LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 13 ENGLISH PRODUCED BY INDONESIAN YOUNG EFL LEARNERS Yusnita Sylvia Ningrum Semarang State University Abstract This study is aimed at describing what types of English Indonesian children can produce after they learn it from school and what linguistic features are used in their English (language). The corpus of the data is a stretch of approximately sixty-minute dialogue between 5 primary school children and their teacher. Functional approach proposed by Halliday is applied in conducting this study, therefore the term “English” in the title of this paper later on will be exclusively understood as „speech function‟. Meanwhile, the phrase “young EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners” in the following paper is used in several similar meanings, like children, young learners, primary school learners. Using Speech Function Network developed by Eggins and Slade (1997), then, it is found out that Indonesian young EFL-learners are able to produce speech functions (English) such those of produced by adult in quite complex linguistic features. Key words: speech function, realization, English as a foreign language, primary school learners INTRODUCTION English is one of many foreign languages found in Indonesia. Fortunately, considering the role of English in the world, English is treated as the first and major foreign language in Indonesia. English is put in the national curriculum, it is taught systematically, and it is also used more widely in the Indonesians‟ aspects of life compared to other foreign languages. Nowadays, still there is an interesting tendency that English is learned by young learners in Indonesia. Despite skepticism surrounding it, more and more children go or are sent by their parent to institution providing English teaching and learning. One of the problems in studying the language of a very young child is that of knowing what language is and what is not. In this case, Indonesian young learners who learn English for the first time can be associated in the condition. When they learn English, there is a question of what kind of English they produce or is the English they produce Standard English or Indonesian English or just a stretch of sound in a strange intonation. Another problem dealing with English learning in Indonesia is that it shares the same central characteristics of foreign language learning which lies in the amount and type of exposure to the language: there will be very little experience of the language outside the classroom, and encounters with the language will be through several hours of teaching in a school week. Apart from the fact that English is being a foreign language in Indonesia, children who learn the language at school are considered to have more than just linguistic competence. There are some unique characteristics of English produced by young learners learning English at school. 14 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 Children learning English at school are believed to have acquired better language compare to those learning English without any guidance. Nunan (1993:106) argues that many aspects of children‟s grammatical as well as discoursal ability continue to develop after they enter school. Though, Brown and Yule investigated the speaking and listening skills of secondary school pupils in Britain, as quoted by Nunan (1993), found that while pupils were able to use language for social purposes, they were much less skilled at using language for transactional purposes (language used to get things done in the real world). In addition, the pupils were not particularly skilled at taking what Brown and Yule refer to as „long turns‟ – that is, monologues in which the speaker is required to put together a coherent sequence of utterances. The discussion that follows shows what kind of English Indonesian primary school learners of EFL produce after they are being treated at school, and what linguistic features they used in their English. The object of the study is 5 young learners learning English at a bilingual school in Semarang. Later on, the students will be addressed as student 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. As the name suggested, at school, the teacher delivered the class in two languages, English and Indonesian. English is the main language used in the classroom. Indonesian is only used to deliver Bahasa Indonesia course and as supporting language in courses like Mathematics, Religion, Pancasila. In addition, it is obligatory for the teacher and students to speak English all the time (at the time coming to school until leaving school), though some children sometimes shifted to Indonesian. FUNCTIONALIST APPROACH TO LANGUAGE Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL/SF) theory views language as a social semiotic, a resource people use to accomplish their purposes by expressing meanings in context. Language is a system for making meanings: a semantic system, with other system for encoding the meaning it produces (Halliday, 1994: xvii). It is a systematic resource for expressing meaning in context. The language used in an interaction is a resource for the interactants to engage with one another to exchange meanings. This involves (1) enactment of roles and relations – interpersonal meaning, (2) construal of experience – ideational meaning, (3) presentation of the meaning created through