ABSTRACT
Dalam tugas akhir ini saya membahas tentang ambiguitas sintaksis dalam sejumlah kalimat di surat kabar The Jakarta Post. Saat membaca sebuah artikel dalam surat kabar The Jakarta Post, saya mendapati bahwa terdapat beberapa kalimat dalam artikel tersebut yang bersifat ambigu. Oleh karena itu, dalam tugas akhir ini saya menghadirkan beberapa contoh analisis kalimat dalam artikel di The Jakarta Post yang mengandung ambiguitas sintaksis beserta penjelasannya.
Area linguistik yang saya aplikasikan dalam tugas akhir ini adalah sintaksis dan pragmatik. Ambiguitas sintaksis beserta diagram pohonnya termasuk dalam sintaksis, sedangkan peranan konteks (the role of context) termasuk dalam pragmatik.
Untuk dapat lebih memahami makna sebenarnya dari kalimat bermakna ambigu tersebut, saya juga menggunakan diagram pohon dan peranan konteks. Diagram pohon memudahkan saya untuk mengartikan kalimat ambigu yang terdapat dalam artikel di surat kabar The Jakarta Post. Adapun melalui konteks, saya dapat mengetahui secara lebih terperinci makna sebenarnya dari kalimat ambigu tersebut.
Melalui tugas akhir ini, saya berharap para pembaca surat kabar The Jakarta Post untuk lebih dapat memahami bagian – bagian kalimat dalam artikel di The Jakarta Post yang mengandung kalimat ambigu dan makna sebenarnya dari kalimat bermakna ambigu tersebut.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...i IN THE JAKARTA POST WITH THE ROLE OF CONTEXT AND TREE DIAGRAMS...10
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION...33
BIBLIOGRAPHY...38
APPENDICES...40
APPENDICES
Data 1 and 2:
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46
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BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
In times of reading an article in a newspaper, we commonly encounter some ambiguous sentences. “A sentence is said to be ambiguous if it can be understood or interpreted in more than one way.” (Fromkin-Rodman 163). Ambiguous sentences in the article of the newspaper may lead to the readers’ misunderstanding of its content. There are two kinds of ambiguity, i.e. lexical ambiguity and syntactic ambiguity or structural ambiguity. Lexical ambiguity is a word that has some interpretation, whereas Syntactic ambiguity or structural ambiguity is the structure of sentences that allows more than one interpretation (Fromkin-Rodman 172).
In this thesis, I would like to focus on the syntactic ambiguity. The syntactic ambiguities can be dissolved through Syntax and Pragmatics. In particular, syntactic ambiguity belongs to syntax and context belongs to pragmatics. “Syntax is traditionally the name given to the study of form, positioning, and grouping, of the elements that go to make up sentences. In a word, it is about the STRUCTURE of sentences” (Burton-Robert 3). “Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning, the study of contextual meaning, the study of
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how more gets communicated than is said and the study of the expression of relative distance” (Yule 3).
In the syntactic ambiguity, the ambiguous sentence is usually dissolvable by means of a tree diagram. In making the tree diagram, we have to initially understand syntactic categories. “The syntactic categories of words and groups of words are revealed by the way they pattern in sentences. If we did not have knowledge of these syntactic categories, we would be unable to form grammatical sentences or distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences” (Fromkin-Rodman 210).
The significance of my discussing this particular topic is that I expect the reader of the newspaper to be more aware of the sentences they read in the newspaper. They will know which sentence in the article in The Jakarta Post that contains syntactic ambiguity. They can also be aware of the possible interpretations of the sentence that contain syntactic ambiguity. Furthermore, I expect the reader to understand what the actual meaning of the sentence that contains syntactic ambiguity is. By reading the context, the reader will not misunderstand the content of the news and be able to disambiguate the syntactic ambiguities within the sentences.
Furthermore, the role of context is very important to dissolve the ambiguity of the sentence. “Context is the parts of an utterance next to or near a linguistic unit (such as a word) which is the focus of attention. Without knowing the context, the meaning of word is likely to be ambiguous” (Crystal 82).
