LEXICAL DENSITY AND GRAMMATICAL INTRICACY OF READING MATERIALS TO THE TENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL.

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LEXICAL DENSITY AND GRAMMATICAL INTRICACY

OF READING MATERIALS TO THE TENTH GRADE

STUDENTS OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

A THESIS

Submitted as Partial Fullfilment of the Requirement For the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan

By:

RINI LESTARI

Reg. Number: 2122121034

ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

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ABSTRACT

Lestari, Rini. Registration Number: 2122121034. Lexical Density and Grammatical Intricacy of Reading Materials to the Tenth Grade Students of Senior High School. A Thesis. English Educational Program, State University of Medan, 2016.

This study deals with lexical density and grammatical intricacy of English reading texts in the textbook for the first grade of senior high school to measure the difficulty of the text. The objectives of the study are to find out the lexical density and grammatical intricacy which formed in the reading texts of English Alive textbook and type of genre which has the highest both of lexical density and grammatical intricacy. This study was conducted by descriptive method with qualitative approach. The data of this research were the English reading texts of English Alive textbook for senior high school grade tenth published by Yudhistira. The result of the analysis showed that: (1). lexical density is formed by unification of both lexical item and grammatical item which measured to find out the proportion of information in a text while grammatical intricacy is formed by unification of both simple clauses and complex clauses in a text which measured to find out how intricate the text is. (2). lexical density influences the difficulty of reading texts if it has higher proportion of lexical items than grammatical items, While grammatical intricacy also influences the difficulty of reading texts if it has higher proportion of complex clauses in comparison with simple clauses. In this case the result of this study shows that both LD and GI has high proportion which means that the texts are difficult to understand by the students. It is suggested that further textbook writers to concern with the lexical density and grammatical intricacy of the reading texts so that the textbook can be used and understood by the students.

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ABSTRAK

Lestari, Rini. Nomor Induk Mahasiswa: 2122121034. Lexical Density and Grammatical Intricacy of Reading Materials to the Tenth Grade Students of Senior High School. A Thesis. Program Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Negeri Medan, 2016.

Penelitian ini berhubungan dengan lexical density dan grammatical intricacy pada teks yang terdapat pada buku kelas sepuluh sekolah menengah atas untuk mengukur tingkat kesulitan pada teks tersebut. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengukur lexical density dan grammatical intricacy yang terdapat pada teks bacaan di buku English Alive dan jenis teks apa yang memiliki tingkat lexical density dan grammatical intricacy tertinggi. Penelitian inimenggunakan metode penelitian deskriptif dengan pendekatan kualitatif. Data dari penelitian ini adalah teks yang terdapat pada buku English alive terbitan yudhistira untuk kelas sepuluh sekolah menengah atas. Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa: (1). Lexical density terbentuk dari perpaduan antara lexical items dan grammatical items pada teks yang diukur untuk mengetahui kerapatan informasi yang ada pada teks, sedangkan grammatical intricacy terbentuk dari perpaduan klausa kompleks dan klausa sederhana yang diukur untuk mengetahui kerumitan sebuah teks. (2) lexical density dan grammatical intricacy mempengaruhi tingkat kesulitan sebuah teks jika teks tersebut mempunyai persentase yang tinggi terhadap keduanya, seperti yang hasil dari penelitian ini yang menunjukkan bahsa buku English alive yang mempunyai persentase tinggi terhadap LD dan GI yang berarti teks dalam buku tersebut diprediksi sulit dipahami oleh siswa. Sangat disarankan untuk penulis-penulis buku yang akan datang untuk fokus terhadap lexical density dan grammatical intricacy pada teks sehingga buku tersebut dapat digunakan dan dimengerti oleh siswa.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The writer would like to thank Allah SWT for blessing, health, chance, and inspiration given to the writer during the completion of this final project with title Lexical Density and Grammatical Intricacy of Reading Materials to the Tenth Grade Students of Senior High School. Shalawat and salam for the Prophet Muhammad who brings us from darkness to the brightness.

The writer realizes that she cannot complete this final project without the help of others. Many people have helped the writer during the writing this final project and it would be impossible to mention all of them. The writer wishes, however, to give the writer sincerest gratitude and appreciation to:

 Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd, the Rector of State University of Medan.

 Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean Faculty of Languages and Arts.  Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English Department and

Nora Ronita Dewi, S. S., M. Hum., the Head of Education Program of English Department.

 Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum, the Thesis Advisor.  Dr. Zainuddin. DIP. TEFL., M.Hum, the Academic Advisor.

 Dr. Rahmad Husein, M.Ed and Rita Suswati, S.Pd., M.Hum., the Thesis Reviewers.

 All the Lecturers of English Department who have taught and guided the writer throughout the academic years that could not be mentioned one by one.

 Achmadi and Samsinur, her beloved parents who give me uncountable love, pray, motivation, material, lesson, and all the things that they ever gave that can make the writer understand and appreciate the meaning of struggle in life until she achieve her Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan.

