Factors That Triger Tip Of The Tongue Among English Foreign Language Learners IAIN Curup

Alfarissi, Fahmi and Noviyenty, Leffi and Prihantoro, Prihantoro (2026) Factors That Triger Tip Of The Tongue Among English Foreign Language Learners IAIN Curup. Sarjana thesis, Institut Agama Islam Negeri Curup.

Text
FAHMI_ALFARISSI_THESIS.pdf
Download (1MB)

Abstract

This study investigates the Tip-of-the-Tongue (ToT) phenomenon experienced by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at the English Tadris Study Program, IAIN Curup, focusing on the factors that trigger its occurrence and its impact on speaking performance and self-confidence. ToT refers to a temporary lexical retrieval failure in which a speaker is certain of knowing a word but is momentarily unable to produce it, a phenomenon that becomes particularly salient in EFL speaking contexts where learners must simultaneously retrieve vocabulary, organise ideas, and produce grammatically appropriate utterances. Adopting a qualitative phenomenological approach, this study explores the lived experiences of four EFL students through semi-structured interviews and structured observation of their speaking performance. The findings reveal five interrelated factors contributing to ToT, namely weak productive lexical representation, phonological encoding failure, cognitive overload, first language interference, and situational anxiety acting as an amplifier of the phenomenon. Furthermore, ToT is found to disrupt fluency, grammatical accuracy, and message coherence, while also prompting learners to develop various compensation strategies. Beyond its linguistic effects, ToT is shown to influence learners' psychological states, contributing to declining speaking confidence, reduced willingness to communicate, and, in some cases, a self-reinforcing negative cycle between anxiety and recurring retrieval failure. These findings offer empirical grounding for designing more responsive EFL speaking instruction. Keywords: Tip-of-the-Tongue, lexical retrieval, EFL speaking, foreign language anxiety, self-confidence

Item Type:

Thesis (Sarjana)

Creators: