Pragmatics – Interrogative Sentences In Linguistics

Interrogative Sentences In Linguistics - Questions, or interrogative sentences in linguistics, are broadly defined as utterances that require a verbal response from the addressee (Carter, 2006: 715). This type of illocution attempts to elicit particular information, typically in the form of an answer. The interrogative sentence asks a question, closed with an interrogation point and in the form of a question (Curme and George O., 1931; Merriam-Webster‟s Collegiate Dictionary, 1998). Interrogative sentences frequently occur in the conversations, for example: when asking about an event happened in the past.

Questions may range from forms involving imperatives, to simple interrogatives, interrogatives with modal verbs, indirect interrogatives, declaratives and reduced questions.

Discourse Analysis - Another Theory of Discourse Analysis By Sara Mills

Another theory of discourse has been brought by Sara Mills. She focused on discourse about feminism: how women appeared in a text, either in novel, picture,and photo or in a report. Therefore, what is done by Mills is often called as feminism perspective. The focus of feminism discursive perspective is to show how the text bias in showing women. Women often appeared in text as the wrong side, and marginal. Inequality and nasty delineation of women is being Mills focus.

The same thing about bias in showing women also happened in news report. The reports about rape, sexual insulting is some of reports appeared women as the object of the report. The focus of this discourse analysis is to show how women are marginalized in media and how the form of marginalization is done (Eriyanto 2005: 199).

An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis (1)

There are three paradigms of discourse analysis; Positivist Discourse Analysis, Interpretive discourse Analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis. In positivist paradigm, language refers to the bond between human and the object out of him. Related with discourse analysis, the language researchers do not need to see the meaning or subjective value that underlay a statement. Positivist discourse analysis maintains to fulfill a set of syntactic and semantic principle. Semantics validity and syntactic accuracy is the main focus of this paradigm (Hikam in Eriyanto, 1996: 4-7).

Then he explains further, the proponent of interpretive paradigm refuses separation of human as subject with the object. Language can be understood by observing the subject. Human as subject is convinced able to restrain a certain aims in a discourse. And the last is critical discourse analysis; it is not only doing the textual interrogation but also revealing the relationship of the interrogation product with the macro-contextual behind the text. It is more specifically as a study on how the power misused or how the domination and also the inequality put into the community.

Problem Statement and The Most Important Aspects

To begin with, that is being the expert. The researchers should have good knowledge in their field.If the subject had been learned deeply, however it will be in the specific skill that the researchers used to be sensitive in their field.  Example: someone with the expertise on a teaching field, he should notice or be critics to the problems happening related to the teaching matters.

 After that, the following point is the academic program. The one who has been experienced in education program, definitely she/he will learn and know more about the academic field.

Euphemism Definition and Examples

Language is a power used to make one’s statement stronger. Someone uses language to influence people. Moreover, it can hide the fact to avoid misunderstanding between the speaker and the hearer or the writer and the reader. This is the same things with euphemism that implying the use of polite expression.

In language use, there is common way that is used by people to speak in polite expression, it is usually called euphemism. Euphemistic words and expressions allow us to talk about unpleasant things and neutralize the unpleasantness, e.g. the subject of death and dying, unemployment, and criminality (Wardhaugh, 1986:231).

Language and Media

Nowadays, as the world keeps developing, the presence of the media becomes crucial since it is the most effective medium to spread out the information to the people around the world. There are many kinds of the media, such as newspaper, magazines, tabloid, television, radio, and so on. They are different each other in terms of the way they carry out their function, the publishing, the style of the writing, the content, the way using the language, and so on.
Although there are differences among those kinds of the media, they hold the same functions. Any kind of the media has the primary four functions; to distribute the information, to teach, to entertain, and to influence. Those four functions must be carried out all by the media without the absence of one function or more. Therefore, the four functions of the media stated above can be called as four in one function meaning that the four is a unity; it cannot be separated each other.
As forum, the media can be the space for the society to demonstrate their asporation; critics and suggestion. Communication enables individuals and groups to act together cohesively as society in order to respond and get the best solution of the problems. In a traditional society, the agreement of what should be done to respond certain problems can be raised by communication. It is somehow inevitably for a modern society today since the more complex society relies much on the media (Rivers, Peterson, & Jensen, 2004: 34).

