ENGLISH LANGUAGE E-PROCEEDING

6.0. CONCLUSION
Upon the findings for RQ1 and RQ2, this exploratory study proves there are semi-technical
words that are used widely within the specific virtual gaming community. This study also
manages to uncover the definitions of each semi-technical vocabulary of MMO games which
when being used in its nature, does not share the same meanings as the direct meanings in
common, layman words. The semi-technical vocabulary serves a unique and peculiar context
in- game or when used by gamers, different from how those words are usually used out of
the context of MMO. Evidently, the findings of this study clearly support the previous
research on online gaming (Huizinga, 1938; Kramer, 2014; Swoboda, 2015; Lofgren, 2017),
ESP (Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998; Macià et. al., 2006) and semi-technical vocabulary
(Nation, 2001; Chung & Nation, 2003; Menon & Mukundan, 2010; Li & Li, 2015). Imolications
of this study would be for those who are investigating English for Specific Purposes (ESP) or
semi-technical words in the virtual gaming world. This study could be the starting point of a
lexical analysis and lexicon compilation. This is due to the rather extensive field itself and the
findings may be expanded over time. In addition, the findings for this research can also
benefit fellow gamers who newcomers or beginners, as these findings could be a reference
for them to further understand the nature of MMO games.

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87

Proceedings of the 3rd International Language & Tourism Conference 2019
Sustaining Global Development Goals through
Language, Education and Tourism

Kulliyyah of Languages and Management, International Islamic University Malaysia,
Pagoh Edu Hub, Malaysia 18th-19th October 2019

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE NIGERIAN PRESIDENT’S SPEECH
AT THE 73RD SESSION OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Ibrahim Sani Dauda*1 and Haryati Bakrin2

1, 2 School of Languages, Civilisation and Philosophy, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Malaysia.
(*E-mail: [email protected] , [email protected] )

ABSTRACT

Inspired by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) perspective, this paper examines a spoken
political discourse delivered by the Nigerian President, Muhammad Buhari, at the 73rd
session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 2018. Specifically, it seeks to
achieve the following objectives: (a) to explain how the text achieves its coherence and
cohesiveness, (b) to examine the foregrounding information, (c) to examine the
backgrounding information. The speech for this qualitative descriptive study was
downloaded from the internet through Google Search Engine and later transcribed. The
analysis of the textual cohesion and cohesiveness is based on Halliday and Hasan’s (1976)
Cohesion Theory. On the other hand, Huckin’s (1997) model of Critical Discourse Analysis
is used to examine the foregrounding and backgrounding information. The analysis shows
that the President emphasises on three global issues, namely, (a) global crisis, conflict, war
and threats to peace, (b) migration, and (c) corruption. It also shows how domestic issues
were left out by him. The analysis further reveals how the President makes the speech
cohesive and coherence through the pervasive use of the reference marker “we” as a
presupposing item of the Nigerian people, United Nation and Africa. The implication of this
study is that CDA can serve as an in-depth technique that exposes the implied and left out
ideologies in political speeches. Through the CDA technique, this paper has also brought to
light the main messages of President Muhammad Buhari’s speech.

Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis; Cohesion; Coherence; Foregrounding;
Backgrounding

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1.0 INTRODUCTION

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a type of discourse analytical research that mainly
studies and analyses written and spoken texts concerning power abuse dominance
inequality, and bias in the social and political context (Van Dijk, 2002). Its conceptual and
theoretical frameworks are extensively employed by scholars to analyse speeches and talks
produced by politicians to address social and political issues. More importantly, CDA is
useful not only to describe the discursive structure of discourse, but also to explain it in
terms of features of social interaction and social structure (Van Dijk, 2002). The conceptual
and theoretical frameworks of CDA are also “better” than other approaches as it provides
a thorough discourse analysis of the connections of language in use and the social and
political contexts where it appears (Paltridge, 2012). To put it differently, CDA is regarded
as an interpretative and explanatory research that studies (a) “the ways discourse enact,
confirm, legitimate, reproduce,” and (b) “challenges relations of power and dominance in
society” (Van Dijk, 2001, p.53).

Apart from that, according to Paltridge (2012), CDA is mainly constructed to discover
underlying values, positions, and perceptions in the texts. He then suggested that a CDA
practitioner might start his or her analysis by identifying the type or genre that his text
represents and how much the text conforms to it. The framing of the text as well as the
issues that are foregrounded and backgrounded in the text should also be considered.
Foregrounded issues are what the speaker has chosen to emphasized while backgrounded
issues are those the speaker has chosen to de-emphasize or even leave out of the text
(Huckin, 1997). Other than these, the text’s degree, the choice and connotations of words,
and the relations of agent-patient should also be included in the analysis.

Inspired by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) perspective, this paper examines a spoken
political discourse delivered by the Nigerian President, Muhammad Buhari, at the 73rd
session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. The UN is a specific collection of
independent countries that have collaborated to push for world social development and
peace. The organization officially begins its activities on 24 October 1945 with 51 countries.
By late 2008, the member countries had increased to 192 (Ruder, Nakono, & Aeschlimann,
2017). Since its emergence, it is only Indonesia that had briefly been expelled from
membership in 1965 over an argument with Malaysia and had returned by 1966 (Ruder et
al., 2017). The impression of the UN started during the Second World War (1939-1945). The
world leaders that came together to end the war noticed that this will be possible only if a
collaborative global organization was formed (Smale, 2010). The UN was to be that
organization. The UN headquarters in which this spoken discourse occurred is an
international zone. This means that the area in which it resides does not belong to just the
host state, but to all the country members of the UN (Ruder et al., 2017).

In this paper, the authors use CDA as an approach that examines the relationship between
the use of language and the social and political contexts in which it occurs (Paltridge, 2012).
It begins with a thorough textual analysis and progresses to the explanation and
interpretation of the analysis. It also encompasses the ability to challenge and deconstruct
the discourse being examined. According to Paltridge, “the norms and values which

89

underlie texts are often ‘out of sight’ rather than overtly stated” (2012, p.178). The point
of CDA is, therefore, to uncover a portion of these covered up and hidden norms,
viewpoints, and positions. Also the terms discourse and text are used interchangeably in
this study. A discourse is simply a written or spoken language in use (Cameron, 2001).
This definition means that a text or a discourse might be at the word, sentence or a
paragraph level.

1.2 Rationale for Selecting the Speech

The president’s spoken discourse was chosen because it is different from the previous
speeches given by him at the UN general assemblies. Unlike his previous speeches in which
he prefers to outline his administration’s major objectives and success attained in war
against Boko Haram’s (a group of terrorists claiming that western education must be
stopped in Nigeria) insurgency (Onuoha & Oyewole, 2018), the president this time dwelled
on foreign issues from the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen, the humanitarian
crisis in Myanmar, the persecution of Rohingyan Muslims, and the international terrorism
with reference to Al-Shabab and ISIS. To elaborate, in his speech at the 71st session of the
UN general assembly, he started with the detrimental effects of the worldwide monetary
downturn on Nigeria and then stated how his administration was imposing reforms to
diversify the economic system and create an environment for enterprises. He moved on to
talk about corruption and the progress he made in the combat against corruption in terms
of asset recuperation and a request for international cooperation. On his remarks about
terrorism and human rights, he highlighted the vast progress made up to now in the combat
against Boko Haram. He reaffirmed Nigeria’s dedication to upholding humanitarian law. He
called for a reform of the Security Council and insisted that Africa should be given an
everlasting seat and that Nigeria would be inclined to take it up. This clearly shows that his
main focus is the description of the objectives and success of his administration. In the 73rd
UN speech, on the contrary, the president is more concerned with foreign issues, as will be
explained under foregrounding information. Therefore, there is a need to examine the
speech with the aim of pinpointing the issues being emphasized or left out by the president.

1.3 Research Questions

Based on the overall objective of the paper, i.e. to examine the use of language and the
underlying issues in the president’s speech, this research will answer the following
questions:

1.3.1 How does the text achieve its coherence and cohesiveness?
1.3.2 What are the foregrounding issues in the text?
1.3.3 What are the backgrounding issues in the text?

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

Studies on the presidential speeches as an aspect of political discourse have been carried
out by various researchers. For example, Okoro (2017) investigates the speech acts of two
political speeches of the present Nigerian President, Muhammad Buhari. 20 excerpts were

90

extracted from his Formal Declaration of Interest and Inaugural speeches. It is a
quantitative research and a descriptive survey method is used in the analysis. The result of
the Overall Relative Frequency Percentages (ORFPs) shows that assertive speech act is the
most frequent act used by the president (70%) followed by a commisive (60%). On the other
hand, declarative speech act is the least act used by the president (15%). Awotayo (2018)
carried a CDA of the “change” slogan in the Nigerian political discourse. Inspired by the
discourse historical approaches, the researcher analyzes the intertextual contextualization
of change slogan with the aim of revealing how political tensions emerge through a
discursive formation. The analysis shows that political slogans are not confined to the
domain of politics. It also highlights how political agents seek ideological consensus and
power through linguistic manipulation, and how this may be resisted through discursive re-
appropriation.

Adopting Furlough’s Three Dimensional Analytical Model, Sharndama (2015) examined the
Inaugural Speech of President Muhammad Buhari which was delivered shortly after his
swearing into office on the 29th of May, 2015. The analysis shows that an inaugural speech
is a disclosure of plans and hopes in the new government. It also portrays the ideologies on
which the new government, controlled by President Muhammad Buhari, anticipates to
operate through good governance, strengthening international relations, foreign policies
and democracy, and fight insecurity, corruption, etc. Koutchade (2015) in his “Discourse
Analysis of General Muhammad Buhari’s Official Acceptance Speech: A Systemic Functional
Perspective,” adopted the Systematic Functional Model and examined the aspects of
experiential meaning, realized through the transitivity patterns which focus on the different
processes, participants and circumstances, and the interpersonal meaning, realized
through modality. The findings show that these linguistic elements made it easy to display
not only the presidents’ experience of the event he described but also his ideology that are
expressed to reinforce the persuasive strategies used in his speech.

Also using CDA approach, Priatmoko (2013) examined the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s
speech with the aim of exploring the language, power and ideology used in describing the
Jakarta Bombing. The analysis is based on Thomas Huckin model of CDA. The results
indicate that through the language used, the strength of power and the purpose of the
speaker can be observed. The power is strongly felt and the ideology is clearly seen as well
as understood. However, not many researches have examined political discourses with the
aim of disclosing the foregrounding and backgrounding information and how it achieves
coherence and cohesiveness at the same time. This research hopes to shed some lights on
this aspect of discourse analysis study.

