PENGGUNAAN SOFTWARE FESTO FLUIDSIM UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KETERAMPILAN SISWA PADA A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS PERSPECTIVE: AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE TEXTS (A Case Study).

(1)

Neng Sona Herlina, 2015

PENGGUNAAN SOFTWARE FESTO FLUIDSIM UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KETERAMPILAN SISWA PADA A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS PERSPECTIVE: AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE TEXTS (A Case Study)

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu 1

A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS PERSPECTIVE: AN ANALYSIS OF

STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE TEXTS

(A Case Study)

A Research Paper

Submitted to the Department of English Education of FPBS UPI as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for Sarjana Pendidikan degree

By

Neng Sona Herlina 1000448

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

(2)

2015

(A Case Study)

Oleh

Neng Sona Herlina

Sebuah skripsi yang diajukan untuk memenuhi salah satu syarat memperoleh gelar Sarjana pada Fakultas Pendidikan Bahasa dan Sastra

Januari 2015

(3)

Skripsi ini tdak boleh diperbanyak seluruhnya atau sebagian, dengan dicetak ulang, difoto kopi, atau cara lainnya tanpa ijin dari penulis.

PAGE OF APPROVAL

NENG SONA HERLINA

(A Case Study)

Approved by:

Main Supervisor Co-Supervisor

Prof. Emi Emilia, M.Ed., Ph.D. Nicke Yunita Moecharam, S.Pd., M.A NIP. 196609161990012001 NIP. 1982063020050120

Head of English Education Department Faculty of Language and Literature Education

Indonesia University of Education

(4)

PENGGUNAAN SOFTWARE FESTO FLUIDSIM UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KETERAMPILAN SISWA PADA A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS PERSPECTIVE: AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE TEXTS

(A Case Study)

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu

ABSTRACT

A Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective: An Analysis of Students’ Descriptive Texts

The current research seeks to discover students’ ability and difficulty in writing Descriptive text by analyzing the schematic structure and linguistic features of the text within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The participants of the research are 26 students of the 8th grade in one public junior high school in West Java, Indonesia. To meet the purposes, the research employs a descriptive-qualitative research design. The data are obtained from the students’ writing products and the interview. Nine texts representing Low, Mid, and High achieving students are analyzed in terms of the schematic structure and linguistic features using Systemic Functional Linguistics. On the one hand, the findings reveal that students’ ability in writing Descriptive texts is good especially high and middle achievers. They have a good control about the schematic structure of Descriptive texts by completing the Identification and Description element of the texts. On the other hand, the texts produced by low achieving students reflect the students’ confusion in deciding the schematic structure of Descriptive text. Moreover, the Low, Mid and High achieving students are able to use the appropriate linguistic features, such as adjectives, specific participant, and the occurrences of Relational, Mental and Material processes. In addition, the interview data show that most students faced some difficulties in terms of English grammar during the writing process. Thus, the Low, Mid and High achieving students still need a lot of improvement as they still make a lot of grammatical mistakes.

(5)

PENGGUNAAN SOFTWARE FESTO FLUIDSIM UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KETERAMPILAN SISWA PADA A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS PERSPECTIVE: AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE TEXTS

(A Case Study)

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu

ABSTRAK

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTIC: ANALISIS TERHADAP TEKS DESKRIPSI SISWA

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui kemampuan dan kesulitan siswa dalam menulis text deskripsi dengan menganalisis teks tersebut dari segi struktur teks tersebut dan ciri-ciri kebahasaannya. Partisipan dari penelitian ini adalah 26 siswa kelas 8 SMP di Jawa Barat. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode kualitatif. Data diperoleh dari hasil tulisan siswa dan data dari wawancara. Sembilan teks mewakili siswa yang dalam level rendah, menengah dan tinggi dalam pencapaian pemebelajaran nya dianalisis menggunakan systemic functional linguistic. Dalam satu sisi, penemuan dari penelitian ini membuktikan bahwa kemampuan menulis siswa dalam menulis teks deskripsi sudah dalam tahapan yang baik, khususnya untuk siswa yang berada pada level menengah dan tinggi. Mereka memiliki kemampuan dalam menentukan struktur dari teks deskrispi. Disisi lain, siswayang berada dalam level rendah masih memiliki kesulitas dalam menentukan struktur dari teks tersebut. Selain itu, dari segi ciri-ciri kebahasaannya, hampir seluruh siswa mampu mengaplikasikan ciri-ciri kebahasaan dari teks deskripsi. Disamping itu, hasil wawancara menyebutkan bahwa kesulitan yang dialami siswa adalah dalam segi penggunaan grammar yang tepat.

