Final Task of Topic in Applied Linguistics

Name     : Abibah

NIM       : 2201409052

Rombel  : 03 (Thursday, 11 a.m.)

A STUDY ON THE READING SKILLS OF EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Flora Debora Floris

Marsha Divina

Petra Christian University, Indonesia

SUMMARY

It is crucial for EFL students to have good reading proficiency. Having good reading proficiency means the reader has abilities to understand written statements or any type of written texts accurately and efficiently. And reading proficiency is determined by reading skills. Considering the importance of reading skills of EFL students, the study conducted by Flora Debora Floris and Marsha Divina was guided for ten university students in Surabaya 2003 by the following research questions:

1.      What are the types of reading skills that EFL students have difficulty with?

2.      What is the most difficult type of reading skills for these EFL students?

METHOD

In doing the data collection, the writers used some steps.

1.      Analyzing the kinds of reading skills. It was found the students did not learn all the reading skills. Considering it, they decided to focus on seventeen reading skills namely: scanning, skimming, improving reading speed, structural clues: morphology (word part), structural clues (compound words), inference from context, using a dictionary, interpreting pro-forms, interpreting elliptical expression, interpreting lexical cohesion, recognizing text organization, recognizing presupposition underlying the text, recognizing implications and making inference, prediction, distinguishing between fact and opinion, paraphrasing, and summarizing.

2.      Developing two reading tests.

3.      Piloting the two reading tests.

4.      Distributing the reading tests to ten students who had already passed all reading classes.

5.      Checking and counting the results of both reading tests.

FINDINGS

The research found the students’ difficulty in reading skill in percentage.

DISCUSSION

The most difficult reading skill for these students was recognizing text organization (72.5%). The writers predicted that it was because many Indonesian students were not trained to activate recognizing text organization after they read a passage.

The second most difficult reading skill was paraphrasing (65%). It could be because they had not fully understood the ideas of the original passage or sentence, they were not able to restate the ideas of the original passage or sentence in their own words although they understood the idea of the original passage.  And it was correlated with the third most difficult reading skill that was vocabulary skill because to restate the idea of the original passage the reader had to have good vocabulary skill. Then, inference from context skill (57.5%) was one of important word attack skill which was needed by the respondents to deal with new or difficult vocabularies. For scanning skill, there were only 7.5 % means that they didn’t have much difficulty with this skill. It might be because they had already been trained to use this skill in all reading class. The other reading skills which had low difficulty level were improving reading speed (10%) and recognizing presupposition the text (10%). It indicated that the respondents   were good readers because they were able to read fast and in meaningful chunks.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

The findings from the small scale discussed in the study showed that each reading skill had different level of difficulty for the respondents. Further research could be conducted on a larger scale to produce wider results which could be used to make generalization.

COMMENT ABOUT THE ARTICLE

According to me, the study conducted by Flora Debora Floris and Marsha Divina about reading skills of EFL University students is very useful. From four language skills, reading skill is a skill that is complicated to be mastered especially for ones who don’t like reading. And the result of the study can be guidance as students have low level in some reading skills to know what reading skills the students have more difficulties also the reasons why they have difficulties in these skills.  

In doing the research, the writers used detail steps through reading tests to analyze the students’ difficulty in reading skills even analyzing seventeen reading skills. And I think it is one of the positive sides from the study. They could prove that students have difficulties in some reading skills and showed the causes of students’ low level in reading.

BENEFITS OF THE STUDY FOR THE TEACHER

The result of the study shows that ELT university students still have difficulty in mastering reading skills. For teachers, the study can give some benefits.

1. Knowing the students’ difficulty in reading skills, they will improve their teaching to help students mastering reading skills so the students can use and increase their English abilities and knowledge. To help students mastering reading skills, teacher will choose methods and techniques in giving reading lesson including all the reading skills mentioned in the study; scanning, skimming, improving reading speed, etc especially for some skills that students still lack in understanding and comprehending the skills so they need more exposure to reading materials in class to make much progress.
2.  There are still teachers that don’t include some reading skills in their lesson. Maybe because of the difficulty of the skills to be conveyed, the time limit, even because of the lack knowledge about the reading skills itself. From this study, remembering the importance of reading for students, teachers must master all reading skills so they can guide the students in mastering the reading skills.
3. From the study, teachers can conduct a research for the students to know their understanding in reading skills so teacher will know what difficulty students face in reading.  

