The particular dialect or language that a person chooses to use on any occasion is called a code 975 Copyright © 2022 The Author IDEAS is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 License Issued by English study program of IAIN Palopo IDEAS Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, Linguistics and Literature ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) Volume 10, Number 1, June 2022 pp. 975 - 983 Pragmatic Failure of Students Conversation in Speaking Class Ahmad Tauchid 1, Era Tri Nur Kumala2, Alfi Nika Rizkiana3 1ahmadtauchidmpd@gmail.com, 2eratri1922@gmail.com 3alfinikarizkiana@gmail.com 1,2,3Univesitas Nahdlatul Ulama Sunan Giri, Bojonegoro Received: 2022-04-28 Accepted: 2022-06-05 DOI: 10.24256/ideas.v10i1.2785 Abstract When communicating with others, people may be unable to distinguish between speaker and hearer, yet the dialogue can continue. As a result, a pragmatic role is required. Nonetheless, many pragmatic examples may fail for various reasons, including cross-cultural comprehension and even grammatical form misinterpretation. This situation occurs not just in real life but also in the classroom. This essay aims to examine the pragmatics of English students' dialogue in speaking class. The conversation in speaking class begins with a definition of the Pragmatic and Speech Act and Pragmatic Failures. It will be followed by examining several pragmatic failure dialogues in an EFL speaking class. According to this study, there are ten pragmatic failure discussions. The researchers discovered the following situations based on those conversations: first, there are different types of speech acts in English students' conversations in the speaking class, such as directive, assertive, and proclamation, which are all based on Levinson's theory. Furthermore, pragmatic failure occurs in English students' conversations in speaking class and is referred to as pragmalinguistics failure. Keywords: Pragmatic Failure, Speaking Class, Students’ Conversation. http://u.lipi.go.id/1457703302 mailto:ahmadtauchidmpd@gmail.com mailto:eratri1922@gmail.com mailto:alfinikarizkiana@gmail.com Ahmad Tauchid, Era Tri Nur Kumala, Alfi Nika Rizkiana Pragmatic Failure of Students Conversation in Speaking Class 976 Introduction Language is an ideal tool for humans to communicate messages, ideas, emotions, and even to develop differences in language or culture. As a result, language learners absorb a new language before learning it. Understand how the first speaker of a language affects the learning of that language. Language learners must identify pragmatics or context-bound features through certain relevant activities and pragmatics awareness-raising tasks to communicate contextually in a foreign language environment (Jorda , 2004, p.25). Teachers should consider how they can impart pragmatic interlanguage elements to their students. Pragmatics is the acceptance of language acquisition and one of the primary components of structuring a language's knowledge. It has become one of linguist experts’ most pressing concerns (Cohen, 2010). From a restricted linguistic perspective. The study of the factors that influence our language choices in social interactions is known as pragmatics impacted by the choices of others” (Yule, 2010). Furthermore, pragmatics only interacts with components of the context coded in linguists' pragmatics competency structure. Pragmatics is also an interdisciplinary field that includes language, sociology, and psychology. As a result, according to Lihui (2010), it is a “general cognitive, social, and behavioural problem". Context is described in pragmatics as a set of circumstances. In order to develop a relationship in society, communication is a fundamental aspect of human life. It is critical to teach strong communication skills and how to communicate information to pupils, so there are no misunderstandings. Pragmatics is a popular concept in EFL/ESL research. It was a popular topic of study in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Pragmatics is a branch of applied sciences concerned with language use and its viewpoints systematically espoused from the content or logical form conformance (Horn & Ward, 2006). That is one of the most significant aspects of effective communication in a specific situation. Speech acts are one of the most commonly discussed topics in pragmatics, according to Levinson (1983), who stated that of all the problems with language use theory in general, the speech act theory may have piqued the most interest. There are three main discussions about a level beyond the range of speech act utterances in further research of speech act: locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary. Jenny Thomas used the term pragmatic failure in her 1983 article Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure. In the essay, she defined and characterized pragmatic failure and established a theoretical foundation for analyzing pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication. According to Thomas, pragmatic failure is "the inability to comprehend what is intended by what is spoken" (1983, p.22). Thomas, to be precise, merely tries to evaluate what pragmatic failure is like, rather than providing a specific notion to explain what pragmatic failure is (Jingwei, 2013). Because the speaker and the hearer have different cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds, pragmatic failure arises. The underlying issue with pragmatic failure is when a listener uses evidence from an interpretation that should not have IDEAS, Vol. 10, No. 1, June 2022 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 977 achieved an optimal degree of relevance to attribute views and intents to his interlocutor based on cultural knowledge and contextual assumptions. Developing and ability factors such as 1) Negative transfer of discourse stretches or linguistic strategies, 2) Undue overgeneralizations of L2 forms to inappropriate settings, 3) Anxiety to communicate as clearly as possible, 4) Lack of cultural knowledge, 5) Excessive and restrictive textbook language, 5) The limited language to which learners are exposed in the classroom may all contribute to pragmatic failure (Khasanah, 2019). Understanding the origins and reasons for pragmatic failure necessitates understanding how listeners process utterances, which processing strategy they employ, and why they arrive at a specific interpretation. In the English teaching-learning process, a conversation between teacher and students recently resulted in a pragmatic failure and a speech act. This study aimed to investigate pragmatic failure and speech act in the English teaching learning process. Jenny Thomas' pragmatic failure and Levinson's speech act were utilized in the theoretical approach. In the essay, Thomas defined and characterized pragmatic failure, laying the groundwork for a theoretical examination of pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication. Any pragmatic theory, according to Levinson, must explain a speech act, as well as presuppositions and implicature. It is divided down into some questions based on the focus, as follows: 1. In the speaking class, what speech acts do English students use? 2. How does pragmatic failure manifest itself in an English student’s speaking class conversation? The study's goal is to explain the many types of speech acts that occur in English students' conversations in speaking class, as well as to elaborate on pragmatic failure in English students' conversations in speaking class. The study's importance lies in its theoretical accumulation of studies on speech acts and pragmatic failure. As a result, the researchers were able to gather a variety of viewpoints on the pragmatic study. In practice, the study can provide various benefits to the reader in terms of comprehending the discussion in the teaching-learning process. Literature Review Pragmatics The actual communication between parties from various backgrounds is not as straightforward as manipulating the circuits in a television set by pushing buttons on the remote control. According to Griffiths (2006), one of the things that may make it difficult to communicate is the expectation that the listener would deduce what the speaker meant to convey. This can make things more complicated than they need to be at times. It is only deemed that the message has been effectively transmitted if the sender's goal has been understood in its entirety. In order to avoid misunderstandings, the person speaking should carefully consider what it is that they need to say to ensure that the listener comprehends the information they are trying to express. There will be three repercussions that will Ahmad Tauchid, Era Tri Nur Kumala, Alfi Nika Rizkiana Pragmatic Failure of Students Conversation in Speaking Class 978 continue to be a problem (Griffiths, 2006): 1. There are times when the same message is communicated in various methods, and there are occasions when the same linguistics term is used to transmit various messages. It depends on what, about the context will make it possible for the listener to comprehend the message the speaker wanted to convey. This helps explain why the author said in an earlier paragraph that communicating with other people is not as easy as clicking a button on the remote control. 2. "The active engagement of the addressee sometimes permits not to be conveyed with just a little having been uttered." [citation needed] (p. 2). 3. Errors can occur when the two of you are interacting. It is true that in face-to- face engagement, the speaker is better able to notice the listener's reaction since they are near one another (e.g., grins, scowls, spoken responses, actions). These responses can be used to assist the speaker in determining whether or not the listener successfully interprets the messages that are being communicated. Suppose the listener does not successfully interpret the messages. In that case, the speaker can add more expression to (1) clear up any misunderstandings and (2) provide additional guidance for the listener regarding the message that is genuinely intended to be communicated. The circumstances will be somewhat different during the telephone call, which will provide a more significant opportunity for misunderstanding due to the nature of the medium. Therefore, it is pretty reasonable to say that learning pragmatics is essential for individuals learning a second language (L2). This is because learning pragmatics will assist individuals in recognizing that there is a complex process of conveying a message from the speaker to the listener, which can lead to multiple interpretations. In order to demonstrate this, the interpretation of example (P.1) from Griffiths (2006, page 6) will be broken down into its three apparent steps, which are the literal meaning (semantics), and the explicature (pragmatics), and the implicature (pragmatics). Take this example from the sentence: Sadly, it was the very last bus (P.1). The semantic components of a specific language give an utterance its literal meaning after the speakers