CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter covers the
elaboration of background of the study, statements of the problem, objectives
of the study, scope and limitation of the study, significances of the study and
definition of key terms.
1.1 Background of the Study Debate
is not an undisciplined shouting match between people that passionately believe
in a particular point of view. Debate is defined by the American Heritage
Dictionary as “a formal contest of argumentation in which two opposing teams
and attack a given proposition” (Ritter, 2006). In addition, Snider (2005) also
maintains that debate is about assembling and organizing effective arguments to
convince the adjudicators that the arguments of one side out weight than the
opposition. The debaters, however, will never be able to convince the adjudicators
that their arguments are better than the opponent if they still let the arguments of the opposition
stands at the end of the debate. The debaters, in this case, need to refute the
arguments of the opponent to show that the opponent’s arguments are wrong and
therefore should not stand. In short, the debaters can really propose that
their arguments are better than the opposition through refutation (Ruetten
& Smalley, 1986).
According
to Irwin and Berger (2003), refutation is the process of attacking the major
contention of the opposition. Refutation may and should occur in either
constructive or rebuttal speeches. Additionally, Quinn (2005) suggests that
refutation is the process of proving that the other team ’s arguments are not
as important as they claim to be. For example, the affirmative team says, “The government should support death penalty
because it will help decrease the population of the country.” The negative team
will respond that statement by saying “Killing people simply to decrease
population is morally wrong”.
However, the debaters could not
easily deliver their simple refutation in order to an opposing idea. The
debaters have to speak in a measured way, understand which ideas are likely to
be trigger points for escalation, choose reasonable and effective language.
Besides, having specific methods for refutation also play an important thing to
make sharp negation with effective language.
In the end, knowing that
refutation in debate is not easy, this study is important to be investigated
because of four justifiable reasons. First, refutation is the most difficult
and important part in debate because the debaters have to provide reasons on
why the opposite arguments are wrong and explain the process on how it becomes
wrong. Second, in a very limited time, all of the debaters have to do both sort
through all of the issues to determine which ones are the most important ones
and prepare a sharp refutation. This spontaneity makes the refutation speech
becomes more challenging than the constructive speeches which is made before
the debate is going on.
Next,
the way of the debaters manage their language is very important because
refutation is always concerned with the communication of rather complex ideas.
Therefore, it is highly important that the debaters make the means of communication,
language, as clear as possible. Additionally, Saunders (1944) maintains that
language always admits of ambiguity, equivocality, and multiple interpretations.
It means that in conveying the arguments, the debaters must avoid vague terms
and use the vocabulary of debate by referring to issues, arguments, and
evidence so that the adjudicator will not be confused. The last, refutati on is
often a main factor in awarding of a decision because it illustrates one team’s
ability to overpower the other team’s positions. In addition, the existence of specific
methods is crucial in order to reach the effective refutation. (Ligget, 1994) Related
to the refutation above, this study examines the refutation phenomena on
Indonesian Varsities English Debate (IVED) 2011. Indonesian Varsities English
Debate (IVED) is a national competition of English debating for all university
students in Indonesia. Annually, it is held in different universities, for
instance, in Hasanuddin University for this year. IVED is chosen as the object of
this study because of two reasons. First, it is an academic debate which mostly
exists in Indonesia. IVED is also a prestigious event as most of the participants are advanced debaters who are
eloquent speakers having great competence in English debating with logical and
provable argument. Those points will help more to acquire the richness of the
data.
Another
reason is the participants of IVED are Indonesian’s students whose their native
is not English but they have to provide their arguments in English. It seems
that they have to not only change their language butalso change their way of
thought. Dealing with this point, Sternberg (1999) states that language shapes
someone’s thought. It refers to Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic
determinism stating that differences among languages causedifferences in the
way of thoughts of their speakers. In another word, when the debaters switch
their language into English, they have to change their way of thought same as
Englishman.
In addition, in the effort of
analyzing debate, two relevant studies have been done. First, Nasihah (2008)
analyzes the argumentative characteristics which are produced by the
participants of Indonesian Varsities English Debate (IVED) 2009 using Smalley
and Ruetten theory (1986). She finds that there are five characteristics which
should be fulfilled by the speaker to make logical arguments, those are 1) an
argumentation should introduce and explore the issue and case, 2) an argument
should offer reasons and supports for the reason, 3) an argumentation should
refute opposing argument, 4) if an opponent does have a valid point, concede
point, 5) the conclusion should logically flow from the argument.
The last is Hanif (2010). He also
studies about refutation phenomena. In addition, he looks at the types of
refutation in political debate between Barack Obama and John Mc. Cain using
Kernard theory (1998). Investigating refutation phenomena,
he uses descriptive qualitative in order to describe the type of refutation. He
finds that there are two types of refutation that are used by both of candidate
presidents in U.S presidential debate. Those types are general refutation and
specific refutation.
After reading and comparing those
related studies with this study, it is found that there are differences of this
study from Nasihah (2008). First of all , this study offers a new look on
debate, namely refutation. Furthermore, this study focuses on refutation speech
of Indonesian debaters in which this study enriches the study of argumentation
in academic debate, especially in Indonesian Varsi ties English Debate (IVED).
On the other hand, this study
continues Hanif’s study (2010) on the types of refutation that take the
different part of refutation. It examines the methods of refutation because
knowing the types of refutation is not deeply enough to produce an effective,
logic and sharp refutation. It is stated by Irwin and Berger (2003) that three
aspects that must be mastered by the debaters in order to have sharp
refutation. Those are, knowing the subject of debate thoroughly, understanding
the refutation techniques, and practicing refutation. In line with Irwin and
Berger’s statement, this study focuses on the techniques of refutation.
Thus, it completes the previous
studies on refutation in academic debate.
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