CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Grammar
1. Definition of Grammar
Language is a tool for expressing meaning, ideas, opinion, and feeling, which are expressed through sentences correctly if the learners understood grammar well. Grammar and language cannot be separated from one another and language without grammar is no language at all.
There are some meanings of grammar. Harmer (2003: 210) defines grammar as the description of the way which can change their word forms and can be combined into sentences in that language. Lado (1977: 141) defines grammar as the study of rules that are claimed, to tell the students what should and should not say in order to speak language of the social educated class. Grammar also is a set of rules and examples dealing with the syntax and word structures (morphology) of a language (http://grammar.about.com/od /fh/g/grammarterm.htm).
After the definitions before, it can be concluded that grammar is description of how the components of language systematically combine into sentences. Grammar is also a study and practice of the rules by which words change and how word change and how they are put together into sentences. After knowing the definitions of grammar, the students are asked to use their
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language easily by forming and combining words, either in written or spoken form.
2. Importance of Learning Grammar
Grammar has an important role in language learning activities. Grammar names the types of words and word groups that make up sentences not only in English but in any language. Learning English without knowing its grammar will make us difficult in understanding and interpreting sentences. Knowing about grammar offers a window into the human mind and into our amazingly complex mental capacity.
In learning grammar, people will know how to produce grammatical system of the target language. Wilkins as quoted by Nunan (1991: 152) says that acquiring the grammatical system of the target language is a central importance because an adequate knowledge of grammar would severely constrain linguistic creativity and limit the capacity for communication. People associate grammar with errors and correctness. But knowing about grammar also can help us more understand what makes sentences or paragraph clear and interesting.
Knowing grammar means finding out that all languages, and all dialects follow grammatical patterns. One who wants to be able to communicate easily in spoken and written must master grammar. Through studying grammar, people know how to produce grammatical sentences.
B. Writing
1. Definition of Writing
Writing is one of the skills in learning language. The other skills are reading, speaking, and listening. Writing is important to students or advanced people as a tool of communicating ideas, that is used of written or printed symbol, as found in books, newspaper, magazines and letters. According Ramelan (1992: 14), writing is a representation or symbol.
Writing is a language skill which is used to communicate with other people directly, and it does not need face to face interaction. Writing is an activity which is productive and expressive. Through writing activities, writers have to utilize the language structure and vocabulary because writing skills can not be mastered without practices (Tarigan, 1992: 3-4). Writing is an act of communication. It is an act of making marks on certain surface, in a form of graphic representation, to make meaning.
Based on the theories before, writing is the act putting letters, symbols, numbers, words on paper, or a computer screen, which is used to express and explain ideas. Specifically, writing is an expression of language in the form of letters, symbols, or words. The primary purpose of writing is communication.
2. Advantages of Learning Writing
Writing is a complex process. It means that in writing students have to consider some elements to build a good writing result.
According to Harmer (2004: 31-33), there are some advantages of learning writing. They are:
a. Writing encourages students to focus on accurate language use and because they think as they write, it may well provoke language development as they resolve problems which the writing puts into their minds.
b. Writing is often used as a means of reinforcing language that has been taught. Reinforcement writing need not be confined to sentence writing. c. Writing is frequently useful as preparation for some other activity in
particular when students write sentences as preamble to discussion activities.
d. Writing is used as an integral part of a larger activity where the focus is on something else such as language practice, acting out, or speaking. e. Writing is also used in questionnaire-type activities.
From the description above, it can be concluded that writing is an important skill to be learnt. Writing is used to help students perform a different kind of activity (speaking and listening).
3. Purpose of Writing
There are many reasons for people to write something. According to Morsey in Tarigan (1994: 4), writing is used by educated people to record, ensure report and persuade and those purpose can be reached by people who can organize well their thought and express it clearly. Every writing activity
has purposes. Hugo in Tarigan (1994: 24) summarizes the purpose of writing as follows:
a. Assignment Purpose
Assignment purpose, in fact, has no purpose. The writer starts writing since he is asked by someone. The idea to write does not come from the writer’s himself.
b. Altruistic Purpose
The writer writes to entertain the readers, to reduce the readers’ sadness, to help the readers to understand and comprehend the feelings and their logic, to make their lives much easier by using his writing.
c. Persuasive Purpose
It has purpose to ensure the readers about the trust of the idea given. d. Informational Purpose
The purpose is to give information and explanation to the reader. e. Self-expressive Purpose
The purpose is to introduce the writer to reader. f. Creative Purpose
This purpose is closely related to the self-expressive purpose. But, it tends to get the artistic values.
g. Problem-solving Purpose
This writing is used to solve problem faced by the writer. He wants to explain and observe carefully about his thought and idea to be understood and accepted by the readers.