3.0 METHODOLOGY

In this section, the sample of the study, method of data collection and theoretical
framework of the research are discussed.

3.1 Data collection

91

The data of this research was taken from the internet using the Google Search Engine. The
internet is one of the various sources of the database that a researcher can consult
(Creswell, 2012). Either in qualitative or quantitative research, the internet is said to
provide an inexpensive and easy method of data collection. With the rapid growth of
Information Technology, the internet will continuously be used for data collection in
research (Lakeman, 1997). Nigerian President Muhammad Buhari’s speech delivered at the
73rd session of the UN general assembly was purposely selected and transcribed in order
to clearly examine the information being emphasized in it and the ones being left out by
the president.

3.2 Theoretical framework

In this qualitative descriptive research. Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) Cohesion Theory was
used to examine the coherence and cohesiveness of the text. On the other hand, the
foregrounding and backgrounding information was examined using Huckin’s (1997) model
of Critical Discourse Analysis. The main assumption of the Halliday and Hasan’s theory is
that "cohesion does not concern what a text means; it concerns how the text is constructed
as a semantic edifice" (Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p.26). They examine cohesion as a linguistic
property contributing to coherence. In their theory, the term texture is a kind of discourse
property that is more commonly referred to as coherence. They argue that text develops
its texture (coherence) from the cohesive ties. Furthermore, the authors assert that “the
concept of ties makes it possible to analyze a text in terms of its cohesive properties and
give a systematic account of its patterns of texture" (Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p.4). They
further present a taxonomy of various types of cohesive ties as follows: (a) reference (b)
substitution (c) conjunction (d) lexical cohesion. In a nutshell, this theory suits the current
research’s analysis because it considers the textual cohesiveness as the basis of textual
coherence.

In his Critical Discourse Analysis model, Huckin (2002) maintains that in many spoken or
written discourses, some issues are found to be emphasized; such issues are termed as
foregrounding issues. Foregrounding refers to the worthiness and importance attached to
some parts of a written or spoken discourse, either by word choice, size, placement or
syntactic structures (Huckin, 2002). The opposite of foregrounding is backgrounding. It
simply refers to how writers or speakers de-emphasize certain information (Huckin, 2002;
Solhi, Kalehsar, & Dargahi, 2015). The ultimate form of backgrounding is an omission, or
leaving relevant information out of text (Koutchade, 2015). Having discussed the
theoretical framework in this section, the analysis will be presented in the following
section.

4.0 FINDINGS

4.1 Cohesion and coherence

The analysis of the Nigerian president’s speech exhibits pervasive use of “we”. It is generally
used as an anaphoric reference of Nigeria, Africa or the UN. The importance of using a

92

reference marker in a written or spoken discourse is to substitute a noun or a noun phrase
so as to avoid monotony when it is repeated (Sharndama, 2015). Irimiea (2010, as cited in
Al-Fakai 2014) argues that politicians use pronouns in their speeches mostly as
representatives of political groups such as government, political parties, and countries
rather than personalities. Some of the common “we” phrases used by the president
include: we appreciate, we in Africa, we particularly, we urge, we debated, we face and so
on. Based on this, it can be concluded that the pervasive use of “we” by the president does
not only make the text cohesive, but at the same time also ties the meaning of the
individual segments together. In other words, it leads to the textual coherence. One
example of excerpt from the text in which the contribution of the reference marker “we”
to the construction of cohesion and coherence can be observed:

“The international community should strengthen its resolve to combat ethnic and religious
cleansing everywhere. We support the UN’s efforts in ensuring that the Rohingya refugees
are allowed to return to their homes in Myanmar with security, protection, and guarantee
of citizenship. We note the indication by the Government of Myanmar of its willingness to
address these issues and we encourage them to do so expeditiously.”

In the Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) terminology, the pronoun “we” in “we support the
UN’s…” is a presupposing item, and the “people of Nigeria” which has already been
mentioned in the first paragraph is the presupposed item. The meaning and rhyme of the
presupposing item relate back to the presupposed item. Similarly, the “we” in “we note”
and the “we” in “we encourage” are also presupposing items of the “people of Nigeria”.
Without the appearance of the presupposed item, our understanding of the presupposing
items may be ambiguous because we can’t trace their origin, and, therefore, the clarity of
the text will be a blur. One interesting thing about reference items such as “we” is that it
can refer to something mentioned a long way back in a text (Paltridge, 2012). It ties the text
together and therefore, not only makes it cohesive but also coherent at the same time.

“Regrettably, many of the crises and threats to peace and security around the world which
we debated last year as we did over several previous years remain unresolved. In some
cases, matters got worse. The continuing plight of the Rohingyas in Myanmar, the
protracted Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the wars in Yemen, and Syria, and the fight against
international and local terrorism such as Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab come to mind”.

The reference marker “we” in “we debated…” and “we did…” is a presupposing item. The
United Nation which has already been mentioned in the text is the presupposed item. The
meaning and the rhyme of these presupposing items can only be deduced by tracing their
reference point within the text. They are, therefore, anaphoric reference markers. These
items connect this part of the text with the previous parts. This structural connection leads
to the coherence and cohesiveness of the text. Without this connection, the progression of
the various parts of the text will be split. They will be very difficult to perceive, and thus,
the text will lack the concept of a tie.

In this connection, we acknowledge the commitment to peace shown by President Donald

93

Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-Un by initiating a historic Summit. We urge that they
continue this positive engagement.

The presupposing item “we” in “we acknowledge…” and “we urge…” is an anaphoric
reference to Africa which has already been mentioned in the preceded paragraphs where
the president used the phrase “we in Africa”. Despite the long distance between the
presupposing item and the presupposed item, however, the meaning and the rhyme they
carry still relate to it. Without the presupposed item, the meaning and the rhyme of the
presupposed item might not be inferred. This indicates how it ties the structure and the
meaning of the distinct parts of the text. The item, therefore, makes the text coherent and
cohesive at the same time.

“The only global institutional framework we have to address these challenges is the United
Nations System. That is why (R: we are) we continue to call for the strengthening of the
organization and making it more effective by speeding up the pace of progress towards its
reform, including that of its principal organ, the Security Council. The reconstitution of the
Council to make it more equitable and more representative of our global community is both
a political and moral imperative”.

Similarly, the reference marker “we” in “we have …” is a presupposing item of the
presupposed item United Nations. Having said a lot about the global conflict, crisis,
corruption and migration, the president (as a person representing a member country)
wants to offer a way out and, therefore, recommends that the international organization
solve these problems through the United Nations System, i.e., the members join forces in
bringing any culprit to law and order. “We have …” means we, the international
organization, have the responsibility to take appropriate actions. The second “we” in
“that’s why we…” is an anaphoric reference to the Nigerian people being represented by
the Nigerian president. The meaning of these reference markers can only be derived by
looking back at what comes before them. They connect the above paragraph located
towards the end of the text with the previous paragraphs. Therefore, they lead to the
textual coherence and cohesiveness.

We believe that a reformed Security Council with expanded membership in both the
permanent and non-permanent categories, is in accord with prevailing international
consensus and it is in our collective interest to do so. It is high time we stopped skirting
round the issue and establish achievable benchmarks and time frames for these reforms.
As a reference marker, the meaning of the “we” in “we believe…” can only be derived by
looking back at what comes before it. It is a presupposing item of the United Nation. The
president as a member of the United Nation is telling the UN president their position about
a reform of the Security Council. This can be emphasized as he moves on to use another
anaphoric reference “we” in “it is time we stopped…”. The meaning of the first and second
“we” can be deduced by x-raying the discourse that came before them. The pronoun,
therefore, ties the structure and the meaning of the various parts of the text.

4.2 Foregrounding and Backgrounding

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In this speech, three issues were foregrounded: (a) global conflict (terrorism, crisis, and
war) (b) migration (c) corruption. While remarking that in the previous year, the world
noticed some pleasant results and encouraging signs from the bilateral and multilateral
efforts of the worldwide organization to address conflicts, crises and threats to world
peace, the president encourages the efforts of the leaders of the United States, North Korea
and South Korea, and additionally recounts the commitment to peace proven by President
Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-Un by establishing a historic Summit. On mounting
conflicts and threats to worldwide peace, the president expresses sorrow about a few
enduring threats to peace around the world, and he also notes that some cases actually got
worse.

Some of the conflicts he highlights include the continuing plight of the Rohingyas in
Myanmar, the protracted Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the wars in Yemen and Syria, and the
local and international terrorism such as Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab. In his remark on the
Rohingyans, he recommends that the UN should remain focus to bring their sufferings to
an end and hold to account the culprits. On the deteriorating Middle East crisis, he calls on
the Israelis and the Palestinians to make indispensable negotiations in the interest of
justice, peace, and security. He also calls the attention of the UN not to forbear on the
Syrian and Yemeni people. He maintains that the solution to most of the global conflicts,
crisis, terrorism, and war can be achieved through peaceful political negotiation, dialogue
and inclusiveness, and not by force of arms alone.

On regular migration which he links to climate change, the president respects the fruitful
finish of the transactions on the main ever Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular
Migration, and anticipates its appropriation in Marrakech not long from now. Having said
a lot about the threats to the global peace and migration, he moves on to provide his
remarks on corruption within countries and illegal flow of funds across national boundaries.
He finally suggests that the war against corruption be a mutual task involving all
stakeholders. As fighting corruption is the key plank of the Nigerian president’s
administration, the successes recorded so far are minimal with respect to retrieving looted
funds, punishing corrupt persons and blocking the bureaucratic loopholes that enable theft
of public funds. The president seems to be one sided in the fighting against corruption. He
only arrests those that are not in his political party. This can be evidenced by a recent
incident in which a governor in one of the Nigerian states that share a party with him was
caught several times in a video that went viral collecting bribe from contractors. However,
the federal government does nothing for the past three months.

In analyzing the president’s speech discourse, the techniques employed for examining the
foregrounding issues are based on Huckin’s (2002) theory. In the Huckin’s (2002) definition
of foregrounding, he mentions that it can be determined by its size in a given text. Based
on this, the speech text is divided into 34 segments and the most topicalized issue in each
segment is examined. About 17 segments out of the 34 focus mainly on the issues of global
conflicts, terrorism, crisis, war, insurgency and threats to peace. For instance, segments 5
through 19 are solely devoted to the discussion of the possible way out of these issues. The

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theme of segments 7, 8, 17 and 19 is either crisis or terrorism. In each of these segments
(5-19), the pervasive words are those that described the issues of global conflicts.
Furthermore, segments 20 to 22 focus mainly on the issues

of migration and how it is linked to the aspects of climate change. Moreover, segments 26
to 29 focus on the issues of corruption whereby the word “corruption” itself serves as the
theme for the segments. In a nutshell, the foregrounding issues were determined based on
the size they occupy throughout the text.