News Item Text-Webquest

News Item Text

           Alyssa Diva Mustika, a student from Pamekasan Junior High School, East Java, won the gold medal at the International Mathematics Contest held in Romania from March 22 until 29, Antara news agency reported.

            Speaking to journalists, Diva said she was glad that she had been able to win the competition, which she said had been very tight. “Thank God I won. I will study harder,” she said.

            Indonesia sent 10 students to the competition in Romania. Diva is not the first Pamekasan student to win an international science competition. Oktavian Latief, a student from Pamekasan Senior High School, won the gold medal at the International Physics Olympiad in 2006. Another student, Shohibul Maromi, won the same award in 2010.

            “Thanks Diva, for giving a good name to Indonesia and Pamekasan on the international stage,” Pamekasan Regent Kholilurrahman said as quoted by Antara.

Sex, Politeness, and Stereotypes

Here, we are examining styles and registers, the way language is used, and linguistic attitudes that the issue of ‘women’s language’ is one which illustrates all these concepts. The author examines evidence that women and men use language differently and looks at what language reveals about the way society categorizes women.

Women’s language and confidence

Robin Lakoff, an American linguist argued that women were using language which reinforced their subordinate status, they were ‘colluding in their own subordination’ by the way they spoke. She suggested that women’s subordinate social status in America society is reflected in the language women use, as well as in the language used about them. She identified a number of linguistic features used by women that expressed uncertainty and lack of confidence.

Features of ‘women’s language’

Lakoff suggested that women’s speech was characterized by these linguistic features: lexical hedges or filters, tag questions, raising intonation on declaratives, ‘empty’ adjectives, precise colour terms, intensifiers, ‘hypercorrect’ grammar, ‘superpolite’ forms, avoidance of strong swear words, and emphatic stress. All the forms identified were means of expressing uncertainty or tentativeness. The internal coherence of the features can be illustrated by dividing them into two: linguistic devices which may be used for hedging or reducing the force of an utterance (explicitly signal lack of confidence) and features that may boost or intensify a proposition’s force (reflect the speaker’s anticipation that the addressee may remain unconvinced and supply extra reassurance).

Lakoff’s linguistic features as politeness devices

As a syntactic device listed by Lakoff which may express uncertainty, tag questions may also express affective meaning functions as facilitative or positive politeness devices, providing an addressee with an easy entrée into a conversation, soften a directive or a criticism, used as confrontational and coercive devices. In that case, women put more emphasis on tag questions than men.

Many linguistic forms have complex functions such as ‘hedges’ used differently in different contexts. They mean different things according to their pronunciation, their position in the utterance, what kind of speech act they are modifying, and who is using them to whom in what context.

Analyses which take account of the function of features of women’s speech often reveal women as facilitative and supportive conversationalists. This also suggests that explanations of differences between women’s and men’s speech behavior which refer only to the status or power dimension. Many of the features which characterize women’s language are positive politeness devices expressing solidarity.

Interaction

There are many features of interaction which differentiate the talk of women and men. The two of them are interrupting behavior and conversational feedback.

-          Interruptions

In same-sex interactions, interruptions were evenly distributed between speakers. In cross-sex interactions almost all the interruptions were from males.

-          Feedback

Another aspect of the picture of women as cooperative conversationalists is the evidence that women provide more encouraging feedback to their conversational partners than men do. In general, research on conversational interaction reveals women as cooperative conversationalists, whereas men tend to be more competitive and less supportive of others.

Explanations

Women’s cooperative conversational strategies may be explained better by looking at the influence of context and patterns of socialization. The norms for women’s talk may be the norms for small group interaction in private contexts, where the goals of the interaction are solidarity stressing-maintaining social good relations. The differences between women and men in ways of interacting may be the result of different socialization and acculturation patterns.

