THE STUDY OF ENGLISH WORD FORMATION IN AMERICAN COMIC STRIPS: Superman Vs the Amazing Spider-Man and Batman Vs the Incredible Hulk.

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Tri Rahmiati, 2012

The Study of English Word Formation in American Comic Strips:

Superman Vs the Amazing Spider-Man and Batman Vs the Incredible Hulk Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu

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2.2.5 Ke ……… ... 14

2.2.6 I st u e talities………... 14

2.2.7 No s of I te a tio a d I te p etatio ……… ... 14

2.3 Co i ……… ... 15

2.3.1 Definition of Comic and its features ... 15

2.3.2 Histo of A e i a Co i ……… ... 17

2.4 The Use of Word Formation in Daily conversation ... 18

2.5 P evious Stud i Wo d Fo atio ……… ... 19 4.1 Word Formation Process in Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man ... 24

4.1.1 Acronym ... 25

4.2 Word Formation Process in Batman vs. the Incredible Hulk ... 35

4.2.1 Acronym ... 35

4.3 Context of Situation in Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man ... 43

4.4 Context of Situation in Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man ... 44

4.5 Closing Remarks ... 46

5. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1 Conclusions ... 47

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REFERENCES ……… ... 49

Appendices Appendix A Samples of Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Ma ……… ... 51

Appe di B Sa ples of Bat a vs. the I edi le Hulk ……… ... 59

Appendix A Data Findings ... 67

Appendix B Context of Situation Analysis ... 86

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter introduces the nature of the present study. It begins with background

of the study, the formulation of research question, aims of this study, scope of the

study, and glance of research methodology of the present study. This chapter also

consists of organization of the paper as the general description of the research

paper.

1.1Background

In our daily life, we are always surounded by language. Language also

changes even though we do not notify it. When a language grows, the words,

which enrich the vocabulary, also grow as thousand of words enter into our

language and they are used as we speak, read, write, or hear.

To understand more about how the words in a language are formed, we learn

word formation. In linguistic, the study of words building or word formation is

called morphology. That is why it can be stated that morphology is a study of the

word structures and how the words are formed. As O’Grady (1997) noted,

morphology is the system of categories and rules involved in word formation and

interpretation. According to O’Grady (1997, there are several types of word

formation; compounding, derivation, conversion, clipping, blending, back

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Superman Vs the Amazing Spider-Man and Batman Vs the Incredible Hulk

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu 2 Since we use language in our everyday life, it is easy to find some examples

of word-formations around us. Here, the writer uses comic strip as an example of

how word-formation processes are applied. According to Pecora (1992) (as cited

from Bhatia: 2006), American comic strips have been a part of American popular

culture since their first appearance in 1930’s. Since American comic strips

represent the American culture, the writer finds that it is interesting to find out

more about what kind of languages or words that are used by the author of

Superman Vs the Amazing Spider-Man and Batman Vs the Incredible Hulk.

Based on personal observation, the dialogue in comic strip tends to be limited

by the size of the column of the comic books. Therefore, comic strips tend to use

modified words. A study conducted by Hill (2011) reveals that onomatopoeic

word often appears in a comic strip. In addition, Balteiro (2010) research finds out

that many words in comic strip are formed through compounding, derivation, and

acronym process.

The reason to study the phenomenon of word formation in American Comic

Strip is the belief that American comic strips represent the daily life of American

society. In addition it is also because comic strips have some special features that

are rarely seen in other media. Thus, this research tries to find out tokens of

specific word-formation processes that appear in Superman Vs the Amazing

Spider-Man and Batman Vs the Incredible Hulk focusing in onomatopoeia,

compounding, clipping, derivation, and acronym found in Superman Vs the

Amazing Spider-Man and Batman Vs the Incredible Hulk and what is the context

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1.2Statement of the Problems

The research problems of the study are stated as follows:

a. What types of word-formation processes appear in the two comic

strips?

b. What is the context that leads to the usage of the word formation?

1.3Reason for Choosing Topic

In the present time, comic books spread in an incredible number. The easy

access to internet enables people to search and find out about comic books. When

we read a comic book, we will find out that almost in every page of comic book

there are more than one kind of word formations.

So, it is interesting to see how the words are formed in Superman Vs the

Amazing Spider-Man and Batman Vs the Incredible Hulk.

1.4The Aims of the Study

Concerning the research questions above, the aims of this study are:

1. To know what tokens of word-formation appears in comic strip that

can be found in Superman Vs the Amazing Spider-Man and Batman

Vs the Incredible Hulk.

2. To know what is the context that leads to the usage of the word

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu 4

1.5The Scope of the Study

The limitation of the study is necessary since with limitation the writer can

simplify the subject of the research that the writer does and solves the problem of

the study (Surachmad, 1975: 3). Thus, this research focuses on several types of

word formation processes which are onomatopoeia, compounding, clipping,

derivation, and acronym that can be found in Superman Vs the Amazing

Spider-Man and Batman Vs the Incredible Hulk.

1.6Research Method

Research methodology used in this research is qualitative approach. The

data are taken from two American comic strips published by DC Comic and

Marvel Comic. The data are gathered and grouped based on their type of

word-formation processes. Detailed process of collecting and elaborating the data is

given in chapter 3.