I choose The Jakarta Post as the source of data because The Jakarta Post is the English newspaper to be published by the Indonesian people which are sold for more than 50,000 copies a day. Moreover, I find The Jakarta Post to be a newspaper subscribed not only by Indonesian people but also by foreigners. The other reason why I
received some international awards like The International Newspaper Marketing Assosiation – Editor and Publisher Award in the category of public relations, printed media.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Hereby, I formulate three problems for my thesis:
1. Which of the sentences in the article of The Jakarta Post contains syntactic ambiguities?
2. What are the possible interpretations of the ambiguous sentence by means of tree diagrams?
3. What is the role of context in dissolving the ambiguities?
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
1. To analyse the sentence in the article of The Jakarta Post that contains syntactic ambiguity.
2. To know the possible interpretations of the ambiguous sentence. 3. To understand the role of context in dissolving the ambiguities.
METHOD OF RESEARCH
In gathering the data, I use some steps. First, I read the articles in The Jakarta Post. After reading the articles, I analyze the sentences in the newspaper articles that contain ambiguities. After analysing the sentences, I try to find the possible meanings of the sentences that contain syntactic ambiguities. I also draw tree diagrams for each data
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of syntactic ambiguity to clarify the ambiguities. Then, I look for some clues from the context to find out what the ambiguous sentences actually mean in the articles. Last, I make some conclusions concerning the syntactic ambiguities and the role of context to disambiguate the ambiguities.
ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS
This thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter is Introduction. Chapter One consists of Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study, Method of Research and Organization of the Thesis. The Second Chapter is Theoretical Framework. Theoretical Framework consists of the theory that I will apply to analyze my data. The third chapter is Analysis. Chapter Three consists of the data and my analysis to answer the Statement of the Problem. The Fourth Chapter is Conclusion. Aside from the four chapters, this thesis also includes Preface, Table of Contents, Abstract, Bibliography and Appendices.
From the analysis, I conclude that there are a number of sentences in the articles of The Jakarta Post newspaper that contain syntactic ambiguities. The ambiguous sentences in the articles can mislead the reader in understanding the content of the news. To be more specific, the syntactic ambiguities that I find in the article in The Jakarta Post newspaper have some classifications. There are four kinds of syntactic ambiguity.
The first kind of syntactic ambiguity is the syntactic ambiguities that occur due to the connector and. The first word before the connector “and” in the sentences that contain the connector and is connected with the word after the connector and. For example: former colleagues and school. The word former in that phrase can be related to not only the word colleagues but also the word school. Therefore, that sentence can be interpreted as former colleagues and former school.
However, the words preceding the connector and can also stand alone. The first word preceding the connector and only connects the word preceding the connector and. The word former can only be related to the word colleagues. Therefore, this phrase can have a possible meaning i.e. former colleagues and school that is not former.
In addition, if there are prepositional phrase that follows a phrase, it can be connected not only to the word preceding the connector and but also to the word
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following the connector and and the word preceding prepositional phrase. For example:
seminars and discussions in campuses. The phrase in campuses can connect not only
to the word discussions but also to the word seminars. Therefore, that phrase can mean seminars in campuses and discussions in campuses. Nevertheless, the prepositional
phrase in the sentence that contains the connector ‘and” can be connected only to the word following the connector “and”. In this example, the phrase in campuses can be related only to the word discussions. Therefore, it can have a meaning seminars which are not in campuses and discussions in campuses.
The second kind of syntactic ambiguities is the syntactic ambiguities that occur because of a noun phrase. The head of the noun can be related to the other noun that is located preceding the head of the noun. For example: the Orthodox Jewish school
teacher. The head of the noun in this phrase is teacher. The word teacher can be
related to the word the Orthodox Jewish school. Furthermore, the phrase school
teacher can be related to the Orthodox Jewish. Therefore, it can mean the school
teacher who is Orthodox Jewish. Furthermore, the phrase Orthodox can be related to
the word Jewish school teacher. Therefore, it can be said to be the Jewish school teacher who is born as an Orthodox Jewish.
The third is syntactic ambiguity of the preposition in. The preposition in can be related not only to the verb (predicate) but also to the noun (object). For example:
counseled a more down-to-earth woman in my office. From that example, the phrase in my office can be related to the word counseled. Therefore, it can mean a more
down-to-earth woman counsel me something in my office. Besides that, the phrase in my
office can relate to the phrase a more down-to-earth woman. Therefore, it can mean
counseled a more down-to-earth woman who works in my office.
conclude that the connector with can be related not only to the predicate but also to the object. For example: share their experience with friends and family. The phrase with
friends and family can be related to the word share. Therefore, it can mean share with
friend and family about their experience. Besides that, the phrase with friends and
family can relate to the phrase their experience. Therefore, this phrase can mean share
their experience when they go with their friends and family.