enactment and construal as information organized into text in context – textual meaning. When children use language to interact, they are creating relationship. Within the relationship, they negotiate meaning through their speech. Children, then, learn and use language at the same time. At the very initial period, they learn their mother tongue to be able to interact with those who are very close around them (example: at home) – in which this process is often referred to as „language acquisition‟. As time goes on and children develop, they will have broader social environment. This will also be followed by development of their language. As children grow, their linguistic performance develops; they can use language not only to show the function, but they may also comprehend the structure of the language they learn as well. From the point of view of SFL, language acquisition is learning how to express meanings acquiring the functions one can perform with human language (Chapelle, 2004). In functional approach to language, the centre of discussion is what language can do, or rather what the speaker, child or adult, can do with it; and functional approach also tries to explain the nature of language, its internal organization and LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 15 patterning, in terms of the functions that it has evolved to serve. In a functional context, any vocal sound (and any gesture, if the definition is made to include gesture) which is interpretable by reference to a recognized function of language is language – provided always that the relationship of sound to meaning is regular and consistent. The production of a sound is a means of language learning, but is not itself an instance of language. The production of a sound for the purpose of attracting attention is language. At the early stage of children development, sound production to attract others‟ attention is a common occurrence. Yet, „attracting attention‟ is a means that fits in with the functional potential of language at this stage of development. Therefore, it may be assumed that very young children have produced their language to fulfill the function of language itself. SPEECH FUNCTION Halliday (1985) mentions that whenever someone uses language to interact, one of the things they are doing is establishing a relationship: between the person speaking now and the person who will probably speak next. The negotiation which characterizes spoken texts is achieved through the sequencing of moves, each of which performs a speech function or a speech act. The basic types of speech role are giving and demanding, while the commodities being exchanged are goods or service and information. It is a proposition when the commodity being exchanged is information, and when the commodity being exchanged is goods or service, linguists name it proposal. These two variables of exchange commodity and exchange of role define the four basic moves of speech functions: offer, command, statement, and question. Eggins (1994:150) says that every starting move in dialogue must be one or other of these speech functions and each speech function involves both a speech role and a commodity choice. The dialogue does not involve simply one move from one speaker but also to recognize that after one speaker has initiated an exchange, other speaker likely to respond. The responding can be broadly differentiated into two types: a supporting type of responding move, versus a confronting type. The system network used to analyze the speech functions in this paper is the system network proposed by Eggins and Slade (1997). An overview of the entire network, showing the major subcategories of speech function classes are given below: Figure 1. Overview of the speech function network Taken from Eggins and Slade (1997:102) move sustain continue react respond rejoinder open 16 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 As Halliday proposes, each subclasses of speech function by Eggins and Slade above are divided into two kinds, as supporting response and confronting response. So, sustaining speech function has continuing speech function as the supporting response and reacting move as the confronting move; reacting move which is divided into response and rejoinder, each of them also has the supporting and confronting responses. FACTORS INFLUENCING LANGUAGE ACQUISITION In Vygotskyan theory, children are seen as active learners in a world full of other people. The children‟s language development and learning take place in a social context, i.e. in a world full of other people, who interact with the children from birth onwards. Those people play an important role in helping children to learn, bringing objects and ideas to their attention, talking while playing and about playing, reading stories, asking questions. Adults mediate the world for children and make it accessible to them. With the help of adults, children can do and understand much more than they can on their own. Moreover, in relation to language acquisition, children, and teacher, Lindfors (1980) argues that (1) the growth of language is a continuous process for children, (2) the growth of language is deeply rooted in the child‟s cognitive growth, (3) the growth of language involves the child as the active party in the learning process, (4) the growth of language is aided by an environment which is geared toward the child‟s ways of learning, (5) the growth of language is aided by an environment which is responsive to the child, (6) the growth of language is aided by an environment which focuses on meaning rather than on form, (7) the growth of language is aided by an environment which provides rich diversity of verbal and nonverbal experience. ENGLISH PRODUCED BY PRIMARY SCHOOL LEARNERS OF EFL After the data – in the form of children‟s conversation – were transcribed and analyzed synoptically, it is then found out that the speech functions children perform are opening, continuing, react: responding, and react: rejoinder speech functions. Student 1 produced 9 opening speech functions, 26 continuing speech functions, 16 responding and 12 rejoinder speech functions. Student 2 produced 12 opening speech functions, 14 continuing speech functions, and 17 responding speech functions. Student 3 made 19 opening speech functions, 9 continuing speech functions, 17 responding speech functions, and 11 rejoinder speech functions. Student 4 made 7 opening speech functions, 6 continuing speech functions, 12 responding speech functions, and 9 rejoinder speech functions. Student 5 performed the least number of speech functions consisting of 9 opening, 4 continuing, 5 responding, and 5 rejoinders. English Produced by Primary School Learners of Efl: Opening Speech Function Opening: attending speech function is characterized by salutations, greetings and calls, all of which function to prepare the ground for interaction by securing the attention of the intended interactant. All the children in the study produced the attending speech function. LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 17 O: attending 16 Student 5 (i) Miss? R: responding: 17 Teacher (i) Yes? engange The above excerpt gives an example of attending speech function produced by the student; it was produced by student 5. He called the teacher by saying Miss to get the teacher‟s attention. This utterance is therefore included into attending speech function. Almost all of the attending speech functions produced by the students in the study were directed to the teacher by calling the teacher‟s name Miss or Miss Melani. Opening: offering speech function is speech function used to give goods and services. In the data studied, only one student made an offering speech function, and the teacher produced only 2 offerings. It seems that giving goods and services did not happen frequently in the interaction. Goods and services are not the important things in the interaction. As it is said previously that the interaction happened in a classroom setting, in which goods and services are not the things commonly discussed; rather it is information that is the main thing being discussed. The offering speech function produced by student 4 can be seen in the following fragment. However, the realization of offering speech function is somehow incongruent. O: I: offer 151 Student 4 I need to close the door. R: responding 152 Teacher Thank You. reply: accept In the above excerpt, when student 4 said I need to close the door, he actually did not just give statement. But, it could be viewed as an offering, since he intended to give service to others in the class to close the door. Furthermore, it was supported by the fact that the classroom was air-conditioned in which the door should be closed. And at the time the door was open. So, student 4‟s utterance can be categorized as an offer. Contrary to offering, opening: command speech function is the one which is used to demand goods and services. The speaker of this speech function needs others to get goods and services for her. Command also shows someone‟s status and power. Someone produces more command in his utterances is considered as instructive and hence posses higher status and power than the addressee. In the data studied, the teacher as the manager of the class produced the significant number of commands. She made 27 commands; whereas the students only produced 3 commands. 3 students made 3 commands; two students did not make it. All commands produced by the teacher were addressed to the students, 18 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 while the students‟ commands were pointed to their friend. It reveals, once again, that the teacher has higher status and power than students. She can give command to the students, but the students can not. Student‟s commands were pointed to students‟ friends whose status and power were considered equal. The example of the command made by the student is given below: O: I: command 250 Student 3 (i) Ken-ken, say. R: responding 251 Student 4 (i) nursery RHYME developing: elaborate Statement and offer are similar speech functions. Both are opening speech functions whose functions are to give, but statement and offer give something different. Offer gives goods and services, statement gives information. The information provided by the speaker producing statement speech function can be classified into attitudinal or evaluative information and factual information. Therefore, statement speech function can be further categorized into giving attitudinal or evaluative information and giving factual information. In data studied, almost all the participants produced statement speech function. However, giving factual information happened more frequently than giving opinion or attitudinal information. It can be understood since it is not in the capacity of the children to give opinion on others. Children at their age can not judge subjectively yet. They give information based on what they know from the environments. There were two students who did not produce statement giving attitudinal information. On the other hand, all students or children produced statement giving factual information; even the number of the later statement was bigger than the former. The total number of the statement produced by the students was extremely greater than those produced by the teacher. It reveals that the children gave more information than the teacher. The children conveyed their thought repeatedly. This information can also be treated as the way teacher let the students get the floor. By giving less information, the teacher let children talk each other, give information each other. Teacher‟s turn would come when the students were lack of information. O: I: statement 177/a Student 4 (i) Miss Melani, I can make a big fact mountain. C: prolong: 177/b (ii) But, he brake it. extend R: rejoinder 178 Teacher (i) He broke it. Repair LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 19 R: responding: 179/a Student 4 (i) Yeah, he broke my mountain. developing: elaborate Student 4‟s utterance in turn 177/a is one of the examples of statement of fact produced by the students. He told the teacher the truth that he could make a big mountain from sand. Similar and several other statements of fact were produced by the children in the data. Besides giving factual information, the students also made opinion or attitudinal statements, either to their teacher or to their friend. Opening: question speech function is similar to command speech function, in the way that both of them are an act of demanding. They are different; however, in the case that questioning is an act of demanding information, whereas commanding is an act of demanding goods and services. Since information can be classified into factual information and opinion information, question speech function can also be further classified into question: fact and question: opinion. In English, furthermore, question can be divided into open question and closed question. Open question is a question which requires an explanative answer. It is characterized with Wh- question words at the beginning of the question. Closed question, on the other hand, does not need an explanative answer. It is enough to give the answer „yes‟ or „no‟. A closed question is characterized with polar interrogative construction. Hence, question speech function can be classified in detail as: question: open: fact, question: open: opinion, question: closed: fact, question: closed: opinion. In the studied data, almost all participants produced all kinds of question speech functions. There was only one student who did not produce open question asking for factual information, only 2 students produced open question asking for opinion, and there 2 students who did not produce closed question asking for factual information, and 3 students did not make closed question asking for opinion. O: I: question: 38 Student 2 (i) Where is my glue? open: fact R: responding: 39/a Student 3 (i) I don‟t know reply: disavow In the above excerpt, student 2 asked about the existence of his glue. He made a question using Wh-question word where, indicating that he produced an open question. What he was asking to is about the factual information. 20 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 English Produced by Primary School Learners of EFL: Continuing Speech Function Continuing speech function is speech function which is produced by speaker who has just finished his move. In a conversation, when one speaker finishes his move or talk, another speaker may get into the floor or the current speaker keeps on talking producing different move. The later is called continuing speech function. The continuing move then captures the options open to a speaker who retains the turn at the end of the move and who produces a move which is meant to be heard as related to an immediately prior move produced by the same speaker. In the data under study, almost all the children produced all the continuing speech function. The total number of continuing speech functions produced by all children is bigger than the teacher‟s. The teacher only produced 51 continuing speech functions, while the children altogether made 59 continuing speech. It proves that the children may maximalize the turn they had to convey their ideas. Continuing: Monitoring involves deploying moves in which the speaker focuses on the state of the interactive situation, for example by checking that the audience is following, or by inviting another speaker to take turn in which case the invited response is set up as a supporting response. Only 1 student or child under study produced continuing: monitoring speech function. C: prolong: 26/b Student 1 (ii) Miss, (it‟s) a big hole. elaborate C: monitor 26/c (iii) See C: prolong: 26/d (iv) a big hole here. enhance In the excerpt above, student 1 in turn number 26/c invited the teacher to look at the hole he pointed at. The word see uttered with rising intonation indicates that he did not want to lose his teacher‟s attention while he was talking. The moves before and after the word see indicate that he took the same turn while his utterances had different function. Continuing: prolonging speech functions are those where