A STUDY OF COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES USED BY THE FOURTH-SEMESTER STUDENTS OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT IN DISCUSSION AND DEBATE CLASS AT MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF PURWOREJO IN ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2012/2013

Abstract

Communication strategies become beneficial in overcoming the communication gaps. This research focuses on the study of commmunication strategies used by the fourth-semester students of English Department in Discussion and Debate Class at Muhammadiyah University of Purworejo in academic year of 2012/2013 which aims to investigate the types of communication strategies and to find the most dominant type of communication stratrgies used. Qualitative method is used to conduct this research. The subject of this research is the fourth-semester students of English Department at Muhammadiyah University of Purworejo. The data was collected by recording students’ speech which is analyzed to describe and to explain in detail phenomenon of commmunication strategies used in the real situation. The result of this study showed that students performed the various types of communication strategis. This research conducts the typology of communication strategies proposed by Faucette (2001). There are eleven types of communication strategies performed by students: approximation (9.01%), circumlocution (3.60%), borrowing (11.71%), foreignizing (1.80%), word coinage (16.22%), topic avoidance (5,.41%), message replacement (6.31%), abandonment (10.81%), appealing for assistance (8.11%), non-verbal (5.41%), and time-stalling devices (21.62%). The researcher found that time-stalling devices became the most dominant strategy used. The researcher expects that the other researchers will be interested in conducting researches about communication strategies because it is so close to the learners’ interlanguage in acquiring L2. It is also possible to other researchers to conduct the same research in the different sources of data.