(6)

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu

1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This Chapter explains the introduction to the study. The nature of the study including

background of the study, statement of the problems, aims of the study, scope of the study,

significance of the study, and clarification of the terms will be elaborated. In the end of this

Chapter, the organization of the paper is displayed as general guidelines of the research

paper.

1.1. Background of the Study

Writing plays an important role for students who are in the process of learning a language

(Ren, et al, 2009). In language learning, writing is one of the important skills because it is the most effective way to show someone’s proficiency (Ren, et al, 2009). Furthermore, confirming to English curriculum declared by Indonesian government, writing is a

fundamental skill that the students should master in learning English (Depdiknas, 2006). As

the consequence, in 2004 Indonesia adopted a genre-based curriculum for teaching English in

Indonesian schools (Emilia, Hermawan, and Tati, 2010). However, it is not only cover

writing skill, but also other English basic skills such as; listening, speaking, and reading.

Unfortunately, among the four skills, writing is considered as the most difficult skills

(Westwood, 2008). Writing involves higher level of mental processes in human intelligence

than reading or other language skills (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Hyland, 2003). In

accordance, Alwasilah (2011) states that writing is the most neglected skill in Indonesian schools. He explains “writing is not only less practiced, but also taught unprofessionally.... Writing is the most exalted language skill, yet it has been the most neglected one in our education” (Alwasilah, 2001 cited in Emilia, 2005, p. 12).

In addition, Levine (1993) states that the difficulty of writing occur because both of

English as Second Language (ESL) and English for Foreign Language (EFL) students who

consider writing is difficult do not know what and how to write, feel lack of vocabulary, fear

of criticism, and want to avoid emotional confusion when they are facing a topic or a blank

paper. This problem becomes a basic reason of why the students only accept minimum

(7)

2

to use the skill. Yet, Indonesian students face a lot of text genre to be learned such as:

Recount, Narrative, Procedure, Exposition, Descriptive, and Report (National Curriculum,

2004). Moreover, the text type in the current research is Descriptive.

Descriptive text is a text which describes actual, places, events or objects (Alwasilah,

2005, p.14). Descriptive text is important to be learned because it can help the students in

describing information vividly and accurately (Emilia and Christie, 2013, p.1). Based on the

observation during teaching practicum, most students think that Descriptive text is difficult.

Hence, the current research attempts to investigate how the students produce Descriptive text

by analyzing their text.

Analyzing students’ text is very important to do because it can help English teacher to find out the students’ ability and difficulty in writing (Lock, 1996). In accordance, Emilia (2005) states that research about analyzing students’ texts are very important because by knowing the students’ difficulties, it helps the teacher to solve the students’ problems. Hence, it is considered important to conduct a research intended to analyze students’ written products in order to see their ability and difficulty of writing a text.

Therefore, based on the preceding elaboration of those theories, the current research

aims to find out the students’ ability in writing Descriptive texts by analyzing the students’

texts in terms of the schematic structure and linguistic features using Systemic Functional

Linguistics (SFL), particularly Transitivity system.

In addition, there are a lot of studies in text analysis using SFL framework, such as

study which was conducted by Christie (2005), Feez & Joyce (2000), Emilia (2005) and

Emilia et al. (2008). They investigated the primary and secondary students’ writing

organization of schematic structure, purpose and grammatical elements using three

Metafunctions in SFL respectively; Experiential, Ideational and Interpersonal metafunction.

Meanwhile, in the current research, the analysis will focus only on the Experiential

metafunction which is Transitivity system in order to discover students’ ability in writing a

text.

(8)

3

1.2. Statement of problems

In order to find out students’ ability in writing Descriptive text, it is asked the following

research questions:

1. How is the students’ ability in writing Descriptive Texts in terms of the schematic

structure and linguistic features?