 Titik Sunarti, Neny Wahyuni also Esti satiti and Teguh Prasetyo as dearest sisters and brother for their support, love, and pray in finishing her thesis.

 Rizki Mandasari her beloved friend for unforgettable friendship and for the time, laugh, happiness, supports, togetherness, advise and everything that they experienced together in achieving S.Pd. The writer realizes that nothing worth than friendship in her life.

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 M.Arif her close friend for laugh and happiness in achieving S.Pd, those thing are meaningful for her.

 Eis Sri Wahyuni, M.Pd, and Mr. Pantes, the administration staff of English Department, for her and his attention, assistance, and information.  Headmaster, Vice Headmaster and English teachers in SMA Swasta

Persiapan Stabat for time, chance, and cooperation.

 All Students Class B of English Education 2012 who suddenly had interaction and supports the writer in accomplishing all requirements for graduation. They are actually colors the writer’s days in achieving S.Pd

There are many people whose names are not mentioned above, the writer thanks them for their support in finishing her study, and may Allah Swt bless you all. Finally, the writer expects this thesis be useful, especially for the writer and generally for the readers.

Medan, September 2016 The Writer

Rini Lestari

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF LITERATURES ... 10

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3. Reading ... 24

a. Definition of Reading ... 24

b. Principles of Reading... 25

4. Textbook ... 26

a. Definition of Textbook ... 26

b. Benefits of using Textbook ... 27

5. Genre of Writing ... 28

a. Narrative text ... 28

b. Procedure text ... 29

c. Recount text ... 30

B. Relevant Studies ... 31

C. Conceptual Framework ... 33

CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 34

A. Research Design ... 34

B. Data and Source of Data ... 35

C. The Instrument for Collecting Data ... 35

D. Procedure for Collecting Data ... 36

E. Technique for analyzing Data ... 37

CHAPTER IV. DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ... 39

A. Data ... 39

B. Data Analysis ... 39

C. Research Finding ... 69

D. Discussion ... 72

CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ... 76

A. Conclusion ... 76

B. Suggestion ... 77

REFERENCES ... 78

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LIST OF TABLES

Pages

Table 1.1 Lexical Density Score ... 5

Table 2.2 Grammatical Intricacy Measurement ... 5

Table 4.1 GI Measurement of Text 1 ... 43

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of the Study

English has four skills to learned, those are listening, reading,

speaking, and writing. Those skills are important to be mastered without

ignoring each other. For most English as foreign language learners,

reading has the important role because by reading, they will be able to

understand the reading materials they want to learn. Basically, reading is

the ways to gain some important message and get meaning from written

text. As a skill, reading is clearly one of important language skill that

where students have to read English material for their subject. The student

often thought to be easier to obtain information from written text by

reading.

For Indonesian students, the source that they use to learn in

classroom is Textbook. Textbook take an important role in teaching

learning activity because it provides the subject that they need. Textbook

usually consists of reading text content with some genre of English text,

writing assignment, listening task and conversation with some expression.

For reading skill, usually reading materials is in form of comprehending

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Ur (1996: 138) in his book argues that reading means ‘reading and

understanding.’ A foreign language learners who says, ‘I can read the

words but I don’t know what they means’ is not, therefore, reading, in this

sense. It prove that many students in our country as foreign language

readers also face difficulty in reading an English text because they are

cannot mastery the vocabulary like the native speaker does. Many English

texts which they use as sources are content with vocabulary that they

cannot understand the meaning. The main points of difficult texts are the

lexical density and grammatical intricacy of the text itself. Ure (1971)

stated that Lexical density is a number of lexical items as the proportion of

running words. Furthermore, Halliday explains that Lexical item are the

major content words which carry information. They fall into four

grammatical categories; Nouns, Adjectives, some class of Adverbs, and

Main verbs. Typically, written language becomes complex by being

lexically dense; it packs a large lexical items into each clause; whereas

spoken language becomes complex by being grammatically intricate; it

built up elaborate the clause complexes.

For foreign language learners, the text which content of high

lexical items will make students got trouble to understand the text. In

addition, lexical item includes verb, noun, adjective and adverb has open

system in which one word can has more than one meaning. In other word,

the more lexical items the text has, the more difficult the text is. On the

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because by comprehending it, the students will be able to reach the

knowledge. Because of that, the teacher need to provide appropriate

textbook content with reading text based on the students ability. Reading

text in form of grammatical configuration is not too difficult to understand.

Grammatical items are those that function as closed system in the

language. Different from lexical configuration, grammatical configuration

show that text is consist of determiner, pronoun, most preposition,

conjunction and numerals. It means that the balance between lexical items

and grammatical items in a text is really important to consider in order to

make the students mastered the reading materials in an English textbook.

The other thing that influences the difficulty of reading materials is

grammatical intricacy. If in a text there are more clause complexes than

simple clauses, it can be said that the text is more complex in the sense

that it presents more information in a tight way. Consequently, the learners

are potential to face problems to comprehend the text. Because of that,

lexical density and grammatical intricacy separated each other.

