Core Modals As Pragmatic Markers In Literary Discourse And Their Pedagogical Implications: A Systemic Fungsional Perspective

Volume 3, Nomor 1, Mei 2018: 24-29 p-ISSN: 2502-7069; e-ISSN: 2620-8326 Core Modals As Pragmatic Markers In Literary Discourse And Their Pedagogical Implications: A Systemic Fungsional Perspective Lalu Muhaimi, Lalu Nurtaat and Eka Fitriana Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan, Universitas Mataram. Jalan Majapahit No. 62 Mataram, 83125, Indonesia *Email: Diterima: 20 Mei 2018. Disetujui: 28 Mei 2018. Dipublikasikan: 31Mei 2018 DOI: 10.29303/jipp.Vol3.Iss1.57 Abstract: This is a systemic functional study of the use of the items of pragmatic markers in a literary discourse. The aims of this study are to identify, analyze and describe the ways the items of pragmatic markers are used. Their contextual meanings, functions, and implication to the pedagogical attempts are also unfolded. The results of the interpretative and descriptive analysis reveal that the items of the core modals serving as pragmatic markers are found to be very dominant which also suggests that the genre of narrative fiction is linguistically characterized by the utterances that are established on the basis of knowledge and reasoning. The items of pragmatic markers are found to be polysemous and polyfunctional which are reflected pragmatically in the forms of politeness, negotiative and constructive functions. All these lead to the acknowledgement that the use of the items of pragmatic markers in literary discourse is important and their usage for language teaching in the applied linguistic contexts is worth conducting. Keywords: Cognitive pragmatics, Pragmatic markers, Literary discourse, Pedagocical implication. Abstrak: Kajian ini adalah kajian systemic functional terhadap penggunaan penanda pragmatik pada wacana sastra dengan tujuan untuk mengidentifikasi, menganalisis dan mendeiskripsikan cara penanda pragmatik dipergunakan. Makna kontekstual, fungsi dan implikasi pedagogisnya juga diungkap. Hasil analisis interpretatif dan diskriptif mengungkapkan bahwa item core modals yang secara gramatikal menjadi penanda pragmatik ditemukan sangat dominan, dan hal ini menunjukkan bahwa karya sasra ber-genre fiksi naratif dibangun dengan ungkapan-ungkapan yang secara linguistik berbasis pada pengetahuan dasar dan argumen. Item-item penanda pragmatik dengan katagori ini bersifat multimakna dan multi-fungsi yang secara pragmatik direfleksikan dalam bentuk fungsi kesopanan, negosiatif dan konstruktif. Hal ini menandakan bahwa penggunaan penanda pragmatic pada wacana sastra sangat penting dan penerapannya pada pembelajaran bahasa dengan konteks linguistik terapan perlu diterapkan. Kata kunci: Kognitif pragmatik, penanda pragmatik, wacana sastra, implikasi pedagogis. From linguistic point of view, pragmatic markers are considered to be the linguistic structure that evaluates the state of affair. In this case, pragmatic markers refers to the ―aspects of meaning which cause sentences to be about the non-factual, that is, about the alternative possibilities for how things could be" (Fasold and Connor-Linton, 2006: 153). Meanwhile, as a semantic-grammatical category, pragmatic markers are interpreted as the relativization of the meanings of a sentence to the set of possible worlds or ways in which people might think of the world to be different. In other words, pragmatic markers allows language users to express what is, what would be, what may be, and what should be which can be expressed either through grammatical mood or modal systems or both to make INTRODUCTION Various definitions of pragmatic markers have been put forward including the broad idea of ―the manner in which the meaning of a clause is qualified so as to reflect the speaker‘s judgment of the likelihood of the proposition of the sentence being true‖ (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik, 1985: 219). The other definition of pragmatic markers is put forward by Halliday (1970: 356) says ―pragmatic markers refers to the areas of meaning that lies between yes and no—the intermediate ground between positive and negative polarity‖ as well as ―the speaker‘s assessment of the probability of what he is saying.‖ In the context of this current paper, the most common one is that pragmatic markers covers the idea of the writer‘s attitude toward what he writes in his literary work. 24 Volume 3, Nomor 1, Mei 2018; 24-29 p-ISSN: 2502-7069; e-ISSN: 2620-8326 pragmatic markers a "valid cross-language grammatical category" (Palmer, 2001: 1). Semantically, pragmatic markers may cover an open-ended list of modal utterances, from the ‗core modals‘ to the ‗peripheral modals‘ (Bybee and Fleishman, 1995). This could range from the basic forms of modals such as can, may, will, shall, and must up to non-modal verbs such as I think, I believe, I reckon, and so on; adjectives such as it is possible, it is probable; adverbs such as possibly, probably; or nouns such as certainty, possibility, and so on. However, there is a closed set of verbs which are formally, semantically, and syntactically identifiable as the items of pragmatic markers which is often found to be so complex that ―there is, perhaps, no area of English grammar that is both more important and more difficult than the system of modals‖ (Palmer, 1990: viii). Pragmatically, pragmatic markers is concerned with the speaker‘s or writer‘s assessment or attitude towards the potentiality of a state of affairs (Papafragou, 2000).Thus, the use of modals in a language expression may indicate modal attitudes that apply to the world of things and social interaction. Such a type of pragmatic markers is known as root pragmatic markers (Radden and Dirven, 2007) which comprises three subtypes: deontic pragmatic markers, intrinsic pragmatic markers and disposition pragmatic markers. Pragmatic markers are concerned with the speaker‘s directive attitude towards an action to be carried out. Intrinsic pragmatic markers deals with the potentialities arising from intrinsic qualities of a thing or circumstance. Meanwhile, pragmatic markers are concerned with the intrinsic potential of a thing or person to be actualized. Most studies on pragmatic markers have been based on the linguistic perspective with non-literary texts being the objects. For example, to demonstrate the distinctive patterns of pragmatic markers in media discourse, Iwamato (1998) focused on newspaper articles. Moreover, to convey a lower degree of certainty and commitment on the writer's part with regard to the propositional content, the writers are found to use the lower value of the items of pragmatic markers such as maybe, although and the like. How the items of linguistic pragmatic markers, especially those which are categorized as pragmatic markers, are used in literary discourse is important to be studied. Such a study may suggest that analyzing pragmatic markers in a literary work that uncovers human relations is important to conduct. In so doing, this paper employs a cognitive pragmatic approach (Radden and Dirven, 2007; (...truncated)