Indonesian high school students’ attitudes towards varieties of English: A survey study

The present study was conducted to investigate Indonesian High School students’ attitudes towards World Englishes, a construct developed based on a three-circle model proposed by Kachru. The study used an online questionnaire consisting of 22 items. The number of high school students from various regions in Indonesia participating in the study was 121. It was found that there was a moderate level of acceptance towards varieties of English. The participants believed that they should learn and be taught English varieties from inner-circle countries. However, the participants seemed to have very strong beliefs towards and pride in their local accents, to have high respect towards various accents around the world, and to perceive English to belong to whoever speaks it. Based on the finding on the participants’ positive attitude towards their local accents, English instruction could focus on the eventual purpose of learning a language, which is communication and building positive students’ self-perception about themselves regarding English. Hence, instead of comparing themselves with native speakers of English, students could focus on sharpening their English skills regardless of accents to be a part of the global community. The limitations and contributions of the present study are also presented, along with possible directions for relevant future studies in the field.

“Are You Ready?” Revisiting Needs Analysis for ESP Online Conversation Course

It is common to be found in an ESP class where the students are not fully engaged in the learning activities due to their lack of interests toward English. To attract the ESP students’ interests, authentic materials and meaningful activities need to be provided. Online learning can bring authentic materials to ESP students and give them meaningful activities as they can interact with native speakers of English through many online platforms. To fit the students’ online learning situations to their learning experiences, as well as the materials and activities to be given, a needs analysis should be carried out. The study focuses on discovering the ESP students’ preparedness in performing an online English conversation course by conducting a needs analysis. Questionnaires were given to 82 students and an interview was performed with 17 students to gain the data. The data collected in the form of percentages were analyzed by describing them qualitatively. From the analysis, it can be concluded that the ESP students were prepared to join the online English conversation course.

Attitudes toward Jordanian Arabic-Accented English among Native and Non-native Speakers of English

This paper explores attitudes toward Jordanian Arabic-accented English among native and non-native speakers of English. Three groups of listeners (native English speakers, Jordanian Arab specialists and non-specialists in English) were asked to rate three groups of speakers (a group of native English speakers and two groups of Jordanian Arabic bilinguals) reading a short story in English on the degree of foreign accentedness, friendliness, pleasantness and clarity. The results showed that the Jordanian Arabic speakers, especially those with a lower level of English, were perceived less favourably than the native speakers. Furthermore, the English native listeners generally had more favourable perceptions than the non-native listeners with regard to the non-native speakers. The degree of foreign-accentedness was highly correlated with attitudes toward non-native speakers, especially among the non-native speakers themselves. The results confirm that a native English accent is preferred over non-native accents.

Comparing the Language Style Used by Native and Non-native English Speakers in The Ellen Show

As the user of communication especially in English, the speaker has to consider the interlocutor’s position in order to achieve good communication. Here, the speakers which include native and non-native English speakers must choose an appropriate language style for the different interlocutors to avoid social consequences. The purposes of this research were to analyze the use of language style of those speakers in The Ellen Show. Also, it focused on the differences and the similarities between those speakers. Last, it focused on the factors influencing the use of language style. The research used the qualitative method which focuses on content analysis. Here, it focused on three native speakers and three non-native speakers of English as the guests in The Ellen Show. The Ellen Show is a talk show program with a casual discussion that talks about a particular topic or issue which consists of a host, the guest(s) being interviewed, the home audience, and the studio audience from which the host might get some responses from.The findings revealed that the native English speakers used all types of language styles. Meanwhile, the non-native speakers used three types of language styles. Then, the similarities were that both speakers applied formal style, consultative style, and casual style in their utterances. However, the difference was the non-native English speakers did not apply frozen style and intimate style. Furthermore, those speakers used language style because it influenced the participant, the setting, the topic, and the function. Therefore, it is concluded that language styles were useful in English utterances either by native speakers or non-native English speakers. The speaker has to consider the interlocutor’s position in order to achieve good communication. Here, the speakers which include native and non-native English speakers must choose an appropriate language style for the different interlocutors to avoid social consequences. The purposes of this research were to analyze the use of language style of those speakers in The Ellen Show. Also, it focused on the differences and the similarities between those speakers. Last, it focused on the factors influencing the use of language style. The research used the qualitative method which focuses on content analysis. Here, it focused on three native speakers and three non-native speakers of English as the guests in The Ellen Show. The findings revealed that the native English speakers used all types of language styles. Meanwhile, the non-native speakers used three types of language styles. Then, the similarities were that both speakers applied formal style, consultative style, and casual style in their utterances. However, the difference was the non-native English speakers did not apply frozen style and intimate style. Furthermore, those speakers used language style because it influenced the participant, the setting, the topic, and the function. Therefore, it is concluded that language styles were useful in English utterances either by native speakers or non-native English speakers.