An Introduction to Pragmatics In Linguistics

Pragmatics is the study of how language is used in communication. The pragmatic of language is concerned with audience-directed intention-how the speaker or writer intends the utterance to be taken. It deals very explicitly with the study of relationship holding between linguistic forms and the human beings who use these forms. As such, pragmatics is concerned with people’s intentions, assumptions, beliefs, goals, and the kinds of actions they perform while using language.

Pragmatics is also concerned with context, situation, and settings within which such language uses occur. According to Yule17, the area of pragmatics deals with the speaker meaning and contextual meaning. Speaker meaning is concerned with the analysis of what people mean by their utterances rather than what the words and phrases in those utterances might mean in and of themselves. Speaker meaning, rather than sentence meaning, can only begin to be understood when context is taken into consideration. Any utterance, therefore, can take on various meanings depending on who produced it and under what circumstances.

This science studies the context within which the interaction occurs as well as the intention of the language users. Who are the addressees, what is the relation between speakers/writers and hearers/readers, when and where does the speech event occur and so on. Pragmatics also explore how listeners and readers can make inferences about what is said or written in order to arrive at an interpretation of the user’s intended meaning. There are four kinds of context. First, physical context, it is where a conversation and what action takes places, and what objects are present. Second, epistemic context, it is a background knowledge shared by speaker and hearer. The third is linguistic context. It is about the utterance which is followed by other utterances under consideration. Fourth or the last is social context. It is the social relationship and setting of interactive participants. Obviously, the emphasis in this kind of exploration must be placed not only on what is actually said but also on what is not being said explicitly but recognized implicitly as part of the communicative exchange, such as presupposition,  implication, shared knowledge and circumstantial evidence.

Politeness Theory

In conversation, there are ways to go about getting the things we want. However, in different social situation we are obliged to adjust our use of language to fit the occasion (Fatkhurozi, 2007:14). It would seem socially unacceptable if people speak the same ways to all kinds of people surrounding them. Brown and Levinson (in Watts, 2003: 34 as cited in Fatkhurozi, 2007: 14) describe politeness as an instrumental system of means to satisfy individual face. Politeness strategies are developed to save the hearer's face. Face refers to the respect that an individual has for him or herself. 

The main concept is about maintaining "face" which consists of two related aspects. First, negative face, which is the want of the member of society in which their action are not imposed by others. Second, positive face, that is the want of the member of society in which they want to be appreciated by others. In this concept generally, people cooperate in maintaining face in interaction. Meanwhile, Holmes (1992 as cited in Fatkhurozi, 2007:14) explains that politeness involves taking account of the feeling of others. A polite person will make others feel comfortable. Being polite linguistically involves speaking to people appropriately in the light of their relationship to others. 

Using an imperative such as stop talking or shut the door to a superior at work is likely to earn the office junior a reprimand. Calling the managing director Sally when you do not know her well and have only just stared work in the typing pool or stationary store is liked to be impolite. Making decisions about what is or is not considered polite in any community, therefore involves accessing social relationship along the dimensions of social distance or solidarity, and relative power or status. We need to understand the social values of a society in order to speak politely (Fatkhurozi, 2007: 14).

Being polite may also involve the dimension of formality. In formal situation the appropriate way of talking to your brother will depend on your roles in context. If he is acting as the judge in a law court then calling him Tom will be considered disrespectful, while at the dinner table calling him your honor will be perceived as equally rude (Fatkhurozi, 2007: 15).

