Negotiation of Meaning (Monica Roito Ambarita 0853042024)

Negotiation of Meaning

(Second Language Acquisition)

By

Monica Roito Ambarita

0853042024

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

ART AND LANGUAGE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION AND PEDAGOGY

LAMPUNG UNIVERSITY

2011

A.      Introduction

Negotiation is one of the most common approaches used to make decisions and manage disputes. It is also the major building block for many other alternative dispute resolution procedures.

Negotiation occurs between spouses, parents and children, managers and staff, employers and employees, professionals and clients, within and between organizations and between agencies and the public. Negotiation is a problem-solving process in which two or more people voluntarily discuss their differences and attempt to reach a joint decision on their common concerns. Negotiation requires participants to identify issues about which they differ, educate each other about their needs and interests, generate possible settlement options and bargain over the terms of the final agreement. Successful negotiations generally result in some kind of exchange or promise being made by the negotiators to each other. The exchange may be tangible (such as money, a commitment of time or a particular behavior) or intangible (such as an agreement to change an attitude or expectation, or make an apology).

Negotiation is the principal way that people redefine an old relationship that is not working to their satisfaction or establish a new relationship where none existed before. Because negotiation is such a common problem-solving process, it is in everyone's interest to become familiar with negotiating dynamics and skills. This section is designed to introduce basic concepts of negotiation and to present procedures and strategies that generally produce more efficient and productive problem solving.

B.       Frame of Theories

Recognizing the indirectness of the link between negotiation and acquisition via comprehension, and the fact that not all comprehension will necessarily lead to acquisition, recent studies have more fully explored the relationship between negotiation and acquisition (e.g., Doughty, 1996b; Ellis, Tanaka, & Yamazaki, 1994; Gass & Varonis, 1994; Loschky, 1994; Mackey & Philp, 1998). These studies have shown mixed results concerning the effects of repair negotiation on SLA; thus the claim that repair negotiation directly leads to acquisition is not conclusive. In fact, Doughty (1996b) found that repair negotiation generally did not lead to more target like learner production and posited three possible explanations: (a) The tasks themselves may hinder negotiations that promote linguistic change; (b) any interlanguage changes that

FIGURE 1

Negotiation of Meaning in the Context of a Communication Breakdown

Trigger ➜ Signal ➜ Response ➜ Reaction

Source: Doughty (1996a).

occur might take a longer period of time to emerge (suggesting the need for longitudinal study); and (c) negotiation may be useful only for L2 comprehension. One of Doughty’s most interesting findings emerged from her careful matching of the NS interlocutors’ successful placing of pieces in the task and the talk produced by the NNS interlocutors. She found that the NS interlocutors did not necessarily attend to the NNS interlocutors’ contributions as they completed the task. This unexpected result raises many questions about the nature of the discourse that emerges from controlled tasks.

Moreover, the study of repair negotiation tends to direct researchers’ attention to local features of discourse required for the step-by-step completion of the information gap activity. Equally important is how the discourse emerging from the conversational activity attains a greater overall complexity as the talk progresses. Therefore, we examine the element of the talk that triggers some sort of further (e.g., clarifying) talk. Although a number of studies have investigated the signal-response elements of the four-part cycle identified in Figure 1, few have examined the triggers, which are claimed to initiate the cycle. An exception is the study by Chun, Day, Chenoweth, and Luppescu (1982), who studied trigger types that initiated response negotiations in free conversations and in gamelike tasks between NNS and NS friends. Chun et al. Found that relatively few errors by the NNS friends were treated as triggers for repair negotiation, suggesting that in social settings error correction is avoided. More important, from our perspective, is Chun et al.’s finding that there was no difference between the types of triggers leading to corrective feedback in the conversation and in the game like task. This is surprising, as Nakahama (1997) found that the trigger types in conversation were quite distinct from those in information gap tasks. Specifically,

information gap tasks contained primarily discrete types of triggers (e.g., lexical items and low-level morphosyntactic items) whereas in conversations more global types of triggers were more common (cf. the distinction between local and global errors made by Burt & Kiparsky, 1972).