a continuing speaker adds to their contribution by providing further information. Eggins and Slade (1997:197) mention that a LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 21 speech function and its prolonging continuation is perceived as one of expansion, meaning a prolonging move builds on or fills out the move it is logically connected with. Therefore a prolonging sequel may be one of elaboration, extension, or enhancement. Almost all the children produced three kinds of prolonging speech function. There were, however, 2 children who did not made enhancement. O: I: statement: 1/a Student 5 (i) Miss, yesterday we already used fact it. C: prolong: 1/b (ii) But, it’s broke. extension In 1/b, student 5 added extra information on what happen to it (recorder) he had said in 1/a. Instead of saying Miss, yesterday we already used this broken recorder, he started his move by giving factual information like those is 1/a, then he added contrasting information on his previous one. The relationship of student 5‟s first and second moves is shown by the conjunction but. This kind of prolonging speech function is classified into extension. Eggins and Slade (1997:199) say that appending move is mid-way between a continuing: prolonging speech function and a reacting: developing move. Appending move occurs when a speaker makes one move, loses the turn, but then as soon as he regain the turn he produces a move which represents a logical expansion of their immediately prior move. In the data studied, almost all the children produced this kind of speech function. It happened because there were many gaps and overlaps in the interaction. There were several participants talking at the same time, then one of them decided to hold his turn for a moment. When he got the turn back, he continued his speech. R: rejoinder: 43 Student 3 (i) Miss, what I have to do with this? rebounding O: I: statement 44 Student 2 (i) == Miss, I lost … fact O: I: command 45 Teacher (i) == Cut all and make them in order, OK? C: appending: 46 Student 2 (i) I already lost … elaboration 22 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 In the excerpt above, student 2 made an appending: elaboration speech function. His speech in turn number 44 overlaps with the teacher‟s turn number 45. He talked at the same time with the teacher who replied student 3‟s question. When the teacher terminated her turn, student 2 immediately continued his turn, even though it was an incomplete clause. The speech in 46 is an appending speech function for its nature. Further, the appending speech here functioned to restate what had been said before, so it is elaboration even though there is no explicit conjunction used. English Produced by Primary School Learners of EFL: Reacting: Responding Speech Function Eggins and Slade (1997) distinguish the difference between responding and rejoinder in reacting move. Responding is considered as reaction which moves the exchange towards completion, while rejoinder is reaction which in some way prolongs the exchange. Responding: developing speech function indicates a very high level of acceptance of the previous speaker‟s proposition. When someone accepts previous speaker‟s proposition, he might expand the proposition in the ways of elaborating, extending, or enhancing the proposition. From the study, it is recognized that student 5 is the only child who did not produce responding: developing speech functions in the interaction. It suggests that he never showed his agreement to other participants in the interaction verbally. In addition, from the study it is also revealed that student 3 is the only child that developed previous speaker‟s proposition using enhancement. It indicates that she is a very cooperative participant of the interaction. She provides interpersonal support for the initiator and at the same time offering further ideational content for negotiation. She is the only child in the interaction who develop previous speaker‟s proposition using elaboration, extension, and enhancement. An example of responding: developing speech function is given below. C: prolong: 172/c Teacher (v) Let‟s see enhance (vi) that you can finish it in 15 minutes. OK? R: responding: 173 Student 4 (i) But, but I can make a mountain on developing: the sand for 5 minutes. extend Student 4 in his turn number 173 gave a contrasting detail to the teacher‟s proposition. It seems that his speech does not have any relation to the teacher‟s. However, if we analyze further by saying but, but I can make a mountain on the sand for 5 minutes actually he accepts the teacher‟s proposition to finish the project in 15 minutes. He assumed that if he only needed 5 minutes to make an artificial mountain on the sand, so he would not need 15 minutes to finish LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 23 the project. He accepted the teacher‟s proposition by adding further contrasting details. The use of conjunction but shows that his utterance is highly connected to the previous one. Responding: engaging speech function is one which is exchange-compliant reaction to attending moves. It includes responses to attention-getting attending moves. From the data analysis, there was not any engaging speech function produced by the children. Responding: registering speech function is reaction which provides supportive encouragement for the other speaker to take another turn. It does not