AN ANALISYS OF DEIXIS IN THE POLITICAL ARTICLE OF THE
JAKARTA POST
A THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for
the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
By:
NITABONITA SAMOSIR
Registration Number: 208222048
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
i
ABSTRACT
Samosir, Nita Bonita. An analysis of Deixis in the Article of Jakarta Post. A Thesis. Medan. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan. 2012.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
First and foremost, the writer would like to thanks to the Jesus Christ for blessing, grace during her academic year at the English and Literature Department Faculty of Languages and Arts (FBS) State University of Medan completing the writing of the thesis. The writer is very grateful to many people who have assisted her to completion this thesis. Thus, the writer would like to extend her sincere grateful to the following people:
Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M,Si., Rector of State University of Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., The Dean of Faculty of Languages and Arts (FBS) State University of Medan for her advice and encouragement to complete the study on time.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd, the Head of English and Literature Department as well as Dra. Rahmah, M.Hum, the Secretary of English and Literature Department for their encouragement and motivation during the writing the thesis. Dra. Meisuri, M.A the head of literature study program for her encouragement and invaluable advice to complete the thesis.
Dr. Zainuddin, DIP.TEFL., M.Hum, her consultant, who had already motivated her to finish the thesis by giving advices, supervising, giving comments and correction during completing this thesis and also for Dra. Sry Juriaty Ownie, M.A., as her academic advisor for her advices during her study.
All the lecturers of English and Literature Department academic years at UNIMED, who have taught and given contribution of knowledge to her encouragement and invaluable advice to complete the thesis.
Her beloved parents T. Samosir and M. Sinaga, who have patiently given her encouragement, spiritual, financial support their endless love and their prayers for the writer.
My beloved brothers Rudy, Julio, Jennifer as well as my beloved sisters Juita, Carolina, Rorencia who have given their attention and encouragement during the completing the thesis.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
C. The Technique for Collecting Data ... 24
D. The Technique for Analyzing Data ... 25
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
4.1The Frequency of occurrences in the first article ... 20
4.2The Frequency of occurrences in the second article ... 22
4.3The Frequency of occurrences in the third article ... 24
4.4The Frequency of occurrences in the fourth article ... 26
4.5The Frequency of occurrences in the fifth article ... .28
4.6The Percentage of occurrences each types of deixis ... .30
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix Page
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the study
Communication is an essential part of life. No one can deny that it has great role in
human life. Imagine what life would be if we could not communicate? There will be nothing.
No way of talking anything to anyone, no way to built a relationship with other, no way of
passing down information throughout time, and so on. As a social being, interaction between
one with another by means of language is unavoidable. It fills every part of our lives; it gives
words to our thoughts, voice to our ideas and expression to our feelings.
Language is a system of sounds and words to express one’s personal reactions, emotions
and thoughts as well as to share information in daily social life. Language is meaningful,
when the meaning is conveyed though language, people use language to interact and establish
relations, to influence their behavior and express than expressions of the word.
Chapman (2006 : 117) states that language is a type behavior, that it’s a state of mind,
and a means of communication. Many people indeed many language theorists said that using
language means enganging in a particular type of behavior, as well as going through particular
mental processes and communicating with others. Language is very important in life.
Language is people talking and writing. It is a concrete, tangible aspect of human behavior.
So, if the people want to depend their understanding of language, their best way forward is to
apply the same empirical technique. Linguists who define language in term of communication
argue that to describe language, it is necessary to describe how people use it in actual
The importance of context to understanding and analyzing language use cannot be
exaggerated. The language we use is affected by the people we interact with our statues in
particular situation, our recent experiences, our place of origin, our political religious or social
outlook and many others factors.
Talking about language, directly relating about linguistics. Linguistics is scientific study
of human language. There are many sub fields of structure focused linguistics, one of them is
pragmatics. Pragmatics is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a spoken
or writer and interpreted by listener or reader (Yule 1996 : 3).