Descriptive Research

Descriptive research does not fit neatly into the definition of either quantitative or qualitative research methodologies, but instead it can utilize elements of both, often within the same study. The term descriptive research refers to the type of research question, design, and data analysis that will be applied to a given topic. Descriptive statistics tell what is, while inferential statistics try to determine cause and effect.

Descriptive research can be either quantitative or qualitative. It can involve collections of quantitative information that can be tabulated along a continuum in numerical form, such as scores on a test or the number of times a person chooses to use a-certain feature of a multimedia program, or it can describe categories of information such as gender or patterns of interaction when using technology in a group situation. Descriptive research involves gathering data that describe events and then organizes, tabulates, depicts, and describes the data collection (Glass & Hopkins, 1984). It often uses visual aids such as graphs and charts to aid the reader in understanding the data distribution. Because the human mind cannot extract the full import of a large mass of raw data, descriptive statistics are very important in reducing the data to manageable form. When in-depth, narrative descriptions of small numbers of cases are involved, the research uses description as a tool to organize data into patterns that emerge during analysis. Those patterns aid the mind in comprehending a qualitative study and its implications.

Three main purposes of research are to describe, explain, and validate findings. Description emerges following creative exploration, and serves to organize the findings in order to fit them with explanations, and then test or validate those explanations (Krathwohl, 1993). Many research studies call for the description of natural or man-made phenomena such as their form, structure, activity, change over time, relation to other phenomena, and so on. The description often illuminates knowledge that we might not otherwise notice or even encounter. Several important scientific discoveries as well as anthropological information about events outside of our common experiences have resulted from making such descriptions. For example, astronomers use their telescopes to develop descriptions of different parts of the universe, anthropologists describe life events of socially atypical situations or cultures uniquely different from our own, and educational researchers describe activities within classrooms concerning the implementation of technology. This process sometimes results in the discovery of stars and stellar events, new knowledge about value systems or practices of other cultures, or even the reality of classroom life as new technologies are implemented within schools.

Processing non-literal sentences in comprehending language

 The phrase we hear is not always reveal the meaning of each combination of words in the sentence. It often happens that the meaning of an element of A is compared with element B can not in search of the meaning of A and B. collocation between A and B rather than bring meaning but the meaning of AB is C. It Similarly, we often use what is called a metaphor, ie, a phrase which equates something (which is generally called a topic) with something else (which is called the a vehicle), although both are not the same. Old-fashioned phrases such as: bibirnya seperti delima merekah , rambutnya bagai mayang terurai and modern expression is sutan takdir adalah dewa dalam budaya dan sastra bangsa that does not have a literal meaning. We must know the delima merekah dan mayang terurai and was like what in the perception of what caused it. Similarly Sutan Alisjahbana certainly not gods. After that, then we know the intended meaning: delima merekah dan mayang terurai in the think of it beautiful, think of it being the god of wisdom who knows all, and so on. Therefore, bibir or rambut gadis is a beautiful one who knows a lot about literature  and culture of Indonesia. 

           The phrase idioms, metaphors and indirect questions like this we must also understand correctly. The question that arises is how we understand a sentence like this. The answer to this there has been no satisfactory. Some theories state that there are three stages in the processing. First we give a literal response to every word coming first. So when I heard the word trash, then all matters related to this word in our minds: {- animate}, {object}, {human} and so on. Similarly, when we hear the word tong. Then we give literal meaning to the words we hear it. In our example, we give literal meaning to the tongseng. Apparently collocation between the tong and seng, more so in the context he again ate tongseng, do not make sense. Because the knock on the interpretation of this kind then we go into the third processing stage, namely to find another meaning beyond the literal meaning of the impossible. 

Language Comprehension; An Introduction

Comprehension occurs as the listener builds a mental representation of the information contained within the language that a speaker is using… the listener's general knowledge and level of cognitive development will have a bearing on the comprehension of the message. To generate an accurate mental representation… it means that the listener has to process the language and the concepts.