introduce any new material for negotiation, and it carries the strong expectation that the immediately prior speaker will be the next speaker (Eggins and Slade, 1997:204). From the analysis, it was only student 3 who made responding: registering speech function. In addition, the register she made is a non verbal reaction to student 4‟s speech. O: I: command 250 Student 3 (i) Ken-ken, say. R: responding 251 Student 4 (i) Nursery RHYME. reply: comply R: responding: 252 Student 3 register In turn 251, student 4 said Nursery RHYME as a compliment on student 3‟s command in the previous turn. He said the word with emphatic stress and increased volume. It made student 3 laugh because it was funny on her ear. She perceived it as something funny, comical, but she liked that. She did not say anything else besides laughing, hoping that student 4 would ask her why she was laughing or ask her to stop laughing at her. Responding: reply is the most negotiatory of the responding reactions, although it negotiates the proposition given by a prior speaker. Replying speech function can be further classified into supporting and confronting. All initiations can be matched with supporting replies which cover comply, accept, agree, acknowledge, answer, and affirm. Supporting replies indicate a willingness to accept the propositions or proposals of the other speakers. From the characteristics, it is not surprising, therefore, to find many kinds of this speech functions in the data produced by the children. Among his friends, student 2 produced the highest number of replying (13), followed by student 3 (8), student 1 and student 4 (7), and the least is student 5 (3). R: rejoinder: 14/a Teacher (i) Why don‟t you have 2 …2 pages? challenge: 24 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 rebounding C: monitor 14/b (ii) two or one …. two, OK? R: responding: 15 Student 1 (i) Because I lost one. reply: answer The above excerpt gives one of the examples of replying speech function. Student 1‟s speech in turn number 15 is considered as a replying speech function in which it gives answer to the teacher‟s question on the prior turn. Giving an answer is one of replying speech functions. Responding: confronting responses range from either disengaging or by offering a confronting reply. A range of confronting replies can be paired with the typical initiations. From the analysis, besides producing supportive response, the children also give confronting response even though the number of the later is smaller that the former. Student 1 produced 4 confronting speech functions; student 2, student 3, and student 5, each made 2 confronting speech functions; student 4 only made 1 confronting speech function. O: I: question 38 Student 2 (i) Where is my glue? open: fact R: responding: 39/a Student 3 (i) I don’t know. reply: disavow In the excerpt above student 2 asked student 3 whether she knew about his glue or not. Since she did not know where student 2‟s glue was, student 3 gave a respond by saying I don’t know. It is a confronting responding speech function which is called disavow. English Produced by Primary School Learners of EFL: Reacting: Rejoinder Speech Function Reacting: rejoinder speech functions are those which tend to set underway sequences of talk that interrupt, postpone, abort or suspend the initial speech function sequence (Eggins and Slade, 1997:207). From the data analysis, it can be seen that the children produced this kind of speech function even though only a few of them. There are three categories of rejoinder speech function that the children produced: tracking, responding, and challenging. Rejoinder: tracking moves are moves which check, confirm, clarify or probe the content of the prior moves. From the analysis, student 1 produced 2 checking speech functions, 2 confirming, 1 clarifying but no probing speech function. Student 2 only made one checking speech function; student 3 made 1 checking and 4 probing speech functions; student 4 produced 1 checking, 1 confirming, and 2 probing speech LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 25 functions. Student 5 is the only child that did not produce any tracking speech function. R: responding: 65 Student 2 (i) (I‟m) six. reply: answer R: rejoinder: 66 Student 1 (i) You’re five, six already? confirming Student 1‟s speech in turn number 66 is produced to verify information he heard. He tried to confirm that what he heard is the right one, that student 2 had already come to cut number six. It is a confirming speech function. Rejoinder: tracking moves call more or less directly for further talk from the prior speaker. The responses may be supporting, as when a tracking request is resolved or a challenge acquiesced. Tracking moves may also be responded to with repair moves. (Eggins and Slade, 1997) From the analysis, there are only 3 children producing response to tracking moves. The responses produced are resolve and repair. O: I: statement 93 Student 5 (i) I get confused with it – with this opinion scissors and paper. R: rejoinder: 94 Teacher (i) You ….. what? Track: check R: rejoinder 95/a Student 5 Confused and messed. track: resolve Student 5‟s speech in turn number 95/a provide clarification to the teacher questioning the previous turn. He acquiesced with the information he had produced in turn 93. It is a resolving speech function. Rejoinder: challenging speech function is one which confronts prior talk by attacking it on one of several fronts: e.g. by actively rejecting negotiation or by querying the veracity of what has been said or the sayer‟s right to say it (Eggins and Slade, 1997:211). From the analysis, children produced challenging speech functions by detaching (1), rebounding (11), countering (5), refuting (4). No children produced re-challenging speech function. 