CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
A. 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 communication ideas, that is used of written or printed symbol, as found in books, newspaper, magazines and letters. According to Harmer (2004: 31), writing is away to produce language and express idea, feeling and opinion. Furthermore he states that writing is a process that what people write is often heavily influenced by the constraints of genres, and then these elements have to be present in learning activities.
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, 1994: 3 – 4).
Based on the theories before, it can be conclude that writing is a way or the process to express writer‟s idea, feeling and opinion for communicate
without practices because the writer have to utilize their knowledge about language structure, vocabulary and the genre of the text.
2. The Purposes of Writing
According to Miller (2006: 4) that the purpose of writing is “A writer„s purpose is essentially the same as a writer„s motive both terms are used to
describe what a writer hopes to accomplish. The benefit of having a clear sense of purpose is obvious; the writer is much likely to accomplish his objective”. He divides the purpose of writing into ten points as follows:
a. Writing to understand experience.
Writing to understand experience means finding a truth that is conveniently stored somewhere in writer‟s head, some secret knowledge
that, once uncovered, will explain everything the writer want to understand. Writing often leads to new perceptions. If the writer write thoughtfully about experience, the writer will be constructing knowledge as the proceed.
b. Writing to report information
Writing to report information is arranged in a pattern so that readers can make sense of it.
c. Writing to explain information
d. Writing to evaluate something
Evaluation requires that the writer determines the nature or the quality of what he/she is judging. Evaluation also means determining importance, benefit, or worth. When writing an evaluation, the writer also needs to assure that he/she has credentials to make judgments about the subject he/she is addressing.
e. Writing to analyze images
Like writing to evaluate, writing to analyze images requires the ability to see the difference between the effective and the ineffective and to explain why the writer has made the judgment. Moreover, analysis is almost always instructive to some extent. As in writing to explain information, as well as in writing to evaluate something, writing an analysis helps readers to increase their understanding of the subject. f. Writing to analyze texts
Writing to analyze texts is not really different from writing to analyze images. Writing to analyze the texts is aimed to analyze the certain text.
g. Writing to persuade others
h. Writing to inspire others
Writing to inspire others means being able to elevate the human spirit by reminding people of what is most important in life and what it is possible to achieve.
i. Writing to amuse others
Writing to amuse gives the writer an opportunity to bring pleasure to others. Seize the opportunity, and make the most of it.
j. Writing to experiment with form
Writing to experiment with form is different from the previous purpose. It is about inventing something. Then, the invention is documented through writing.
3. The Problem in Writing
When the students write they are often confused what they want to write, the students do not feel confidence about their writing is correct or any mistake, and also pour in the thought into written form is not easy. There are some problems in writing (Nurgiyantoro, 2001: 298-299):
a. Organizing Idea
Most of the problem faced by the student in learning writing is in organizing idea. They usually have difficulties in organize the idea into sentences. Besides that, they usually write the content which is not suitable with the topic. This problem probably occurs because of the students get difficulties in developing their idea and sometimes they do not know what they will write.
b. Lack of Vocabulary
Most of the students often write sentences which are not communicative and they usually choose incorrect words when they write something. This problem happens because they are not mastering in vocabularies.
c. Grammatical Mistake
Based on the explanation above, it can be conclude that grammatical mistake still become one of big problems in student‟s
writing.
B. Recount Text
1. Definition of Recount Text
Recount is a piece of text that tell about past events, usually in the order in which they happened. People often want to tell about something that has happened in their lives. They might want to tell about what they did at the weekend. The purpose of a recount text is to give the audience a description of what happened and when it happened. Recount text begin by telling the reader who was involved, what happened, where the even took place and when it happened (Anderson, 1997: 48).
Based on definition above, it can be concluded that recount text means a text which tell about the events or experience in the past. It is purposed to inform or entertain the audience.
2. Purpose of Recount Text
C. Grammar
1. Definition of Grammar
All languages have its own grammar. People who speak the same language are able to communicate because they know the grammar system of that language. Because the use of the language to communicate depends on a grammar, it follows that all speakers and writers of a language must have a knowledge of its grammar. Thornbury (2004:1) states that grammar is partly the study of what forms (or structures) are possible in a language. Harmer (2002: 12) states that grammar of a language is the description of the ways in which words can change their forms and can be combined into sentences in that language.
2. Importance of Grammar
Having known the definition of grammar, it is easy to be understood why grammar is useful and important. Without knowing the grammar of a language, the students cannot comprehend the essence of the text when they read. In this case, a good grammar acquisition will help them in it. Mastering grammar helps students to understand every word when they are reading as well as speaking, listening and writing.
D. Simple Past Tense
1. The Definition of Simple Past Tense
According to Azar (1999: 24) The simple past indicates that an activity or situation began ended at a particular time in the past. past tense is the tense that actions or moments happened in the past.
2. The Patterns of Simple Past Tense
a. Pattern of the simple past tense sentence with full verb. 1) Positive sentence : S + Past simple verb +
The following are the examples : Positive
Infinitive Past Simple (Object/Adverb)
Columbus discovered American continent
Netherland colonized Indonesia for 350 years Thomas Alfa Edison invented electricity
America bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki to
end world war II
(Murphy, 1998: 29)
2) Negative sentence : S + did not + Infinitive + (object/adverb)
The following are examples : Negative
S Did not Infinitive (Object/Adverb) I
did not (didn‟t)
do anything
We watch television last night
They invite her to the party
You finish the work well
She/He come on time
3) Interogative sentence : Did + S + Infinitive + (objective/adverb) ?