The opposite of foregrounding is backgrounding. It simply refers to how writers or speakers
de-emphasize certain information (Huckin, 2002). The crucial form of backgrounding is an
omission, or leaving relevant information out of a text (Kootchade, 2015). There is so much
that is backgrounded or omitted in this text. Issues that bother Nigeria and Nigerians are
naturally expected to be covered more by the president. Such issues include poverty,
unemployment, insecurity, ethno-religious violence, and corruption that have worsened in
the country. For instance, the recent report by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation called
the 2018 Goalkeepers Report which tracks progress on UN’s 17 Sustainable Development
Goals (SDG) implies that Nigerian poverty has worsened and will grow considerably worse
before it gets better. It states that 30 years from now, about half of the worlds’ extremely
poor will be the citizens of Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. More worrisome
is the statement that even a 50% reduction will leave the number of poor the same because
the population of Africa is projected to nearly double by 2050. In addition to that, according
to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria has reported an increase in the rate of
unemployment to 18.80% in the third quarter of 2017 from 16.20% in the second quarter
of the year.

With regard to the insecurity, it is quite obvious that the president’s administration has
failed miserably in fighting against the Boko Haram. In an article titled “Anatomy of Boko
Haram: The Rise and Decline of a Violent Group in Nigeria”, Onuoha and Oyewole (2018)
claim that the group has carried out more than 60 attacks, which claimed more than two
hundred lives throughout the Lake Chad area within the first three months of 2018. On 19
February 2018, the International Society of Women Airline Pilot (ISWAP) faction of Boko
Haram abducted one hundred and 5 (105) girls from the Government Girls Science and
Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi, Yobe State. In addition to that, the recent Boko Haram
assault on a Nigerian army base has caused as many as 100 soldiers to perish. Many
Nigerians believe that the claims by the Nigerian government that the Boko Haram has
been defeated continue to ring hollow. With grim domestic issues like these, when the
president next addresses the UN General Assembly, he is expected to also emphasize on
them and seek the UN’s assistance in finding the possible way out rather than emphasizing
on the Iraq, Syria, or Palestine conflicts and insurgencies alone.

6. CONCLUSION

The aim of this research is to explore how the text achieves its coherence and cohesiveness
and to determine the issues being foregrounded and backgrounded by the president. The

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analysis shows that the text achieves its coherence and cohesiveness through the pervasive
use of the reference marker “we” as a presupposing item of the Nigerian people, the United
Nation or Africa. The president uses it with the aim of creating a shared sense of
responsibility. It indicates that the audience belongs to the same group, has the same
questions to answer, and shows solidarity. It demonstrates collectivism and unity of
purpose which are attributes of the United Nations General Assembly.

The analysis also shows that the following issues were foregrounded by the president: (a)
global conflict, terrorism, crisis, and war (b) migration (c) corruption. Based on the size they
occupy in the text, they demonstrate how the president took a new dimension in his speech
in the UN General Assembly. He is likely to change his foregrounding issues in order to meet
the general purpose of the UN. However, backgrounding issues that bother Nigeria and
Nigerian people such as poverty, unemployment, insecurity, ethnoreligious violence, and
corruption lead to so many questions from the Nigerians.

In this paper many aspects of the political speech given by the Nigerian president at the
73rd session of the UN General Assembly have been observed. The president emphasizes
on three major global issues, namely, (a) global crisis, conflict, war and threats to peace (b)
migration (c) corruption, but he leaves out many pressing domestic issues in the speech.
The analysis also shows how he makes the speech cohesive and coherence through the
pervasive use of the reference marker “we”. In summary, the Critical Discourse Analysis
(CDA) is a good in-depth technique that should be employed to expose implied and left out
ideologies in political speeches.

Bibliography: Madam Haryati Bakrin is a lecturer at Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Kedah
in the Applied Linguistics Programme of the School of Languages, Civilisation and
Philosophy. Her email address is [email protected] and the title of the paper is ‘Critical
Discourse Analysis of the Nigerian President’s Speech at the 73rd Session of the UN General
Assembly’.

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Proceedings of the 3rd International Language & Tourism Conference 2019
Sustaining Global Development Goals through
Language, Education and Tourism

Kulliyyah of Languages and Management, International Islamic University
Malaysia, Pagoh Edu Hub, Malaysia 18th-19th October 2019

EXPLORING MULTI-PARTY INTERACTION IN TV TALK SHOW:
NON-VERBAL AS RESOURCES FOR COOPERATIVE INTERRUPTION

Mohd Azalan, Aida Sahira*1, and Abdullah, Nur Nabilah2
1, 2 Department of English, Kulliyyah of Languages and Management,

International Islamic University Malaysia, MALAYSIA
(E-mail: [email protected], [email protected])

ABSTRACT
Interruption in conversation does not necessarily have to be negative as it could also be
viewed as something positive such as for maintaining and progressing a conversation
(Amalia, 2016; Li, 2001). This paper explored interruption practices in a Malaysian
television (TV) talk show called the DOPStv (Deen of Peace Studios), an Islamic lifestyle talk
show. The data was collected from the online YouTube videos in which the series on ‘couple
talk’ was selected as the TV talk show represented a multi-party interaction where more
than two speakers were involved in the talk. Using the conversation analysis approach, this
study analyzed how interruption was managed by the participants in the TV talk show. The
findings suggested that the participants in the DOPStv talk show utilized the use of non-
verbal cues as resources for cooperative interruption such as to provide assistance,
agreement and clarification in a multi-party interaction.
Keywords: Cooperative interruption; Conversation analysis; Non-verbal; Multi-party
interaction; TV talk show

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1. INTRODUCTION

Interruption can occur in various situational context and setting; both formal and informal.
It is likely for the conversation to happen in casual conversation between family and
friends, however, interruption also possibly takes place in an institutional setting such as
conversation in the classroom, police interrogation or television studio.

Interruption does not necessarily represent a competitive or disruptive act. A speaker may
have different goals when interrupting which could be in positive ways. People may
interrupt to display their high participation or involvement in a conversation such as to
support the utterances of the current speaker, to develop ideas, or to share things which
eventually resulted as cooperative act of interruption (Agustin, 2014).

Using the conversation analysis (CA) approach, the aim of this paper is to investigate
how interruption practices are managed by the participants in the Malaysia television
(TV) talk show called the DOPStv (Deen of Peace Studios). Although verbal interruption is
crucial to analyze, this research also provides new insight on how nonverbal gestures are
utilized by speakers as resources in supporting cooperative interruption.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Talk show involves both casual conversation and formal discourse and it could be
considered as a semi-institutional setting (Carnel, 2012; Ilie, 1999). It typically involves
interaction between host and guest. Talk show is a platform that allows the host and guest
to discuss, share and convey information to the audience.

2.1 Conversation Analysis of Talk Show
Conversation analysis (CA) is an approach to the study of social interaction of everyday life.
Since the establishment of CA, studies on institutional interaction discovered that diverse
communicative phenomenon could occur differently in different setting or context (Carnel,
2012; Ilie, 1999; Roca-Cuberes, 2014). Hutchby (2006) stated that in analyzing talk-in-
interaction, broader sense of ‘context’ should be explored, as talk does not only occur at a
particular setting. In other words, it could be in any form of situational contexts such as
conversation with family and friends. It could also take place in a larger scale of
organizational settings such as at schools, workplaces or at TV studios. The latter setting is
known as the institutional setting (Lester & O’Reilly, 2018). The types of institutional setting
could be recognized by their systematic turn-taking sequences that focus on role
distributions and turn pre-allocation between the participants (Hutchy, 2006; Ilie, 1999).

Talk show is considered as a form of interaction between participants that occur in an
institutional setting and recently, there is a growth interest in using CA to analyze
interaction in talk show (Carnel 2012; Tolson, 2001). Interaction in talk show tends to be
more spontaneous and less regulated, compared to other interactional activities in similar
setting, such as in political news interviews. Talk show can be considered as casual
conversation as it is organized in forms of question-and-answer sequences (Carnel, 2012;
Hutchby; 2006).

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2.2 Cooperative Interruption

Interruption does not necessarily have to be harmful as it could also be useful in
maintaining and keeping the conversation in progress (Amalia, 2016; Li, 2001). Cooperative
interruption is known to perform such functions. In cooperative functions, the speaker who
interrupts act as the collaborator, as he contributes to the development of the ideas or
topic of discussion in the conversation (Amalia, 2016). Cooperative interruption functions
are to offer assistance, agreement and clarification (Li, 2001).

According to Li (2001), assistance as the function of interruption occur when a speaker finds
that the current speaker needs assistance in expressing thoughts and ideas. The interrupter
assists by providing words or phrases that could help the current speaker. Interruption for
displaying agreement occurs when a speaker supports the ideas presented by the current
speaker (Li, 2001). The speaker, who interrupted, plays the role as a listener, and provides
responses or supports even though the current speaker has not finished his turn.
Clarification, on the other hand, is another cooperative interruption that occurs when the
listener interrupts in order to provide clarification or explanation on previous information
given by the current speaker (Kennedy & Camden, 1983, in Li, 2001). Hence, clarification
occurs when the listener seeks for explanation from the current speaker, or wish to confirm
something, before progressing on the topic discussed.

2.3 Interruption in Talk Show
In a research conducted by Hartono and Gunawan (2013), the study examined an
Indonesian television talk show called ‘Indonesia Lawyers Club’. The study analyzed
overlaps and interruption, in which it specifically focused on the context of a conversation
between the host and the guest. Their findings discovered that the host and the guest
interrupted each other to seek for clarification, to complete, to break up and to conclude a
conversation. Hartono and Gunawan (2013) also further concluded that the interruption
and overlaps in their study did not represent violation, instead they found that the
interruption displayed a positive behavior between the host and the guest.

In a similar study by Faizah and Kurniawan (2016), it was found that in a mixed-gender talk
show, both men and women are interrupted by the opposite gender in the conversation.
There were two types of interruption found such as competitive and cooperative (Faizah &
Kurniawan, 2016). Shalaby (2006), who conducted a research on interruption in Egyptian
TV talk shows, reported that in a talk show, the power and institutional role were given to
the host. The study found that the host took charge of the conversation, which allowed
them to display competence, enforce topic shifts and others. Hence, the study concluded
that the host interrupted more in talk shows (Shalaby, 2006). Larasati (2014) mentioned
that the setting of the conversation could also influence the occurrence of interruption. For
example, in talk show, the host and guest may interrupt each other to show interest,
agreement or arguments (Larasati, 2014).

