EEJ 8 (1) (2018) 107 - 114 English Education Journal http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej Evaluation of the Use of Attitude Resources in the Undergraduate Students’ Argumentative Speech Yuni Awalaturrohmah Solihah, Warsono, Sri Wuli Firtiati Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia Article Info ________________ Article History: Accepted 20 November 2017 Approved 15 February 2018 Published 15 March 2018 ________________ Keywords: appraisal resources, attitude resources, argumentative speech, high ability students, low ability students ____________________ Abstract ___________________________________________________________________ Appraisal Resources is the developmental theory of Halliday‟s interpersonal meaning proposing by Martin and White (2005) in which it evaluates the language meaning in the discourse. This study focused on attitude as a subsystem of appraisal resources. This study investigated comparison of the use of attitude between high and low ability students in argumentative speech. This study employed qualitative research in the form of spoken discourse analysis to examine 16 argumentative speeches within the framework of Appraisal Resources (Martin & White, 2005). The instruments applied Argumentative Speech Rubric adapted by Brown (2003) and Stevens and Levi (2005) to assess high and low ability as well as the appraisal resources checklist to determine the distribution of appraising items of attitude in high and low ability students‟ argumentative speech, especially in affect, judgement, and appreciation as the subsystems of attitude. This study revealed that both high and low ability students were more dominant to use appreciation in their speeches. Thus, this study showed that speeches of high and low ability students were more appreciative than emotional or judgemental to align their personal voices in conveying their utterances and building strong persuasion through argumentative speech. © 2018 Universitas Negeri Semarang Correspondence Address: Kampus Pascasarjana Unnes, Jl. Kelud Utara III Semarang 50237, Indonesia E-mail: missyuniasolihah@gmail.com p-ISSN 2087-0108 e-ISSN 2502-4566 http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej Yuni Awalaturrohmah Solihah, Warsono, Sri Wuli Firtiati / English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 107 - 114 108 INTRODUCTION Language is a tool of communication to convey meanings. It is used to unify peoplewhoare being talked about in any situation. According to Wardhaugh (2006, p.1), language assists people to communicate to each other. It is divided into spoken and written form that can be used to inform something to each other. People also can use the language either spoken or written to express their feelings, opinion, and intention. Thus, the language is a primary need for people in the communication to convey information itself. To express their information in the speech, people have their own intention through their language use, especially in their talk/writing. The use of language affects the acceptance of information for the listeners/readers. It lies at the meaning at the speaker and writer‟s language use. In other words, the language use can be evaluated to explore whether it is positive or negative intention. White (2015, p.1) states that to negotiate meaning, speaker/writer has personal evaluation toward phenomena so that speaker/writer shares their proposition to take his/her assumption whether it is positive or negative position. The evaluation of language use related to the Appraisal Theory that is proposed by Martin & White (2005) as the development of theory from Halliday‟s theory of interpersonal meaning. Appraisal theory was developed from interpersonal metafunction in the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). This theory explains the meaning of lexical words that are used by speakers/writers, so it evaluates the language use in their utterances. According to Martin and Rose (2003), Appraisal theory relates to negotiate the social relationship between the speaker/writer and listener/reader. Martin and White (2005) divide into three subsystems of appraisal resources, including attitude, engagement, and graduation. The interpretation of speaker/writer‟s feeling, emotion, or appreciation can be discovered through Attitude resources. Meanwhile, the Engagement deals with the way speaker/writer engage their voices to take their position in talk/writing. The graduation shows the scale/grading of speaker/writer to emphasize their talk/writing. It assists them to soften or sharpen their intention when they convey their utterances. In this study, I focused on the attitude resources to make a deeper explanation how the speaker/writer conveys their emotion, feeling, and appreciation through their utterances. Attitude is divided into three resources, namely expressing feelings/emotion as affect resources, expressing for judging character as judgement resources, and expressing value of things as appreciation resources (Martin & Rose, 2003; Martin & White, 2005). Kayi (2006) states that exploring students‟ speaking skill assist to enhance their communicative skill in delivering their ideas according to the appropriate