not response the teacher’s request. Finally the students requested to repeat the listening passage. From the dialogue [7], it can be known how the teacher did not
get the information from the student.
Explanation Asking as one form of teacher power in the classroom essentially is a
command act in introgative form. Asking is the expression where the speaker wants information from the hearer. In the context of classroom, the teacher
delivers the question because she or he expects the students can give the information what the teacher wants. The dialogue [7] showed how the teacher
expected the more information from the student’s answer. However, the teacher could not get what she wanted. The student just translated from her answer into
Bahasa Indonesia turn 7. Finally the student requested the teacher to repeat the listening record.
b. The Representation of Power in Assertive Speech Act
Assertive is one of speech acts that can represent the form of power, whether by teacher or students. According to Searle 1976, speech acts has
function to inform others about something. This function is very important in the classroom context, because the process in transfering knowledge, skills, and
attitude in the learning process can not be separated from the process of giving information. Jumadi 2005: 88 argues that the assertive speech acts that have the
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power representation owned by a teacher in classroom discourse such as assertion, suggestion, maintain, and appraise.
1. Representation of Power in Assertive Act Assertion act done by a teacher is commonly found in classroom
discourse. A teacher uses this act in the classroom, such to ensure the students with the teacher’s argument to make they agree with teacher’s idea. The form of
assertion act can be seen in the next dialogue. [8] Teacher
: No. 4. Rina menjawab itu annoy but the reason she needs repetation.1 Sambil lalu dipending mungkin another ada yang
tau supporting sentencenya kayak apa.2 Teacher
: Diana...3 Student
: Gets something difficult. 4 Teacher
: Gets something difficult. 5 How do you know?6 Student
: He does not understand anything.7 Teacher : He does not understand anything.8 So, is it same with be
breeze?9 Jadi sama dengan be breeze?10 So, actually be breeze at breath fluency something that’s quiet difficult.11
Remember that when we try to understand about the context, mereka masuk ke sentence is not enough, but we have to know
about the intonation.12 Buktinya intonation dari the speaker kadang mengantar kita ke pemahaman yang sebenarnya.13
Let me repeat.14 {Teacher plays the listening recording}.
Teacher : Focus on the phrase freezy.15
After playing the listening recording, the teacher started discussing the answer with the students
Teacher : I don’t understand anything.16 It makes me.....170 Students : Crazy18
Teacher :Crazy.19
Kalau Bahasa
Indonesianya anda
akan menyatakannya seperti ini.20 Saya tidak tahu sama sekali,
males saya, jengkel saya.21 So, actually from the intonation anda tahu seperti apa tadi kan?22
Students : Annoy23 Teacher : Annoy....24 OK. Let’s go.25
Description The dialogue [8] describes how the teacher wanted not only the answer
from the studen, but also the supporting sentence or the reason from their answer.
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This dialogue also showed the teacher power representation in asserting act. The asserting act done by the teacher was to omit the doubt of the students’ answers.
In this dialogue the teacher gave the question from the listening passage about the meaning of breeze. First, the teacher asked Rina to answer the question and gave
the supporting sentence. Rina answered it “annoy”. When the teacher asked to give the supporting sentence, Rina could not give it even she wanted to repeat the
listening recording. The teacher did not accept Rina’s request and the teacher offered to other students to answer the question. Then the teacher appointed Diana
to answer the question. Diana answer “Gets something difficult”. Diana’s answer was different with Rina’s answer. When the teacher asked Diana to give suppoting
sentence, Diana said that the speaker says “He does not understand anything”. To response the Diana’s answer, the teacher wanted the clarification by
repeating the Diana’s answer and asking the similarity between the Diana’s answer and breeze. The teacher seemed not satisfied with Diana’s answer and
gave the explanation to understand the context of the speaking and listened the speaker’s intonation. Teacher argued that the speaker’s intonation can bring the
contextual meaning. It shows that the teacher used the asserting act to ensure the students toward their answers. Teacher did it because the students’ answers were
different each another. Then the teacher repeated the listening recording and asked students to focus on the phrase breeze.
After playing the listening recording, the teacher explained the meaning of breeze in Bahasa Indonesia and the intonation of the speaker. In turn 21, 22,
and 23 the teacher asserted the meaning of breeze. So the students understood. It
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can be said that the teacher’s power in asserting the differences among students’ answer will omit the students’ doubt toward the answer.
Viewed from the the using of pronoun, in this dialogue the teacher used pronoun “we” or “kita” when remained students to understand the context of the
speaking and the the intonation of the speaker. According to Fairclough 1989: 127-128, the use of pronoun “we” shows the solidarity of people where the
participants are on the same ground of ideas or beliefs. It means that the teacher assumed that she had similarity status with the students as the English foreign
language speakers. However, in the turn 20 and 22, the teacher used pronoun “anda” means the teacher reduced the solidarity level where the use pronoun
“anda” same with “you” but it has has higher solidarity that “kamu”.
