LISTENING SKILL ASSESSMENT

    There are some foundation principles of language assessment were introduced. Concepts like practicality, reliability, validity, authenticity, washback, direct and indirect testing, and performative and summative assessment are by now part of your vocabulary. The day to day classroom assessment of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Since the level at which you will most frequently have the opportunity to apply principles of assessment.
    For something in the way of a focus on form in assessment. There is no such thing as a test of grammar of vocabulary that does not invoke  one or more of the separate skills of listening, speaking, reading, or writing. It is not uncommon to find little “grammar test” and “vocabulary test” in textbook, and these may be perfectly useful instrument. But responses on these quizzer are usually written, with multiple choice selectio nor fill in the blank items.
THE IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING
    One reason for this emphasis is that listening is often implied as a component of speaking. In addition, the evertly observable nature of speaking renders it more empirically measureable  then listening. But perhaps a deerper cause lies in universal biases toward speaking. A good speaker is often (unwisely) valued more highly than a good listener.
BASIC TYPES OF LISTENING
Those are four commonly identified types of listening performance,each  of which comprises a category within which to consider assessment tasks and procedures.
1.    Intensive. Listening for perception of the components (phonemes, words, intonation, discourse markers, etc.) of a larger stretch of language.
2.    Responsive. Listening to a relatively short stretch of language (a greeting, question, command, comprehension check, etc.) in order to make an equally short response.
3.    Selective. Processing stretches of discourse such as short monologues for several minutes in order to “scan” for certain information.
4.    Extensive. Listening to develope a top-down, global understanding of spoken language.

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).

Pragmatic Study: Theory of Deixis and The Definition

When language is spoken, it occurs in a specific location, at a specific time, is produced by a specific person and is (usually) addressed to some specific other person. Only written language can ever be free of this kind of anchoring in the extra linguistic situation. A sentence on a slip of paper can move through space and time, "speaker" – less, and addressee – less. All natural, spoken languages have devices that link the utterance with its spatio – temporal and personal context. This linkage is called "deixis." (Tanz in Fromkin, 2003: 217)

Definition of Deixis
Deixis is the way in which a small number of words, such as come, go, I, here and now require an addressee to be able to pick out a person, place, or time relevant in understanding how the word refers (Grundy, 2000: 23). Because I, Here, and now identify particular referents, it can be picked out to refer to if we like. We call these words indexical and this function of language deictic, borrowing the Greek word meaning pointing to or picking out. In addition, Levinson (1983: 54) states that deixis is the single most obvious way in which the relationship between language and context is reflected in the structures of languages themselves. The topic of deixis or as philosophers usually prefer, indexical expressions (or just indexicals), may be usefully approached by considering how truth – conditional semantics deals with certain  natural language expressions.
According to Renkema (1993: 76), deixis deals with connection between discourse and the situation in which discourse is used. The words deixis, which is derived from the Greek word meaning “to show” or “ to indicate”, is used to denote those elements in a language which refer directly to the situation, while deictic words are words with a reference point which is depend on the speaker or writer and is determined by the speaker’s or writer’s position in space and time.
Fillmore in Levinson (1983: 54) states that the importance of deictic information for the interpretation of utterances is perhaps best illustrated by what happens when such information is lacking. For example, finding the following notice on someone’s office door “I’ll back in an hour”, we do not know when it was written, we cannot know when the writer will return. A deictic center is a reference point which is related to a deictic expression or an expression that has a deictic usage which has to be interpreted. (Levinson, 1983 : 64). The central person is the speaker, the central time is the time at which the speaker produces the utterance, and the central place is the speaker’s location at utterance time.
The form of deictic is classified into two, namely deictic in which the context is required to determine the reference and non – deictic in which the reference is general rather than to particular identifiable persons (Grundy, 2000:6). In accordance with Levinson (1983: 68), deictic is used for gestural and symbolic, while non – deictic is used for non – anaphoric, and anaphoric.
Based on the preceding definition, it can be conclude that deixis is a words or expressions whose meaning depends on the context of the speaking. To know  the meaning of the language, we have to determine the speaker who produces the utterance, and the location of the utterance in space and time.

Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Concept of Politeness In Face

Brown and Levinson (1987) define politeness as behaving a way that attempts to take into account the feeling of people being addressed. In other words, being polite means that we try to keep our manners or behaviors and our language not to hurt other people’s feelings. Moreover, they proposed the concept of politeness strategies which are developed to save hearer’s face. Face refers to the respect that an individual has for him or herself and maintaining that ‘self esteem’ in public or in private situations.
Face
Brown and Levinson (1987)22 state their notion of “face” is derived from that of Goffman (1967) and English people which is related to the idea of being embarrassed, humiliated, or losing face. Thus, face is something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, and enhanced. In general, a person has to pay attention to his interlocutor’s face. In other words, the speaker and the hearer must cooperate in maintaining each other’s face in interaction based on the mutual vulnerability of face.
There are two kinds of face as divided by Brown and Levinson that everyone possesses. They are positive face and negative face. Positive face is defined as the desire of every member that his selfimage, wants, and opinion be liked and approved. Take for the example, a woman who spends most of her time gardening and takes care of her roses. She is proud of her and expects people admires her. Second, negative face is defined as the desire of every member that he has Freedom of Action as well as Freedom of Imposition. For example, there is a boy who loves watching TV but at the same time he has problem with his eyes’ health. Therefore, the mother warns him not to watch TV too much since it is not good for his eyes. Here, the boys has freedom to watch TV as much as he likes (Freedom of Action), but considering his eyes’ health, the mother forbids it which means the mother disturbs the boy’s freedom of watching TV.

Characteristics of Slang Language

Some of slang expressions are acceptable and the others are a rude and impolite. Words or phrases may be considered as slang if they fulfill one or more these characteristics (Slang of Duke.http://www.epinions.com):
1. Creative
Slang is created from a new term, so it needs the creativity of the creator. The creator is encouraged to produce new terms, which are imaginative, innovative, productive, even shocking, and amusing. The example of teenagers’ creativity is creating slang terms from the existing words. In this case, teenagers still use the original words, but acquire a new meaning, which is different from its original meaning. Some of them is constructed from the kind of colors, animals, and numbers,
2. Flippant
It means, slang produced has irrelevant meaning with the context. That makes this term considered as a rude, for instance, fucking chicken, bitch, motherfucker, and shit.

Slang Language

Definition

Slang is a specific word, phrase, or utterance, which is commonly used by young people in their community. It refers to unconventional words, so it is not appropriate to be spoken in a formal situation, such as in the school, university, or in the office. Frommer and Finegan (2004) wrote “Slang terms are often found in movies and music reviews, lifestyle pieces, and people columns” (p.243). While Anderson and Trudgill in Ulfa (2003) wrote that actually, slang is not language ordialect, it can be said as a code that produced by changing the existing language to the common one. Every language has a vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar, whereas slang has not. It just has vocabulary which is not profanity and ungrammatical. Dialect refers to the different language caused by geographical area, whereas slang is not restricted to one region or country (p. 24)

Slang that was widely used in the early twentieth century, firstly appeared in 1800’s when it was used by criminal classes in London (Maurer:2003). It was produced largely by social group, such as criminal classes, narcotic addicts, sexual deviant community, racial minority community, political organization, armed forces, rapper, etc, rather than by individual speakers. The first reason why they used slang was to make the expressions secret. Nowadays, teenagers often use it

in their daily communication with their community. By using slang, teenagers feel free in conversation with their community, every time and everywhere without anyone who understands the meaning.

Recently, slang is not only used by certain communities as secret expressions but also used commonly by teenagers. It is considered as a simple word or phrase which is not profanity and ungrammatical. Goodword (2006) stated that slang is a crucial part of a young person “coming of age,” one of the first detectable signs of their breaking away from their parents and their parents’

values. It is a cheap second language that express as the differences between young people who are about to enter adulthood from his or her parents’ generation (p.1). On the other hand, Mulyana (2001) said that “slang are words or phrases, which have specific, meaning, unique, deviate, even opposite with the real meaning used by certain community” (p. 280). However, some slang may be accepted as a standard speech, although in its original meaning, for example, bus from omnibus, jazz, which originally had sexual connotation, and VIP (Very Important Person).

Whereas some expressions of Indonesian slang are makan gengsi, (obstinate), udah (finish), PDKT (aprroach), naksir (love) as Faruq (2004) examined in his research A Study of Play of Words and Slang on “The ABG Problem” Section in Jawa Pos daily newspaper

Solidarity and Politeness

Tu and Vous

According to Brown and Gilman (1960), Tu and Vous began as a genuine difference of singular and plural. The distinction is that grammatically there is a singular you (T) and a plural you (V) but usage requires that you use vous with the individuals or certain occasions. In a book entitled savoire-vivre en France, it is said that Tu should be use between spouse, close relatives, or the people working or living closely together, while Vous should be used with strangers, to those who have no ties of any kinds, between inferior and superior.