communicative circumtances as the goal of teaching speaking in the classroom. In addition, Jannah & Fitriati (2016), “speaking is one of the skills which plays a significant role in mastering English”. It means that speaking skill in academic context is one of the goals of EFL classroom setting, so that the students can express their meaning and information in accordance with their purposes and situational contexts. According to Yuliarti and Warsono (2016), “students have to understand what utterance they should produce in any certain condition so that the utterance is proper for the situation and suitable for their interlocutor”. Thus, the students should express their proposition based on the topics given that relate to their situation itself in order to persuade the listeners. There are many genres that can be explored in spoken language, but in this study, I am concerned with the exploring of argumentation in spoken language to know the representation of speakers to persuade or influence the listeners by using appraisal resources in terms of attitude resources. The argumentation refers to the „genre of arguing‟ to explain the the process of „reasoning, evaluation, and persuasion‟ toward the issue given (Knapp & Watkins, 2005, p.187). Therefore, the students Yuni Awalaturrohmah Solihah, Warsono, Sri Wuli Firtiati / English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 107 - 114 109 convey the persuasive speech that concerns with the interpersonal utterance through argumentation. Mujiyanto (2016) states that “the term „interpersonal utterance‟ is referred to as something that a speaker says in order to convey a certain interpersonal function”. It means that the students give their argumentation based on their personal voices/utterances toward the topic given to influence listeners. Furthermore, the speaking ability is different among the students that can be categorized as high and low ability in speaking, especially in argumentative speech in this study. Previous studies on the use of appraisal studies done by Liu and Thompson (2009), Liu (2013), and Jalilifar and Hemmati (2013) that focus on finding out how appraisal resources used by high and low ability students. However, those studies concern on the analysis of appraisal resources in argumentative essays as the form of academic writing. Therefore, this study compares the attitude resources analysis in the argumentative speech of students with high and low ability. METHODS This study used spoken discourse analysis as research design. Cameron (2001, p. 7) states that spoken discourse analysis is the analysis to observe explicitly in people‟s talk. It can be the source of verbal interaction between the speaker and interlocutor. In line with Cornish (2006) states that spoken discourse analysis is the way of analysis to interpret speakers‟ communicative intention in their talk. It is the verbal interaction between speaker and interlocutors to produce meaningful communication, especially in spoken interaction. This study focused on analyzing spoken form as the data of this study to explore appraisal resources in argumentative speech of students. Therefore, this study was designed by the qualitative research through spoken discourse analysis. The objects of this study were argumentative speeches from 16 undergraduate students at Universitas Kuningan. They are majoring in English education, and they were in the sixth semester students in the academic year 2016/2017. The data was the spoken forms in terms of clauses or clause complexes as unit of analysis that were analyzed and classified as the „appraising item‟that were included into appraisal resources in this study. The data of this study was to record students‟ performance in argumentative speech by using tape recorder and camera. It can be seen the students‟ ability to convey their arguments or opinion through argumentative speech. To classify students‟ ability, I used Argumentative Speech rubric that was adapted from Brown (2003) and Steven and Levi (2005). After classifying the students‟ ability of argumentative speech, I used the appraisal resources checklist by Martin and White (2005) to highlight three appraisal resources, namely attitude, engagement, and graduation resources in their speech. Some procedures of analyzing data were transcribing, grading/scoring, labeling, evaluating, and reporting. To minimize the subjectivity, the researcher needs the triangulation that uses more methods of data collection in the study (Cohen, Manion, & Morisson, 2007, p. 141). In this study, I used investigator triangulation that asked one of lecturers in a local university in Semarang. She is a Professor in English Language Teaching as an expert of Appraisal. Moreover, I also asked five inter-raters who are experts in speaking classes to categorize students‟ score into students with high and low ability in argumentative speech. Therefore, I used expert judgement not only to validate the findings and data analysis but also to give the students‟ score of argumentative speech by using Argumentative Speech rubric that was adapted from Brown (2003) and Steven & Levi (2005). RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS Based on the argumentative