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.

A. Conclusion

Based on the findings, it can be concluded that: 1. There is a significant mean difference of the students’ pragmatic competence of implicature in spoken English between the second semester students, the fourth semester students, and the sixth semester students. However, the pattern of the development shows that it is decreasing Grap 4.1. page 52. 2. There are some affecting factors that caused this illogical development pattern of the students’ pragmatic competence of implicature in spoken English, namely: a. The 2 nd and 4 th semester students were more serious in completing the test than the 6 th semester students which leads to a conclusion that the development pattern shown as the result does not accurately represent the real development pattern. b. The weakness of the test as the research instrument which was in the written form could affect on the students’ interpretation of implicature in spoken English. 3. Based on the result patterns and the implicature characteristics Table 4.5. page 80, the sixth semester students showed a decreasing development pattern on the implicature that violating the Maxim of Relevance.

B. Pedagogical Implications

Since the result of the present study led the researcher showed that there was a sociopragmatic failure here, the researcher will offer some suggestions based on the pragmatic failure theory by Thomas 1993 and also Kasper 1997’s study entitled “Can pragmatic competence be taught?” Thomas enunciates that “Sociopragmatic failure involves the student’s belief as much as hisher knowledge of the language”, and that “pragmatic failure in general is an area of cross-cultural communication breakdown which has received very little attention from language teachers” 1983: 91, while Kasper argues that: “pragmatic competence is not teachable,” 1997:1, so the researcher would not suggest something closely concerning the content of teaching materials or the syllabus. Some suggestions the researcher offers are as follows: 1. Relating to Thomas 1993’ statement that pragmatic failure in general is an area of cross-cultural communication breakdown which has received very little attention from language teachers, the researcher offers that it might be helpful to add some more activities which facilitate the cultural immersion to the target language. The activities can be such as once a week, Friday night or Saturday night, an English free value-laden big movie screen with no assignment where any students are free to watch and enjoy. When our mind is fresh and have no burden, we still can get the target language input. The most important is not on the assessment, but is on the exposure. 2. Based on Kasper 1997:1’s argument that pragmatic competence is not teachable and Adopting Vygotsky’s one of the sociocultural theorists view that language is seen as the means by which humans achieve the goal of social living, the idea of always activating what so called “English Zone” around the campus can a supporting atmosphere, too. The more the L2 learners use the target language not only formally in the class but also informally to achieve the goal of social living the more pragmatic competence have a room to develop. Very few English language programs in almost all Universities around Indonesia hold a special program such as English day comparing with some Senior or Junior High Schools that have started to practice it, just because they feel that they have enough using the target language in all classes, but language is not only to communicate in the class which tends to be formal, language is the means by which humans achieve the goal of social living. The English atmosphere might surprisingly arise the students’ inner feeling to practice and transfer their L1 pragmatic competence when they speak using the target language.