Interlanguage Pragmatics: A Study of Different Strategies of Complaint in English and Madurese by Madurese EFL Learners

Abstract

This research focuses on the different strategies of complaint in English and Madurese by Madurese EFL Learners. There are 10 participants participated in this study. The participants are Madurese students of 2012 academic year in the English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Jember University. This research is conducted to classify the preferred complaint strategies in English and Madurese by Madurese EFL learners, to elaborate some differences while Madurese EFL learners perform complaint strategies in English and Madurese, and to investigate the reasons of using different complaint strategies in English and Madurese. The data are collected by using closed role-plays or Oral Discourse Completion Task (ODCT). This research applies both quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative methods is used to tabulate the data classification based on the different strategies used by the participants. Meanwhile, the qualitative methods is used to describe the results of the quantitative analysis and to elaborate the reasons of the participants of using those strategies. The data is analyzed by using Trosborg‟ taxonomy (1995) that categorizes complaint into 4 main categories which are no explicit reproach, annoyance/dissaproval, accusation and modified blame strategy and subdivides those 4 main categories into several sub-categories. The results show that there are some similarities and differences found in English and Madurese complaint. The similarities and differences are centralized on combined strategies because it is the most used strategies by the participants in English and Madurese complaint. The similarities are clearly found in –D (H-L) status interaction while the participants tend to use almost the same combined strategy in English and Madurese complaint. On contrary, the differences are found in combined strategy which are used by the participants in +D (H-L), -D (L-H), and +D (L-H) status interaction. From that three situations, it is found that in complaining by using combined strategy the participants varied their complaint in English rather than in Madurese. Although the participants varied more their complaint in English, there are some participants who also varied their complaints in Madurese but the percentage of English and Madurese variation of complaint are still found higher in English. There are three main factors influencing the use of similar and different variation of complaint. The first factor is cultural influence. The participants still influence by their culture while complaining in L2. As stated by Badrianto (2011) that the most important custom for Madurese is upholding politeness. This culture influence them while complaining in English as the target language. The second factor is the necessity to practice L2 by Madurese EFL Learners. The participants tend to vary their complaint in English because they want to practise their English which is thought as their daily language as English Department Student. The last factor is some of them are low proficient speakers of English. It means that the participants have lack of knowledge in grammar and vocabularies. This condition carried them to complain directly in English and varied their complaints in Madurese.