1.7Clarification of the Key Terms

a. Comic Strip : based on Merriam-Webster, comic is a group of

cartoons in narrative sequences.

b. Acronym : a process of word formation which is taking the

initial letter of each word in a phrase so that it is possible to read as a

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c. Compounding : a word that was created by combining roots and

the much smaller lexical categories (Carstairs-McCarthy: 2002).

d. Clipping : a process that shortens a polysyllabic word by

deleting one or more syllables (O’Grady: 1997).

e. Derivation : a process of word formation where the category or

meaning of the base morpheme distinct to the formed words through the

process of affixation (O’Grady: 1997).

f. Onomatopoeia : words that are mimicking or representing an action

or aspect of a thing (O’Grady: 1997).

1.8Organization of the Paper

This research paper is organized into five chapters. Chapter I is the

introduction. This chapter presents background of the study, statement of the

problems, aims of study, reason for choosing topic, scope of the study,

significance of study, and a brief account of research methodology. Chapter II

presents the theoretical review that relevant to the present study and a brief history

of American comic strip. This chapter also contains a brief explanation of

previous study that became the base of this research. Chapter III discusses the

methodology of the research that includes formulation of the problems, aims of

the present study, data collection, and data analysis. Chapter IV contains data

presentation and discussion of the findings that the writer can find. While, chapter

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu 20 CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the methodology of the present study. It presents the

method of data collection, the respondents of the study, the data collection

instrument, and the method to analyze the collected data.

The present study is aimed at investigating data related to the study of word

formation especially in printed media. This present study is an attempt to find out

types of word formation processes found in two comic strips (Superman vs. the

Amazing Spider-Man and Batman vs. the Incredible Hulk) and the context of

situations that lead to the usage of word formation processes?

3.1 Research Method

This study adopted a qualitative descriptive method since it explored the

study of word formation in printed media particularly in comic strip and related it

to other previous research. This method was used to achieve the answer of the

problems as stated above.

3.2 Data Collection

There were two parts written in this research to describe the data collection.

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3.2.1 Source of Data Collection

The data of this study were taken from two comic strips published by a joint

of two well-known American comic strip publishers, DC comic and Marvel

comic. These two publishers are known as the leader of modern American comic

culture and have been made their name known since 1930s.

The first comic strip is Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man. It was a

comic book jointly published by DC Comics and Marvel Comics that published in

1976 and was the first collaboration between the two publishers. It was written by

Gerry Conway along with the help of the pencilers Ross Andru, Neal Adams and

John Romita, Sr.

The second one is Batman vs. the Incredible Hulk, which also a comic book

jointly published by DC Comics and Marvel Comics, published on September,

1981. In addition it was a special series that marked the third crossover between

the two publishers. It was written by Len Wein along with the help of the penciler

José Luis García-López.

3.2.2 Procedures of Data Collection

Before analyzing the data, the writer noted all the words that represent each

type of word-formation from both comics. After all the data from the comic strip

were collected, the writer re-typed, re-arranged and re-grouped the word based on

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu 22 3.3 Data Analysis

The data findings were analyzed by conducting several procedures, as

mention below:

1. Close Reading

The first step on analyzing the data was by reading both comic strips

carefully and taking notes on the words that the writer felt was the

examples of word-formation processes.

2. Selecting

The second step was to select the words that appear in the comic strip that

would be identified or observed in the process of doing the research.

3. Identifying

Through two samples of the American comic strips, the writer identified

the tokens of several word-formation processes such as onomatopoeia,

compounding, clipping, derivation, and acronym. The result would be

presented in a table as follow:

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4. Classifying

After identifying the types of the word-formation processes, each word

found from both comic is classified into several accounts based on how

they were produce. The types of the word-formation process used in this

research are onomatopoeia, compounding, clipping, derivation, and

acronym. The theory of the word-formation process is based on Yule’s

classification.

5. Analyzing

After classifying the data, the writer then analyzing the data taken from

both comic strips in order to get answer for the research question.

6. Discussing

The final process of this research is discussing the data. The writer is

having a clear description about the result while doing this section. Then,

the writer was elaborated the result thoroughly and support it by some

reference and theory taken from the books and other sources.

3.4 Closing Remarks

. The chapter has discussed the research methodology in this study. It comprises

the aims of the study, the research method and how the data are collected. The

method that described in this chapter will be applied in investigating the aimed

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu 47 CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This chapter presents the conclusion of the present study and offers

suggestion for further research. The conclusion is summed in this chapter based

on the data findings and the discussions in the previous chapter.

5.1 Conclusion

As explained previously, this study has investigated the word formation

process in Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man and Batman vs. the Incredible

Hulk. This study is also investigated the context of situation of the

word-formation samples. Based on the findings discuss in the previous chapter, the

writer finds out that both comic consist samples of word formation processes. The

most frequently used process is compounding. And it happens for both comic

strips.

Since compounding is the most frequent process appeared in the comic strips,

it is most likely that the characters tend to use compounding words in their

conversation.

In regards to the second research question, the contexts of situation that lead

to the usage of word-formation products were varied. The character’s intentions of

using the word vary from mocking, explaining, introducing, and other. There are

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word-formation processes though the words employ the same word-formation

process.

Based on the findings, the dialogues from the comic strip are somehow

similar with how the dialogue in real daily life occurs. This assumption is built in

the sense that the author of the comic put his experience into his works.

5.2 Suggestion for Further Research

This present study investigates the word-formation processes in two

American comic strips. It is also suggested that the study of word-formation does

not stop here. Further research may also employ this study by conducting a similar

research with different media. The writer hopes that the future research may use

other printed media like novel or advertisement. Moreover, it is expected that it

can offer a new knowledge for everyone who is interested in the similar study or a

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