2. What difficulties are faced by the students in writing Descriptive texts?

1.3. Aims of the study

Related to the statement of the problems, the current research aimed at investigating:

1. The ways in which the students produce Descriptive text in terms of the schematic

structure and linguistic features.

2. Students’ difficulties in writing Descriptive text.

1.4. Scope of the study

There is a scope or limitation of the research. The limitation of the research focuses only on

discovering the students’ ability in writing Descriptive text by analyzing the students’ texts

using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL).

Descriptive text has been chosen because of several reasons. First, Descriptive text is

a representation of factual genre text and fundamental to be used in many areas of life (Emilia

& Christie, 2013, p.1). Second, learning Descriptive text is important in providing students

the basic knowledge of communication in English (ibid).

Furthermore, the students’ ability can be seen through the schematic structure and linguistic features of the text by using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as proposed by

Halliday (1994), Gerot & Wignell (1994), and Emilia (2010). Hence, in the current research,

the texts are analyzed in terms of the schematic structure and linguistic features of the text

(9)

4

1.5. Significance of the study

The research is significant from three perspectives. Theoretically, the research is expected to

make a greater contribution to the English field, especially in writing skill. It is expected to

enrich the literature about the application of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) in analyzing students’ texts, and the current research can be used as a reference.

Practically, the research is expected to give the information to the teachers about how to identify students’ ability in writing Descriptive Text. Professionally, the research is conducted to help the teachers to predict and describe patterns by giving an explicit teaching

about the schematic structure and linguistic features of the text especially Descriptive text.

1.6. Clarification of terms

- Writing

Writing is defined as a process of delivering ideas by taking notes (Harmer, 2004: 11). In

other words, writing is a process used to express idea without saying or face to face

interaction and others can understand the meaning by reading it (Elbow, 2000).

- Descriptive Text

Descriptive text is a text type which purposes to describe, show and provide information of

particular person, thing, place or event based on what is seen, heard, felt, tasted and smelled

(Derewianka, 1990; Gerot & Wignell, 1995; Knapp & Watkins, 2005; Nafisah & Kurniawan,

2007).

- Systemic Functional Linguistics

Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is a theory in linguistics which sees language as not

only a set of rules, but also serves as a resource for making meaning system (Halliday, 1994

p.15; Lock, 1996 p.2; Emilia, 2005 p.87; Eggins, 2004 p.2).

1.7.Organization of the paper

This paper will be presented into five chapters. Each chapter is divided into subtopics that

(10)

5

Chapter 1 Introduction: This chapter presents background of the study, statement of the problems, aims of the study, scope of the study, significance of the study and in the end of

this chapter, the researcher informs the organization of paper.

Chapter II Literature Review: This chapter provides theoretical foundation of the research, which discusses some theories that are related to writing including the definition of writing,

the importance and the criteria of writing. Since Descriptive text is used as the main text to be

analyzed, this chapter also discusses a theory of Descriptive text. The last, this chapter also

explains a theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics including Transitivity system as a tool for analyzing students’ texts.

Chapter III Research Methodology: This chapter elaborates the methodology of the research, which includes research questions, research design, site and participant, data

collection and data analysis.

Chapter IV – Findings and Discussions: This chapter displays the result of the research, which includes findings and discussions of the current research regarding the students’ ability

in writing Descriptive Text and also some difficulties which were faced by the students

during their writing process.

Chapter V – Conclusions and Suggestions: This chapter presents conclusions of the findings and the suggestions for those who are learning English including English teacher and

(11)

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu 22

data analysis which will be elaborated in the following sections.

3.1. Research Questions

In order to discover students’ ability in writing Descriptive text, it is asked the following

research questions:

1. How is the students’ ability in writing Descriptive texts in terms of the schematic

structure and linguistic features?

2. What difficulties are faced by the students in writing Descriptive texts?

3.2. Research Design

In order to answer the research questions on how students’ ability in writing Descriptive text in terms of schematic structure and linguistic features, the current research employed

qualitative method. It was chosen since qualitative method was used to comprehend social

phenomenon from participant point of view (Alwasilah, 2011).

