Novita Diana, 2016
Mood Structure in Students’ Recount Texts
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter describes the process of research. It starts with the description of the
research design (Section 3.1), followed by data collection processes (Section 3.2),
and the data analysis (Section 3.3). The research processes have been designed ba
sed on the research problems that have been formulated in Chapter 1, i.e. how th
e students realize Mood structure in their Recount texts, and how the use of Moo
d structure contributes to the fulfillment of the social purpose of the Recount texts.
3.1 Research Design
This study employs a qualitative research design embracing the characteristics of
a case study approach. Frankel (1990) states that this design is undertaken to
analyze one phenomenon in order to understand it deeply. In line with this, Nunan
(1988) states that the qualitative case study can be defined as an intensive, holistic
description and analysis of a single entity, phenomenon, or social unit. Qualitative
research involves collection of a variety of empirical materials including visual
texts that describe routine problematic moments and meanings in individuals’
lives (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994 cited in Malik and Hamied, 2014). In this study,
a qualitative research design is chosen since this study explores a single focus in
depth, that is the mood structure realized in students’ Recount texts and the data
are not in statistical form. This study focuses on a particular social unit, i.e.
students of vocational school.
3.2 Data Collection
The data used in this study are in the form of texts written by the students of one
vocational school in Bandung. The students were given the task of writing a
Novita Diana, 2016
Mood Structure in Students’ Recount Texts
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu
Yogyakarta”. There are 32 Recount texts collected from the students. However,
this study focuses only on analyzing six of them. This study used six texts of
students in order to find out how the students’ employed Mood structure in their texts.
The reason underlying the choice of using the six texts is based on
Creswell (2009), that a small number of participants are enough in qualitative
design in which the quality of the participant is more important than the number
of participants. The six texts have been chosen in accordance with the students’
levels of English mastery as judged by the teacher. Two texts were written by
students with high achievement, two by students with medium achievement, and
two by students with low achievement.
3.3 Data Analysis
The data in this study are analyzed inductively. The focus of analysis is the Mood
structure found in the students’ texts as one of the three aspects of Mood (Eggins, 2004). In so doing, inductive analysis involves the process of identification,
classification, and interpretation (McMillan, 1992). The steps of analysis include
parsing the texts into clauses, identifying and classifying the Mood structure, and
interpreting the use of Mood structure.
3.3.1 Parsing the Texts into Clauses
In general SFL analysis operates at clause level. The first step of analysis,
therefore, is the identification of clauses through close reading. Each text is
broken down into clauses based on the notion of clause boundaries (Halliday,
1985).
3.3.2 Identification and Classification of Mood Structure
Each clause that has been identified is further analyzed with regard to Mood
Novita Diana, 2016
Mood Structure in Students’ Recount Texts
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu
the Residue is not focused on. Examples of Mood structure analysis are presented
below (taken from Eggins, 2004, p. 155-159).
I am reading the Bostonians’
Subject Finite Predicator Complement
Mood Residue
You read books for fun
Subject Finite Predicator Complement Adjunct; circumstantial
Mood Residue
Simon might have been
going to read
the Bostonians’
Subject Finite;Modal
(Modalisation; certainty)
Predicator Complement
Mood Residue
3.3.3 Interpretation of the Use of Mood Structure
The last step, after the parsing of the texts into clauses and the identification and
classification of Mood structure, includes the interpretation of the realization of
Mood structure in the students’ texts. To do this, this study examines the linguistic
realization of Mood structure and how this contributes to the fulfilment of the
social purpose of the text.
3.4 Concluding Remarks