Gossip

Gossip describes the kind of relaxed in-group talk that goes on between people in informal contexts. It is defined as ‘idle talk’ in Western society and considered particularly characteristic of women’s interaction. Its overall function for them is to affirm solidarity and maintain the social relationship between the women involved. Women’s gossip is characterized by a number of the linguistic features of women’s language. Propositions which express feelings are often attenuated and qualified or intensified. Facilitative tags are frequent. Women complete each other’s utterances and provide supportive feedback. Meanwhile, the male’s gossip is difficult to identify. In parallel situations the topics men discuss tend to focus on things and activities rather than personal experiences and feelings.

Sexist language

Sexist language is one example of the way a culture or society conveys its value from one group to another and from one generation to the next. Language conveys attitudes. Sexist attitudes stereotype a person according to gender rather than judging on individual merits. Sexist language encodes stereotyped attitudes to women and men.

Can a language be sexist?

Feminists have claimed that English is a sexist language. Sexism involves behavior which maintains social inequalities between women and men. There are a number of ways in which it has been suggested that the English language discriminates against women. Some of the ways can provide insights about a community’s perceptions and stereotypes. The relative status of the sexes in a society may be reflected not only in the ways in which women and men use language but also in the language used about women and men.  

Code Switching

Name               : Abibah

NIM                : 2201409052

Rombel            : 03 (Thursday, 11 A.M.)

Topics in Applied Linguistics

Code Switching

1.    What is Code Switching?

            According to Heather Coffey, code switching is the practice of moving between variations of languages in different contexts. Everyone who speaks has learned to code-switch depending on the situation and setting. In an educational context, code-switching is defined as the practice of switching between a primary and a secondary language or discourse. (http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/4558)

            Code-switching is distinct from other language contact phenomena, such as borrowing, pidgins and creoles, loan translation (calques), and language transfer (language interference). Speakers form and establish a pidgin language when two or more speakers who do not speak a common language form an intermediate, third language. On the other hand, speakers practice code-switching when they are each fluent in both languages.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching)

2.    What are types of code switching?

Scholars use different names for various types of code-switching.

• Intersentential switching occurs outside the sentence or the clause level (i.e. at sentence or clause boundaries). It is sometimes called "extrasentential" switching.
• Intra-sentential switching occurs within a sentence or a clause.
• Tag-switching is the switching of either a tag phrase or a word, or both, from language-B to language-A, (common intra-sentential switches).
• Intra-word switching occurs within a word, itself, such as at a morpheme boundary. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching)

3.    What are the functions of code switching?

a.    In a bilingual community context, according to Trudgill, its function is “speakers switch to manipulate or influence or define the situation as they wish, and to convey nuances of meaning and personal intention” (2000:105). It may be suggested that code switching can be used for self expression and is a way of modifying language for the sake of personal intentions.

Another function of code switching is to build intimate interpersonal relationships among members of a bilingual community. It is a tool for creating linguistic solidarity especially between individuals who share the same ethno-cultural identity.

b.    The functions of teachers’ code switching

There are three functions: topic switch, affective functions, and repetitive functions by Mattson and Burenhult (1999:61)

-          Topic switch

In topic switch cases, the teacher alters his/her language according to the topic that is under discussion. This is mostly observed in grammar instruction, that the teacher shifts his language to the mother tongue of his students in dealing with particular grammar points, which are taught at that moment. In these cases, the students’ attention is directed to the new knowledge by making use of code switching and accordingly making use of native tongue. At this point it may be suggested that a bridge from known (native language) to unknown (new foreign language content) is constructed in order to transfer the new content and meaning is made clear in this way as it is also suggested by Cole (1998): “a teacher can exploit students’ previous L1 learning experience to increase their understanding of L2”.

-          Affective functions

Code switching as affective functions serves for expression of emotions. In this respect, code switching is used by the teacher in order to build solidarity and intimate relations with the students. In this sense, one may speak off the contribution of code switching for creating a supportive language environment in the classroom.