of that language have learned it. In light of this, the preceding illustration (P.1) may be broken down as follows: Since the statement is in the past tense, it may be presumed that it emerged in an earlier period. Since there is no context to take into consideration, the word "last" might indicate either "final" or "recent." It makes no difference who the speaker is, when the speech is made, or where the conversation is taking place; the message is understood regardless of all these factors. In other words, there is no surrounding context that must be taken into consideration. In contrast to the literal meaning, which is only tangentially dependent on semantic information, the exact interpretation of communications in explicature IDEAS, Vol. 10, No. 1, June 2022 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 979 requires the interlocutors to use their knowledge of the context in which the words are used their vocabulary. It indicates that the meaning of a particular speech might change depending on the circumstances that are involved in the context. If the example above (P.1) is, in fact, a remark that was made by the first interlocutor (I1) in response to the text message that was sent by the second interlocutor (I2): If you missed the bus at ten o'clock, then (P.1) may indicate that it was the very last bus of the night to proceed to the location where I know you had travel plans tonight. However, if example (P.1) is a bus driver's answer to a passenger's enquiry, "Some of these buses travel to Yogyakarta through Temanggung; is this one of them?," then example (P.1) may be translated as "The previous bus that went from here was one of those that goes via Temanggung." The above example makes it abundantly evident that the explicature of a speech extends beyond the scope of the utterance's literal meaning. This explanation falls under the category of pragmatics since there are situations that need to be taken into consideration by interlocutors. In the example that was presented earlier, context helps the listener in two different ways: (1) it eliminates the confusion that can arise between the final and previous meanings of the word last, and (2) it identifies the things that are being referred to when the L2 speaker uses the expression "that was the last bus" in either of two different contexts. In order to determine an implicature, it is essential to have further information about the nature of the interlocutors' connection (for the first context), as well as the expression shown on the bus driver's face (for the second context). These are deductions inferred by seeking to obtain, in the light of relevant facts, the goal of a speaker making articulations that, in context, are likely to have certain explicatures. Since pragmatics deals with meanings that are not literal, it should not come as a surprise if several interpretations arise throughout the encounter. "Pragmatics is concerned with how language is used in context and the link between language usage and language form," as stated by Flowerdew (2013, page 79). It discusses a variety of non-literal meanings, such as speech actions, conversational analysis, cooperative principles, civility, and relevance, among other things. Flowerdew (2013) contends that the term "speech actions" refers to utterances that fulfil a purpose in the process of communication. Conversational analysis, sometimes known as CA, is a method for studying spoken interaction. The concept of CA originated within the framework of sociological inquiry. According to CA, a conversation is a series of discourse activities that, when put together, make up a coherent kind of social interaction. The notion of dialogue as the amicable engagement of two people for the sake of developing a shared set of aims may be used to explain Grice's cooperative principles (Grice, 1998). Pragmatic Failure The learner's inability to recognize the distinctions between his or her own culture and the culture of the language he or she is attempting to acquire is the root Ahmad Tauchid, Era Tri Nur Kumala, Alfi Nika Rizkiana Pragmatic Failure of Students Conversation in Speaking Class 980 cause of the pragmatic failure that results. The ability to communicate correctly in a second language does not always need fluency in that second language. Questions, such as whose culture ought to be used to dictate conduct, are brought up when cultural variation is shown in linguistic behavior. In situations where the learner utilizes speech act methods from his L1 rather than the target language's, such as saying "I want a pen" rather than "Can I have a pen, please?" there is sure to be some pragmatic failure. It would seem that the learner's culture is not well equipped to cope with circumstances that demand the employment of the "Can I VP" speech act. This is a possibility. However, this is not the case since it is generally accepted that principles are the same regardless of culture. Failure in pragmalinguistics may arise when there is a mismatch between the pragmatic forces involved or when speech tactics from the first language are transferred into the second language. Learners need to be aware that pragmatism is just as vital to language acquisition as grammatical ability when learning a language. Interference from the L1 is often the primary cause of pragmalinguistic failure. Because Thomas (2014) argues that it is worthwhile to state that a great deal of misunderstanding is not because we do not hear the speaker or because his words are not grammatical. However, instead, it is