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Chapter I: Introduction

This chapter presents basic information about this study. It provides the issues of

choosing the research topic about the language elements repetition on students’

academic presentation. These include the research background, research question,

research aim, research delimitation, research significance, and research

determination term.

Background

Speaking proficiency is now considered to be the most crucial out of the four

language skills (listening, writing, and reading) in learning English. As Cited in

Torky (2006), success in learning a language is measured in terms of the ability to

carry out a conversation in the (target) language (Nunan,1999; Burkart &

Sheppard, 2004). Regarding that statement, English learners are determined

through how well their appropriateness of the speaking ability conveyed.

Therefore, speaking skill becomes the priority and it is more important for most

learners in learning English than the other skills.

However, speakers especially learners who take English as their major academy

still find difficulties to speak fluently and effectively. They are expected to be able

to communicate English properly, yet they eventually produce some errors or

disfluencies. These problems are commonly faced by the students unconsciously

in their spontaneous speech. Nevertheless, it is poorly to recognize when they also

encounter errors or disfluencies in their prepared speech mainly in oral

presentation. While in English language teaching, prepared speech refers to the

type of extensive speaking, which the speaker has composed the message that will

be expressed on their thought. Thus, they are generally well-prepared in

presenting their speech and are assumed will not commit any kind of problems

when uttering the language as they have conceptualized the topic content.

This is one of the facts in a number of cases when communicating English, which

the speakers often ignore the important aspects of speaking or uttering the

language itself. Speakers better know that speaking is not only as long as the

speakers can convey their intentions, but they also should try to avoid the mistake

when uttering the language. Speakers will lose the ideal delivery in speaking if

they are failed to produce a perfect speech and finally either doing errors or

disfluencies. Consequently, such problems in speaking take a crucial part in terms

of the mechanism of speech production.

In speaking, there are several stages involved before producing a language. These

processes proceed in successive order, as follows conceptualization, formulation,

articulation, and finally self-monitoring (Kormos, 2006) in Kovac (2011).

Speakers are firstly planning the message what they are going to say in conscious

way. Then, formulating and articulating the content which automatically runs

together without any consciousness. However, although these stages occur in

human brain, still speakers might be affected on not producing a prefect speech,

and eventually displaying different forms of errors and disfluency.

Both speech error and speech disfluency are results in language production. They

are vital problems which need to be analyzed in the study of speech production.

Nevertheless, speech errors and speech disfluencies are two different types of

problem. In Postma, Kolk, and Povel (1990), speech errors are unintended, non-

habitual deviations from a speech plan (Dell, 1986). Whereas Fox Tree (1995),

the momentary disruptions during the speech flow that does not contribute any

semantic or propositional content to the speech is called speech disfluency ( in

Enxhi, Hung, Fung : 2012). Simply, in contrast to disfluencies, errors are

deviation rather than interruption that do not change any semantic meaning.

Errors and disfluencies have various types in the field of language production

such as filled pause, silent pause, repetition, stutter, and repair. One of these types

that mainly concerns in the study of language production is repetition. Both in

errors and disfluencies, repeats or repetition shares similar meaning that the

speakers repeat or parrot back two or more words that they have said in a row.

However, it differs in terms of contributing its semantic or proportional meaning

(Dell, 1986 and Fox Tree, 1995). The speakers are categorized committing an

error when the meaning of the utterances is changed. Meanwhile on the contrary

condition of speech disfluency, the utterances do not contribute any semantic or

proportional content during the speech. Therefore, speakers who commit

repetition can be classified either errors or disfluencies that depend on the

semantic aspect perceived.

Repetition is the most common types of errors or disfluencies that occurs among

speakers. This has been also supported by Cole et, al (2005) that repetition
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disfluencies are among the most frequent type of disfluency particularly in

conversational speech. Johnson et al. (1959) has divided three subtypes of

repetition in speech disfluencies, which are word repetition, phrase repetition and

sound or syllable repetition, cited in Sobel & Sobell (1972). However, derived

from Johnson, Conture (1982) and Zebrowski (2003) more specifically classified

all types of disfluencies into two categories; Between-Word and Within-Word

Dysfluencies (in Nugraha, 2012). As the study only focuses on repetition, thus

some types of disfluencies that merely contain the language feature of repetition

are taken. The categories of speech disfluencies that contain repetition units are

explained in these following examples:

Between word disfluencies.

Between-word disfluency occurs when speakers produce a disruption while

connecting the words together. There are two types of between-word difluencies

which are described as follows:

Phrase repetition.

This kind of repetition is the repeated of at least two complete words of the

message, such as “I want…I want the red one”.

Multisyllabic whole-word repetition.