FACTORS INFLUENCING THE COMPREHENSION OF CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURES BY NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY INSPIRED BY BOUTON’S (1988)

The main goal of the present study has been to examine implicature comprehension in native and foreign/second language speakers of English from different linguistic backgrounds. The project was inspired by an earlier work of Bouton (1988), whose objective was to measure the influence of cultural background on the ability to grasp implied meanings in English, by comparing native and non-native speakers' performance. A modified digital version of the original multiple-choice test (Bouton 1988) was used to collect the data. Gricean (1989) theory of conversational implicature served as a theoretical framework for the study. The quantitative analysis of the data collected from the speakers of 33 languages was compared against the original results and the scope of the analysis was expanded to incorporate the examination of other factors affecting implicature understanding in native and nonnative languages. The present results corroborate some of the earlier findings and suggest that language competence and cultural background are crucial factors in understanding implicated meanings.

CASE STUDY ON LANGUISTIC MEANS OF EDITING FOR VOICE AND TONE IN CORPORATE MARKETING COMMUNICATION

The research analyses a small corpus of in-house writing of a multinational SME by non-native speakers of English and the edits and revisions made by a marketing expert and a technical writer (native English speakers). The analysis focuses on identifying, classifying and analysing edits regarding the voice and tone guidelines, i.e. how pragmatics concepts (politeness and audience accommodation) are grammatically and semantically encoded. The research uses style guides to analyse the “comparable” monolingual corpus of drafts and final versions, while the annotation includes tags for pragmatically motivated changes whose purpose is establishing a friendly relationship with the target audience. The research employs norms for qualitative research in public relations and marketing communication (Daymon & Holloway, 2010). The research shows that a) non-native speakers of English tend to have a self-centred approach to workplace English writing and often fail to achieve the company voice and tone, and b) the company voice and tone require elimination of culturally specific concepts and use of relatively simple grammatical structures and lexicon.

“Can we take a picture with you?” The realization of the refusal speech act with tourists by Emirati speakers

Effective communication between people from different cultures requires not only the ability to speak a common language but also an awareness of sociocultural rules and sociolinguistics features, an important one being speech acts the realization of which realization by Emirati non-native speakers of English has not been studied sufficiently. This paper investigates a particularly face-threatening speech act - refusals. It explores Emiratis comfort level and the use of the refusal speech act in communicative exchanges with unknown tourists. The data set consisted of 94 participant responses to a pre-instructional activity in an introductory linguistics class. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data sets. The key findings suggest that both male and female participants were rather comfortable conversing with a tourist couple that they had never met, but male participants reported being more at ease accepting the couples request to take a photo with the tourists at a statistically significant level. While more than half of the participants reported willingness to take the photo with the tourists, approximately 41.5% would decline such a request, with significantly more females declining the request. The most frequent components of the refusal speech act included a statement of regret, a thank-you note, and an excuse, reason, or explanation. Results also showed that linguistic devices for positive politeness purposes were used rather sparingly, and it was mainly the females who used them. Based on the results, it is helpful for visitors to the UAE to be mindful of Emiratis' sociocultural and sociolinguistic behaviors so that the nuances of communication can be understood and responses are appropriate, which can reduce the likelihood of communication breakdowns and increase the well-being of all involved in the interaction.

A cross-cultural study of condolence strategies in a computer-mediated social network

Among the various speech acts, an under-investigated one is condolence speech act. The present study sought to investigate the verbal strategies of expressing condolence used by (1) Iranian native speakers of Persian, (2) Iranian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners, and (3) American native speakers of English. Accordingly, a total of 200, 42, and 50 responses were collected respectively from the informants who responded to an obituary post followed by a picture consisting of a situation related to the news of a celebritys death on Instagram (In the case of Iranians: Morteza Pashaii , a famous singer in the case of Americans: B. B. King , an American singer-songwriter). After creating a pool of responses to the death announcements and through careful content analysis, the utterances by native Persian speakers, EFL learners, and native English speakers were coded into seven, nine, and seven categories, with expression of affection ( n = 109, 46.38%), wishes for the deceased ( n = 34, 59.64%), and wishes for the deceased ( n = 32, 23.70%) being the most prevalent ones, correspondingly. Moreover, tests of Chi-square revealed that there was a statistically significant difference among the three groups. The results showed that there were significant differences among the participants in terms of using condolence strategies in Expression of affection (love and grief), Wishes for the deceased, Expression of shock, use of address terms, expression of gratitude, Offering condolences, expression of happiness for his peaceful death, and Seeking absolution from God categories, with Expression of affection being the most prevalent one among Iranian Persian speakers. The findings have pedagogical implications for EFL teachers as wells as textbook and course designers.

English as a Lingua Franca Approach: Implications and Limitations in Saudi English as a Foreign Language Classrooms

English language considers a global language spoken by a majority of people around the world. It is a language used mainly for communication, trades and study purposes. This widespread of English language being wildly spoken lead to different varieties of English as a lingua franca (ELF) means that non native speakers of English still be able to communicate with each other. Using ELF as a legitimate variety of English in language classrooms is questioned by some researchers. This paper will provide an overview of the concept of ELF. It will also present implications and limitations of using ELF in Saudi English as foreign language classrooms.