Gender-based Failure to Infer Implicatures from Pre-TOEFL Listening

Abstract

Inferring conversational implicatures could be difficult for foreign language learners. Some studies show that English proficiency of Indonesian English students, teachers and lecturers are low. Unfortunately, none of the studies dealt with factors which determine the learners’ failures to interpret each type of implicature questions on the basis of gender. The present study aimed at exploring types of implicature question of aural short conversations in Pre-TOEFL failed to be answered correctly and their causes experienced by a) males b) females students of EEPUM. Data were collected through  Part A Pre-TOEFL test, Inventory of Determining Factors of Failure, Interview Protocol, Recording  and Note-taking and analysed with  a cyclical qualitative analysis on the basis of  Brown & Yules’s theory,  Anderson’s model and Goh’s five factors affecting listening. Types of implicature questions failed to be answered correctly and their determining factors are shown.

Key words: Inferring, Implicature, Proficiency, Gender, Failure.