speech rubric adapted from Brown (2003) and Steven and Levi (2005), the result was that there are 16 students in which each eight student is categorized as both high and low ability. The overall distribution of attitude resources in the students with high and low ability is presented in Table 1. Yuni Awalaturrohmah Solihah, Warsono, Sri Wuli Firtiati / English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 107 - 114 110 Table 1. The Distribution of Attitude Resources in the Students with High and Low Ability H&L Attitude Resources Affect Judge- ment Appreciation H1 1 7 10 H2 0 6 7 H3 18 20 27 H4 4 3 3 H5 5 6 3 H6 1 9 4 H7 2 3 13 H8 3 1 5 Total 34 55 72 L9 0 2 3 L10 8 3 5 L11 2 1 4 L12 6 3 13 L13 4 0 9 L14 1 3 1 L15 1 0 4 L16 0 0 3 Total 22 12 42 Based on table 1, the students with high ability produced 34 appraising items of affect, 55 appraising items of judgement, and 72 appraising items of appreciation. However, the students with low ability produced 22 appraising items of affect, 12 appraising items of judgement, and 42 appraising items of appreciation. As a result, the distribution of appreciation is more than judgement and affect in the argumentative speech of students with high and low ability. This finding is in line with the studies by Lee (2006), Xinghua and Thompson (2009), Liu and Thompson (2009), Liu (2013), and Jalilifar and Hemmati (2013). It indicates that the students make their speeches that are related with the topic given by using appreciation resources because they appreciate and evaluate things/phenomena, especially the topic given. In addition, the dominant distribution of appreciation in students‟ argumentative speech is a characteristic of argumentation (Lee, 2006; Liu & Thompson, 2009; and Liu 2013). It is in line with the genre that is investigated in this study, namely argumentation in spoken language. The specific explanation of attitude resources will be explained in the following section. Affect Affect is concerned with feeling which is conveyed to express their intention toward the context. The feelings also express speaker/writer‟s emotion toward things whether it is positive or negative feeling (Martin & Rose 2003; Martin & White 2005; White 2011). The distribution of affect in the students with high and low ability can be analyzed into four terms, including dis/inclination, un/happiness, in/security, and dis/satisfaction as subsystems of affect resources. It can be seen in the following table to show the proportion of subsystems of affect in the students with high and low ability. Table 2. The Distribution of Affect in the Students with High and Low Ability Affect Resources Polarity H L Dis/Inclination (+) 7 7 (-) 0 0 Un/Happiness (+) 13 7 (-) 1 0 In/Security (+) 0 0 (-) 3 4 Dis/Satisfaction (+) 6 3 (-) 4 1 Based on the table above, it shows that students with high ability (Hs) produce more un/happiness and dis/satisfaction, in contrast, dis/inclination and in/security are more produced by the students with low ability (Ls). Thus, the students with high ability tend to convey their feeling of happiness and satisfaction in their speeches, while the students with low ability produce their feeling of desire and security in their speech. It indicates that both students with high and low ability express based on what they feel toward the topic given. The excerpts of appraising items in affect resources are described below. Yuni Awalaturrohmah Solihah, Warsono, Sri Wuli Firtiati / English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 107 - 114 111 (1) soyaa... I think1 that I truely1 inspired a.. inspiring with a... social media is really2 changed my life because I know everything i want i want to2 [+affect: inclination (desire)] share everything to people (2) fast food is very good1 food for me and my friend because we are hang out want to2[+affect: inclination: desire] eat in the canteen in the campus. Student 5 intends to express her feeling of desire to do something because of advantage of social media for her life. Student 14 intends to deliver speaker‟s desire to have a meal in canteen of campus. (3) A.. That they think the new1 [+appreciation: composition] world in the smartphone is more1 enjoy2 [+affect: satisfaction] is more2 happy3 [+affect: happiness] than in the real3 [+appreciation: valuation] life for myself. (4) and a.. in here i have a case, like a.. i have reviews in my home like three four three years four five years ago, there are always watching cartoon, they like [+affect: happiness] Upin Ipin Student 6 uses “happy” to give her feeling of happiness toward the topic about the effect of smartphone in her life. student 12 conveys feeling of happiness by using word “like” that people are happy when they are watching Upin Ipin. (5) a.. then I try so hard1 in in school, I have willing2 to study in a... hope3without any homework because it made it made me afraid4 [- affect: insecurity] to face tomorrow tomorrow days. (6) It makes a... it makes a... a children feel uncomfortable for [-affect: insecurity] it. Student 7 uses word “afraid” to express his feeling of insecurity to what will happen tomorrow. Moreover, student 3 uses word “uncomfortable for” to express speaker‟s feeling of untrust toward the