The Use of Thanking Expressions among Balinese Learners of English in Denpasar

SUMMARY Swari, Radha. 2019. The Use of Thanking Expressions among Balinese Learners of  English in Denpasar.Thesis.English Department, Faculty of Letters,     Universitas Negeri Malang. Advisors: (1) Dr. Mirjam Anugerahwati, M.A., (2) Prof. Dr. Siusana Kweldju, M.Pd. Keyword : thanking expressions, functions of thanking, Balinese learners of English          in Denpasar. Thanking expressions not only vary in terms of strategies, but also in terms of functions. Jung (1994) claimed that there are at least four functions of thanking in English context. In addition to that, it turns out that not all of the functions are linked to positive feelings.Learners of English in general may not be well-aware of these variations of thanking functions, as the way they thank others is influenced by their own culture. As an instance, Balinese people usually say “matursuksma” (a Balinese thanking expression) to a person who is older, or has a higher social status. Moreover, they are considered as reluctant to use thanking expressions when they are among their peers. This led the researcher to investigate the use of thanking expressions among Balinese learners of English. This study applied a descriptive qualitative design. The research subjects were 10 English Literature students of UniversitasUdayana, who were in the seventh semester. The researcher used Discourse Completion Task (DCT) questionnaires consisting of nine situations as the instrument. The situations were constructed based on the functions of thanking proposed by Jung (1994). The researcher also conducted an interview with each of the participants to validate and strengthen the data from the DCT questionnaires. The findings from the DCT questionnaires show that the employed functions of thanking expressions among Balinese learners of English in Denpasar are ranked as follows: function of appreciating mental benefit (10), function of conversational closing (10), function of appreciating physical benefit (9), function of conversational opening (9), function of positive answer (8), function conversational changing (5), function of conversational stopping (5), function of leave-taking (2), and function of emotional dissatisfaction or discomfort (1). From the interview, the researcher discovered that Balinese learners of English in Denpasar frequently say “thank you” in their daily conversations, since they believe that it is the simplest form of appreciation for other people. Generally, they use a thanking expression whenever they receive something valuable from others (i.e. gift, service, information). Nevertheless, it is also likely for them to say “thank you” or “thanks” for the other functions in certain circumstances—including the function of emotional dissatisfaction or discomfort, though this function has nothing to do with the feeling of gratefulness. This leads to the point that Balinese learners of Englishin Denpasar are quite familiar with the various uses of thanking expressions. It is suggested for the readers, especially Balinese learners of English, to be more aware of the various uses of thanking expressions in English, so that misunderstanding would be less likely to occur when having a conversation with others in English context. Furthermore, the researcher hopes that this research will be beneficial for future researchers who are in the linguistic field, specifically those who are interested in conducting a study related to thanking expressions across languages and cultures. 1 1 1 1 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 0 2 DocumentNotSpecified 7.8 磅 Normal 0