FUNCTIONS OF SPEAKING IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE & SPEAKING ANXIETY

Abstract

Plato once said “a wise man speaks because he has something to say, a fool speaks because he has to say something!” Often the ability to speak (or not) is used to gauge a person’s language proficiency. Speaking is one of the four language skills which includes listening, reading and writing. However, of all the four skills, the first skill that is portrayed is a person’s speaking skills. A person’s speaking skills (or lack of it) is often used by future employers to evaluate the oral communication abilities of their employees. This is because speaking has many different functions and failure to understand the varying functions may lead to anxiety among the speakers. This pilot study is done to investigate the usage of the English language in undergraduates’ interaction and transaction in their everyday lives, their speaking performances and their speaking anxiety. Data is analysed using SPSS and presented in the form of mean scores. Findings for interaction and transaction showed that English is used during formal transaction. In addition to that, the discussion on academic matters is a necessity to speak English. Next, findings for performance revealed that no matter how good or poor their achievement in this second language, speakers have to make it happen – this is one of the challenges that the speakers have to face. Lastly, the speaking anxiety may impact their (speakers) interaction with other people. Results of this study bear interesting implications towards the acquisition and learning of speaking in English among learners. Article visualizations: