Developing Online Learning Assessment Instrument for English Sentence Structure Course during Covid-19 Pandemic

Anchored by the need for constructing an online assessment which is mediated by honesty as the character value for grammar mastery among undergraduate students during Covid-19 pandemic, in the present study we developed a test of English Sentence Structure (ESS) situated in an English department of a public university in Malang, East Java, Indonesia. To enact such a purpose, Design-based Research (DBR) was carried out in the study. Findings from the study showcase that the test was valid and reliable, giving it accessible portion for use in the English department. Aside from that, students also opined positively toward the use of the test in measuring their English grammar mastery. Despite these, we found that students’ score in the tryout phase is low affected by their lack of test preparation, inappropriate situated test time, and ineffective teaching and learning enactment. The paper ends with recommendation for future researchers.

Expressive Speech Acts of Politeness in The Counselling Process

This study discusses the expressive speech acts of politeness in the counseling process. The study attempts to 1) identify the sub-types of expressive speech acts and their functions in the counseling process and (2) explain the realization of expressive speech act of politeness strategies in the counseling process. Data for the study were collected using passive participation observation and recording with closed-circuit television (CCTV). Data in this study were analyzed following the goal, heuristic method, and contextual methods. The findings of this study are associated with the stages of the counseling process. First, Building Relationships consists of sub-speech acts; Second, the Problem Identification Stage consists of sub-speech acts; Third, Facilitating Therapeutic Change consists of sub-actions speech act. Based on the findings of the study, praising is the most dominant utterance that always appears in every stage of the counseling process. It shows that the communication that happened in the counseling process is in a close, familial, warm, and comfortable atmosphere. This study demonstrates that language plays a critical role in the process of resolving human problems.

Intercultural Communicative Competence Levels of Indonesian EFL Students: A Preliminary Study in a Higher Education Contex

The lack of intercultural communication skills will likely cause disharmony, misunderstanding, and even conflict in communication. To be successful in communication with native speakers depends on language skills, customs, and cultural knowledge. In the age of global communication, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching goals should be reoriented to cultivate intercultural communication competence (ICC). EFL learners should have this intercultural competence and be sensitive in order to avoid disharmony, misunderstandings, and even conflicts in communication. The main objective of this preliminary study is to reveal the levels of intercultural communicative competence among EFL students at a state university in Indonesia. A survey questionnaire was performed employing a quantitative analysis in this study. Eighty-nine students filled out the ICC questionnaire, which consisted of 20 questions. Findings indicated that most of the students had a low ICC level because they are lack of experience and knowledge in interacting and socializing with people from various cultural backgrounds. In terms of gender differences, the results showed that male students had higher levels of ICC than that female students. This research implied that intercultural topics should be included in the university’s curriculum.

Transitivity of Try and V Construction in British and American English

Try and V construction is prevalent in British and American English. This construction is found in both spoken and written English, although with different frequencies. The verb in this construction only appears in in the base form. The lack of research on this verb formation leaves many aspects unexplored, one of which is the transitivity of the verb. Therefore, this study is intended to find out the number of arguments informed by this construction by matching the number of arguments to the verb try and the verb following it after the conjunction and. Two verbs were used to test this match, i.e., give and bring, which are three-place predicate verbs, and other two two-place predicate verbs, i.e., see and answer, were used to validate the finding. British National Corpus (BNC) and Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) were used to collect the data. The findings show that the number of arguments matched the verb following the conjunction and. Therefore, it can be concluded the number of arguments in try and V construction is not unique to this construction, but it is similar to the try to V, where V is the non-finite verb which selects the number of arguments. This result suggests that try and V construction needs to be included in English grammar textbooks in order that non-native speakers can use and understand this rare grammatical rule in appropriate contexts.

Femininity and Masculinity in Arabic Words: Gender Marking in Muslim Cosmology

The Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) language strongly indicates the sociolinguistic phenomenon as it reflects gender marking in language use. This study aims to explore how the Arabic letters attributed to specific gender identities, how the gender ideology of Arab culture create gender biases, and how the biases influence Arab social structure. It uses aspects of masculinity and femininity of Arabic letters that affect gender inequality and order of values on language, tradition and culture. Masculine letters are letters that have the property of being able to hold and entail other letters, while feminine letters that have the nature can be attached with other letters but cannot be attached. In this study, Arabic letters were mapped by observing their use in written and oral interaction in the contexts of Arab as first and second language. This research is a qualitative in nature. The data on ideology's influence on social structure were collected through interviews with three key informants representing their areas of expertise on language anthropology, sociolinguistic, and applied linguistic. The morphological analysis was carried out to identify the internal structure of the words. The sociolinguistic analysis explored the linguistic construction that to social construction. The finding showed that their internal structures, these letters were classified as masculine or feminine. From the sociolinguistic point of view, gender issues following social construction that has already formed gender relations. In other words, Arabic letters affect the order of values that tend to be gender-biased in the Arabic context.