In particular, lexical knowledge can affect the perception of phonemes. A number of researchers have found evidence for interactivity in the form of lexical effects on the perception of sublexical units. Wurm and Samuel (1997), for example, reported that listeners’ knowledge of words can lead to the inhibition of certain phonemes. Samuel (1997) found additional evidence of interactivity by studying the phenomenon of phonemic restoration. This refers to the fact that listeners continue to “hear” phonemes that have been removed from the speech signal and replaced by noise. Samuel discovered that the restored phonemes produced by lexical activation lead to reliable shifts in how listeners labeled ambiguous phonemes.

If we recognize words, and perceive speech generally, via our stored memory for linguistic forms, it may also be true that we perceive aspects of the world around us, as presented to us through non-linguistic means, via our stored knowledge of the way the world works. So, we are able to address the phenomenon of ambiguity and further issues in interpretation, concentrating on how the listener arrives at a reconstruction of what the speaker wishes to communicate be.

Analysis of the lexical meaning of An Original Soundtrack of Little Mermaid Movie titled ‘Under The Sea’

A.    The Song Lyrics
Listen it
We’re the animal sea
Check it out
The seaweed is always greener
In somebody else's lake
You dream about going up there
But that is a big mistake
Just look at the world around you
Right here on the ocean  floor
Such wonderful things surround you
What more is you lookin' for?

Under the sea (2x)
Darling it's better
Down where it's wetter
Take it from me
Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devotin'
Full time to floatin'
Under the sea

Down here all the fish are happy
As off through the waves they roll
The fish on the land ain't happy
Being the slave of the chef
And chef has been prepared the cooking and dining set   
They sad 'cause they’re  in their bowl
But fish in the bowl is lucky
They in for a worser fate
One day when the boss get hungry
Guess who's gonna  be on the plate

Under the sea (2x)
Nobody beat us
Fry  us and eat us
In fricassee
We what the land folks loves to cook
Under the sea we off the hook
We got no troubles (difficult situation, worry)
We got no problems
Life is the bubbles
Under the sea
Under the sea
Since life is sweet here
We got the beat here
Naturally
Even the sturgeon an' the ray
They get the urge  'n' start to play
We got the spirit
You got to hear it
Under the sea

Oh, yeah…prepare your musical instrument!
The newt play the flute
The carp play the harp
The plaice play the bass
And they soundin' sharp
The bass  play the brass
The chub play the tuba
The fluke is the duke of soul
(Yeah)
The ray he can play
The lings on the strings
The trout  rockin' out
The blackfish  she sings
The smelt  and the sprat
They know where it's at
An' oh that blowfish blow

Under the sea (2x)
When the sardine
Begin the beguine
It's music to me
What do they got? Too lot of sand
we got a hot crustacean band
Each little clam here
know how to jam here
Under the sea
Each little slug here
Cuttin' a rug here
Under the sea
Each little snail here
Know how to wail here
That's why it's too hot
Under the water
Ya we in luck here
Down in the muck here
Under the sea

B.    The Analysis
1.    Denotation
Denotation is the meaning of word which is primarily refers to the real world and this is often the definition that is given in dictionary.

2.    Connotation
Connotation arise as words become related with certain characteristic of item to which they refer, or the association of positive or negative feelings to which they evokes, which may or may not be indicated in the dictionary definition. The positive connotation in the lyrics is ‘muck’, in the lyric ‘Down in the muck here’, the dictionary definition of ‘muck’is ‘the condition that is unpleasant’, but here the meaning of ‘muck’ is the condition which even live under the sea with all creatures there is very noisy but it makes them happy because they always have fun together.