-          Repetitive functions

Code switching in classroom settings is its repetitive function. In this case, the teacher uses code switching in order to transfer the necessary knowledge for the students for clarity. Following the instruction in target language, the teacher code switches to native language in order to clarify meaning, and in this way stresses importance on the foreign language content for efficient comprehension. However, the tendency to repeat the instruction in native language may lead to some undesired student behaviors. A learner who is sure that the instruction in foreign language will be followed by a native language translation may loose interest in listening to the former instruction which will have negative academic consequences; as the student is exposed to foreign language discourse limitedly.

c.    The functions of students’ code switching

The first function of student code switch is equivalence. In this case, the student makes use of the native equivalent of a certain lexical item in target language and therefore code switches to his/her native tongue. This process may be correlated with the deficiency in linguistic competence of target language, which makes the student use the native lexical item when he/she has not the competence for using the target language explanation for a particular lexical item. So “equivalence” functions as a defensive mechanism for students as it gives the student the opportunity to continue communication by bridging the gaps resulting from foreign language incompetence.

The next function to be introduced is floor-holding. During a conversation in the target language, the students fill the stopgap with native language use. It may be suggested that this is a mechanism used by the students in order to avoid gaps in communication, which may result from the lack of fluency in target language. The learners performing code switching for floor holding generally have the same problem: they can not recall the appropriate target language structure or lexicon. It may be claimed that this type of language alternation may have negative effects on learning a foreign language; since it may result in loss of fluency in long term.

The third consideration in students’ code switching is reiteration, which is pointed by Eldridge as: “messages are reinforced, emphasized, or clarified where the message has already been transmitted in one code, but not understood” (1996:306). In this case, the message in target language is repeated by the student in native tongue through which the learner tries to give the meaning by making use of a repetition technique. The reason for this specific language alternation case may be two-folds: first, he/she may not have transferred the meaning exactly in target language. Second, the student may think that it is more appropriate to code switch in order to indicate the teacher that the content is clearly understood by him/her.

The last function of students’ code switching is conflict control. For the potentially conflictive language use of a student (meaning that the student tends to avoid a misunderstanding or tends to utter words indirectly for specific purposes), the code switching is a strategy to transfer the intended meaning. The underlying reasons for the tendency to use this type of code switching may vary according to students’ needs, intentions or purposes. Additionally, the lack of some culturally equivalent lexis among the native language and target language--which may lead to violation of the transference of intended meaning--may result in code switching for conflict control; therefore possible misunderstandings are avoided.

Olcay Sert
Hacettepe University (Ankara, Turkey)
sertolcay[at]yahoo.com

(http://iteslj.org/Articles/Sert-CodeSwitching.html)

Systemic Functional Linguistics

Well, now I post material about Systemic Functional Linguistics. Actually I don’t really understand what the material about but I’ll try to resume it from resources. Check it out.

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

Introduction

            Systemic, or Systemic-Functional, theory has its origins in the main intellectual tradition of European linguistics that developed following the work of Saussure. It is functional and semantic rather than formal and syntactic in orientation, takes the text rather than the sentence as its object, and defines its scope by reference to usage rather than grammaticality.

            In systemic theory the system takes priority; the most abstract representation at any level is in paradigmatic terms. Syntagmatic organization is interpreted as the REALIZATION of paradigmatic features.

            Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL) is a theory of language centred around the notion of language function. While SFL accounts for the syntactic structure of language, it places the function of language as central (what language does, and how it does it), in preference to more structural approaches, which place the elements of language and their combinations as central. SFL starts at social context, and looks at how language both acts upon, and is constrained by, this social context.

            A central notion is 'stratification', such that language is analyzed in terms of four strata: Context, Semantics, Lexico-Grammar and Phonology-Graphology.

            Context concerns the Field (what is going on), Tenor (the social roles and relationships between the participants), and the Mode (aspects of the channel of communication, e.g., monologic/dialogic, spoken/written, +/- visual-contact, etc.).

            Systemic semantics includes what is usually called 'pragmatics'. Semantics is divided into three components:

• Ideational Semantics (the propositional content);
• Interpersonal Semantics (concerned with speech-function, exchange structure, expression of attitude, etc.);
• Textual Semantics (how the text is structured as a message, e.g., theme-structure, given/new, rhetorical structure etc.