2.4 Gestures in Interruption
The verbal language in a conversation is important in interruption studies. However, it is

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also crucial to observe the use of gestures or non-verbal conducts used in interruption.
Kaartinen (2013) conducted a study on multi-function of gestures in interruption in news
interview in which he examined how gestures evolved before, during and after
interruption. Kaartinen (2013) stated that:

“…gesture can be used a) during the current speaker's turn to cut him off in the
middle of their turn, b) as a rhythmic gesture to emphasize the speaker's speech,
and c) as an accusative tool during the interruption for pointing at both the idea
presented and the speaker responsible for that idea” (p.3).
The study concluded that multi-functional gestures served for different functions
and purposes such as to regulate floor taking and turn-taking system particularly in
institutional setting and supporting the verbal utterances that occur simultaneously.
Hence, this study adapted Kaartinen’s study theoretical framework in analyzing the
nonverbal resources or gestures that occur during the interruption in TV talk shows.

3. METHODOLOGY

The data of the TV talk show was collected from the online YouTube video. The video data
was obtained from the Malaysian talk show named DOPStv, an Islamic lifestyle talk show.
The series on ‘couple talk’ in DOPStv was selected as it represented a multi-party
interaction where more than two speakers were involved in the talk. The talk show was
hosted by Aiman Azlan (A), a well-known Malaysian motivational speaker with Noh Salleh
(N) and Mizz Nina (M) as the invited guests for the episode; both guest was Malaysian
celebrity as well as husband and wife (Figure 1).

Aiman Noh Mizz

Figure 1: The participants in the multi-party interaction

It is important to note that both video and transcript were important in formulating the
analysis of the study. The length of the video data was 35:51 minutes and it was watched
several times, transcribed and then analyzed using the CA approach. The study focuses on
verbal language and the nonverbal conducts in the interaction, hence, the analysis was
based on both audio and visual aspects of the data. The language spoken in the data video
were both Malay and English. The contextual meaning of the spoken language was
translated to English and included in the transcription in italic form.

4. MAIN RESULTS

The study found that most of the interruption presented is cooperative interruption, rather
than the intrusive function of interruption. In a talk show setting, the speakers used
interruption to express their high involvement in the conversation, such as displaying their

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interest and active listening. These interruptions are known as cooperative interruption
(Larasati, 2014; Amalia, 2016). Three functions of cooperative interruptions namely
agreement, assistance, and clarification are found in the multi-party interaction featured
in the DOPStv: Couple Talk. This study analyzed both verbal and nonverbal occurrences in
cooperative interruption which will be discussed in the followings.

4.1 Assistance

Assistance interruption occurs when a speaker wants to provide assistance to the current
speaker, particularly when he or she feels that the current speaker needs help in
completing the utterances. Hence, the speaker provides assistance by providing possible
words or phrases to help the current speaker. The followings are discussion of assistance
function in interruption found in this study.

Excerpt 1

As presented in the excerpt 1, in line 1 Noh displayed uncertainty, indicating that he could
not remember the position of the person that he was referring to. Initially, he mentioned
the position as “producer”, but later displayed hesitation and made a repair as he uttered
“your manager” and pointed his index finger towards Mizz, as referring to Mizz’s manager.
Upon realizing Noh’s difficulty and the hand gestures, Mizz interrupted Noh and said “my
manager”, confirming that it was her manager. Note that the phrase ‘my manager’ (line 3)
overlapped with Noh’s utterances (line 2). Thus, the function of assistance could be seen
as Mizz interrupted Noh’s turn to assist him in searching for the right word.

Figure 2: Noh’s gestures provided an opportunity for assistance interruption

As presented in the Figure 2, Noh pointed his index finger to Mizz when he mistakenly
mentioned the person searched-for as “producer”, but Noh made a repair as he later
restated as “your manager”. Upon noticing Noh’s difficulty, Mizz provided assistance
interruption when she noticed the hand gestures, Mizz gazed on Noh as she provided a
confirmation by saying “my manager”. Hence it could be seen that the hand gestures
created an opportunity for Mizz to interrupt and offer an assistance.

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Excerpt 2

In excerpt 2, Mizz and Noh were recalling their first time meeting each other. Mizz
mentioned that the first time that she became interested in Noh was not when they did
the first recording together, but it was when they had to do some humanitarian work
together. In line 9, Mizz could not remember the name of the event. Hence Noh interrupted
her with “sukarelawan untuk er:: Hari Sukan OKU Semenanjung Malaysia” (line 10) in which
Noh provided an assistance to complete Mizz’s word searched-for.

Figure 3: Noh’s gazed on Mizz as assistance interruption

Figure 3 above showed moments of Mizz tried to recall the humanitarian event they had
back then before they got married to each other. As Mizz took her turn in line 8, she
remained her gaze on Aiman (image 1). However, Mizz shifted her gaze slightly downwards,
an indication she was doing a word search (image 2). Noh realized Mizz’s hesitation when
she stretched her utterance “was::” (line 9) and gazed her eyes away from Aiman. Following
this, Noh interrupted Mizz to assist her in her word search, in which Noh then shifted his
gaze from Mizz to Aiman and provided a completion to the word search in line 10.
4.2 Agreement
Agreement interruption of cooperative function happens when the person who interrupts
takes the floor from the current speaker. This could be suggested that the speaker wants
to support, to display understanding and to show agreement to the current speaker’s
utterances. Based on the findings, it could be seen that there were high occurrences of

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agreement function in the TV talk show DOPStv: Couple Talk. The following discussion are
examples of agreement function found in this study:
Excerpt 3

In excerpt 3, in line 1 to line 4, Noh explained how he and Mizz got to know about each
other and accepting one other after marriage. While Noh was trying to explain further in
line 6, he experienced troubled in completing his utterances that could be indicated with
the stretched sound “to::” and a pause (line 7). Aiman then interrupted Noh as he took the
next turn in line 8 and offered a possible completion to Noh’s utterances as he said “make
the best out of you are”, while gesturing both hands inwards. Following the completion by
Aiman, Noh turned his head towards Aiman and gazed at him as well as providing an
agreement in line 11. Hence, Aiman’s interruption in line 8 was to show his agreement to
the utterance made by Noh, eventually lead to the agreement function.

Figure 4: Aiman displaying gestures of agreement interruption

As can be seen in the Figure 4 above, the initial floor belonged to Noh (line 1 to line 4, image
1 and image 2). The interruption was performed by Aiman when he wanted to show
agreement to Noh’s point. When Aiman wanted to interrupt the conversation, he stretched
his hands outward, to show that he wanted to add a point to the topic discussed. Aiman
interrupted Noh by saying “make the best out of who you are” (line 8, image 3). On the
other hand, after the interruption, Noh shifted his gaze towards Aiman, to indicate that he
agreed with the points mentioned (image 4). The following excerpt 4 below is another

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instance of agreement function.
Excerpt 4

In excerpt 4, Aiman, Mizz and Noh were talking about how people expressed their feelings
and emotions differently from one another, especially towards their spouses. As Mizz
shared her thoughts about her partner (line 1 to line 8), she experienced troubled in
completing her utterances in line 8 which was then followed by hedges “er::” (line 9).
Overlapped with the hedges was Noh’s utterances (line 10) when he made an attempt to
complete Mizz’s utterances as he said “when you’re off guard or something”.

Figure 51: Gestures of agreement interruption

As mentioned previously, the interruption was performed by Noh (in line 10) during Mizz’s
incomplete utterance (line 9). In image 1 and image 2, Noh was displaying listenership to
Mizz’s points as he kept his gaze downwards. When Noh interrupted in line 10 he shifted
his gaze towards Aiman (image 3) which could suggest that he supported Mizz and
displayed an agreement towards Mizz’s explanation. In image 4, it could be seen that Mizz
laughed to display her agreement and this is followed by Noh’s laughter.
4.3 Clarification
Clarification interruption occurs when a listener interrupts the current speaker to seek for
confirmation. Clarification may also occur when the listener displays confusion of the
current speaker’s utterances. The following discussion are examples of clarification
function found in this study:

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Excerpt 5

In excerpt 5 above, Mizz and Noh talked about their first meeting when they met each
other at an event called the Peninsular Malaysia OKU Sports Day. In line 5, Aiman
interrupted Noh’s utterances (line 4) as he sought for clarification on the year that both
Noh and Mizz met with each other. Noh and Mizz’s utterances overlapped with each other
as shown in line 5 and line 6 as to provide clarification.

Figure 6: Gestures of clarification interruption

In Figure 6 above, it could be seen in image 1 that Aiman put his hands outward while
making eye contact with Noh and then at Mizz. When Aiman interrupted, he began his
utterances in line 5 which also overlapped with Noh’s utterance in line 4. Following this was
a short pause (0.2) and Aiman continued to seek for further clarification (line 5) as he
pointed his hand gesture towards Mizz. Below is another example for cooperative
interruption that functioned as seeking for clarification.
Excerpt 6

In except 6, Noh was describing about Mizz’s personality (line 1 to line 5). However, Aiman
interrupted Noh’s description about Mizz in line 6 when Noh stretched his utterance as he

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said “so::” (line 5). Hence, Noh’s stretched word has provided an opportunity for Aiman to
interrupt as he responded with the token “Oh” and provided clarification about Noh’s
interpretation on Mizz’s personality as being a direct type of person. Noh described Mizz
as a person who stated her mind when disliking something (line 4 to line 5), which was then
clarified by Aiman (line 6). Noh then provided further clarification that both him and Mizz
resolved things before going to bed (line 7).

Figure 7: Aiman’s eye gaze and hand gestures of clarification interruption

Aiman indicated his active listening to Noh’s utterance when he put his hands together on
the table (line 1 to line 5, image 1). However, in image 2, it could be seen that Aiman slightly
stretched his hands outwards and gazed on Mizz and then back towards Noh, when he
interrupted Noh in line 6. Hence, Aiman’s hand gesture and shifting eye gaze from Noh
towards Mizz and back towards Noh were an indication of cooperative interruption that
functioned as providing a clarification.

5. CONCLUSION

Interruption has always been associated with the violation of the conversation contract of
turn-taking system. Although there are various ways in defining ‘interruption’, the current
study employed the meaning of interruption as the deviation of the smooth turn-taking
system between speakers as what has been suggested by Xu (2009). This study examined
how interruption was managed in talk show, which eventually contributed to the research
of interruption, particularly in semi-institutional setting. Hence, this study explored the
multi-party interaction between the host and the guests which was analyzed based on
conversation analysis approach.