Based on the preliminary observation of the English teacher of

SMA Persiapan Stabat on April 22th 2016, the researcher found some information by interview the English teacher. The researcher asked about

whether the reading materials in the textbook are suitable for the students

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in the reading materials, it affects students’ reading assignment result

became bad. In addition, the teacher also said that they are not checked the

reading materials in the textbook yet, whether the reading materials are computer cover. If necessary, consult your computer’s manual for help in removing the cover. Remember to discharge your body static electricity by touching the metal surface on the computer chassis. When your computer is open, remove any existing graphics card from your computer. If the old graphics card sticks, rock it gently form end to end. Remember to save the screw. Or if your computer has any on-board graphics capability, you may need to disable the metal cover form the empty expansion slot that you select. Then align your new card with the expansion slot, and press it firmly until the card is fully seated.

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means that this text is difficult to understand by the first grade students of

Senior high school.

While the result of Measurement the Grammatical Intricacy of one

paragraph in the same text is shown in table below;

Table 1.2

Grammatical Intricacy Measurement

No Sentence Clauses Kind of Clauses

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The text above actually has 12 Clauses. The reason why researcher

chooses the paragraph above is because that paragraph actually doesn’t

have any simple clause. All of sentences in that paragraph consist of 12

complex clauses. It shows that the paragraph is grammatical intricate.

Based on the preliminary observation, the researcher can say that

when the students get difficulty to understand the content of the text book

especially the reading text, the students will be hard to get the knowledge

of the textbook. The proportion between the lexical items and the

grammatical items in the text certainly will determine the difficulty of the

text. Through the lexical density of the text, teacher can know whether the

text is easy or difficult for the students.

The measurement of lexical density and grammatical intricacy in

English reading text is very important because it will be the consideration

of the teacher or school to choose the available book for the students in

order to make the students learn the book easily.

B. The Problems of the Study

Problems that will discuss in this study can be stated as follows:

1. How are the lexical density and grammatical intricacy formed in the reading texts of English alive textbook?

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C. The Objectives of the Study

Objective of the study are stated as follows:

1. To find out how lexical density and grammatical intricacy is formed in English alive textbook

2. To measure how lexical density and grammatical intricacy influence the difficulty level of reading material in English Alive textbook

D. The Significant of the Study

In conducting this study, the writer hopes that this research has benefit theoretically and practically to the readers.

Theoretically this research hopefully will be useful to enrich the

lexical density and grammatical intricacy theories. The finding in this

research can add new information to other researcher about lexical density

and grammatical intricacy found in a textbook.

Practically, this research hopefully will be useful for the teacher as

guidance to choose suitable textbook for the students and apply the result

of this study as feedback on their teaching activities; improve their

knowledge and experience in choosing appropriate book, so that the

students are better in reading skills. This research hopefully also will be

useful for the students to be more selective in choosing textbook and know

the way to reach good reading comprehension by choosing suitable

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grammatical intricacy hopefully will be useful for all educators because it

will be affect students’ ability in learning English.

E. The Scope of the Study

In this research, the writer focuses on the subject matter in

analyzing the lexical density and grammatical intricacy of the reading text

in English alive 1 text book published by Yudhistira which is used at the

tenth grade students of SMA Swasta Persiapan Stabat. Meanwhile, there

are fourteen reading texts in the textbook consist of some genre of texts

those are narrative, procedure and recount. But the researcher is analyzes 8

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

A. Conclusion

After analyzing 8 texts in English Alive Textbook published by

Yudhistira for the tenth grade students of senior high school, the researcher

can conclude that;

1. Lexical density is formed by unification of lexical item and grammatical

item which measured to find out the difficulty level in a text. While

grammatical intricacy is formed by unification of complex clauses and

simple clauses which measured to find how intricate the text is.

2. Regarding the research result which shows that all of the texts are have

high lexical density and grammatical intricacy, the researcher can explain

that the reading materials found in English alive textbook are difficult to

understand by the students. Based on theories that the researcher use as

guidance, lexical density influences the difficulty of reading texts if it has

higher proportion of lexical items than grammatical items. While

grammatical intricacy also influences the difficulty of reading texts if it

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B. Suggestion

After drawing the conclusion, the researcher presents some suggestion

as follows;

1. The textbook publishers are the place of learning tool is made. The

textbook which they make isn’t for a student only, but for thousand or

million students. Textbook they have made absolutely influence the

students’ ability in learning English. Furthermore, most of school in our

country are using textbook for their main learning tool, means that

measure whether the textbook is suitable for the students or not is

recommended thing to do by the publisher before distribute their

textbooks.

2. Teacher also takes an important role in providing an English textbook.

Choosing appropriate textbook based on students’ ability is recommended

to do because teachers are the people who understand about how the

ability of the students is. One school may have different needs from

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