CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter deals with some aspects of methodology used to guide the

present study. Several points to discuss are research design, research participant,

research site, data collection, and data analysis.

3.1 Research design

Relevant to the purposes of study and research questions in the first chapter,

this study applied qualitative research as its design. It is related to Fraenkael and

Wallen (2012, p. 426) stated that research studies that investigate the quality of

relationships, activities, situations, or materials are frequently referred to as

qualitative research. Dawson (2002, p. 14) who argued that qualitative research

explores attitudes, behaviour and experiences through such methods as interviews

or focus groups. It attempts to get an in-depth opinion from participants. It is clear

as it is attitudes, behaviour and experiences which are important, fewer people take

part in the research, but the contact with these people tends to last a lot longer. In

line with statement above, Creswell (2008, p. 23) pointed out that qualitative

research means for exploring and understanding the meaning of individual or

groups ascribed to a social or human problems. From those statement above,

qualitative research is a research procedure that produces descriptive data in the

form of speech or writing and the behavior of those that can be observed from an

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individual, group, community, or certain organizations in a particular context

setting.

Bogdan and Biklen (1982, p. 27) in their book entitled Qualitative Research

for Education as cited in Aditya (2014), “Qualitative research is descriptive, the

data are collected in the form of work than number and result of the analysis is

written descriptively”. Additionally, Kothari (2004, p. 37) explained that

descriptive research studies are those studies which are concerned with describing

the characteristics of a particular individual, or of a group. In descriptive studies,

the writer must be able to define clearly, what he wants to measure and must find

adequate methods for measuring it along with a clear cut definition of ‘population’

he wants to study.

In this study, the writer chose qualitative descriptive because the writer

described Maxim analysis that appeared in male and female teacher talks, so the

descriptive method is used to present the result of the analysis by quoting the

sentences from male and female teacher talks that relevant to the analysis and it can

be used to identify or classify the elements or characteristics of the subjects.

3.2 Research participant

Two teachers in two classes took part in this study. The writer selected two

English teachers who currently teach the students at eleventh grade in SMKN 1

Ciamis as his participants. The teachers were consisting of male and female and

they also use English in teaching learning process.

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The participants of this study were the English teacher of grade XI JB

(Jasa Boga), and the English teacher of grade XI PM 3 (Pemasaran) of SMKN 1

Ciamis. Through some consideration, they were appointed by the principal of

SMKN 1 Ciamis to participate in this study.

3.3 Research site

This study conducted at SMKN 1 Ciamis. The reason of choosing the

research site is because all of the English teachers at this school are non natives and

supporting for the observations. Besides, the English teachers at SMKN 1 Ciamis

are using English during teaching learning process. Thus, the writer could be easily

chose the participant for this study. The better the teachers the easier the data could

be analyzed because the good English teacher will use English more than Indonesia

during teaching learning process.

3.4 Data collection

In collecting the data, the writer conducted observations upon teachers to

find out the politeness in teacher talk of English male and female teachers in SMKN

1 Ciamis by using maxim analysis. The writer recorded the audio of teacher talks

during the teaching learning process. Recording helps the writer to easily analyze

the spoken form. According to Coulthard (2002, p. 243), “The text should be an

accurate record, that is in the words used by the participants, although it need not

be totally verbatim”.
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Before recording the participant talks, the writer planned the outline such

as, when, where and how to collect video data and how much the data should be

collected as well. For collecting the data, the writer recorded the data using tape

recording while the participants were teaching in the classroom and it done twice.

3.5 Data analysis

After collecting the data, the writer transcribed the result of video of teacher

talks to be analyzed. As proposed by Cameron (2001, p. 33), “transcribing is a way

to bring into focus the characteristics of spoken discourse, which are surprisingly

obscure to most people, familiar as they are with the written form”. To answer the

research questions, the writer analyzed utterances that were used in the teacher talks

descriptively to be described and explained by using maxim analysis. Then, it

focused also in politeness scale such as formality scale, hesitancy scale, and

equality scale. Then, to answer the second research question the writer categorized

the types of maxim used in the percentage. Thus, most dominant type of maxims

used in non native male and female teacher talks can be seen clearly.

The writer analyzed maxims used in the teacher talks. Thus, the examples

of analyzing male and female English teacher talks by Maxim analysis in this study

is shown below:

‘You know I really do think you ought to study hard if you want to pass in this
semester. It’s costing more and more money to pay fees for the semester’

The tact maxim is adhered by the speaker to minimize the cost to the hearer

by using two discourse markers, one to appeal to solidarity ‘you know’ and the other

as modifying hedges ‘really’, one attitudinal predicate ‘I do think’ and one modal
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verb, ‘ought.’ On the other hand, the speaker maximizes the benefit to the addressee

in the second part of the turn by saying ‘It’s costing more and more money to pay

fees for the semester’. It indicates that he could save a lot of time and money by

study hard. In this case, the speaker tries to be wise by recommending hearer to

study hard because he will spend a lot of his money to pay semester’s fees if he

does not pass again this year, so, the type of illocutionary contained in this sentence

is about ‘recommending’.

Then, the results calculated by the following percentage formula:

𝐹𝑜
P = 𝑛 x 100%

Where:

P : Percentage

Fo : Frequency observed

n : The number of sample

(Hatch and Lazaraton, 1991, p.136)

After that, the writer put the result of each types of maxim percentage on

the table below:

Table 3.1 The realization of types of maxim in male and female teacher talks

First Meeting
Types of Sub-categorize of Teacher Talks
Maxim Tuning Connecting Monitoring Direction Response
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
Tact Maxim
Generosity
Maxim
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Modesty
Maxim
Approbation
Maxim
Agreement
Maxim
Sympathy
Maxim
Total
ranking
clause
Second Meeting
Types of Sub-categorize of Teacher Talks
Maxim Tuning Connecting Monitoring Direction Response
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
Tact Maxim
Generosity
Maxim
Modesty
Maxim
Approbation
Maxim
Agreement
Maxim
Sympathy
Maxim
Total
ranking
clause
(Bankole & Aidineke, 2014, p. 141)

The tables 3.1 above is the example of the realization of maxim analysis in

non native male and female English teacher talks during teaching learning process.

The table consisted of types of maxims, percentage of type of maxim in each sub-

categorized of teacher talks and total of type of maxim used. The types of maxims

included tact maxim, generosity maxim, modesty maxim, approbation maxim,

agreement maxim, and sympathy maxim. Moreover, the sub-categorized of teacher

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talks consist of tuning, connecting, monitoring, direction and response. Thus, the

percentage is for the percent calculation in types of maxim that will be found in

male and female English teacher talks.

3.4 Concluding remarks

This chapter has reviewed a concise account of methodology underpinning

this present study, as well as the methods that the writer went through for this study

which involve selecting research design, research participants, research site, data

collection, and data analysis The subsequent chapter will concern with data analysis

and discussion that will be agreed with the theories mentioned in chapter 2.