Multisyllabic whole-word repetition is repetition of a word that contains more

than one syllable. For example “She is really-really here.”

Within word disfluencies.

Within-word difluency is the second type of speech disfluencies that the speakers

produce an interruption when linking sound or syllable within the word. Several

types of within-word disfluencies are described below:

Monosyllabic whole-word repetition.

It is a repetition that has one syllable only in each word, for instance “He-he is

here.”

Repetitions of individual sounds or syllables.

Both sounds and syllable repetition have different characteristics. Sound

repetition take place in this sentence “W-w-w where is she going?,” whereas the

sound “W” is repeated in frequent. Meanwhile, syllable repetition is more than a

sound repetition and less than a word repetition. For example, it appears in this

type of utterance “Good mor-morning guys!”

Bell and Gustafson (n.d) in the paper “ Repetition and its phonetic realizations”

noted that repetition occurs when the speakers failed to make themselves

understand what they are trying to say. In addition, Clark & Wasow in Cole et al.

(2005) stated that repetition disfluencies occur when the speaker makes a

premature commitment to the production of a sentence, perhaps as a strategy for

holding the floor, and then hesitates while the appropriate phonetic plan is formed;

the continuation of speech is marked by “backing up” and repeating one or more

words that precede the hesitation to restore fluent delivery. However, although
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repetition is used as a strategy before delivering a fluent speech, it is still indicated

as erroneous or disfluencies.

Therefore, the present study that examines the types of repetition that mostly

occur is interesting to investigate the repetition of language units on students’

extensive speaking, as in this case is academic presentation. By considering the

theory of Conture (1982, cited in Nugraha, 2012) and Zebrowski (2003, cited in

Nugraha, 2012) of speech disfluencies, there consists several types of language

element repetition such as in between-word dislfuencies; phrase repetition and

multisyllabic whole-word repetition and in within-word disfluencies;

monosyllabic whole-word repetition and individual syllable or sound repetition.

Research Question

In particular, this study focuses on one research question which is:

What types of linguistic unit that mostly occur in repetition of students’ extensive

speaking?

Research Objective

By answering the research question, this study is aimed to investigate the most

common types of linguistic unit that occur in repetition of students’ extensive

speaking.
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Research Delimitation

Regarding the research topic which is about repetition, the focus of analysis

concerns with the common types of linguistic elements repetition that occur on

students’ extensive speaking particularly in their academic presentation.

Therefore, this study is conducted at the students of English Department who have

required several conditions. Firstly, the students are the presenter of Seminar on

Language in International Students Conference 2016, in regards of conducting the

research on students’ extensive speaking which is oral presentation. Secondly, the

participants reach the high GPA, which is 3.5 minimally. Lastly, the students

have passed the speaking 1 to speaking 4 subjects with the maximal passing grade

3,7 or A-. By providing such grade, it indicates that students have a good English

speaking ability.

Research Significances

This study has two significances which are theoretical and practical contribution.

Theoretically, one contention of this study is that whether the errors or

disfluencies data can be a continuing source of useful insight, since they are

necessary in the development of language production field, in particular it focuses

on one type of errors or disfluencies which is repetition. Moreover, the result of

this research can be used as a reference by other researchers to conduct further

research dealing with speech errors repetition. Furthermore, this study is expected

be the guideline both for students and lectures in order to avoid several kinds of

speech errors primarily repetition.

While in practical contribution, this study is supposed to shed a light of the

readers’ knowledge particularly about types of speech repetition that mostly occur

on students’ academic presentation. Additionally, the result of the research is

expected to be the consideration both in speaking and psycholinguistic subject. In

speaking subject, the present study can make the students to reduce or even to

avoid these several types of repetition not only in their spontaneous speech but

also in their prepared speech such as in formal academic presentation.

Furthermore, in teaching psycholinguistic, some related lectures with the subject

can concern more with the study of language production. As in this case, most

students do not recognize speech disfluency and its types. Majority, they are only

familiar to speech errors. However, both speech errors and speech disfluencies are

two different types in the study of speech production both in its theory and its

several classes or types.

Determination Term

The study used several terms that related to the research analysis. Therefore,

these terms are described in following table:

List of Terms Explanation

Repetition The repeated of two or more words in frequent.

Reparandum The stretch of speech such as words, phrases or

clauses that the speakers intend to change.

Interruption point (IP) IP corresponds to the time at which the speaker

realized the incorrectness of the speech.

Editing term The editing function such as “well or I mean” or

might contain filled or unfilled pause.

Alteration All the materials in reparandum are changed in this

region, or as the onset of the fluent speech.

Hiatus One of the stages in repeating processes. It is the

material between the suspension and resumption of

the speech that contained nothing, adding fillers or

clearing throat.