3.    Ambiguity
     A word or a sentence is ambiguous if it can be undrstood or interpreted in more than one way (Fromkin et.al, 1990). The different words having same form or pronunciation may cause ambiguity among listeners or readers who do not pay attention to their context carefully. Among the different words having same form or pronunciation are:
a.     Homonyms (different words having same form)
·    slave ( a person who is legally owned by another person)
       slave (work very hard)   
·    bass (an electric guitar that plays very low note)
   bass ( a sea or freshwater fish that is used for food)
·    slave ( a person who is legally owned by another person)
slave (work very hard)   
·    bass (an electric guitar that plays very low note)
bass ( a sea or freshwater fish that is used for food)
b.    Homophones (different word which are pronounced the same)
·    To (used before the base form of a verb to show that the verb is the infinitive. The infinitive is used after many verbs and also many nouns and adjectives)
        Too (used before adjectives and adverbs to say that sth is more that is good, necessary,   possible)

4.    Antonym
The word antonym derives from the Greek root anti- (‘opposite’) and denotes oposition in meaning. In contrast to synonymy and hyponymy, antonymy is a binary relationship that can characterize a relationship between only two words at a time. Terms A and B are antonyms if, when A describes a referent, B cannot describe the same referent, and vice versa. The antonyms found in this song lyrics are:
·    happy (feeling or showing pleasure) >< sad (uhappy or showing unhappiness)
·    up (moving upwards) >< down (to force something down)
·    land (the surface of the earth that is not  sea) >< sea (the salt water that covers most of the earth’s surface and surrounds its continents and island)   

5.    Synonym
Two words are said to be synonymous if they mean the same thing. To addres the notion of synonymy more formally, we can say that term A is synonymous with term B if every referrent of A is a referent of B and vice versa. The synonyms found in this song lyrics are:
·    listen = hear (to be away of sounds by your ears or to pay attention to somebody/something that you can hear)
·    ocean = sea (the mass of salt water that covers most of the earth’s surface and surrounds its continents and island)
·    troubles = problems (difficult situation, worry)   
·    slug = snail (a small soft creature, with or without a hard round shell on its back, that moves very slowly and often eats garden plants )



6.    Hyponymy
A hyponym is a subordinate, specific term whose referent is included in the referent of a superordinate term and the relationship between each of the lower term (hyponym) and the higher term (superordinate) is called hyponymy.
·    cook (to prepare food by heating it, for example by boliling, baking or frying it) is superordinate of fry (to cook something in hot fat or oil)
·    fish is superordinate of :
a.    sturgeon (a large sea and freshwater fish that lives in nothern region . Strurgeon are used for foods and the eggs (called caviar) are also eaten)
b.    ray ( a seafish with a large broad flat body and long tail that is used for food)
c.   carp (a large freshwater fish that is used for the food)
d.   plaice ( a flat sea fish that is used for food)
e.   bass ( a sea or freshwater fish that is used for food)
f.    chub (a freshwater fish with athick body)
g.   fluke (a flat fish)
h.   ray ( a sea fish with a large broad flat body and long tail that is used for food)
i.    trout (a common freshwater fish that is used for food. There are several types of trout: rainbow trout, trour fishing)
j.    blackfish (a fish in a black coloured)
k.   smelt (a small fish bait)
l.    blowfish
n.   sprat (a very small European sea fish that is used for food)
o.   sardine (a small young sea fish that is either eaten fresh or preserved in tins/cans)
·    animal is superordinate of:
a.    fish (sturgeon, ray, carp, plaice, bass, chub,  fluke, ray, trout, blackfish, smelt blowfish, sprat, sardine)
b.    crustacean (any creature with a soft body that is divided into sections, and a hard outer shell. Most crustaceans live in water)
c.    clam (a shellfish that can be eaten. It has a shell in two parts that can open and close) 
d.    slug (a small soft creature, a snail with without a shell, that moves very slowly and often eats garden plants )
e.    snail (a small soft creature with a hard round shell on its back, that moves very slowly and often eats garden plants)
f.    newt (a small animal with short legs, a long tail and a cold blood, that lives both in water and on land)
·    dining set is superordinate of:
a.    bowl (a deep round dish with a wide open top, used specially for holding food or liquid)
b.    plate (a flat, usually round, dish that you put on)   
·    musical instrument is superordinate of:
a.    flute ( a musical instrument of the wood-wind group shaped like a tin pipe. The player holds it sideways and blows across a hole at one end)
b.    bass (an electric guitar that plays very low note)
      c.    harp (a large musical instrument with strings streched on vertical frame, played with the fingers)
d.    brass (the musical instrument made of metals, such as trumpets or french horns, that form a band or section of an orchestra)
e.    tuba ( a large brass musical instrument that you play by blowing, and that produces low notes)