C. Recount Text
1. Definition of Recount Text
In communication, people often want to tell other people about something that has happened in their lives. For examples, tell about what they did on holidays last year or tell about what they did at the weekend last month. Taken from Understanding text.blogspot.com (2007: 1), recount text is a text written to retell for information or entertainment.
According to Pardiyono (2007: 63), recount as one kind of text is made to inform about past events. The purpose of a recount is to give the audience or the reader a description of what occurred and when occurred.
Based on the definition before, it can be concluded that recount text means a text which retell events or experience in the past. It is purposed to inform or entertain the audience.
2. Generic Structure of Recount
Recount as a text has generic structure. The generic structures of recount text are:
a. Orientation
In orientation, the readers can know about the background information needed to understand the text such as who was involved. And also, they can know where it happened and when it happened.
b. Events
Retell events in sequence. The events happen in the past. c. Re-orientation
Re-orientation consists of the author’s comment or personal attitude on the activity.
3. Language Feature of Recount Text
The language features used in recount text are: a. introducing personal participant: I, my group, etc; b. using chronological connection: then, first, etc; c. using linking verb: was, were, saw, heard, etc; d. using action verb: look, go, change, etc; and e. using simple past tense.
4. Simple Past Tense
In writing recount texts, student must be able to master simple past tense. According to Azar (1989: 24), the simple past tense indicates that an activity or situation began and ended at a particular time in the past.
The patterns of simple past tense are: a. Positive
1) Subject + to be (was, were) + … Example: She was sad last night 2) Subject + Verb II + …
Example: She met him two days ago b. Negative
1) Subject + to be (was, were) not + …
Example: They were not angry yesterday 2) Subject + did not + Verb1 + …
Example: Ruli did not go to Jakarta last night c. Interrogative
1) To be (was, were) + Subject + …? Example: Were you shy yesterday? 2) Did + Subject + Verb1 + …?
Example: Did you meet her two days ago? Sentence structures in past tense are:
1. Subject + Verb II
2. Subject + To be (was/were) + Object
3. Subject + Verb II + Object + Adverb 5. Types of Evaluation
a. Test Type
This research used essay writing to know the students’ competence in writing recount text. Essay writing involves for more than the production of grammatically correct sentences. It demands creativity and originality since it is generally intended not only to inform but also to entertain (Heaton 1979: 127). Some themes was gave to the students.
b. Classification of the Grammatical Errors
Classification of the grammatical errors is needed in evaluation step. There are some aspects includes in classifying the grammatical errors in making recount text. Those are: verb, to be, and adjective.
According to Mark (2003: 2-3), the definitions from the aspects above are:
1) Verb
It is a verb is used to show actions and situations. For example: She went to bed early last night.
2) To Be
In English, Be is used to express some situations which are expressed by different verbs-or by no verb at all- in other languages. Be is always expressed there situations in English.
a) Profession, Trade, Occupation I’m a lawyer.
My father is a doctor. My mother is a teacher. b) Nationality
Mr. Jack is American. George is Greek. c) Size and Shape
Mr. Tom is tall. Mrs. Tom is tin. d) Age
Rony is twenty. e) Characteristic
Mr Allen is clever. f) Condition
Jack is sick. I am not well. g) Place
The students are here. They are at home today. h) Colour
Those board are black. This page is white.
3) Adjective
It is a word which describes noun or pronoun: lovely, bad, big, etc. According to Mas’ud (1998: 93), adjective are words that are used to explain or to narrow down noun or pronoun. In general, adjective is divided into two groups as follows:
a) Descriptive Adjective
Adjective describes situation of noun or pronoun include size, shape, colour, taste, etc.
For example: big, small, tall, red, round, and etc. b) Limiting Adjectives
Adjective presses or limits noun or pronoun without giving information about situation, kind, and etc.
