CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter discusses about background of the
study, problem of the study, objectives
of the study, scope and limitation, significance of the study, and definition of the key terms.
1.1 Background of the Study Human speech always includes disfluencies. In
conversation, utterances are produced
spontaneously. As Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs (1987) say that the most common kind of language in use is
conversation. A consequence of that spontaneous
speech contains disfluencies. That is, they are “conceived and composed by their speakers even as they are
spoken” (Mehta and Cutler, 1988).
Disfluencies are a recurrent
feature in spontaneous speech and occur for reasons such as problems in lexical access or inthe
structuring of utterances or in searching
feedback from a listener. The focus in the current work is one type of disfluency, hesitations. The characteristic of
hesitation refers to the human being is
explained in surah Yunus: 104.
Say: O people! If you are in doubt
as to my religion, then (know that) I do not serve those whom you serve besides Allah but I
do serve Allah, Who will cause you to
die, and I am commanded that I should be of the believers (Yunus: 104).
The verse mentioned above states
that the human beings always in a condition
of hesitation. Although Allah swt creates them better than other creature, but they always hesitate the power
of Allah swt. Allah swt gives ability and
frailty to them because He wants to show that there is nobody perfect except Him. One of imperfection of human beings
referring to their speech is categorized as speech production errors. The common type
of speech production errors is disfluency.
Disfluency in speech delivery is hesitation.
Usually, disfluencies are marked by
frequent or repeat, restart, and hesitation.
Hesitation pause is conversational silence that occurs within a turn.
Hesitation pause is one of the
frequent features which are commonly produced. It often happens in speech because it can help
the speakers to decide what they are going
next to say (Bortfield, 2001). In another side, the negatives that come with hesitation include missing an opportunity,
seeming to lack self-confidence, losing the
way of thought, and gaining stress due to failure to decide (Brennan and Schober, 2001).
There are three reasons of hesitations. First,
people sometimes pause because they must
“come up for air.” Speech is produced as people expel air from the lungs, and they must pause occasionally to
inhale before continuing. Second, people
sometimes pause for pragmatics reasons. The purpose of most speech is to communicate information to a listener and ifhe
or she is temporarily distracted, confused,
or otherwise unreceptive, it often pays to wait before going on. Finally, hesitations often are needed in the course of
planning what people are trying to say
and the way they want to say it. Rarely is an entire sentence planned in advance, then uttered.
Hesitation pauses may appear as a
result of poor communication skills (Rose,
1998). Hesitation also appears for a simple reason, breathing. As Field (2003) says that speech may be characterized
by the fact that it involves vocalization.
In speech, it demands a complex interrelationship between the tongue, teeth, soft palate, jaw, nasal cavity
as well as the ability to flex the vocal cords well. During the speaking occurs, people
are also demanded to have an ability to
breathe and utter the sounds at the same time. Therefore, people sometimes hesitate or make a silence period
between their utterances.
This research investigates Mc
Cain’s speech where one type of disfluency “hesitation” is applied. Disfluencies are one
of interesting topics to be analyzed because
listeners can benefit from disfluencies from others’ speech. It means that disfluencies do not constitute “noise” at all,
but are actually informative to listeners:
they may provide information about the state of speakers’ production system. Specifically, certain disfluencies
signal to listeners that speakers are experiencing
production difficulty. Difficulty can occur at any stage of the process during planning or the articulation of a
speech plan and it has been argued that different
types of disfluency signal different kinds of problems (Bortfield, 2001). This
research chooses the United States first presidential debate because this research finds some hesitations either
consciously or unconsciously used by Mc Cain
in the debate with Barack Obama at the University of Mississippi, how those pauses occur in naturally speech. In this
debate every candidate tries to do everything
as good as possible and they try to attack each other. Sometimes they need to hesitate some sentences to get the
best words and to get sympathy from audience.
In this debate, Mc Cain used hesitation pauses during speech, when he continues his speech which seem like he is
confused what to say.
There are many studies about hesitation
pauses previously done such as: Rieger
(1995) investigated the hesitation strategies and self repair strategies of intermediate learners of German as second of
foreign language (L2) when they take
part in oral L2 test, Husnawati (2007) investigated kind and functions of pauses in speech, and Ahsanti (2008)
investigated the factors of hesitation.
This research has similarities
with both of the previous research about the topic of the research. The previous research
investigated hesitation pauses used in monolog.
This research found that hesitation pauses take an important role in natural conversation, especially in
turn-taking in English conversation. They use hesitation pauses as a signal to open
conversation, to think first before continuing their speech, et cetera. That is why the
researcher is very interested in making a research about hesitation. Besides, she wants
to get more understanding about hesitation;
she also wants to prove her knowledge in psycholinguistic field.
1.2 Problems of the Study Based on the background of the study, the
researcher investigates the following
problems: 1. What are the kinds of hesitation found in Mc
Cain’s speech in the debate with Barack
Obama at the University of Mississippi? 2. What is the context causing hesitation in Mc
Cain’s speech in the debate with Barack
Obama at the University of Mississippi? 1.3
Objectives of the Study Concerning the
problems of the study above, the objectives of the study are: 1. to
find out and identify the kinds of hesitation found in Mc Cain’s speech in the debate with Barack Obama at the
University of Mississippi.
2. to get the description on the context causing
hesitation in Mc Cain’s speech in the
debate with Barack Obama at the University of Mississippi.
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