7.  Polysemy
Polysemy (or multiple meaning) is a property of single lexemes; and this is what differentiates it, in principles, from homonymy.

Language; Discourse and Text

Discourse

Originally the word 'discourse' comes from Latin 'discursus' which denoted 'conversation, speech'. According to some linguist, they have illustrated by the following definition: Discourse is a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative" (Crystal 1992:25). On the other hand Dakowska, being aware of differences between kinds of discourses indicates the unity of communicative intentions as a vital element of each of them.
There are seven criteria which have to be fulfilled to qualify either a written or a spoken text as a discourse has been suggested by Beaugrande (1981).

These include:
·    Cohesion - grammatical relationship between parts of a sentence essential for its interpretation;
·    Coherence - the order of statements relates one another by sense.
·    Intentionality - the message has to be conveyed deliberately and consciously;
·    Acceptability - indicates that the communicative product needs to be satisfactory in that the audience approves it;
·    Informativeness - some new information has to be included in the discourse;
·    Situationality - circumstances in which the remark is made are important;
·    Intertextuality - reference to the world outside the text or the interpreters' schemata;

Nowadays, however, not all of the above mentioned criteria are perceived as equally important in discourse studies, therefore some of them are valid only in certain methods of the research (Beaugrande 1981, cited in Renkema 2004:49).

3.2    Text
What is text? The answer that is often given is that a text is a sequence of sentence. This answer is clearly unsatisfactory. Text is two or more utterances that must be cohesion or connectedness one to another.

A long tradition of text linguistics that has persisted in northern Europe made some attempts about the text analysis. First, it began with attempts to account for how sentences are linked together using linguistics resources. Than, Werlich (1976) described of how linguistic features characterize strategies used in different text type (narrative, descriptive, expository and argumentative). Likewise, the prague school and it’s followers, among whom was Michael hallyday, focused on how the construction of individual construction in terms of their theme (their starting point) and rheme (what was being said about the topic) contributed to the larger pattern of information in extended texts (see fries 1983; eiler 1986; francis 1989; firbas 1992)

For example:
Werlich was enormously influential among German EFL teachers.
The explanation from the example above is that the theme (the starting point- usually the grammatical subject) is werlich, and the rheme is what is said about him (that he was enormously influential). We can repeat different number of theme over a number of sentences, and use the rheme of the one sentence in the theme of the next sentence are among the preoccupations of the prague school linguist, and they represent a major strand of functional (as defined in halliday 1997: 16) approaches to text.

    There are approaches in analyses text. First is concerning the cognitive processing of extended writing texts, and second is rethorical structure analysis.

1.    Concerning the cognitive processing of extended writing texts.
       The steps of this approaches are:
o    we need to activate a necessary scheme (or mental presentation)
o    we have to infer (if we do not know it). Since this is not stated explicitly.
o    we need to give the implicit meaning.

Text and Discourse

Actually there is no agreement among linguists as to the use of the term discourse in that some use it in reference to texts, while others claim it denotes speech. Consequently, she suggests using terms 'text' and 'discourse' almost interchangeably betokening the former refers to the linguistic product, while the latter implies the entire dynamics of the processes (Dakowska 2001:81). According to Cook (1990:7) novels, as well as short conversations or groans might be equally rightfully named discourses. But, sometimes there is a distinction made between text and discourse.