For example: my book, this car, three men, and etc.
D. Error Analysis 1. Definition
Making mistakes or errors is something natural in human life, and nobody can avoid it. Sometimes, people are afraid of making mistakes, so that they tend to be very careful. However, from mistake a human being realizes what he has done and then he will try to correct his mistake. And also from a mistake human being can take valuable lesson, to cope with the problem.
According to Tarigan (1995: 75), error is different from mistake. Error is caused by the student’s incomplete knowledge, and mistake is caused by
student’s performance. That characteristic that differs them is that mistake does not happen on purpose and easily be corrected by the speaker, whereas error cannot be corrected easily and quickly because the speaker does not realize that he has made an error.
Error is a noticeable deviation from adult grammar or the native speaker, reflecting the inter language competence of the learner. Error commonly occurs in the beginning of second language learning process. As the learners on that stage is still in complete knowledge, and the producing errors reveal their incompetence in language system.
2. Source of Error
According to Tarigan (1995: 85), there are two types of error namely: a. Interlingual Error
The source of error caused by the influence of learner mother tongue is called interlingual answer. It commonly occurs in the beginning stages of learning second language are unsteady, while the only system on the learner head is the previous experience in their native language.
b. Intralingual Error
Intralingual error caused by the target language system it self- make a problem for learner. In that stages the learner effect to create the language based on their language production as complete knowledge of the language system is still beyond their capacities.
3. Types of Errors
According to Tarigan (1995: 145), to classify language error, there are four taxonomies that are important to be considered. Those are: the linguistic category taxonomy, the surface strategy taxonomy, the comparative taxonomy, and communicative taxonomy. This research used error types based on surface strategy taxonomy to know a grammatical error. It is strategy to show how the surface structure change and to know the structural errors, let see the four kinds of error based on the strategy of omission, addition, misformation, and misordering.
a. Omission
This error occurs when the learner omit one of the elements which can be a morpheme or word.
For example: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono president Indonesia
(Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is the president of the Indonesia)
Ommision errors occur since the beginning levels in second language. b. Addition
This error occurs when the students use an item that must not appear in well formed utterances. There are three types of addition errors, namely double marking, regularization, and simple addition.
1) Double Marking
Double marking is marked by increasing element with the same characteristic in utterance.
Example: He doesn’t knows your name. (He does know your name) We didn’t went there. (We didn’t go there) 2) Regulation
Regulation is marked by error formation in using regular or irregular verb.
For example: putted (put) comed (came) runned (run) 3) Simple Addition
If an addition error is not a double marking nor a regularization, it is called a simple addition.
For example: The birds doesn’t live in the water (The birds don’t live in the water) We stay in over there
(We stay over there) c. Misformation
This error occurs when the students use the wrong form of the morpheme or structure. The students don’t know the correct form in making the
sentences. There are three types of misformation : regulation, archie-form, and alternative forms.
1) Regulation
Regulation is marked by error formation in using regular or irregular verb.
For example: runned (run) falled (fell) eated (ate) 2) Archie-Form
It is marked by choosing one of adjectives demonstrative temporality in English, such as: this, that, these, and those.
For example: that house (that houses) 3) Alternative Forms
Alternative form is marked by using past irregular For example: I seen her yesterday
(I saw her yesterday) d. Misordering
Misordering errors are marked by false appointment for morpheme or group morpheme in good utterance.
For example: He is all time late (He is late all time)
6. Procedures in Analyzing Errors
According to Van Ek in Nababan (1993: 137-138), there are some steps in analyzing the errors:
a. Identifying Errors
In this step, the teacher should be sensitive in recognizing the errors form made by students. And he teacher also should identify the errors form.
b. Describing Errors
On a global level, errors can be described as errors in addition, omission, substitution, and ordering of the words.
c. Reconstructing the forms
In this steps, the teacher should reconstruct the wrong sentences become correct sentences.
d. Clarifying Errors
The teacher should look for the casual factor of errors based on the categories of errors.
e. Evaluating Errors
It is done by analyzing data qualitatively or quantitatively. f. Avoiding Errors
The teacher should make remedial exercise. It deals with errors made by learners both of structural and non structural forms.