C.      The Roles of Negotiation of Meaning in Second Language Acquisition

Every researcher will have their own definitions and description of negotiation of meaning. It shows that interest in the study of negotiation of meaning has developed rapidly. Beside the forms and definition of negotiation of meaning, researchers also vary in their perception of the role of negotiation of meaning in second/foreign language acquisition. Pica (1996) admits that although there has been no empirical evidence of a direct link between negotiation of meaning and second/foreign language development, research studies in negotiation of meaning for the last two decades have shown that there are two obvious contribution of negotiation of meaning to second language acquisition. Firstly, through negotiation of meaning (particularly in interaction involving native speakers) non-native speaker obtain comprehensible input necessary for second language acquisition much more frequently than in interactions without negotiation of meaning. Secondly, negotiation of meaning provides opportunities for non-native speakers to produce comprehensible output necessary for second language acquisition much more frequently than in interactions without negotiation of meaning.

D.      Data Analysis

Conversation I (Female ad Female)

M : Missy

I  : Icha

M         : I have new Korean film cha…

I           : er.. Sorry? Request for Clarification

M         : I have new Korean film…

I           : Oh.. Good. What is the title? (R)

M         : Hana Yori Dango.

I           : er… Request for Clarification

M         : Film in Indosiar every day at 4 pm (T)

I           : Oh, that good film. (R)

M         : Yeah… Reaction to the Response

I           : lets we see now…

M         : now? Request for Clarification

I           : Yeah.. Why? Repetition of the trigger

M         : but we should going to the campus now. .

I           : Oh, yeah. I forget about that. . (R)

M         : what time is it? Request for Clarification

I           : 9 o’clock

M         : we have an hour to see that film before go to the campus

I           : hmm.. OK

M         : OK… lets we see..

Conversation II (Male-Female)

Danny             : Lets enter in that boutique!

Mira                 : er.. (T)

Danny             : why? Request for Clarification

Mira                 : OK (R)

Danny             : ready? Request for Clarification

Mira                 : ready! (R)

Mira                 : which one does you chose? Request for Clarification

Danny             : er.. The blue oblong above the red oblong, eh? the yellow oblong. (R)

Mira                 : alright. Faster, faster

Danny             : the red cylinder beside the blue oblong

Mira                 : left or right? Request for Clarification

Danny             : right. (R)

Mira                 : right yeah OK.

Danny             : OK.

Conversation III (Male-Male)

E: Eko

I: Igaz

E          : what are you doing bob? Request for Clarification

I           : hmm.. (T)

E          : I ask you bob! Repetition of the trigger

I           : oh, sorry. I am playing poker game in Facebook. (R)

E          : oh... I know that game. Reaction to the Response

I           : Really? Request for Clarification

E          : yeah bob... (R)

I           : how many level of chip in your account? Request for Clarification

E          : 100 M bob... (R)

I           : wow, incredible hot!!! Reaction to the Response

E          : yeaah… ha-ha

I           : are you selling your chip? Request for Clarification

E          : yeah, sometime when I need money (R)

I          : well, what gadget did you get from selling the chip? Request for Clarification

E          : only this ponsel... (R)

I           : wow... Reaction to the Response

E          : btw, what level of your account? Request for Clarification

I           : I’m in level 50 bob. Ace! (R)

E          : good! Reaction to the Response

I           : yeaah (R)

E          : well, I have to go now bob!

I           : OK (R)

E          : good luck for your poker bob!

E.       CONCLUSION

From the analysis, I can conclude that in negotiation of meaning there are four interrelated moves which occur in the conversations, there are trigger, signal, response, and follow up. Trigger occurs when speaker say something but the hearer doesn’t understand clearly what the speaker says. Then, the hearer will show signal in order to clarify the word that hearer doesn’t understand. After that, the speaker will response that signal and finally the follow up will occur.