From the four kinds of syntactic ambiguity, I conclude that the data that consists of syntactic ambiguities and arise out because of the connector and are much more than those of the other kind of syntactic ambiguities. I find six data in the article in The Jakarta Post newspaper, which consist of syntactic ambiguities that occur because of the connector and. I find only one datum in the article in The Jakarta Post that consists of syntactic ambiguity of Noun Phrase. I can find only one datum in the article in The Jakarta Post newspaper, which contains a syntactic ambiguity that occurs because of the connector in. The data that I find in the article consisting of syntactic ambiguity due to the connector with is one datum.
Tree diagrams also help me dissolve the ambiguous sentence that I find in the article in The Jakarta Post newspaper so that the meaning becomes clearer. From the tree diagrams, I can know the possible meanings of the sentences that contain syntactic ambiguities in the articles in The Jakarta Post newspaper are.
In my analysis, I conclude that Noun Phrase (NP) is often used in the tree diagram because the sentence that usually ambiguous is the sentence that contain Noun Phrase (NP). I do not find Adverb Phrase (AdvP) in the ambiguous sentence that I find
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in the article in The Jakarta Post newspaper because Adverb Phrase (AdvP) is rarely make one sentence become ambiguous.
Aside from tree diagrams, I dissolve the ambiguous sentences in the articles in The Jakarta Post newspaper by looking at the context. To dissolve the ambiguous sentences in The Jakarta Post newspaper, I read the context of the articles that can help me to figure out the real meaning of the ambiguous sentence. I look for the context and relate it to the sentence or phrase that contains syntactic ambiguity.
From the analysis, I conclude syntactic ambiguity that occurs due to the connector and can be dissolved by finding the word before the phrase and after the phrase that contains syntactic ambiguity. In syntactic ambiguity that occurs because of a noun phrase, I find that the word before the phrase and the word after the phrase that contains syntactic ambiguity help me to narrow down the meaning of ambiguous sentence. Syntactic ambiguity of the connector in can be dissolved by finding the word before the phrase and the word after the phrase that contains syntactic ambiguity. Syntactic ambiguity of the connector with can be dissolved by looking at the word before the phrase and after the phrase that contains syntactic ambiguity.
In my opinion, tree diagrams and the role of context are really important to dissolve the ambiguous sentence in the newspaper articles and they are related with each other. If we only use tree diagrams, we cannot find the actual meaning of the ambiguous sentence and if we do not use tree diagram, we cannot interpret the possible meaning of the ambiguous sentence because we cannot know syntactic categories of the ambiguous sentence. If we cannot know syntactic categories, we cannot know the difference between the first interpretation and the second or the third interpretation.
The Jakarta Post newspaper. They will know which sentence in the article contains syntactic ambiguity and the possible meanings of the syntactic ambiguity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Newspapers:
“Bandung Film Festival to showcase work of young filmmakers.” The Jakarta Post 11 Dec 2004: 18
Gower, Simon Marcus. “International schools in Jakarta an attractive option for locals.” The Jakarta Post 11 Dec 2004: 6
Luh, Rita A. Widiadana. “Families, Friends Remember Bali Bombing Victims.” The Jakarta Post 2 Oct 2006: 1
Santana, Rebecca. “Orthodox Jews find love is only a mouse-click away.” The Jakarta Post 29 March 2006: 19
Tanonaka, Dalton. “Playing the New Game of Love.” The Jakarta Post March 2007: 12
Yaqob, Muhammad. “Karzai, Bush to meet at Camp David.” The Jakarta Post 6 August 2007: 10
Internet/website:
Putra, Budi. “N93i: Filmmakers’, Bloggers’ gadget” 2 April 2007 http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=2007040 2.Q01
“Aboru: The forgotten village of Maluku” 21 July 2007
http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=2007072 1.G02
Crystal, David. An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages. London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1994)
Esau, Helmut. Language and Communication. United States of America: Hornbearm press Incorporated, 1980
Gillian, George Yule. Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983
L.Ben, Edward, Randal L. Whitman. An Introduction to Linguistics. Canada: Little, Brown & Company (Canada) Limited, 1981
Noel, Roberts. Analysing Sentences: An Introduction to English Syntax. New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc, 1997
Victoria, Robert Rodman. An Introduction to Language. United States of America: CBS College Publishing, 1983
Yule, George. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996