Indonesian High School Learners’ Fear of Negative Evaluation and Ought-to L2 Self

The study aimed to investigate the Indonesian high school science learners’ Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE), which is a second language (L2) anxiety construct, Ought to L2 Self (OL2S), an L2 motivation construct, and the relationship between FNE and OL2S. The study employed a survey method with 190 learners from a private high school participating in it. Based on the descriptive statistics, the learners generally had a moderate level of FNE and OL2S. The FNE analysis showed that they had self-perception of low English competence and were afraid to speak without preparation. In OL2S, the analysis suggested that the learners believed that people around them did not consider their English mastery a priority. Through correlation formula, the study found a positive yet weak correlation between learners’ FNE and their OL2S. It suggested that the higher learners’ FNE, the higher they perceived responsibility to avoid negative outcomes. Besides, the finding also suggested that English instruction could be designed in such a way to attract the interest of learners from non-English language streams to give their best and promote active collaboration to lessen self-comparison among them. The limitations and contributions of the study were also discussed to provide possible directions for future studies.

Proposing a Typology of Ludification as a Translation Technique for PC, Console, Mobile and Online Games

Translation technique typology indicates a lack of specific technique to evoke playful nuance – ludification. We argue that ludification might also serve as a translation technique in video game translation context. This research attempts to prove the presence of ludification translation technique. To do so, we analyzed nine PC, console, mobile, and online games from various genres and developers under the umbrella of qualitative design. The theories of lability and merrines by Huizinga, ludification of digital media by de Lange et al, and skopos by Reiss and Vermeer were applied in the analysis. The findings reveal that ludification as a translation technique is existent. This type of translation technique is made possible due to the carte blanche of video game translators. The findings also indicate that ludification as a translation technique has a distinctive typology, making it different from the other translation techniques. First, it breaks translation rules and standards to generate contextual merriness. Second, it has explanative and expressive functions. Third, it has subtypes, namely emojization, referencing, and para-localization. This study implies that the scholars of translation studies might apply this typology not only on game translation context but also audiovisual context like subtitling especially fansub, where carte blanche and creativity are required to deal with the space restriction.

Functioning Expressive Speech Acts in the 2019 Indonesian Presidential Election Debates

This study aimed at investigating and explaining how the expressive speech acts functioned and differed in use among the candidates. A case study research design was employed. The data were the formal forms of expressive speech acts, lingual markers, and contexts. The sources were videos of five debate programs containing utterances, conversations, or dialogs made by both candidates. Candidates 01 belonged to Jokowi-Ma’ruf Amin, while candidates 02 belonged to Prabowo-Sandiaga Uno. Non-participatory observation and documentation techniques were used to collect data, and then they were analyzed using the content analysis model. Findings show sixteen functions of the expressive speech acts, namely, thanking, greeting, apologizing, blaming, praising, regretting, complaining, criticizing, expressing hopes, agreeing, disagreeing, expressing optimism, expressing wants, insinuating, making jokes, and appreciating. Then, candidates had different tendencies in functioning these expressive speech acts. Both candidates used greeting, apologizing, praising, complaining, disagreeing, expressing optimism, expressing wants, and making jokes almost equally. Then, candidate 01 tended to express hopes and insinuate, while candidates 02 were to thanking, blaming, regretting, criticizing, thanking, agreeing, and appreciating. Finally, in the 2019 Indonesian presidential election debate, both candidates functioned the speech acts still with Indonesian norms and values.

Directive Speech Acts in Parenting and Politeness Implications Based on the Schools’ Missions: A Study on Kindergarten Teachers in Teaching Learning Process in Yogyakarta

This study aims to explore the types of directive speech acts (DSA) in parenting employed by the kindergarten teachers in the teaching-learning process in Yogyakarta, reveal their DSA patterns implying politeness, and determine the factors influencing the phenomena based on the schools' missions. Seven kindergartens and 10 teachers were recruited as the sample to participate in this research. The data were collected by interviewing the kindergarten teachers and observing and video recording their teaching-learning processes. Then, the data were analyzed by using the thematic coding method. Kreidler's (1998) theory was used to classify the DSA. The research findings showed that there were three main DSA realized by the kindergarten teachers in Yogyakarta, namely, command (f=543/45.10%), request (f=525/43.60%), and suggestion (f=136/11.30%). Concerning the three main DSA patterns based on the schools' missions, the Islamic and public-private kindergartens showed request, command, and suggestion respectively; meanwhile, the Christian and state kindergartens showed command, request, and suggestion respectively. It means the former showed more polite DSA and the latter showed less polite DSA. The factors influencing such phenomena were the institutional missions, teachers' teaching in one class, the teachers' teaching creativities, and cultural aspects. This study implies that language aspects, particularly DSA, need to be incorporated in parenting either in schools or home environments.