the inability to comprehend "what is meant by what is said," Thomas (2014) made use of the term "pragmatic failure." Failure in pragmatics causes problems in cross-cultural communication; consequently, it seems essential to investigate the causes of pragmatic failure and seek ways to avoid them by selecting unwise linguistic forms to avoid causing offence or creating a barrier in the communication process. General pragmatics may be broken down into pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics, according to Leech (2014). Method The study's research approach can be explained as follows. The qualitative study uses a descriptive technique based on Jenny Thomas' pragmatic failure and Levinson's speech act on English students' dialogue in speaking class. Primary and secondary data are the two types of data. The core data comes from a transcript of an English student's speaking class conversation. Secondary data cover some data that supports the study. The data is gathered using a library research technique that includes the following steps: transcription of an English conversation relating to the speech act and pragmatic failure. The data analysis technique is carried out by employing Jenny Thomas's pragmatic failure theory. The participants involved in this study were some English department students at UNUGIRI, Indonesia. The total number of participants was 40 students. They were 15 males and 25 females. Their age was between 19 – 21 years old. They were in the fourth semester. IDEAS, Vol. 10, No. 1, June 2022 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 981 Findings and Discussion In this part, the researchers describe the study's findings. The data gathered from ten discussions exhibits a pragmatic failure in each conversation. The data analysis is then divided into numerous sections, including circumstance, conversation, and analysis. Conversation 1 : Teacher: "Hello, good morning, guys!" Student: "Hello, Good afternoon, Mrs!” Teacher: “How are you today, guys!” Student: “I am fine, and you?” Teacher: “I am fine too, thank you.” The teacher greeted the students by saying good morning and asking for news. Students recognize good morning greetings and answer the news. Understand the meaning and also understand how to respond to greetings by answering. "The answer to greetings and news has become commonplace in speaking, which is pragmatic. Conversation 2 : Teacher: "please, class leader lead the prayer?" Class leader: "yes, miss, let's pray together." In the conversation above, the researchers found that the conversation became a habit for the teacher to give orders to students with the words "please, lead the prayer", and the students answered yes and did. Pragmatically, the teacher should come after the students have finished praying. Conversation 3 : When the teacher opens the absent book and checks the absent. Teacher: "Is anyone absent today?" Student: “really, wow amazing”. Based on the conversation above, the researchers know that the conversation as Pragma is classified as a failure because failure appears students repeat the teacher's questions. In this case, students do not understand the teacher's questions and lack grammatical form. Conversation 4 : The teacher said something about last week. Teacher: “what did you learn yesterday.” Students: "yes, we learn what we forget.” Based on the situation above, these utterances have the type of Assertive Speech Acts. The teacher asks students about yesterday’s lesson. Then some students respond, "Yes, do not remember the teacher's orders again". This condition is a form of grammatical error and gets a negative transfer. "Yes, already" this utterance uses Indonesian English and means "Yes, already" students usually use phrases like this when they speak English. More responses from some students are ambiguous too. Before the teacher started his lesson, he asked them, "Before we start our lesson Ahmad Tauchid, Era Tri Nur Kumala, Alfi Nika Rizkiana Pragmatic Failure of Students Conversation in Speaking Class 982 today, I have a reminder of yesterday's lesson." Then the students answered, "Yes, I don't remember all of them." Maybe students wanted to repeat "Yes, I know" or they don't understand what the teacher means. And then in saying "of course, I can", the saying is Pragmalinguistics Failure. Conversation 5 : When a student opens the door in class. Student: "Sorry, miss, I'm late.” Teacher: “what time is it?”. Student: "no problem, miss". Teacher: “Please, sit”. Based on the conversation above, the researchers know that the conversation is categorized as Pragmalinguistic failure because failure occurs when students repeat their teacher's question. In this case, students do not understand what makes a teacher and its shortcomings in grammatical form. Conclusion Based on the preceding analysis, the following conclusion can be reached: According to Levinson's theory, most speech acts in English students' conversations in the speaking class are directive, assertive, and declaration. Second, the most common pragmatic failure that occurs in the conversation of English students in the speaking class is Pragmalinguistics Failure. Based on the Thomas theory, students expose the causes of incorrect grammatical form and misunderstanding due to limited language knowledge. References Cohen, A.D. (2010). Coming to Terms with Pragmatics in Noriko Ishihara and Andrew D. Cohen. Teaching Learning Pragmatics (pp 3-20). Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited. 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