The Discussion The Development of the students pragmatic competence of implicature in spoken English.
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 2
nd
and 4
th
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 6
th
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
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
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
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 hisher 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.
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
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
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
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
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.
91
CHAPTER V :
CONC LUSI ON AND R ECOMM ENDATI ON
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.