Indonesian EFL Learners' Ability to Comprehend and Produce Implicature

Abstract

To achieve a successful course of communication, one must master pragmatics, the study of context. To be able to have a proficient pragmatic competence, as one of macrolinguistics’ fields, getting acquainted with the target language’s cultural background is a must for foreign language learners. In a situation where someone is offered something, Indonesia has its own culture where the polite way to respond is to not directly accept or refuse the offer. This is actually considered as using implicature, one of the subfields of pragmatics. According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2019), implicature can be defined as the act of implying meaning by saying something else. The aim of using implicature is to mislead a response without lying while also maintaining a good social interaction. The objective of this study is to identify if EFL learners are capable of comprehending and producing implicature, one of pragmatics subfields or not. The method used in this study is descriptive qualitative research. The data were collected through assigning questionnaires and doing interviews on Brawijaya University students. The result of the study shows how most students are able to comprehend and produce implicature in English. The type of implicature they used was conversational implicature, one of the principal subjects of pragmatics.

Exploring Students' Difficulties in TOEFL Listening

“…This research aligns with a previous study conducted by (Padang et al, 2022), which discovered that students struggle to understand recording materials due to noise and unclear audio. This emphasizes the significance of sound system quality in learners' ability to comprehend (Caterine et al, 2021). This study's results show that there are two particular physical setting-related issues: high levels of noise and low-quality cassettes and disks.…”

Using Multimedia Tools and Online Resources to Teach Listening

“…The process of becoming accustomed to English's foreign sounds is significantly lengthier. Also, learning English calls on the subconscious capacity of the brain to better recall the information that has been taken in throughout the process of listening to the English conversation previously (Anggeraini, 2018;Caterine et al, 2021). Two arguments for teaching listening to pupils learning English: general comprehension of learning English and Enhancing English language learning.…”

Understanding Instructional Communication towards Elementary School Students in English Classroom

“…The incompetence in recognizing conversational implicature could arouse the misunderstanding of getting the meaning in the English communication process (Nassar, 2021;Sari, 2019). Also, previous study mentioned that Indonesian EFL learners still have limitations in grasping conversational implicature because of insufficient materials for cross-cultural understanding (Caterine et al, 2021). In classroom activities, English teachers and students could face misunderstanding if they do not have the same perspective in using the conversation implicature.…”

“…Understanding conversational implicature becomes essential. The learning activities need to allow students to communicate by catching the meaning and developing an understanding of conversational implicature (Caterine et al, 2021;Chen & Lin, 2021). The role of conversational implicature for English teachers and students becomes necessary to reinforce the interaction.…”