            The Lexico-Grammar concerns the syntactic organization of words into utterances. Even here, a functional approach is taken, involving analysis of the utterance in terms of roles such as Actor, Agent/Medium, Theme, Mood, etc.

History of Systemic

            SFL grew out of the work of JR Firth, a British linguist of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, but was mainly developed by his student MAK Halliday. He developed the theory in the early sixties (seminal paper, Halliday 1961), based in England, and moved to Australia in the Seventies, establishing the department of linguistics at the University of Sydney. Through his teaching there, SFL has spread to a number of institutions throughout Australia, and around the world. Australian Systemics is especially influential in areas of language education.

Child Language Development

Some of Halliday's early work involved the study of his son's developing language abilities. This study in fact has had a substantial influence on the present systemic model of adult language, particularly in regard to the metafunctions. This work has been followed by other child language development work, especially that of Clare Painter. Ruqaia Hasan has also performed studies of interactions between children and mothers.

Systemic and Computation

SFL has been prominent in computational linguistics, especially in Natural Language Generation (NLG). Penman, an NLG system started at Information Sciences Institute in 1980, is one of the three main such systems, and has influenced much of the work in the field. John Bateman (currently in Bremen, Germany) has extended this system into a multilingual text generator, KPML. Robin Fawcett in Cardiff have developed another systemic generator, called Genesys. Mick O'Donnell has developed yet another system, called WAG. Numerous other systems have been built using Systemic grammar, either in whole or in part.

One of the earliest and best-known parsing systems is Winograd's SHRDLU, which uses system networks and grammar as a central component. Since then, several systems have been developed using SFL (e.g., Kasper, O'Donnell, O'Donoghue, Cummings, Weerasinghe), although this work hasn't been as central to the field as that in NLG.

Communication Planes

            From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics the oral and written texts we engage with and produce have their particular linguistic form because of the social purposes they fulfill. The focus is not on texts as decontextualized structural entities in their own right but rather on the mutually predictive relationships between texts and the social practices they realize.

Level of Social Context

•         The form of human language is as it is since it co-evolves with the meanings which co-evolve with the community's contexts of social interaction (Hasan, 1992:24).

•         SFL then, treats language and social context as complementary levels of semiosis, related by the concept of realisation. The relationship between language and social context has been represented using the image of co-tangential circles as in Figure 4.1 (Halliday and Martin, 1993:25).

•         The interpretation of social context then includes two communication planes, genre (context of culture) and register (context of situation) (Martin,1992:495).

The context of culture can be thought of as deriving from a vast complex network of all of the genres which make up a particular culture. Genres are staged, goal oriented social processes in which people engage as members of the culture. These genres include all of those routines from everyday experience such as purchase of goods (food, clothing etc), medical consultation, eating in a restaurant etc to the genres of particular forms of social life including church services, TV interviews, getting arrested etc.

•         The FIELD OF DISCOURSE refers to what is happening, to the nature of the social action that is taking place: what is it that the participants are engaged in, in which the language figures as some essential component?

More Information:

•         Semantics is the interface between language and context of situation (register). Semantics is therefore concerned with the meanings that are involved with the three situational variables Field, Tenor and Mode. Ideational meanings realise Field, interpersonal meanings realise Tenor and textual meanings realise Mode.

•         Lexicogrammar is a resource for wording meanings, ie. realising them as configurations of lexical and grammatical items. It follows then, that lexicogrammar is characterised by the same kind of metafunctional diversification discussed above. This takes us back to our discussion in section three where we showed that functional grammar included three separate analyses, each describing the construction of one of three different kinds of meaning which all operate simultaneously in each clause.

•         Ideational (experiential and logical) meanings construing Field are realised lexicogrammatically by the system of Transitivity. This system interprets and represents our experience of phenomena in the world and in our consciousness by modelling experiential meanings in terms of participants, processes and circumstances. Resources for chaining clauses into clause complexes, and for serialising time by means of tense, address logical meanings.

•         Interpersonal meanings are realized lexicogrammatically by systems of Mood and Modality and by the selection of attitudinal lexis. The Mood system is the central resource establishing and maintaining an ongoing exchange between interactants by assuming and assigning speech roles such as giving or demanding goods and services or information.