Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Humans use language to communicate with others. Generally, the use of spoken language in communication is more often performed than written language. It is similar to what happenes in the classroom when interactions between teachers and students occur. This type of learning activity in the classroom that involves the interaction of teachers and students is one form of language uses for social roles. In the context of classroom learning, language has role as interactional function. Brown and Yule 1996: 14 describe the function of language becomes transactional function and interactional functions. Transactional function is a function to reveal the contents, while the interactional function is a function of language in social relations and personal attitudes. Related to the use of language in certain professions and institutions, Maher and Rokos in Santoso, 2002: 4 presents three main characteristics of the use of language. First, there is an imbalance in power relations or mutual power between the participants involved, ie between speaker and listener. The imbalance allows participants utilizing language that has the power to dominate the speaking. Second, there is a fixed set of language patterns. Third, there is the exchange of conversations that tend to reinforce a professional identity that is determined by the context. 1 commit to user Learning interaction is one form of oral discourse interactional function. Learning discourse is characterized by its existing mutual interaction between teachers and students. Interactional discourse is characterized by a reciprocal response from the speaker and listener Yowono, 2005: 94. This opinion is in line with Hawthorn in Mills, 1997: 5 who states that discourse is a linguistic communication between the transaction of speakers and addressees, an interpersonal activity whose form is determined by its social purpose. In the context of classroom activities, the relationship of teachers and students affects the learning effectiveness. Teacher-student relationship is reflected in the use of language in the learning interaction. Essentially, the way of teachers’ interaction to students reflects the teacher’s view to their students’ position. Teachers can look at the student based on the concept of a superior- subordinate relation, the concept as a students’ motivator and facilitator or the concept of as a students’ partner. It is the realization of a system of thought and belief of a teacher. In other words, the use of language by teacher can influence the students’ view both to teacher and to the subject. In the classroom, a teacher has role not only as the knowledge source, but also as the controller of teaching learning process. Teacher controls all the activities in the classroom in order to reach the goal of learning. Teacher also evaluates the teaching learning process to know how far students’ understanding to the lesson. Teacher can be as an assesor to state right or not the students’ arguments. In other words, teacher can influence and control the students’ action commit to user in the classroom. From the explanation above, it can be inferred that teacher has more power and authority than that of students in the classroom. Right now, most schools in Indonesia apply the communicative approach in teaching English. Students are expected have the ablility to develop their communicative competence in real situation. According to Shastri 2010: 4 communicative competence refers to the knowledge of how to use the language and the capacity to produce infinite number of sentences. In addition, communicative competence also refers to the capacity of using language according to the purpose. The purpose can be in the forms of making request, complaint, order, apology etc. This leads to the knowledge of the functions of the language. It means that students are expected not only master the English grammar, but also communicate by using English correctly in a particular context. Because of that, the students should be given more time to be active in the classroom than that of teacher. The teacher should be able as a facilitator and motivator for students. However, in application, most of the classrooms in Indonesia are still teacher-centered orientation. Teacher still dominates the teaching learning process. It means that the application of communicative approach in Indonesia still does not run well. This is the example of the application of power in language by a teacher in the classroom. Utterance context in the class when a teacher gives chance to the students to answer the question 1 Teacher : Sandi, try to answer the question no. 9 2 Sandi : {Students look afraid} context 3 Teacher : Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. commit to user 4 Teacher : That’s ok if you make mistake. 5 Sandi : gerund is ....verb sir. the voice becomes slow and weak 6 Other students laugh hearing the student’s answer, because the answer is wrong and the voice becomes slow and weak context. 7 Teacher : Ok, no problem with your answer. The most important thing is that you can answer. 8 Teacher : Now, the man who laughs loudly. Answer the next question. From the conversation above, it can be seen that teacher dominates the class and the teacher shows his power by using the imperative sentence. The concept of power according to Fairclough 1995: 1 is conceptualized both in terms of asymmetries between participants in discourse events, and in terms of unequal capacity to control how texts are produced, distributed, and consumed and hence the shapes of texts in particular sociocultural contexts. A range of properties of texts is regarded as potentially ideological, including features of vocabulary and metaphors, grammar, presuppositions and implicatures, politeness conventions, speech-exchange turn-taking systems, generic structure, and style. Van Dijk 2001: 300 says that power involves control from member of a people group to others in form of action, so the power group can limit the freedom of other group that will influence their mind. It implies that the people who have power can control the behaviour of people who under control. Moreover, Brown and Gilman 1960: 255 say that the power can be in the forms of physics, prosperity, age, sex, or institutional role. Similarly, according to Thomas 1995: 127, there are three kinds of power; legitimate power the power which comes from role, age, or status, referent power the power which is gained commit to user by someone because he or she is admired and many people wants to be like him or her, and the expert power the power which is gotten by someone because of his or her knowledge or skills. In the context of teacher in the classroom, a teacher has legitimate power and expert power because the teacher has the higher social status than that of students and the teacher is assumed as the source of knowledge. If the teacher is admired by students, it means that a teacher also has referent power. The form of teacher’s power in the classroom can be seen from the teacher’s expression both explicitely and implicitely. It can be in the forms of warning, instruction, question, argumentation and etc. In other words, some of teachers’ expressions are known containing the power manifestation after analyzed deeply, for example when a teacher says “listen to me”. This sentence is not only a common argument from a teacher that students must give attention to teacher. However, according to Fairclough 1989: 125 if the sentence above is analyzed based on the context and linguistics elements such as the relationship between speaker and listener, transivity, modus, modality and active-passive, that sentence is probably the form of power owned by teacher to students. Linguistic elements can be used to know how a sentence has power manifestation the speaker’s speech acts. One of approaches which uses linguistic elements to know the power manifestation is critical discourse analysis CDA. Critical discourse analysis approach is not only to describe the use of language in a discourse, but also to correlate between the use of language and the power applied by a group of people who has its power. In critical discourse analysis, commit to user language is an important factor to see the power imbalance in a society. According to Fairclough 1989: 109-111 critical discourse analysis has three dimensions that have to be analized. They are text, discourse practice and sociocultural practice. Analysis in text dimension is a descriptive analysis to know how power is manifested in text through vocabulary, grammar, and textual- structure. The result of analysis in this dimension will be interpreted in the discourse practice dimension. Then, the analysis is continued by finding the explanation in the sociocultural practice dimension. Suharyo and Irianto 2009: 26 in their research argue that the manifestation of power in classroom has some functions: 1. Teacher can manage or control the classroom. 2. It will force students to pay attention, trust, and obey toward the teacher’s instruction. 3. In order to make students believe with teacher’s talk. 4. Students respects to teacher. and 5. It is to differentiate between the teacher’s and students’ status. Right now, the research about the use of power in language in the English teaching classroom especially in Indonesia is still rare. While according to Fairclough, the expert of critical discourse analysis, that in classroom, there is a form of power that can be revealed by using critical discourse analysis. Because of that, the researcher is interested in conducting a reseach about the use of power and langauge in the English language Teaching ELT classroom and knowing which kind of language of power mostly used during ELT classroom. commit to user

B. Problem Statements