Since there is no precise rule for shifting from vous to tu, it is best to wait until the other person uses it to address you before you use it to address him or her. If you cannot judge who has ‘power’ or which proper conditions to use tu or vous, it is better to use politeness and wait until the other use ‘solidarity’. 

Address Terms

Address by title alone is the least intimate form of address in that title usually designates ranks or occupations as in colonel, doctor, or waiter. Some language employ the kinship terms to use address terms. One of the other peculiarity systems of naming and addressing is giving a name to and address to the non-human like pets. there is an interesting terms said by Robinson about the address terms. He argues that a society in which a person’s status derives from the achievements, a few distinctions is made. 

Politeness

In using a language, we use a device that the language employ to show certain relationship to other. We must use the language properly. We can demonstrate our feelings to other and our awareness of social controls. Such awareness is also shown through a general politeness in the use of language. It does not mean that we must always be polite. Oppositely, impoliteness may happen depends on the existence of standard or norms of politeness. Some languages have a complex rules of politeness, for instance, Javanese, one of the important language in Indonesia, is a language in which it is nearly impossible to say anything without indicating the social relationship between the speaker and the listener in terms of status and familiarity.

Structuralism and Claude Levi Strauss

Claude Lévi-Strauss is the best known and most influential structuralist. Because of his influence, Lévi-Strauss is an excellent example of structuralist approaches. The main influence on the work Lévi-Strauss' work is multifaceted and that he was influenced not only by other anthropologists but also by linguists, geologists and others. Lévi-Strauss brings into anthropology these and other influences which have shaped his thinking and anthropological thought through his work. The main aspects of Lévi-Strauss' work can be summarized under three headings, they are:
a)    Alliance Theory
Lévi-Strauss' theoretical contributions to social anthropology are numerous and significant. The best known of these is "alliance theory." Alliance theory stresses the importance of marriage in society as opposed to the importance of descent. Its basic supposition is that the exchange of women between groups of related men results in greater social solidarity, and that the result of this cohesion is better chances of survival for all members of the resultant kin group. Lévi-Strauss' claims that the regulating of marriages through prescription and preference and the proscription of other types of marriage creates a "exchange" of women in simple societies. This interchange, accompanied by exchanges of gifts, ensures the cooperation of the members of these groups.
His analysis of the incest taboo is fascinating. For Lévi-Strauss the link between nature and culture in humankind comes from this universal proscription. In the incest taboo nature transcends itself and creates culture as the controlling element of human behavior. Sex and other drives are regulated by culture, man has become a cultural entity.
b)    Human Mental Processes
There is unity in the way the human mind functions. Lévi-Strauss claims that, although the manifestations may be very different, the human mental processes are the same in all cultures. The unity of the mental processes results from the biology of the human brain and the way it works. As a result of this unity, e.g. the classification of the universe by "primitive man" has the same basis as when it is done by any group, it is done through models. The fact that resultant models of this classification may be different is irrelevant for him. The analysis of myth in Lévi-Strauss is also based on the premise about the unity of the human mind.

c)    Structural Analysis of Myth
Lévi-Strauss' work on myth parallels his interest in mental processes. He attempts to discover unconscious the regularities of the human mind. The use of the structuralist models of myth allows for the reduction of material studied to manageable levels. The dominant manner to accomplish this goal is based on the use of the following concepts:
1.    Surface and Deep Structure
To discover the model/structure of a myth one must explore the deep structure of a myth. The surface structure provides us with the narrative, the deep structure with an explication of the myth. This is accomplished by discovering the major binary opposition(s) in the deep structure.
2.    Binary oppositions
These occur in nature and naturally in the human mind. They are such things as night and day, left and right or nature and culture. Nature and culture often functions as a binary opposition in tales. However, depending on the tale or myth the binary opposition changes. For example, the binary opposition life and death is a useful one to explicate "Sleeping Beauty." Here, the deep structure of the story suggests that when the thirteenth fairy declares that Sleeping Beauty is to die at her fifteenth birthday that a life versus death binary opposition is posited. A mediation to solution the problem is now necessary.
3.    Mediation
A binary opposition can be mediated by finding a solution to the opposition created by the binary. The mediation to the culture/nature binary opposition is that culture transcends nature. In the case of "Sleeping Beauty" the nature of the mediation is quite different but equally embedded in within the subject matter. Here the life versus death binary opposition is mediated by the twelve fairy's action: death is transformed into one hundred years sleep.