The qualitative research was used due to the study’s main purpose which aimed at

collecting, examining, analyzing, describing and categorizing textual data using interpretative

analysis in order to recognize whether the schematic structure, and linguistic features of

Descriptive text were sufficient or not (Crocker & Heigham, 2009, p.4; Creswell, 2009).

In association with qualitative method, a qualitative case study was used to discover

meaning, investigate the processes, and to gain in depth understanding of and individual,

group or situation (Lodico, Spaulding, and Voegtle, 2006). According to Cohen and Manion

(1985, cited in Nunan, (1992), a case study observed the characteristics of an individual unit

to probe deeply and to analyze the intensity of the multifarious phenomena that constitute the

life cycle of the unit with a few to establishing the unit belongs. Thus, The current research

(12)

particular instance of educational experience or practice and cannot be generalized

(Cresswell, 1994; Freebody, 2003 in Alwasilah, 2009).

Moreover, the use of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), particularly Transitivity

system as a tool for analyzing the students’ Descriptive texts played a significant role in the

current research. By using Transitivity system, the overall grammatical resource for

construing goings on will be revealed (Martin, Mathiessen and Painter, 1997; Emilia, 2005,

p.94; Eggins, 2004, p.249; Emilia, 2014, p.149). Thus, it was possible to investigate the

schematic structures, purpose and linguistic features of the Descriptive texts analyzed in the

study.

3.3. Site and Participants

The research was conducted in one state of junior high school in West Java, Indonesia. The

reason why it was chosen as the object or the site of the research because the school was

accessible since the teaching practicum was conducted. Besides, the characteristics of the school, the teacher’s and the student’s had already known.

Since the observation focused on the students’ writing text, then one class of eight graders consisted 26 students was chosen as the participants of the research, but only 9 texts

were chosen to be analyzed.

3.4. Data Collection

There were two data collection techniques used in the current research; collecting students’

writing products and interviewing the students regarding their perspectives toward

Descriptive text and the difficulties during the writing process.

3.4.1. Collecting students’ descriptive text

As stated before, the data used in the current research were the students’ writing products.

The students had to complete writing task which had been determined by English teacher

during their class time. Then, the researcher collected the students’ writing products. Once, the texts had been obtained, and then they were classified based on students’ levels of

(13)

students. Nine samples of Descriptive texts represented each category were chosen to be

analyzed.

3.4.2. Interviewing the students

According to Alwasilah (2011), in-depth information and data can be obtained by a

researcher by doing an interview. An interview, as was stated by Mackey and Gass (2005)

made phenomena which were not observable (such as perceptions and attitude) possible to be

examined. Most of qualitative researchers used an in-depth interview to the result in enlightenment from the respondents’ experiences and perspectives through their words (Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2010). Hatch (2002) stated that an in-depth interview was designed

with a purpose of going deeper to the understanding of informants.

Some questions were made in order to dig the students’ responses, it was hoped that the interviews enabled them to talk further about their perspectives toward writing

Descriptive text and also the difficulties during the writing process. In terms of the level of

control interviewer, the interview was semi-structured. Semi-structured is the types of oral

interview which the interviewer has a general idea of where he or she wants to go, but does

not enter the interview with a list of predetermined questions (Nunan, 1992, p.149). This type

of interview gave the interviewee a degree of power and control over the course of the

interview. In addition, it gave the interviewer a great deal of flexibility. Besides, according to

Hesse-Biber and Leavy (2010), semi-structured interview were indicated by a more loose

conversation even though a certain set of questions are still used as guidelines. The guideline

questions are presented as follows:

1. Do you like writing?

2. What do you think of writing Descriptive text?

3. Did you find some difficulties during your writing process?

Nine students were chosen to do the interview. The interviews were conducted

individually in which the students were called one by one to have an informal talk with the

(14)

interviewee, so that real and authentic answers could be derived. It was also carried out in

Indonesian to provide comfort for the interviewee during the conversation.

3.5. Data Analysis

Data analysis of students’ Descriptive text was divided into two steps. The first step, the

analysis started with analysis of schematic structure of Descriptive texts. The second step was

analyzing those linguistic features by using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)

particularly Transitivity system. The researcher used this kind of text analysis as proposed by

Christie (2005), Emilia (2005), Hermawan & Tati (2008).

