THE USE OF ENGLISH QUESTION TAG AMONG ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENT

ABSTRACT Novytasari, Dining Ayu. 2020. The Use of English Question Tag among English Department Student. Thesis, English Education Department, State Islamic Institute (IAIN) of Tulungagung. Supervisors: (I) Dr. Nurul Chojimah, M.Pd, (II) Dr. Sukarsono, M.Pd. Keywords: Question Tag, Types of Question Tag, Respond to Question Tag, Pragmatic, Sociocultural Misunderstanding in communication can be avoided by comprehending pragmatic competence. People should master the ability to speak English properly according to whom, how, and what they speak. The native speakers of English commonly use English question tag. Question tag is one of the materials being taught for Indonesian eight-graders. Previous studies show that they made mistakes in creating one, did not know other types of question tag excepts grammatically dependent, and had problems in responding to it. This study tried to know how English department students especially Indonesian create and respond to English question tag properly and appropriately. Qualitative approach was chosen as it fits best with the purpose of study. It relies on the linguistic rather than numerical and aims to interpret phenomena. The 20 English department students of IAIN Tulungagung and five British natives were selected. The Discourse Completion Test (DCT) sheet was handed to English department students; and the interview was administered to natives. All research subjects used grammatically dependent English question tag type. However, there is a possibility of using grammatically independent. In addition, affirmative responses were used to answer all question tags with positive statements. Affirmative and negative responses were used to answer question tags with negative statements. Affirmative response to answer question tag with negative statement was the opposite ideas with Azar’s. All question tag created aim to seek confirmation. The natives agreed it is possible to use it to respond DCT sheets. Moreover, the affirmative responses to all question tags with positive statements are appropriate to the contexts. Some responses to the question tags with negative statements were affirmative responses; and the rest were negative responses. The natives claimed that it is possible to give the affirmative responses but then give additional information to respond English question tags with negative statements. This study is advantageous for several groups like English department students and future researchers. English department students may consider the findings for improving their skills and learn sociocultural aspects. The future research who takes interest in it may consider the criteria used in this study or develop other criteria from another expert