to achieve mutual intelligible among participants. In communication, the last competence is really essential. Speakers who do not have a good command on pragmatic competence will fall in to the risk of appearing uncooperative at the least, or, even more seriously, they will be considered to be rude or insulting Bardovi-Harlig et al. 1991. 3 To avoid the risk due to the defective pragmatic knowledge, the need of teaching pragmatic to the English learners is vital. Pragmatic knowledge has a close relationship with sociocultural values and beliefs of the community where the target language is spoken. Thus, in terms of pragmatic knowledge input, ESL learners have a better chance of having adequate and abundant input than EFL learners Kondo 2002. In other words, ESLEnglish as a Second Language learners certainly have an advantage in acquiring pragmatic knowledge. Considering the position of English in Indonesia as a foreign language, it seems that English learners of Indonesia can not take great benefit of learning English pragmatic through direct interaction with native speakers of English since English is not widely used in the society. In this context, English as a Foreign Language, the classroom becomes the central site for the development of learners‘ pragmatic competence Kim and Hall 2002; Wichien and Aksornjarung 2011. In the classroom site, there are two possible learning resources, teachers themselves and learning materials or textbooks. However, EFL teachers, as one of learning resources in the classroom, do not feel confident enough to teach pragmatics because many EFL teachers have learned English as a Foreign Language. Thus their capability on providing learners with enough opportunities of learning pragmatics may also be rather limited Kim and Hall 2002.Thus, the role of English textbooks in English as a foreign language context is quite vital. Teachers and learners will rely so much on the role of English textbooks as the source of pragmatic information. 4 Meanwhile, many studies on evaluating textbooks such as by Vellenga 2004, Peiying 2007, and Wichien and Aksornjarung 2011 reported that most of English textbooks are not able to enhance learners‘ pragmatic competence because they do not sufficiently provide pragmatic information for students to learn English. Those studies reported that the number and quality of pragmatic information which cover speech act information, metapragmatic information, and sociopragmatic information were not sufficient to develop learners‘ pragmatic competence. The presence of such information in English textbooks is quite essential since they will help learners to acquire pragmatic competence. According to Kasper and Schmidt 1996 learners‘ input should provide at least pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic information. To add, Trosborg and Kasper as cited in Pohl, 2004: 6 ―advocate the sharpening of learners awareness of appropriate pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic behavior through explicit teaching and metapragmatic treatment of pragmatic features by way of description, exp lanation, and discussion‖. When the features of pragmatic information are noticed by learners due to their presence in the textbooks, the input is potentially to become intake and maybe stored in the long term memory Ishihara and Cohen, 2010: 101. In addition, based on several research studies, materials which include metapragmatic information or use explicit teaching of pragmatic seem to be more effective rather than that of implicit teaching of pragmatic Ishihara and Cohen, 2010: 103. Thus, it can be inferred that the materials which provides learners 5 with information on linguistic features and an understanding how to use such linguistic features relate to the contextual factors have a positive contribution to the learners‘ achievement in pragmatic competence. Regarding English textbooks in EFL context, Indonesia has abundant source of learning materials for students. Many private publishers published English textbooks for different level to accommodate students‘ needs on English. Even, the government also has several copyright English textbooks for every educational levels in which all textbooks are distributed in the form of electronic books freely. The effort to provide such textbooks by the government is to make sure that all Indonesian learners can have access to qualified textbooks freely or with low price because any publishers are allowed to print such electronic books without limits in several conditions. One of the conditions is that the book price does not exceed 15 from the total expense of book production National Education Minister Act No 2 year 2008. English textbooks circulated in Indonesia, of course, are influenced by the English curriculum implemented by the government. English textbooks which use former curriculum will not be used anymore and are replaced with ones which use current curriculum. For instance, currently, Indonesia has renewed its curriculum with the new one, from KTSP or school based curriculum to Curriculum 2013. Practically, there is no significant difference in language content between the former curriculum and the current curriculum, except the inclusion of character building in the current curriculum. In addition, the position of pragmatic competence in the current curriculum is still of important. It can be seen in the 6 statement ‗Menganalisis fungsi sosial, struktur teks, dan unsur kebahasaan pada teks … sesuai dengan konteks penggunaannya‘ Analyzing social function, text structu re, and language component of text… based on its context of use. ‗Based on its contex t of use‘ is a distinctive phrase which refers to pragmatic competence. This phrase is included in several Kompetensi Dasar Basic Competences of curriculum 2013. Considering the English textbooks circulating in Indonesia, studies focusing on English textbooks from pragmatic aspects are not many like any other topics. That is why this study will be possible to be carried out in Indonesian context.

B. Problem Limitation