3.5.1. Students’ descriptive texts analysis

Document analysis in the students’ Descriptive text was conducted to find out the students’ ability in writing Descriptive texts in terms of its schematic structure and linguistic features.

The research focused on analyzing the text, especially Descriptive texts. According to

Huckin (2004), the units of analysis or text features to be identified for analysis must be those

that emerge logically from the research question. So the text features analyzed in this

research are:

1. The general organization patterns or schematic structure of Descriptive texts.

2. The linguistic features which were found in Descriptive text.

Moreover, the use of Transitivity system of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as

a text analysis played a significant role in the research. Transitivity system will be a tool for

analyzing the schematic structure and linguistic features of the texts. By using Transitivity

system, the overall grammatical resource for construing goings on will be revealed (Emilia,

2005, p.94; Eggins, 2004, p.249; Emilia, 2014, p.149). By using Transitivity system, it was

possible to investigate the schematic structures and linguistic features of the Descriptive

texts.

3.5.1.1. Analysis of schematic structure

In this step, the overall meaning construed and schematic structure found in the samples of

Descriptive texts was analyzed in order to find out the social purpose of text (Emilia, 2014,

p.86). The sample of Descriptive texts in English was broken into clauses and segmented into

(15)

such as Derewianka (1990), Gerot & Wignell (1995), Knapp & Watkins (2005), Nafisah &

Kurniawan (2007) and Emilia & Christie (2013). Below is an example of schematic structure

analysis of a Descriptive text which has been written by the students:

Table 3.1 Example of Schematic Structure Analysis

Schematic structure Descriptive Text

Identification

Description

Rabbit

I have one Rabbit in my house. Her

name is Bitty.

She has a long ears, dense fur, short

of tail, her fur is gray. My rabbit like

eat a carrot and lettuce. She is very

funny and I love my rabbit.

3.51.2.Analysis of linguistic features

After identifying the schematic structure and social purpose of the texts, the next step was

identifying the linguistic features of the texts using experiential metafunction which is

Transitivity system. The clauses in texts were analyzed using Transitivity system analysis to

investigate the interpretation of meaning from texts’ Processes, as suggested by genre

theorist, Christie (2005). The results of analysis were then related to the criteria of

(16)

Wignell (1994), Knapp & Watkins (2005), Nafisah & Kurniawan (2007) and Emilia &

Christie (2013).

The following is an example of linguistic features using Transitivity system analysis

on a Descriptive text which had been written by the students.

Identification

I have one Rabbit in my house.

I Have One rabbit In my house

Possessor Attributive: Possessive Possessed Circ: Loc: Place

Her name is Bitty.

Her name is Bitty

Token Intensive Value

Description

She has a long ears, dense fur, short of tail, her fur is gray.

She has a long ears, dense fur, short of tail

Possessor Attributive: Possessive Possessed

her fur is gray.

Her fur is grey

Carrier Attributive: Intensive Attribute

My rabbit like (likes) eat a carrot and lettuce.

My Rabbit Like (to) eat a carrot and lettuce

Senser Pro: Mental Phenomenon

(to) eat a carrot and lettuce

eat A carrot and lettuce

(17)

She is very funny

She is Very funny

Carrier Attributive: Intensive Attribute

and I love my rabbit.

and I love My rabbit

Conj. Senser Pro: Mental Phenomenon

3.5.2. Analysis of Interview Data

The next analysis of the current research was analyzing the interview data. Analysis of the

interview data was done in several steps. First, the recorded interviews were transcribed.

Second, the interview questions and the students’ perspectives were categorized based on the

focus of the study; the students’ interest in English skill (writing), the students’ argument

towards their writing Descriptive text and the students’ perspectives towards their difficulties

during the writing process. Third, to follow Emilia (2005, p.86) the categorized interview

data were presented in a condensed body of information.

3.6. Concluding Remark

This Chapter has presented research method of the study which consists of research question,

research design, site and participants, data collection, and data analysis. From this application

of this method, a set of data was acquired, and the findings and discussions will be presented