STUDENTS’ ENGLISH SPEECH: A REGISTER ANALYSIS IN THE SCHOOL CAFE AT VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL OF KY AGENG GIRI

Authors: Munafiah, Arso Setyaji & Listyaning Sumardiyani

ABSTRACT

This study investigated how Ky Ageng Giri Vocational High School students use English when interacting with customers in the school caf The café offers a realistic context where students practice genuine service communication as part of the school’s teaching-factory curriculum, making it a perfect place to examine language use via the register theory perspective. Based on three register components: field (what they discuss), tenor (their interaction with the interlocutor), and mode (the structure and delivery of messages) this study attempts to investigate how pupils create meaning. A descriptive qualitative method was used, with data obtained from direct observation, audio recordings, and transcribed conversations of students serving teachers, guests, and peers. The analysis focused on identifying the types of utterances produced and the contextual factors influencing students’ linguistic choices. The data suggest that students primarily developed expressions linked to delivering menus, accepting orders, verifying decisions, and providing brief explanations. Students displayed varied degrees of formality based on who they interacted with. When chatting to teachers or guests, they employed more polite and structured terms, whereas discussions with friends featured more relaxed and colloquial language. Meanwhile, the mode analysis found that students relied primarily on basic sentence patterns, direct communication, and unmarked topical themes to preserve clarity and efficiency while doing service tasks. Overall, the findings show that students can adapt their language to various communication contexts, however there are still significant discrepancies, especially when it comes to upholding proper formality levels and creating more complicated phrases. These results emphasize how crucial it is to offer contextualized English instruction that reflects actual business conversation. The study provides useful insights for future researchers interested in investigating language register in vocational education contexts, as well as for English teachers creating communicative tasks and schools enhancing practice-based learning environments.

Keywords: register, field–tenor–mode, vocational English, school cafe, service communication.

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