The findings of the study discovered that interruption can occur for different functions,
such as cooperative interruption. Cooperative interruption can take place when another
speaker interrupted the current speaker’s turn to provide assistance, to express agreement
or to seek for clarification. In this study on talk show setting, it was found that the host
performed interruption as he needed to lead the conversation by asking question and
extending the idea of the guests. On the other hand, the guests interrupted to display their
high involvement in the conversation. Thus, it can be concluded that interruption that
occurred between the host and the guests is an indication of positive behavior in the talk
show interaction.

Finally, the study examined the use of verbal language and nonverbal resources in

108

interruption. The nonverbal conducts that the speakers used during the interruption were
displayed as resources for cooperative interruption; such as the use of eye gaze, pointing
and hand gestures combined with the verbal talk.
Transcript Conventions

(0.5) pause
[] overlap marker
, failing intonation
: lengthening
= latched turns
UPPER CASE loud voice
word stressed syllable / word
word translation to English word in italic
((word)) notes on gestures and movement

Bibliography: Aida Sahira Mohd Azalan is a final year undergraduate student at the
Department of English, Kulliyyah of Languages and Management, International Islamic
University Malaysia. Nur Nabilah Abdullah is an Assistant Professor at the Department of
English, Kulliyyah of Languages and Management, International Islamic University
Malaysia.

REFERENCES

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(Degree thesis, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya)

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Characters in New Girl: Season 2 TV Series (Degree thesis, Yogyakarta State
University, Indonesia)

Amalia, A. S. (2016). A Conversational Analysis of Interruption in High School Musical Movie
Series (Degree thesis, Yogyakarta State University, Indonesia). Retrieved from
http://journal.student.uny.ac.id/ojs/index.php/quill/article/view/2420

Carnel, J. (2012). Aspects of Talk Show Interaction: The Jonathan Ross Show and The
Tonight Show with Jay Leno (Master thesis, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, English
Linguistics Department, Ghent University). Retrieved from
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001891492_2012_0001_AC.pdf

Faizah, I. & Kurniawan, E. (2016). A Study of Interruption and Overlap in Male Female
Conversations in the Talk Show Mata Najwa. Barista, 3(1), 25-36.

Hartono, Y., Gunawan, S. (2013). Interruptions and Overlaps Occurring in an Indonesian
Television Talk Show Indonesia Lawyers Club – Tv One. (Thesis, English Department,
Faculty of Letter, Petra Christian University, Siwalankerto 121-131, Surabaya 60236,

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East Java, Indonesia).
Hutchby, I. (2006). Media Talk: Conversation Analysis and the Study of Broadcasting. New

York, NY, USA: Open University Press.
Ilie, C. (1999). Question-response Argumentation in Talk Shows. Journal of Pragmatics 31,

975-999.
Kaartinen, S. (2013). Multi-functional Gestures in Interruption: A Look at News Interview

Situations (Master thesis, University of Oulu, Finland).
Larasati, C. K. (2014). A Conversation Analysis of Interruptions in Modern Family Season 1

Series. (Thesis, English Language and Literature Study Program, English Education
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Lester, J. N. & O’Reilly, M. (2018). Applied Conversation Analysis: Social Interaction in
Institutional Settings. Los Angeles: Sage.
Li, H. Z. (2001). Cooperative and Intrusive Interruptions in Inter and Intracultural Dyadic
Discourse. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 20(3), 259-284.
Roca-Cuberes, Carles (2014). Conversation analysis and the study of social institutions:
methodological, socio-cultural and epistemic considerations. Athenea Digital,
14(1), 303-331. http://dx.doi.org/10.5565/rev/athenead/v14n1.1129
Shalaby, M. (2006). Interruption as a Measure of (Lack of) Conversational Power: A Gender
- Dominance Analysis of Interruptions in Egyptian TV Talk Shows.
Tolson, A. (Ed.) (2001). Television Talk Shows: Discourse, Performance, Spectacles. Erlbaum,
Mahwah, NJ.
Xu, Y. (2009). Gender Differences in Mixed-Sex Conversations: a Study of Interruption
(Thesis, English Department, Kristianstad University). Retrieved from
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:303562/FULLTEXT02

110

Proceedings of the 3rd International Language & Tourism Conference 2019
Sustaining Global Development Goals through
Language, Education and Tourism

Kulliyyah of Languages and Management, International Islamic University Malaysia,
Pagoh Edu Hub, Malaysia 18th-19th October 2019

HIGHLIGHTS ON CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AMONG MALAYSIAN ARMED
FORCES AND FUTURE RESEARCH TERRAIN

Dinie Asyraf Salehan*1, Muhammad Shafiq Azid2, Muhammad Salim Muhammad
Tufail3, Hilmi Azani Husain4

1, 2, 3, 4 Pusat Bahasa, Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA.
(E-mail: *[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],

[email protected])

ABSTRACT
Cross-cultural interaction is now a household term since people movement is no longer
restricted by physical borders and boundaries. With the inception of globalisation,
advancement of technology and the ease of travelling, people migrate across the globe in
order to realise targets. Often, those targets are business, education, tourism or to
commence a new life’s episode. Apart from the reasons mentioned, the means of military
is also the cause of people’s mobility. When people begin to live in a multicultural setting,
a need for communication among members of community with diverse cultural
backgrounds arises. Cultural intelligence (CQ) is a relatively new field of research that arises
in response to the issue of failures in intercultural communication. Much of the discussion
revolves around the identification of strengths and weaknesses of a person when
interacting in a multicultural setting. On the other hand, CQ in education is another
important aspect that is worthy of focus since education can nurture individuals to be highly
competent in CQ, including military personnel. This study will provide highlights on studies
of CQ in military and education as well as suggestions for the way forward especially in
Malaysian military context.
Keywords: Culture intelligence; CQ; Military; Malaysia; Education

111

1. INTRODUCTION

Globalisation is no longer an unknown term, thanks to the increasing trend of people
movement from one place to another. The openness towards migration, affordable
transportation as well as the advent and success of new markets have created the
aforementioned global movement. As a result, it has become a norm especially in
education, business and tourism for communication exchanges between people of
different backgrounds to take place; one single society has now become pluralistic; more
and more people from different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds coexist. Thus, the
need for intercultural communication appears and its importance is prevalent day by day.
Whereas some might think that intercultural communication is simple, but in reality it is
not always the case. For example, in business dealings or staff management, Earley and
Ang (2003) highlighted that the inabilities to grasp the cultural differences especially among
the rank of managers has caused ineffective and failed intercultural communication.
Besides, the resulting stereotypes and prejudices related to the limited understanding and
oversimplification of culture (Long, 2015) have contributed to the collapse of intercultural
communication (Ming, 2018). Because of that, studies have been carried out to investigate
an aspect of intercultural communication which is often ignored, namely cultural
intelligence (CQ).

As the field of CQ continues to attract larger attention from researchers, various studies
have explored different subjects in order to provide a clearer view of CQ. The groups of
people who have been the subjects in previous CQ studies are expatriates (Ng & Tan, 2013;
Ramalu et al, 2012), human resource personnel (Eiadkaew, 2016), university students
(Harrison & Brower, 2011; Al-Momani & Atoum, 2016; Hartini Husin & Fakhorazi Ahmad,
2015), teachers (Mahasneh et al, 2019), and business managers (Box et al, 2015; Ersoy,
2014). The list clearly shows the dominance of the fields of education, leadership and
commerce in relation to CQ. Other than these domains, the military has its own appeal for
researchers to carry out the study of CQ. Warfare which was amplified following the
September 11 incident has brought globalisation and cross-cultural relationship into
contemporary battlefields. Soldiers who embark on missions at foreign countries require
them to be equipped with CQ. Therefore, studies on CQ should be emphasised so that the
actual capability of these soldiers to operate in a culturally diverse terrain can be
thoroughly investigated.

2. CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE

Cultural intelligence (CQ) generally is a term to define the ability of an individual to
effectively contrive and perform in culturally diverse situations (Earley & Ang, 2003).
Initially, CQ was designed by Earley and Ang (2003) to fill the void for a type of
intelligence which could be utilised as a measurement for cross-cultural problem solving
capability (Ng et al, 2012). After comparisons were made against other types of
intelligence, CQ was finally constructed with reference to the work by Sternberg and
Detterman (In Earley & Ang, 2003) who integrated various loci of intelligence possessed
by an individual. According to Ott and Michailova (2016), a person attaining a high level of

112

CQ is fluent in cultural aspects, besides having a set of cognitive, motivational and
behavioural abilities in order to work effectively with members from different cultural
backgrounds. The fine abilities to adapt to foreign environments are also characteristics
of individuals with high CQ.

Meanwhile, Peterson (2004) defines cultural intelligence (without reference to the
abbreviation CQ) as the ability to engage with culture-based values and attitudes of the
people with whom one interacts by using a set of behaviours that utilises properly
adjusted qualities and skills. The two definitions by Earley and Ang (2003) and Peterson
(2004) share the same idea of managing and functioning oneself in order to be efficient in
interactions with people from different cultural backgrounds in a multicultural
surrounding.

In tandem with other measureable intelligences like emotional intelligence (EQ) and
intelligence quotient (IQ), CQ also has its own model. Earley and Ang (2003) constructed
four dimensions for CQ, namely metacognitive, cognitive, motivational and behaviour.
As explained by the term, metacognitive CQ is of higher dimension than cognitive.
Metacognitive CQ is associated with the ability to acquire, process and understand
cultural knowledge. Ang et al (in Ramalu et al, 2011) relate consciousness and
awareness of using the acquired knowledge of culture to metacognitive CQ, together
with the personal skill to plan, monitor and revise the culture-related knowledge of any
groups of people particularly in any course of intercultural interaction. These planning,
monitoring and revising activities towards cognition could also be defined as the ability
to build strategies when engaging in intercultural communication.

Next, Earley and Ang (2003) defined cognitive CQ, which is another part of mental
dimension of CQ, as the relation between the actual knowledge of the culture and the
individual who learns it. This dimension is contributed by the experience and cultural
education received by an individual which acts as the knowledge that will be utilised in
intercultural communication. According to Gooden et al (2017), norms, faith and religion,
language, economic and legal structures are parts of culture that should be acquired by a
person to attain a high level of cognitive CQ.

Motivational CQ as the third dimension of CQ posits the capacity of an individual to do
directive acts towards energy and attention so the interest in engaging with
intercultural activities and communications is present. The directive act mentioned
before is equal to a driving force, which is in accordance with Shousha (2018) who
defines motivation as the driving force which elaborates any taken actions. In this case,
the actions taken are learning and functioning in culturally diverse settings, while
holding to the expectation of positive outcomes (Ang et al, 2007).

