HOW CAN A SIMPLE WORDS/PHRASES CAN HAVE DIFFERENT MEANING IN DIFFERENT SETTINGS?

VIOLETA N. BACSA

The youth of today are termed as Generation Z or Gen Z for short. Known as the true digital natives who were exposed to digital world just before they were born. Researchers and media users believed these people were born from 1996 to 2010, succeeded by the Millenials following the Generation Alpha. A new breed of social media influencer believed to be the largest consumer for the year 2020. Gen Zers display the following characteristics like; they express themselves with their own style, tend to travel more, demand twenty four (24) hour access online, born to swipe, inclined into texting or chatting, and are known as masters of social media (engarde.net). A lot of interesting facts based on research are available online about Gen Zers yet, how does these youngsters communicate in the classroom setting is another exciting way to learn more about these demographic cohorts. Teachers are the visual aids inside the classroom, they are the facilitators of learning. Without these educators there will be no professionals in the whole world. Teaching is a noble profession, teachers dedication to their profession is beyond measure for they work beyond the prescribe school hours. Their love for their students is immeasurable, they practice co-parenting and loved their learners as their very own biological children. Teachers can do and will do anything under their power to promote the child into the next level just to make sure the child will get a passing grade, or will not get a failing grade. If the child will get otherwise, then it may be due to lack of interest to study, constant absenteeism, change of residency or other factors which are beyond the control of the teacher. Teachers will do anything and everything to extend their love and dedication to their vow to teach, for the sake of their students. The question is, how can this love and dedication for work last among the teachers? How can this love and dedication be nurture? Will the impolite utterance of students be a factor that may ruin teachers love and dedication for work? Is there a need to study pragmatics interaction inside the classroom? Pragmatics is the study of how people used words to communicate in a particular circumstance. It is centered on the implied meaning of an utterance and goes beyond the explicit meaning of the spoken words of the interlocutors. Grice (1975), Cooperative principle consists of four maxims namely maxims of quantity, quality, relations and manner. Maxims of quantity the utterance must be informative, maxims of quality the spoken words must be truthful, relations it must be relevant and maxims of manner the utterance must be clear. Any violations from these maxims will create an implicature which may lead to misinterpretations of meaning and may serve as a barrier to a successful interaction. Generation Z learners are tech savvy, they are society’s first generation raised on technology as such their communication style is mobile-based, expect immediate answers to question and prefers one on one communication. Applying Grice cooperative principle when communicating with Gen Z’s may expect successful communication with these cohorts.

-oOoThe author is Teacher - III at Senior High School in Magalang Stand Alone II/Rodolfo V.

Feliciano Memorial High School.