surrounding. (7) and I claim1 social media because it’s2really1 I mean I am really2 addicted [+affect: satisfaction] with social media like but3 my reason crush is snapchat. (8) because when we school when we study school, we very stress [-affect: disatisfaction] about a.. thing the material that delivered by the teacher Student 5, she uses “addicted” to express their feeling of satisfaction positively toward the topic about the effect of social media in her life. In this situation, she deliversfeeling of interest that lies to the satisfaction of things. Student 9 uses word “stress” to convey dissatisfaction that occurs in the activity that speaker is engaged with. Judgement Judgement is concerned with judging people‟s behaviour or character to convey information in the interaction (Martin & Rose 2003; and Martin & White 2005). It means that as an affect, this resource is concerned with positive and negative judging of behaviour. The distribution of judgement in the students with high and low ability is presented in the following table. Table 3. The Distribution of Judgement in the Students with High and Low Ability Judgement Resources Polarity H L Normality (+) 12 0 (-) 9 2 Capacity (+) 11 4 (-) 8 1 Tenacity (+) 1 0 (-) 1 0 Veracity (+) 4 0 (-) 0 0 Propriety (+) 2 2 (-) 8 3 According to table 3, both students with high and low ability employ more social esteem (N=47) than social sanction (N=19). The specific distribution shows that the students with high ability (Hs) are more frequent to use normality and capacity to judge human‟s behaviour, while capacity and propriety are produced by the students with low ability (Ls). These findings indicate that the students with high ability frequently judge how capable and special of human‟s behaviour, in contrast, the students‟ with low ability tend to judge how capable and ethic of human‟s behaviour. This finding is in line with Jalilifar and Hemmati‟s (2013) study that capacity and propriety are Yuni Awalaturrohmah Solihah, Warsono, Sri Wuli Firtiati / English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 107 - 114 112 dominant in high rated students. The excerpts are explained below. (9) In the other words, in daily life, for everyday become intense [+judgement: normality] than or something like that. (10) The first, actually, we don’t realize about the social social life, because of handphone, we we become the individual [-judgement: normality] life. Student 10 uses word “intense” as the example of normality in positive way. People become intense to use the technology in their life, so it judges the people‟s behaviour that it is the special activity because of developmental technology. Student 8 uses the word “individual” to express speaker‟s judgement toward people‟s behaviour in their life because of handphone. The speaker intends to judge people that they become individualism that occurs in their life. (11) Okay, I will explain about the topic that watching television makes the people smarter [+judgement: capacity]. (12) So, and then Indonesia must1 be better [+judgement: capacity] in population growth a... until 2010 Indonesia population is in 237 million at 2025 it is predicted that2 Indonesian population will3 be 285 million. Students 4 uses the word “smarter” to judge watching television becomes people smarter. It means that it is positive probability for people when they are watching television. Student 2 uses word “better” to judge the capacity of Indonesian to maintain their population growth. (13) Somehow1 by using technology for a long time2, we also make someone more3individual[- judgement: tenacity], The word “individual” judges the people‟s behaviour about the use of technology nowadays. The people will be individual when they use technology. It means that the speaker intends to judge the dependence of people‟s behaviour because of developmental technology. (14) And also ehm.. an also ya.. as my as what a.. you know a.. I have been true [+judgement: veracity] life The word “true” is the speaker‟s judgment to prove that her behaviours occurs in the real world. In other words, the speaker expresses the truth of her behaviour in using smartphone until she obtains the advantages. (15) Ehm... to be honest1, I am not1 good2 to making friends I am not really reallyreallygood3 [- judgement: propriety] in making friends. (16) but the children is not a.. matched[-judgement: propriety] to their psychology for a children. Student 5 uses word “good” is to express their judgement to herself about her behaviour. The speaker intends to judge herself that she is not good to make a friend. Student 3 would like to judge the person‟s behaviour that choosing good career from parents is not good for children. It relates to the ethic of parents to do good ones for the children. Appreciation Appreciation is resources for evaluating things, phenomena, or performances in the interaction (Martin & Rose 2003; and Martin & White 2005). As an affect and judgement, appreciation is conveyed either positively or negatively. Below is the description of distribution of appreciation in the students with high and low ability. Table 4. The Distribution of Appreciation in the Students with High and Low Ability Affect Resources Polarity H L Reaction (+) 25 16 (-) 9 12 Composition (+) 3 2 (-) 2 4 Valuation (+) 14 6 (-) 19 2 From table 4, both students with high ability (Hs) and low ability (Ls) produce more reaction and valuation, while there is insignificant distribution of composition in both students. This finding is reported in other studies (Liu, 2013; Xinghua& Thompson, 2009; and Jallilifar & Hemmati, 2016). It indicates that both students express their evaluation toward the topic given, especially about impact, quality and worthwhile of things/phenomena. The examples of appraising items of reaction can be seen in the following excerpts. Yuni Awalaturrohmah Solihah, Warsono, Sri Wuli Firtiati / English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 107 - 114 113 (17) If we have just1slim1 [+appreciation: reaction] body, we are easy2 to swim, we are easy3 to run without2 we are a... difficult4 with our body. (18) I think in this phenomenon it’s bad [- appreciation: reaction] for a children when a parents choose a.. career for their children. Student 1 uses word “slim” that evaluates things that relates to the topic in the utterance. In the context, “slim” is used to describe the quality of body so that this word is included into appreciation in the term of reaction. Student 3 uses word “bad” to evaluate the impact of phenomena about choosing career from parents to children. Student 3 intends to express her positive assessment toward the phenomena that it is not good when the parents choose career for their children. The examples of valuation are explained below. (19) So that’s why social media is really really helpful [+appreciation: valuation]. (20) And the a... I hear1 from my parent fast food is very can2 a... very dangerous [-appreciation: valuation] us. The word “helpful” is to appreciate things in the context, especially the worthwhile of social media in her life positively, so this word includes into valuation in the appreciation. Student 14 uses word “dangerous” to give negative assessment toward the worthwhile of fast food. This student intends to convey her appreciation that fast food has negative worthwhile for us, especially for our health. There is a lower occurence of composition in both students that is in line with Liu‟s (2013) study. It means that both students do not focus to convey their evaluation/assessment to the complexity and balance of things/phenomena in their speech. The examples of composition are described below. (21) Because technology is some that make our life easy[+appreciation: composition]. (22) You know fast food a..fast food is food sofast [- appreciation: complexity]. The word “easy” is to evaluate things in the context in positive way. This evaluates the complexity of people‟s life because of technology whether it becomes easy or hard to face their life. Student 14 produces word “fast” to evaluate positive assessment toward the complexity of product. In this context, student 14 would like to appreciate fast food is served very fast. CONCLUSION The language use can be evaluated by using Appraisal Theory that is developed by Martin and White (2005). This theory explores the intention of speaker/writer in conveying the meaning of utterances. In this study, I focused on analyzing the attitude resources as a subsytem of appraisal theory. Attitude resources are divided into three subsystems, including affect, judgement, and appreciation. From the students‟ argumentative speeches, I divided into two groups, involving students with high and low ability. By comparing the distribution of attitude resources in the argumentative speech of students with high and low ability, it showed that both students with high and low ability produced more appreciation than judgment and affect. It indicates that both students with high and low ability appreciate and evaluate things/phenomena that relate to the topic given. This makes their speeches more appreciative than emotional and judgemental. The conclusions explained above lead me to provide some suggestions. It is beneficial for the English language learners to pay attention toward the interpersonal meaning, especially appraisal resources. They need to explore about appraisal resources in order to convey their personal voices effectively and efficiently. Moreover, the English teachers can increase the students‟ speaking skill by using appraisal resources to build their personal voice in order to establish persuasion in their speech.The further study can explore earlier level of education involving the students of Junior or Senior High School to know their language use to express their arguments and ideas through argumentative speech. Furthermore, the study can also carry out to compare some genres in speech, so that study investigates how distribution of appraisal resources among different genres. Yuni Awalaturrohmah Solihah, Warsono, Sri Wuli Firtiati / English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 107 - 114 114 REFERENCES Brown. J.D. (2003). Language Assessment, Princliples and Classroom Practices. New York: Pearson Education, Inc. Cameron, D. (2001). Working with Spoken Discourse. London: SAGE Pub. Jalilifar, A., & Hemmati, A. (2013). 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