The Strategies of Conveying Speaker and Hearer as Cooperators in Conversation Class: Sociopragmatic Analysis

Abstract

This study explores the strategies of conveying speaker and hearer as cooperators suggested by Brown and Levinson (1987) – the strategy of asserting or presupposing speaker’s knowledge of and concern for hearer’s wants, the strategy of including both speaker and hearer in the activity, and the strategy of giving (or asking) reasons. The data of the research is taken from conversation class in The Center Bandung, Indonesia. The teachers are the Americans and the members are the Indonesians. The writers observe the teachers as the speakers who use the strategies of conveying speaker and hearer as cooperators to make the conversation works. They use those strategies to encourage the students to use English courageously and actively. The goals of this analysis are to know the strategies used by the speakers in the conversation class and to examine the perlocutionary effects caused by the strategy used by the speaker to the hearer. The research uses a qualitative descriptive method. The data are analyzed using a pragmatic approach. The main theory used to analyze the data is the strategies to convey speaker and hearer are cooperators as the strategy in positive politeness, written by Brown and Levinson. The speakers use the strategy of asserting or presupposing speaker’s knowledge of and concern for hearer’s wants, the strategy of including both speaker and hearer in the activity, and the strategy of giving (or asking) reasons. The perlocutionary effects to the addressees are making them courageously speak English even though some of them are not fluent in English, giving their own opinion, and trying to ask voacbulary in English. The writers also will find out social variables constituted in the conversation.