26 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 R: responding: 109 Teacher (i) The recorder – it works. reply: answer R: rejoinder: 110 Student 1 (i) Is it on or off? challenging: rebounding In turn 110, student 1 directly questioned the veracity of the prior information given by the teacher. He asked whether the recorder was on or off. This kind of challenging speech function is called rebounding. Linguistic Features in Children’s Spoken Interaction Another interesting point revealed from the analysis is concerning the linguistic features in children‟s spoken interaction. The analysis provides information that children could produce as complex linguistic features as adult‟s in their speech. In 60 minutes student-teacher interaction, the teacher took turn for 126 times (41.72%), while the rest of the turn was divided almost equally to the students – student 1 took turn for 39 times (12.91%); student 2: 38 (12.58%); student 3: 49 (16.62%); student 4: 30 (9.93%); and student 5 (6.62%). Besides that, 196 moves were produced by the teacher in the interaction, while 220 moves were produced by the students distributed in such a way that student 1 produced 66 moves; student 2: 46 moves; student 3: 52 moves; student 4:39 moves; and student 5 with 66 moves. The students also produced almost the same number of clauses as the teachers‟, that is 240 clauses, distributed into 71 clauses produced by student 1, 48 by student 2, 62 by student 3, and 33 and 26 by student 4 and 5 successively. Surprisingly enough is about the production of incomplete clauses. Students produced small number of incomplete clauses in their speech. Student 4 and 5, each of them made a single incomplete clause, student 3 made 2 incomplete clauses, and student 2 had 4 incomplete clauses in the conversation. Student 1 produced more incomplete clauses than his friends. From the data analysis, the children also produced several minor clauses. Student 1 produced 8 (8.51%) minor clauses, student 2 produced 12 (12.76%) minor clauses, student 3 made 15 (15.96%) minor clauses, student 4 made 11 (11.7%) minor clauses, and student 5 made 5 (5.32%) minor clauses in the interaction. The students under study produced quite a lot of number of declaratives, either full or elliptical declarative. Student 1 produced 46 full declarative and 11 elliptical declarative, bigger in number than his other friends, student 2 produced 25 full declarative and 8 elliptical declarative, student 3 made 31 full declarative and 6 elliptical declarative, student 5 made 15 full and 7 elliptical declarative, while student 4 only produced 14 full declarative without any elliptical declarative. Meanwhile, from the analysis, it was found that only the teacher who produced tagged declarative – type of clause which falls midway between the declarative and the polar interrogative – and it was only one in number. There are two kinds of polar interrogatives found in the study – full polar interrogative and LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. IV/1 October 2009 27 elliptical polar interrogative. Both the students and the teacher produced the polar interrogatives. However, the number of polar interrogatives produced by the teacher is bigger than the ones produced by the students. Moreover, only student 4 produced full and elliptical polar interrogatives. Other students only made full polar interrogative. The same as polar interrogative, there are two kinds of Wh-interrogatives found in the study, full Wh-interrogative and elliptical interrogative. Both the teacher and the students produced Wh- interrogatives. However, the number of Wh- interrogatives produced by the teacher is bigger than the ones produced by the students. Student 1 and student 4 produced both full and elliptical Wh-interrogatives, while other students only made the full Wh-interrogative. From the analysis, it is found out that the children did not produce many imperatives. It is understood in two ways. First, children are not in capacity of commanding (imperatives function to command). They are equal with their friend and in sub position of the teacher. Second, the interaction is more on information sharing. Command is an act of demanding goods and services, so this kind of function rarely happened in the interaction, consequently imperatives hardly found to be produced by the children. The analysis also reveals that student 1 and student 3 produced the highest modalities (15 and 12), followed by student 2 (10), student 4 (7), and student 5 (4). Modalities are shown by the use of modalization and modulation. Modalization tempers the message with reference to degrees of frequency or probability, while the modulation is the qualification of the message with references to degrees of obligation, inclination, and probability. CONCLUSION Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that children learning English as a foreign language can acquire similar speech functions as adult in their spoken interaction. 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