The last dimension of CQ, namely behavioural CQ, is the only aspect not grouped into
the mental CQ capacities but rather characterised as overt actions (Ang et al, 2007).
Behavioural CQ is described as the reflection of ability in performing verbal and non-
verbal acts while interacting in a cross-cultural situation (Gazzoli & Gazzaroli, 2018).
Adaptation and mimicry of manners, behaviours and habits of another person with a

113

different cultural background with the intention to familiarise with the target culture
are the actions that can characterise someone as having a higher level of behavioural
CQ (Harrison & Brower, 2011). Only when the three dimensions of CQ are aligned with
behavioural CQ that a person is portraying the best quality of CQ.

To measure the dimensions of CQ which is purposeful in determining the level of CQ in
an individual, Ang et al (2007) developed Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS) that
comprises 20 items. After thorough tests with professionals and students as samples,

the CQS is suggested to be a great tool for CQ measurement. Several follow-up studies
were conducted to validate the scale such as the works by Ang et al (2007), Khodadady
and Ghahari (2011), Khan and Hassan (2016) and Gazzoli and Gazzaroli (2018). These
validations have further acknowledged CQS as a credible method for measuring an
individual’s CQ achievement.

3. CQ AND MILITARY

In general, the early inception of CQ in military was triggered by the failure of soldiers
to act efficiently in tackling culture-related issues. CADS (2006) in a preliminary review
of the attempt to inculcate CQ in the United States (U.S) military highlighted that the
U.S military has achieved numerous successes yet performed below par when engaging
in unconventional conflicts due to cultural differences. Spencer and Balasevicius (2009)
shared the same sentiment with CADS (2006) in which they quoted the trouble faced
by the Canadian Force in understanding the cultural aspect of the locals in the region
of mission. Meanwhile, apart from the on ground cultural issues, Davis (2009) who also
studied the Canadian Force mentioned that troubles of gender denial faced by woman
soldiers in the Canadian Force was the problem that could be resolved by methods
including cultural intelligence approach.

Thus, in responding to these issues, studies on CQ among military personnel starts to
gain ground. Rockstuhl et al (2011) in the study of cross-border leadership has shown
that with the usage of CQS, the development and good command of culture-related
skills have shaped military officers with the ability to lead effectively in their
international assignments. Rockstuhl and colleagues also stated that while CQ is a set
of competence in cross-cultural leaders, it is not necessarily a predictor for good
military leaders in local or domestic workplace. Meanwhile, Şahin and Gürbüz (2014) in
another study on military personnel have found that CQ is suggested as an effective
predictor for military personnel’s adaptive performance when combined with self-
efficacy and prior experience. As CQ also involves the knowledge of culture, Ali (2016)
stated that CQ is instrumental in the gender study of female military personnel
operating in a foreign country especially in nations where male are touted as more
supreme than women. Female soldiers who are more accustomed to CQ would act as
tangible military assets by acting as a bridge between the local females and the outside
world.

4. CQ IN EDUCATION

114

Cultural knowledge can be instilled in individuals through two methods: experience and
education (Lopes-Murphy, 2014). While travelling to parts of the world capable of
providing essential experiences that lead to the acquisition of CQ, some other may
require more than just experiential learning. Therefore, formal education is one way
that can educate individuals about CQ through its curriculum and lesson plans. While
expatriates (Gelineau, 2015) and students (Harper, 2018) are the major groups who

commonly receive such education, it is also important for military personnel to receive
the education on CQ for the role they play in the battlefield.

McFarland (2005) has reviewed that cultural education is key for soldiers’ development.
The study must begin as early as in pre-commissioning program. In the study, McFarland
suggested that the tactical and operational training could also insert important cultural
aspects, such as religion, tribal affiliation and nationalism. The assessment should also
take place in order to mould soldiers and leaders with at least the basic level of CQ.

There are several benefits that can be attained from the infusion of CQ in the military
training program especially in the early stage of cadetship. Ng et al (2005) listed three
functions. First, it serves as a foundation of culture learning for military cadets who
undergo military trainings. Second, it saves time for soldiers from going into pre-
deployment program with courses related to CQ thus paving way for the soldiers to enrol
in other pre-deployment courses. Third, Ng et al (2005) also states that the skills learned
by military personnel could be used effectively in real multicultural situations.

Clark (2008) in his study mentioned that in order to deliver the cultural-related courses
to military personnel, institutional learning or formal study in academic settings is one
of four strategies to develop CQ in individuals, namely immersion, interaction and
personal development. Clark (2008) stated that formal education through learning in
institutions could provide the needs for immersion, interaction and personal
development, better than not enrolling in any formal studies or just depending on
military schools. Figure 1 shows the general proposal for formal education of CQ for
military as suggested by previous studies.

Trainings received Cultural aspects to be - CQ aspects to be built
by military learned: - Metacognitive
personnel: - Cognitive
- history Motivation
- management - culture, values, -
- doctrines traditions, belief - - Behaviour
-language - (Ang et al, 2003)
- physical training
- peacekeeping - economic trends Methods of education
- cultural anthropology Formal education
- tactical - cultural differences Immersion
- weaponry (Clark, 2005) Interaction
(Ahmad Tajudin,
2000) - Personal development
(Clark, 2008)

115

Figure 1: Proposal of formal education of CQ for the military

In Figure 1, two items are highlighted: Peacekeeping and formal education. Peacekeeping
is very much related to CQ because often, peacekeepers are chosen among soldiers from
foreign countries to operate in another country experiencing conflict. As mentioned in the
study by Norgard (2015), the human terrain is one of important matters in any conflict zone

because there are occurrences among military personnel who are not familiar with the
people they are encountering during operations. This human terrain needs to be
conquered either for the purpose of winning a battle or maintaining peace and order. In
the context of peacekeeping, soldiers need to establish effective communication between
two opposing sides and also the locals. This is when CQ is required so that the possibility of
failures can be minimised. Next, as previously mentioned, formal education is key in
educating CQ. Without formal education, immersion, interaction and personal
development should come from personal experience and it may be time-consuming
because no foundation of CQ was set to face the actual situation of CQ.

5. CQ IN THE MALAYSIAN ARMED FORCES

Despite the worldwide popularity of CQ as a research domain especially in discussing its
important role in building up an effective cross-cultural interaction, the study of CQ in the
Malaysian Armed Forces remains scarce. Not much have been discussed in relation to CQ
even though the Malaysian military has been deployed for many international assignments,
mainly as peacekeepers. There are a number of studies that have dealt with culture-related
domains although not specific to CQ: A study by Wan Norhasniah Wan Husin (2018)
conferred on the effectiveness of peacekeeping operations in relation to the practice of
cultural tolerance while a study by Najjah Salwa Abd Razak et al (2018) discussed
intercultural understanding as a vital element in peacekeeping operations. In the latter
study, the researchers determined that intercultural understanding or the military’s
attitude in engaging different values and culture is a factor of success in completing an
international mission. This is because an international mission requires military personnel
to communicate either with the locals or colleagues from different countries.

6. FUTURE RECOMMENDATIONS

These highlights have exemplified CQ as an important and interesting field of research
across the world due to its importance in determining the effectiveness of cross-cultural
interaction within the scope of military, notwithstanding the fact that the number of
studies is still lower than the ones involving the fields of business and education.
Furthermore, attention that has been given to the Malaysian military context is still
relatively low and CQ has only been focused to a limited group of subjects such as
expatriates and students.

Malaysian peacekeepers which are a special battalion of the Malaysian Armed Forces

116

deployed under the United Nations to assist in maintaining peace have gained reputation
throughout the years of service in foreign lands. Such achievement might find its
connection with the soldiers’ experiences living in a multicultural country such as Malaysia
where different languages, religions, lifestyles and customs are not viewed as alien
concepts. But there is yet any empirical findings to prove that Malaysian soldiers are really
equipped with the competence to manage themselves and therefore function effectively
in a foreign place with foreign faces. Hence, it is suggested that researchers take up the
challenge to study CQ among the Malaysian Armed Forces towards the unravelling of the

actual CQ situation within the population.

On the other hand, CQ is believed to have significant contribution if it is instilled in the
realm of education apart from just living experiences. Malaysian peacekeepers should not
be exempted from receiving lessons related to cultural competence during their pre-
deployment training known as Force Integration Training (FIT). In order to comply with the
fast-moving world where cross-cultural interaction is dynamic, lessons offered must be
updated from time to time to prepare the soldiers to face current situation. Therefore, it is
suggested that findings from the research of the Malaysian Armed Forces’ CQ are utilised
and consolidated with the review on the training syllabus so that the improvisation of the
culture-related courses can be made. The new curriculum is hoped to maintain the
relevance and efficiency of the training received by the military personnel before
embarking on the actual mission.

Biography:
Dinie Asyraf Salehan
Pusat Bahasa, UPNM,
Malaysia,
[email protected]
Highlights on Cultural Intelligence among Malaysian Armed Forces and Future Research
Terrain

Acknowledgment: The authors would like to express their appreciation for the support of
the sponsor, Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (UPNM) under the Short-term
Research Grant UPNM/2018/GPJP/2/SSI/1.

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.

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Proceedings of the 3rd International Language & Tourism Conference 2019
Sustaining Global Development Goals through
Language, Education and Tourism

Kulliyyah of Languages and Management, International Islamic University Malaysia,
Pagoh Edu Hub, Malaysia 18th-19th October 2019

IMPLEMENTATION OF INQUIRY APPROACH ON ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN
LANGUAGE FOR INDONESIA STUDENTS

Sitti Hamsina S.

English Education Department, Parahikma Institute of Indonesia, Gowa South Sulawesi,
INDONESIA.

