Sociolinguistics of Commonly Used Gambits in ESL Classroom

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Students and teachers share common traditions and principles that lead them to interpret the utterances or messages of one another. However, conversations and discussions will not be smooth and spontaneous without linguistic formulae like gambits. The main purpose of this research paper is to identify the commonly used gambits in ESL classroom and to determine particular situations that students use gambits in oral communication. This study can be an instrument to introduce the uses of gambits in classroom discussions. Since communication and the use of English as a medium of instruction do not only happen in English class but also in other subjects like Mathematics and Science, this may enlighten teachers of the aforesaid subjects to be cautious and aware in using formulaic expressions like gambits, for them to be able to manage classroom discussions effectively.

METHODS

The study is a qualitative research using discourse analysis and quantitative approach to quantify the commonly used gambits in ESL classroom. The audio-recording was generated from classroom discussion between the students and the teacher. The audio-recording was transcribed using the Jefferson's Transcript Notation. Afterwards, the data was analyzed and interpreted by using the Edmondson and House's Classification System for Gambit Types.

RESULTS

The frequency of occurrences of commonly used gambits in terms of uptaker, clarifier, appealer, starter, and aside are 18, 5, 2, 5, 1 respectively wherein the equivalent percentages are 58.06% for uptaker; 16.13% for clarifier and starter respectively; 6.45% for appealer; and 3.23% for asides. Hence, "uptaker" is the most commonly used gambit type which accumulated the percentage of 58.06%.

DISCUSSIONS

The results entails that teachers and the students use different kinds of gambits depending on their purposes of speaking. Some of the purposes are to show respect to the speaker; to take turns in class discussion; to acknowledge responses; and to give or formulate responses.