Interpretation When there are the different arguments whether between students to
student or between the students and teacher, the teacher has to give the assertive utterances to ensure the students and in order to omit the doubt among students. In
the dialogue [8], there are different answers from Rina and Diana about the meaning of “breeze”. In the beginning, the teacher asked Rina to support her
answer with the supporting sentence or the reason. Because Rina could not give it, the teacher pointed Diana to answer the question. However the Diana’s answer
was diffrent with Rina’s answer. So there were two answers from one question. Because there were two answers, the teacher needed to assert the right
answer. In order to make the students could answer correctly, the teacher
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explained the importance of understanding the speaking context and the speaker’s intonation and asked the students focused on the “be breeze” phrase. In this
context, it can be assumed that the teacher wanted to assert that in understanding the meaning of phrase “be brezee” the students must consider the context of
speaking and the intonation of the speaker”. It also happened in turn 21, 22, and 23 where the teacher asserted the meaning of breeze from the speaker’s
intonation. Finally the students could understand the meaning of breeze. From the dialogue above, it can be concluded that the teacher successfully ensured students
toward the doubt in answering the question.
Explanation From the dialogue [8], it can be seen that the teacher manifested her power
in asserting act by performing the ideology that the teacher was someone who gave knowledge in the classroom and decide the true or not the answer. The
teacher gave explanation how to understand the meaning of a phrase. It shows that the teacher is a knowledgeable person. By sharing her knowledge she hoped the
students could follow her idea. In addition, the teacher also prefered asking students to think by using their own knowledge to understand English words
based on the context rather than asking them to open the dictionary. In this dialogue it also can be seen that the teacher has the authority to ask
the clarification from the students’ answer. The teacher asked the student to clarify her answer five times, two times after Diana answered the questions and
three times after Diana gave supporting sentence. In addition, in this dialogue, the
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teacher did not gave clarification toward students’ answer whether it was correct or incorrect. Consequently, Diana might assume that Rina’s answer was incorrect,
so she chose different answer.
2. Representation of Power in Maintain Act [9] Teacher
: I have a game dimana nanti saya akan hitung sampai 20 dan nanti berhenti dan kertas ini tidak boleh berhenti.1
The teacher shows some pieces of paper that will be used for the game. Suddenly students make noisy and refuse that game.
Teacher : I have no. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.2 Ada lima soal. Siapa yang kebagian ini paper harus menjawab soal.3
Students still make noisy to refuse the teacher’s proposal. Students : Gak mau pak.... gak mau....4
Teacher : Jangan biasakan menjawab tidak mau.5 Harapan saya yang
penting dijawab.6 Pertanyaan ada di soal selanjutnya.7 Teacher shows the material book.
Description The dialogue [9] occured when the class entered the middle of teaching
learning activity. The dialogue describes the situation where the teacher proposed the game to students in the classroom. This game had purpose to make the
learning will be more enjoyable and to refresh the classroom atmosphere. Teacher argued that the situation of the class was not condussive yet after having lecture
around one hour. However, the students did not agree with the teacher’s proposal and refused it. The teacher continued his argument by giving explanation that he
had five pieces of paper with numbers one until five and had prepared five questions that must be answered. Listening the teacher’s explanation, the students
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still refused the teacher’s idea. Then the teacher adviced students to not refuse his idea. The teacher just expected students could answer the question given. The
teachers added that the question were from the book that they had. Finally the students agreed with the teacher’s idea.
Interpretation Teacher as one who has an authority in the classroom, can force his or her
idea to students. The force used in the classroom has the purpose in order to the teacher’s idea can be accepted or agreed by students. From the turn 5, 6 and
7, we can see that the teacher endeavorded to maintain his idea in order to be accepted by students. In the first sentence of maintaining act was the prohibiton
form. Teacher used in suggested students to not complain with his idea. Essentially, the prohibition is a negative form of command expression. Then the
teacher started lowering the command by giving the teacher’s expectation. To make his idea was accepted, the teacher informed that the question were in the
student’s book. It could reduce the students’ anxiety toward the teacher’s questions.
Explanation Maintaining the argument can be categorized as the power manifestation
by a teacher in the classroom. In the context of classroom discourse, the teacher endovours his or her argument in order to apply the teacher’s plan. Before
teaching in the classroom, a teacher must prepare his or her lesson plan. Lesson
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plan cointains the goal of learning, the teaching activity, exercise, teaching evaluation and etc. In the dialogue [9], the teacher has prepared a game in order to
refresh the classroom atmosphere. The situation of the classroom in the dialogue [9] was at 2. pm. It means that the students were tired.
Usually when a teacher offers the game to students, they will agree. However, when a teacher in this dialogue said that there were questions that must
be answere, the studenst became anxious. They tried to refuse the teacher’s idea. As one who has legitimation in managing the classroom, a teacher tried to
maintain his idea. It can be seen that the teacher wanted to show that he has power in the classroom.
c. The Representation of Power in Expressive Speech Act