(Email: [email protected])
ABSTRACT

English language has been a compulsory subject in Indonesian primary and secondary
schools since the year adopting critical pedagogy in the English language curriculum to
improve the language proficiency. English language development involves learning to
speak, read, and write in a second language. There have been changes to the teaching
curriculum since it was first established in 1984 to better improve the teaching and
learning of the English language. Through a critical literature of English curriculum in
Indonesia as it affects how implementation of inquiry approach on English as a foreign
language context Result shows that language is acquired in the context of the community
of the speakers. However, additional exposure to the language, particularly at levels in
which the speech has to be mainly modified to the learners' level of understanding, will
essentially lead to more regular usages of definite words and language structure. Findings
revealed that students learned better in group work than just receiving lectures. In
addition, the study finds implementing approach inquiry as one of the ideal process in
learning English language in Indonesia.
Keywords: Inquiry-approach; Teaching; English; foreign-language Indonesia

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1. INTRODUCTION

The English language has been a compulsory subject in Indonesian primary and secondary
schools since the year 1967 (Nababan, 1991). However, its importance as a foreign
language is gradually been recognised (Mattarima & Hamdan, 2011). This recognition led
to the Ministry of Education introducing a curriculum to generate performance-based
outcomes in every academic class from primary to secondary schools (Marcellino, 2015).
The new approach demands for flexibility and independence in learning. In the course of
the implementation of this approach, there have been difficulties due to a number of
cultural, professional and practical factors (Hawanti, 2015). Another problem faced with
the current teaching of the English language is the neglected interaction between
teachers and students (Lu, 2018). Lu (2018) is of the opinion that the teachers tend to
overlook the students as the main focus of teaching, and this affects the learning and
interest of the students. There is still a case of the students’ inability to communicate in
English, this is despite the fact that they have been communicating in English language for
about six years (Mattarima & Hamdan, 2011). To improve the learning process, the
Ministry of Education kept revising the curriculum to change the teaching methods, but
the teachers found it difficult to implement (Hawanti, 2015). Many authors looked to see
how the teaching of the English language process can be improved upon. Muamaroh
(2013) suggested the use of group work and cooperative learning approach to improve
spoken English among university students. Larson (2014) proposed adopting critical
pedagogy in the English language curriculum to improve the language proficiency. English
language development involves learning to speak, read, and write in a second language.
This includes the learning of vocabulary, syntax, and lexical grammar, and the use of
language in both social and academic situations (Stoddart, Pinal, Latzke & Canaday 2002).
The context of language use refers to the degree to which language provides learners
with meaningful cues that help them interpret the content being communicated.

2. BACKGROUND

2.1 Teaching English Language in Indonesia

Although Indonesia was a Dutch colony for more than three decades, Dutch was still not a
common language among the people (Lauder, 2008). This is because the Dutch only
provided education to Dutch children and Indonesian children from selected families.
After the Dutch were conquered by the Japanese everything relating to the Dutch and the
teaching of English language was abolished (Mistar, 2005). Since the reputation of the
English was stronger than the Dutch, the English language was not completely eliminated.
It later became the first foreign language in Indonesia (Lamb & Coleman, 2008). The
English language is now a compulsory subject taught in primary and secondary schools in
most part of the world. But because the English language is not used in daily
communication in Indonesia, most people do not feel the need to learn the language. The
teaching of the English language was never for it to be used as means of communication

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in Indonesia, it only served as a source of government-created technical and other terms
to be used in Bahasa.
3. METHOD
Through a critical literature of English curriculum as it affect how implementation of
inquiry approach on English as a foreign language context result shows that language is
acquired in the context. The paper looks into individual variable to see how they affect
the question at hand.

3.1 Inquiry Approach
There have been changes to the teaching curriculum since it was first established in 1984
to better improve the teaching and learning of the English language. These changes were
made in 2004, 2006, and 2013 (Yulia, 2013). The newer versions introduced the
communicative competence but were rarely implemented. This was accredited to the
English language not being the primary language as students mostly communicate in
Bahasa Indonesia (Yulia, 2013). The communicative competence develops a syllabus to
understand and express language instead of focusing on grammar and vocabulary
(Richards and Rogers, 2001). This approach was preferable because it focuses on giving
meaning to the words and not just the technicality (Jarvis & Atsilarat, 2004). In Indonesia
the students are not confident to speak in English due to low self-esteem, anxiety, and
limited opportunity to speak (Lai, 1994). There is also the problem of teacher’s reaction to
the students’ poor performance (Lai, 1994). Adopting a new curriculum proved difficult
due to the inability of the English teachers to comprehend it, and their incapability of
designing new syllabus.

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The inquiry approach is a learning based approach for students to develop questions,
hypothesise issues, collect and analyse data, draw and test conclusions (NRC, 1996). This
approach enables students to learn from their own research). Students are encouraged to
focus on resolving problems and finding answers (Vlassi & Karaliotta, 2013). The students
review what is already known to learn more, as opposed to learning information given by
the teachers and memorising facts and formulas. This learning approach is cognitive and
involves the sociocultural perspective of knowledge construction. The inquiry approach is
a learning based approach for students to develop questions, hypothesise issues, collect
and analyse data, draw and test conclusions. This approach enables students to learn
from their own research.

This learning approach is cognitive and involves the sociocultural perspective of
knowledge construction (Cakir, 2011).

Anderson (2002) identified four factors that are important for inquiry approach:
i. The learning process is not passive; the students have to be active learners
taught to construct meanings.
ii. The meanings formed vary per individual based on pre-existing
conceptions which are then modified.
iii. The understanding of a concept depends on the context it is presented.
iv. Meanings are constructed socially. An individual’s understanding is
enhanced through the engagement of ideas with other people.

3.2 Implementation of the Inquiry Approach

One of the reasons for the changes in the English language curriculum is because the
traditional classroom hindered the creativity in students. It affects the ability of the
students to think for themselves and forces learning by solely relying on what the
teachers pass on to them (Larson, 2014). This is because the traditional teaching process
requires the students blindly accepting information, without question. This process deters
critical thinking and does not permit the students to have different perspective on a
matter. The school environment (both the human and sociocultural aspects) is a factor
that influences the implementation of inquiry approach. The human aspects of the school
environment include the motivation, peer support, initiative, cooperative learning
environments, and support from the school staff that students need to learn. While the
sociocultural aspects is comprised of the reduction size of the class, sustainable teaching
load, reduced mount of teaching content, extended class time, increase in planning time,
team planning with other teachers, tutoring and after school student support, policies
supporting science teaching, state and national guidelines, community involvement.

3.3 English as a Foreign Language Context

To assess the relationship between exposure to English language and language
acquisition, the current review begins with examining the studies focused on exposure to
English language and language acquisition. However, it is the teacher who determines the

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order of the presentation of these items to the learner. Findings supported the
hypothesis that Malay-medium learners of ESL are unsatisfactorily exposed to English.
This also apply to speaking and learning in Indonesia as well consequently, this is the main
reason for their poor performance in the language as well as the lack of exposure to the
target language is due to the fact that English is not the medium of instruction to any
further extent but it is merely a subject taught in schools. However, additional exposure
to the language, particularly at levels in which the speech has to be mainly modified to
the learners' level of understanding, will essentially lead to more regular usages of
definite words and language structure.

4. CONCLUSION
Inquiry approach requires teachers to actively engage students to learn using scientific
investigations to boost their conceptual understanding. The teaching styles based on the
inquiry approach presents problems to students to solve in order to increase students’
motivation. The approach involves students learning contents on their own so as to gain a
deeper understanding of the concepts and be critical thinkers. Classroom activities based
on the inquiry approach have been said to lift students from the being uncertain to
enacting understanding and reasoning. In structured inquiry the teacher provides the
input for the student with a problem to investigate along with the procedures and
materials. This type of inquiry learning is used to teach a specific concept, fact or skill and
leads the way to open inquiry where the student formulates his own problem to
investigate.

The language is acquired in the context of the community of the speakers. In highlighting
the significance of exposure in the first language acquisition; However, additional
exposure to the language, particularly at levels in which the speech has to be mainly
modified to the learners' level of understanding, will essentially lead to more regular
usages of definite words and language structure. Findings revealed that students learned
better in group work and just receiving lectures. This is because it led to the students
sharing ideas and debating thus resulting in higher student learning. With the intention
of equipping the younger generation with the English communication skills required
for higher education and career opportunities, public and private schools in the
Indonesia, there is need to implement inquiry approach in the educational systems.
Language learning may be difficult and exciting task particularly for those who learn a
language as their second or foreign language.
REFERENCES

Anderson, D., R. (2002). Reforming science teaching: what research says about inquiry
journal of science teacher education 13(1):1-12 DOI: 10.1023/A:1015171124982

Cakir, M. (2011). Validity and reliability of the Turkish form of technology-rich outcome-
focused learning environment inventory. Educational sciences: theory & practice,
11, 1959-1963

Hawanti, S. (2015). Implementing Indonesia’s English language teaching policy in primary
schools: The role of teachers’ knowledge and beliefs. International Journal of

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Pedagogies and Learning, 9(2), 162-170.

Jarvis, H. & Atsilarat, S. (2004). Shifting Paradigms: From a Communicative to a Context-

Based Approach. Asian EFL Journal. 6(4), 1-23.

Lai, C. (1994). Communication failure in the language classroom: An exploration of causes.

RELC Journal 25(1), 99-129

Lamb, M. & Coleman, H. (2008). Literacy in English and the transformation of self and

society in post-Soeharto Indonesia. International Journal of Bilingual Education

and Bilingualism, 11 (2), 189-205.

Larson, K. R. (2014). Critical Pedagogy(ies) for ELT in Indonesia. TEFLIN Journal, 25(1), 122-

138.

Lu, Y. (2018). Quantitative Research on the Impact of Inquiry Learning on English Teaching

Effectiveness. International Symposium on Humanities and Social Sciences,

Management and Education Engineering (HSSMEE 2018). Atlantis Press.

Marcellino, M. (2015). English language teaching in Indonesia: a continuous challenge in

education and cultural diversity. TEFLIN Journal, 19(1), 57-69.

Mattarima, K. & Hamdan, A. R. (2011). The teaching constraints of English as a foreign

language in Indonesia: the context of school based curriculum. Sosiohumanika,

4(2).

Mistar, J. (2005). Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) in Indonesia. In B. George

(Ed.), Teaching English to the world: History, curriculum, and practice, Mahwah,

NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 71-80.

Muamaroh (2013). Improving Indonesian University students’ spoken English using group

work and cooperative learning (Doctoral dissertation Charles Darwin University,

Darwin, Australia) Retrieved from

https://espace.cdu.edu.au/eserv/cdu:38908/Thesis_CDU_38908_Muamaroh_A.pdf

Nababan, P. W. J. (1991). Language in education: The case of Indonesia. International

Review of Education, 37(1), 115-131.

Stoddart, T., Pinal, A., Latzke, M. & Canaday, D. (2002). Integrating Inquiry Science and

Language development for English Language Learners. Journal of Research in

Science Teaching, 39(8), 664–687.

Vlassi, M. & Karaliota, A. (2013). The comparison between guided inquiry and traditional

teaching method. A case study for the teaching of the structure of matter to 8th

grade Greek students. Procedia- Social and Behavioral Sciences, 93(2013), 494-

497.

Yulia, Y. (2013). Teaching Challenges in Indonesia: Motivating Students and Teachers’

Classroom Language. Indonesia Journal of applied Linguistics 3(1), 1-16.

https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v3i1.186

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Proceedings of the 3rd International Language & Tourism Conference 2019
Sustaining Global Development Goals through
Language, Education and Tourism

Kulliyyah of Languages and Management, International IslamicUniversity Malaysia,
Pagoh Edu Hub, Malaysia 18th-19th October 2019

LANGUAGE, GESTURES AND MOVEMENT AS EVASION STRATEGIES USED BY
DATO’ SERI NAJIB IN NEWS INTERVIEW

Wan Mustaffa, Wan Muslihah*1, and Abdullah, Nur Nabilah2

1, 2 Department of English, Kulliyyah of Languages and Management,
International Islamic University Malaysia.