Article is one of the reading materials and usually deals with a particular issues or topic
to give information of interest. In daily activities such as The Jakarta Post, The Lampung
Post, etc. The Jakarta Post is one of the daily English newspaper which is oriented in some
various field such as headline, editorial, article, opinion, world and etc. It shows that it is very
interesting to analyze the article, especially the article in Jakarta Post.
The writer is interested in analyzing deixis in the article because an article contains of the
discourses that consist of phrases, utterances and sentences. It is important to study what
deixis is, to get the meaning from the story of the article. Deixis also get the meaning
according to the situation such as the speaker, the addressed pronoun, place and time which is
used.
Levinson (1983:54) states that deixis concerns the way in which languages encode or
grammaticalize features of the context of utterance or speech event, and thus also concerns
ways in which the interpretation of utterances depends on the analysis of that context of
Lestari (2011) in her thesis an analysis of deixis in rihanna song lyrics, she concludes that
deixis is the study how to analyze word or phrase which directly relates utterance to a person,
time, place, social and discourse. It concerned with the encoding of many different aspects of
the circumstances surrounding the utterance and the relationship between the structure of
language and context in which they are being used, and deixis is the study about how to
encode or grammaticalize features of the context of the utterance or speech event, and also
about the way in how to interaption of utterances depends on analysis of the context utterance.
Deixis is not a simple as it seems. Deixis shows the important meaning which is
expressed by the writer to help the reader to understand the text. It means that it will be better
if the reader understand deixis to discover the meaning in a text. Moreover, sometimes the
readers read some discourses of the text to get the real sense of words or phrases because
some words in a language cannot be interpreted directly.
Nowadays, mass media is very influential in daily life of society. All people can get the
information from the media. In society, the communication technology includes television,
computer, and internet have take a part in some human social function (society). Every time,
the people can watch or read new reality news which happens in a society by using this mass
media. Media as an important thing in a social community in this era, the people can find
media in everywhere; it can modify the social experience in the daily life of society
A deep understanding is regarded as important information which is focused by most of
the readers. This view has motivated the writer to study deixis in the article of the Jakarta Post
B. The Problems of the Study
In relation to the background, the problem of this study can be stated as follows :
1. What types of deixis are used in the articles of the Jakarta Post?
2. What types of deixis are dominantly used in the articles of the Jakarta Post?
3. What makes the dominant types of used in the articles of The Jakarta Post?
C. The Objectives of the Study
The objectives of the study are :
1. To find out the types of deixis which are used in the articles of the Jakarta Post.
2. To find out the dominant types of deixis which are used in the articles of the Jakarta Post.
3. To analyze the reason the dominant types of deixis occurs in the newspapes especially
The Jakarta Post.
D. The Scope of the Study
This study will describe all the types of deixis based on Levinson (1983:65). They are :
Person deixis, Place deixis, Time deixis, Discourse deixis and Social deixis. This research is
to analyze deixis in the political articles. The political articles were taken from the Jakarta
Post which is published in April 2012.
E. The Significance of the Study
The result of this study is expected to be useful :
1) For the English Department students to be competent in the field of linguistic study in
2) For the readers, in order to get more information about deixis and its types especially
those used in the article of the Jakarta Post.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Conclusions
After analyzing the use of deixis in the articles of the Jakarta Post, the conclusion can be
drawn as follows:
1. There are five types of deixis which are used in article of The Jakarta Post consists of 99
occurrences person deixis (42,85%), 8 occurrences place deixis (3,46%), 43 occurrences
time deixis (18,61%), 42 occurrences discourse deixis (18,18%), and 39 occurrences
(16,88%).
2. The most dominantly types of deictic word which is used in article of Jakarta Post is 99
occurrences person deixis (42,85%). The dominant deictic word pointing to the person is
“He” followed by “His”.
B. Suggestions
Related to the conclusions above, it is well suggested to :
1. The students to study deixis because by knowing deixis, they will be able to
comprehend the idea of speakers and writers and communicate well in their society.
2. The English teachers to enlarge their knowledge about deixis because by knowing
deixis they will be easier to each languages skills in the classroom.
3. The readers to take this thesis as reference when they decide to discuss the same topic
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http:// Jakartapost.com accessed on May 15th 2012
