ABSTRACT
Language use is a unique phenomenon. It is because language use in fact heavily depends on context of situation and they are hardly very similar between one and another. Face to face conversation in which participants involved may see gestures of their counterpart, is different from a mediated conversation in which participants involved cannot see gestures and what the speakers are doing while conversing.
In face to face conversation the participants involved are able to see gestures and face their counterparts, and are able to provide immediate feedback of what the participants are saying. Nervousness and worrisome which are induced from seeing the face is maximized. This then, may affect the role relation or the power relation that the participants want to establish in the conversation.
There were two problems emerging in the study: (1) How are the power relations among participants involved in the English Conversation Club under study?; (2) How do the more powerful participants acted out power over the less powerful participants. The aim of this study, therefore, are (1) describing the power relations among participants who were involved in the English Conversation Club under study; (2) Describing how the more powerful participants acted out power over the less powerful participants.
The method applied in this final project is qualitative. The procedure of collecting the data included recording and transcribing the conversation, then analyzing the data. In analyzing the data, the writer observed the recorded conversation through the number of turns and clauses, subject choices, mood and modality as well as speech function.
The results show us that there is asymmetrical or unequal power relation existed in the English Conversation Club under study. It indicates by the differences in the number of turns and clauses the participants managed to produce in the conversations, the selection of mood and modality, and the selection of move types. Based on the highest number of turn and clause production, number of subject choice ‘you’ referred to other participants, various types of moods, and the production of modality; the instructor became the most powerful participants.
The finding explained that the instructor as the more powerful participant exercised power by controlling turn taking system. Control over turn taking was indicates by the interruption and framing of subject choice of ‘you- I ‘referred to other participants. This framing of subject choice put other participants in responding roles rather than initiating ones, and took turns only when they were required. The instructor also exercised power by assuming superiority. The superiority was indicated by the uses of imperatives mood type.