(E-mail: [email protected], [email protected])

ABSTRACT
News interview is regarded as a form of institutional talk where the interaction process
between the participants differs from an ordinary conversation in which the course of
interaction in news interviews is an exchange of question-and-answer (Clayman & Heritage,
2002). This paper aims to explore evasion practices used by Dato’ Seri Najib Razak in an
exclusive interview episode ‘101 East’ broadcasted live by Al Jazeera Channel on 26th
October 2018. The data was collected from the online YouTube videos in which the
participants in the 101 East were between the host interviewer, Mary Jolley, and the guest
interviewee, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak. Using conversation analysis approach, this study
analyzed how the interviewee evaded from answering controversial questions in the
interview. The findings suggest that language, gestures and movement were used by the
interviewee as evasion strategies to avoid from answering questions and to terminate
topics in the interview. The organization of gestures and movement used by the
interviewee as evasion strategies in this study were forewarning, interruption, final thanks
and body movement.

Keywords: Evasion strategies; Conversation analysis; News interview; Language; Gestures

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1. INTRODUCTION

News interview is a mediated platform for journalist and politicians to deliver information
to the public. The course of interaction is different from ordinary conversation in which the
setting is formal and institutionalized, and the audience does not participate in the
interaction (Clayman & Heritage, 2002).

Using conversation analysis (CA) approach, the aim of this paper is to explore the use of
language and nonverbal conducts in evasion practices used by the former Malaysian Prime
Minister, Dato’ Seri Najib, in an exclusive interview episode ‘101 East’. The interview
session, hosted by Mary Ann Jolley, was broadcasted live by Al Jazeera Channel on 26th
October 2018. As far as the news interview is concerned, the participants’ turn in talking
was predetermined before the talk and the context is mainly focusing on political issues
discussed in the domain of question-and-answer sequences (Clayman & Heritage, 2002;
Cuberas, 2014).

However, problems in question-and-answer exchanges may occur in the political news
interviews, as the nature of the talk is often challenging and confrontational (Mullany,
2002). This is especially true when the topic discussed is tense and the questions raised by
the interviewer have high possibility to be challenging to the interviewee to answer. Due to
adversarial and challenging questions, the interviewee may feel uncomfortable to respond
and may refuse to answer. The actions of refusal are known as evasion strategies (Artiyono,
2014; Clayman, 2001; Kantara, 2012; Nina, 2012; Nur Zahra, 2016).

Previous studies on evasion were on American politicians and British politicians (e.g.
Clayman, 2001; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Jagtiani, 2012; Rasiah, 2010; Vukovic, 2013).
However, only a few researchers have shown their interest to conduct evasion strategies
among Malaysian politicians. For example, Nur Zahra (2016) did a comparative study
between a Malaysian politician and American politician on evasion practices. However,
there is a lack of research done on the use of language, gestures and movement in evasion
practices. Hence, it would be insightful to see how communication resources such as
language, gestures and body movement are utilized by the Malaysian politician to evade
from answering adversarial questions in news interview.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

News interview is regarded as an institutional talk in which the organization of the social
interaction is in form of questions-and-answer (Atkinson & Heritage, 1984). Unlike ordinary
conversation, news interview has a different turn-taking system, opening and closing, as
well as its content (Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Heritage, 1984). The fundamental
arrangement of news interview is the interviewee is invited before the interview goes on
air and it is prearranged for the benefits of the media. Hence, the interaction process is
between an interviewer and an interviewee.

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The interviewer is recognized as a professional journalist in broadcast talk and
communication, while the interviewee is someone who is an expert or public figures such
as politician, doctors, analysts or any certified specialist in related to the topic to be
discussed in the news interview.

2.1 Evasion in News Interviews

In previous studies, the term ‘evasion’ in news interviews is used to describe responses that
do not answer the questions asked by an interviewer (Dillon, 1990; Wilson, 1990; Harris,
1991). In addition, such responses could also be regarded as ‘resist’, ‘sidestep’, ‘agenda
shift’, ‘non-replies’, and ‘equivocation’ (Nur Zahra, 2016). Furthermore, Nur Zahra (2016)
found in political news interviews, evasion practices appear frequently if the overhearing
audiences are not presented during the interview session. Moreover, evasion is likely to
occur in a challenging interview session and adversarial in nature. The interviewee is
expected to answer the question raised by the interviewer and evasion may occur if the
questions are confrontational (Nur Zahra, 2016).

In Clayman’s (2001) study, it has been concluded that most American politicians used
different evasion strategies when resisting from answering interview questions. Clayman
found that politicians resisted or evaded questions in broadcast news interviews by making
an attempt to shift away from the agenda of the questions. Alternatively, interviewee may
make a request for permission such as using the phrase “just one comment” or “a very
quick point” as minimizing the divergence and justifying the shift (Clayman, 2001).

In a similar study done by Nur Zahra (2016), she compared the evasion practices occurred
in a total of six political news interviews sessions which were three sessions carried out
with Malaysian politicians and another three sessions with American politicians. Among
evasion strategies that were found are changing the topic without initiative from the
interviewer, the use of hedges or discourse markers such as “well” or anyway” or “you
know”. Besides that, overlapping utterance was used as an attempt of taking the floor
without waiting for the interviewer to finish his/her turn and an interviewee may
completely refuse to answer with a direct ‘no’ (Nur Zahra, 2016).

Clayman and Heritage (2000) stated that problems in the interview happened when the
interviewer practices adversarial questioning. Adversarial questions are questions that put
the interviewee in an uncomfortable position to continue the session. However, this study
explores on how the interviewee evaded the adversarial questions. According to Nur Zahra
(2016), in an interview setting, there is a high possibility for evasion to occur especially
when the interviewee is put into a critical situation. The researcher mentioned that the
term evasion is frequently used by researchers denoting refusal in answering, mainly
studies were related to politician interview (see Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Vukovic, 2013;
Rasiah, 2012). In the study, Nur Zahra (2016) found the evasion strategies involved are topic
shift, hedges, overlap utterance, complete refusal.

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2.2 What is Conversation analysis

Conversation has been used as a resource in various grounds of study. The conversation in
Conversation Analysis (CA) examines how speaker and hearer accomplish coordinated
actions and maintain orderly and meaningful communication in social activities through
their verbal and nonverbal conduct (Nguyen & Kasper, 2009; Sacks, H., 1992; Sacks et al.,
1974).

Haapaniemi (2011) stated that the goal of CA studies is to study on the orderliness and the
organization of social actions that happen in everyday social interactions. It aims to find the
structure and rules that constitute the interaction’s organization which differs from one
case to another. CA provides a close examination on studying a conversation which looks
at the details of the interaction that includes the talk itself, the time (pause and stop), sound
(tone and pitch), non-verbal cues (gestures and movement) and some other features that
happen throughout the talk (Goodwin & Goodwin, 2004; Heritage, 1984; Mondada, 2011;
Sacks et al., 1992; Schegloff, 2000).

3. METHODOLOGY

The data was collected from Al Jazeera exclusive episode of 101 East broadcasted live by Al
Jazeera Channel on 26th October 2018 in which Mary Jolley (M) was the host interviewer
and the former Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak (N), was the guest interviewee. The
length of the recorded video data is 22:07 minutes long. The video data was then
transcribed and analyzed using the CA approach. The researcher adopted the Clayman’s
(2001) and Nur Zahra’s (2016) conceptual framework of evasion to explore the evasion
practices and strategies used by the guest interviewee, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak.

An issue questioned in the interview was concerning the 1Malaysia Development Berhad
(1MDB) issue and the related matter has triggered a national and international interest (see
Shahrul Nazmi & Mohd Helmi, 2016). The inquiries raised in the news interview by Mary
Jolley had triggered confrontational and challenging questions as an attempt to get
information which resulted evasive responses by Dato’ Seri Najib Razak. In this study, the
use of conversation analysis approach is relevant in analyzing how the interviewee utilized
the use of gestures and body movement, combined with verbal language as the strategies
to evade from answering controversial questions and terminating topics discussed in the
interview.

4. RESULTS

Based on the video data of the news interview session, there were few complications
occurred related to questioning and answering which resulted conflicts between the
interviewer and interviewee. Thus, the next paragraph will discuss on the language for topic

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shifting, overlapping utterance and making complete refusal as well as the use of gestures
and body movement as evasion strategies.
a. Topic shift, overlapping utterance, complete refusal, gestures and body movement
Nur Zahra (2016) stated that topic shift refers to a situation when one is changing the topic
of current discussion to another topic. Topic shift as an evasion strategy means that the
interviewee shifts the topic themselves without the initiative from the interviewer. This
action is considered evasion because it is against the nature of the conversation in an
interview setting where the person who could change the topic is only the interviewer.
Excerpt 1: topic shift

In Excerpt 1, line 9 and 10, it could be seen that N tried to request for a topic shift
rather than answering M’s question. It was notable that the interviewee could not propose
a new topic as the interviewer led him back to the previous topic (line 11). Thus, this was
an attempt to evade by using topic shift strategy.
Excerpt 2: Topic shift + complete refusal + overlap utterance + body movement

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Image 1 Image 2

Image 3 Image 4

Image 5

Image 6 Image 7 Image 8

In Excerpt 2, line 5, N suggested for a topic shift to talk about economy instead of the
current topic in which he slightly moved his body posture to the side (image 1 and image
2). However, M hesitated N’s request (line 6) and M’s utterance was overlapped with N’s
in line 7. At the beginning of the overlap utterances, N moved his body position again
(image 4 and image 5) as he made a refusal to proceed with the topic discussed (line 7).
Following this, N then warned that he would leave the interview session, as he pointed his
right hand outwards (image 6 and image 7) and slightly raising his body up from his seat
(image 8) and buttoned his coat at the same time (image 9).

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Image 9 Image 10 Image 11

Then, in line 9, M made an attempt to initiate a new topic following the interviewee’s
request. However, in line 10, as N gazed on M (image 9) and made a complete refusal to
discuss the current topic as he uttered ‘no more’ (line 12). Following this, N stood up
straight (image 10) and fixed his collar (image 11) as showing readiness to take leave.

Excerpt 3: Topic termination attempt + complete refusal + body movement

Image 12 Image 13 Image 14

Image 15 Image 16 Image 17

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