Text is the products of language use. For example: public notice saying cycling forbidden, novel, an academic article, or indeed a transcript of a conversation. Whereas, discourse is the process of meaning-creation and interaction, whether in writing or in speech. Such as: communication and feed back. It means that Discourse inclined to verbal communication. Both approaches have made significant contributions to applied linguistics, and go beyond the notion of language in social context, that is to say attending to the producers and receiver of language as much as to the language forms themselves.

The clearer explanation will be explained the next article.

Communication by Written language

Written language is used in formal form and informal form. In formal form of written language,  you must follow the characteristic of writing, like when you  write a paper or letters. When you write in informal forms like on chatting and sending sort message, there is no penalty for spelling and punctuation errors. 

To write speech communication, please try not to use words you are not comfortable pronouncing or do not know the meaning of because it can lead to a less fluently delivered speech. Written texts are typically not perceived and interpreted at the same times and places. The written texts can be used in different ways, re-employed, duplicated, distributed to particular persons or groups in new situations, and these activities can be regarded as proper communicative acts. A written text and its components parts (letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs) have the character of objects; they are persistent but not temporally organized.

 Characteristics of Written Language
a.    Vocabulary
In both of languages always need vocabulary, but in writing neede letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs.
b.    Grammar
Grammar is always being needed in any kinds of language even in writing or speech even less in written language.
c.    Punctuation
There must be punctuations in written language that the use is the same with intonation in spoken language.

Spoken language and speech communication

In a normal speech communication situation, a speaker tries to influence the listener by making him perceive, understand, and feel at the same time and place. The speaker's speech behavior is continuously accompanied and supplemented by various non-verbal signals, which means that the verbal message as such is often much less explicit than in writing, interpretations may be made more precise and complex through gestures, facial expressions, tones of voice etc. 

After all, the use of an utterance in a normal situation is involved face-to-face interaction because it presented in the same time and place like what said in previews sentence and the listener responds all the time the whole speech with the act of speaker until understand what told. Spoken communication is not always in formal speech but also on chat or sending sort message. In this kind of communication, there is no penalty for spelling and punctuation errors.

Characteristics of Spoken Language

a.    Vocabulary
When you speak ofcourse you need vocabularies because it is one of media to speak and without vocabulary there will not be a speech.
b.    Grammar
As the same with what was said in the previous part, language has grammar factor. In informal communication, there is no penalty for it.
c.    Intonation
In speech we can see the intonation directly but in writing we just can imagine how is the intonation through the punctuations there and it is not always the same with what the author’s want.

Language as Discourse : Speech and Wrting in Applied Linguistic

  Introduction
Discourse generally is refers to spoken language and written language. There are differencies between both of them in hearer or reader. Sometimes the reader can not understand what author wants, its because most of people avoid difficult conversasional with partners then when they find a written-spoken they will difficult to understand well. Writing typically done in one time and one place, whereas reading it always in other time.

There are three important factors that must be noticed in both written language and spoken language. Firstly is about four skills that constructed around a written-spoken dichotomy. Means these four skills will not be without written-spoken dichotomy and always related to these factors. Second factor is about grammar that may be change depend on the owner’s of data wether in spoekn or written. The last one that always questioned is about the rules of sentences such as how to arrange clause, complementation, and other kinds of sentences.

In speech and writing there will be the differencies model of kind of written language and spoken language in the way how people talk and how people write it in any kinds of writing and speaking. This also related to text and discourse that discuses about the process of how to create meanings in texts and also how do we interact to kind of texts whether in writing or speaking in many kinds of text such as novel, academic article or other kinds of texts. There will be discourse analysis that concern in distributions elements of linguistic in escalated texts and links between the texts and its contexts. Discourse analysis is as general approach of linguistic.

The Design of Constituent Production

After the design of sentences is made, the speaker should consider the constituent to form the sentence. A word is selected by the speaker because of its proper meaning. For example, a man is as a reference. If someone hates him, she may call him ‘si brengsek’, while if she likes her, the man may be called as ‘si tampan’. In this, we can say that what is selected by the speaker is based on the meaning which wants to be conveyed.
Besides, the sentence context is also essential to be understood. In the case of article uses; a (book) or the (book), we should identify the context and the reference of the word uttered. In English language, there is a special rule in which a unique word should be marked by the such as the sun, the moon, or the earth, even we never talk about those things previously.
In addition, the word selection depends on the distinguishability principles. If there are two references with the distinctive physical appearance, we will use a semantic feature to to differentiate them.
To have a similar reference, the speaker cannot use the same words, he is naturally forced to use different words based on the situation.
For this case, some other languages like Indonesia or French have an additional point of consideration in designing the constituent production. For example, there is a special rule for pronoun uses in French. People there use a word tu (you) to express a close or conventional relationship and use word vous (anda) to honor someone. In Javanese language, it has an honorific system that should be noticed in the way we speak and behave in it. This language requires us to have knowledge about the social status, age, the kinship relationship to produce the proper utterance.

The Design of Discourse Production

There will be three process of producing utterances based on Carlk: propositional content, illocutionary content, thematic structure
a.    Propositional content
Propositional content determines what proposition the speaker should utter how the speaker establish and classify a word to another. If the speaker wants to describe a sequence of related events, then the sequening and relation between the events must be a part of plan or propositional representation.” A young girl is standing beside an old man”, so we classify what word should we use to depict what we imagine or see. It could be a girl, a girl who is young, a man, a man who is old.
b.    Illocutionary content
Illocutionary content is on how and what that meaning of utterance is uttered. It could be representative or directive sentence.
e.g :  a. Ada rokok, nggak?
          b. Beri aku rokok
it would be possible to ask anyone a cigarette by ordering first sentence than another while a sentence is in the form of question.
An utterance that will be produced also influences by any factors allied to social status, age, relationship/kinship, and familiarity between the speaker and interlocutors. The language uses will be different.
c.    Thematic structure. 
A thematic structure has close relation to the grammatical function and semantic in sentence usage. A speaker chosees and produces a subject and object that will be used.

General steps to produce language

The process of producing language can be divided into four steps. First is message, where the message that will be presented is processed. Second is functional, where lexical form is identified. Third is positional, where the constituent is formed and affixations are done. Fourth is phonology, where the structure of phonology has been formed.
In first step (message) the speaker collected any information related to the subject. Let see to the example below;
(1)    Egi is watching TV.
Something comes to the speaker mind will be that Egi is a people, this people is a male, he has a television, he is doing a deed, and the deed is watching television.
    In second step (functional), something which is processed in this part is two things. First is choosing lexical which is appropriate with the message that will be delivered, and grammatical information for each lexical. For example is that from many male that the speaker knows, Egi is someone that the speaker aimed, and Egi is the name of this male. The deed which is done is followed by the verb of “watch”, between two arguments Egi and television, Egi is the doer and television is as the recipient.
Second step of functional step is giving function to the words which are chosen (grammatical encoding). This process is related to grammatical and syntactical function. In the example (1) Egi must be related to the function of subject and television as the object.
In third step (positional), the form of lexical is organized for the utterance which will be delivered. This organizing is based on unit of meaning. The word “Egi” is fused by “is watching” not “watching”. It will have no meaning if the word “Egi” is fused by “watching”. If the organizing finished then the relevant affixations is processed (fourth step). The word “watch” is fused by “ing” as inflectional, an affix which has the meaning of continuous event (grammatical encoding).
In forth step (phonological encoding), the result of this process is transferred to phonological step to realize it in utterance form. In this part the phonological rule is applied, such as the phoneme of “watch” should be “wac” not “waj” etc.