The following are examples : Interrogative
Did S Infinitive (Object/Adverb)
Did
Columbus discover America continent ? Dutch colonize Indonesia for 350 years ? Thomas Alva
Edison
invent electricity ?
America bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end world war II ? (Murphy, 1998: 29)
3. The Uses of Simple Past Tense
There are at least 4 usages of simple past tense: a. To express the complete action in the past.
Simple past tense is used to express the idea that begin and finish at the specific time in the past.
The following are the examples: 1) I saw a movie yesterday. 2) I did not see a movie last night. 3) Last month, I traveled to Korea.
b. To express a series of complete actions.
We use the simple past tense to list a series of completed actions in the past. The actions happen first, second, third, fourth, etc.
The following are the examples:
1) I finished study, walked to the beach, and found a nice place to swim.
2) She arrived from the airport at 8.00, checked into the hotel at 9.00 and met the others at 10.00.
c. To express single duration in the past
Smple past tense can also be used to describe a habit, which stop in the past. It can hae the same meaning as “used to”. To make it clear when talk about a habit, it can be used expression like “always, often, usually,
never, ... when I was younger” in the sentence. Examples:
1) I studied English when I was young. 2) She often played the guitar.
4. Regular and Irregular Verbs
There are two past verb forms, namely regular past verb and irregular past verb.
a. Regular verb
Regular verb is changeable verb which depends on tense form; and the changing of verb is regularly (Mas‟ud, 1998: 36).
Examples:
Infinitive Past Tense Verb Past Participle
Hope Hoped Hoped
Add Added Added
Close Closed Closed
Jump Jumped Jumped
Generally, the regular ending for simple past tense, for all persons is = -ed. If the verb already ends in –e, we just add –d. Ther are some rules dealing with changing of regular verb form (Mas‟ud, 1998: 36) which is made from the simple forms in the following ways:
1) When the simple form of verb ends in = e, only = is added, for example, change becomes changed, chance becomes danced.
To c ending verb, we just add k before the suffix, for example, picnic becomes picnicked, panic becomes panicked.
3) When the verb of more than one syllable ends in a single vowel, the final consonant is doubled when the final syllable is stressed, for example, omit becomes omitted, occur becomes occured. The final consonant is not doubled when the final syllable is unstressed, for example, visit becomes visitied, listen becomes listened.
4) When the simple form of a verb ends in y preceded by a consonant, the y changed into i and ed is added, for example, try becomes tried, hurry becomes hurried.
b. Irregular verb
Irregular verb which has the same function as regular verb, but this changing verb is not regular (Mas;ud, 1998: 18). The learner have to memorize the irregular past tense verb.
Examples:
Infinitive Past Simple Past Participle
Break Broke Broken
Begin Began Begun
E. Error Analysis
1. Definition of Error Analysis
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 resolve with the problem.
According to Tarigan (1995: 75), error is different from mistake. Error is caused by the students‟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/she has made an error.
2. Differences Between Error and Mistake
Actually, there is a different meaning between „mistake‟ and „error‟. A
mistake refers to a performance, error that is either a random guess in that is failure to utilize a known system correctly. It is not permanent, so they learners can directly correct it when they know that they are wrong. It can happen when the learners forget the language system because of the condition of the body, such as sickness, nervousness, or anxiety (Tarigan, 1995: 75).
Error refers to error of competence. For example is wrong application of language grammar and language function. The learner has not understood about the language system. An error is consistent and systemic. It can be permanent if there is no effort from the environment. In this case teacher is as a corrector (Tarigan. 1995: 76). The characteristics that distinguish mistake and error are: mistake does not happen on purpose and can be corrected easily by the speaker, while error is not.
3. Types of Grammatical Errors
The type of errors is elaborated by Dulay, et al (1982) who classify error into four descriptive classifications of errors. They are linguistic category, surface strategy taxonomy, comparative taxonomy and communicative effect taxonomy. In this research use surface strategy taxonomy to analysis the grammatical errors. Dulay, et al (1982: 150) divide the error based on surface strategy taxonomy into four categories. There are Omission, Addition, Misformation and Misordering.
- Rita‟s father bought car yesterday.
1) Double Marking main verbs or the class of noun. There are both regular and irregular forms and constrcutions in language.
Example:
The verb “eat‟ does not become “eated” but “ate”
The verb “come” does not “comed: but “came”
The noun “child” does not become “childs” but children The noun “foots” does not become “foots” but “feet”
The examples above are regulation, in which the regular plural noun and tense markers respectively have been added to items which do not take marker.
3) Simple Addition
Example:
I am is a student. I stay in here for you. (I am a student.) (I stay here for you.)
c. Misformation
Misformation is the use of the wrong or unacceptable form of the morpheme or structure. While in omission errors the item is not supplied at all, in misformation errors the learner supplies something, although it is incorrect. There are type of misformation below:
1) Regulation
Regulation errors that fall under the misformation category are those in which a regular marker is used in place of an irregular one. Here, the learners fail to choose or to select a proper word form. Example:
My family and I go to Jakarta last week. (My family and I went to Jakarta last week.) 2) Archie-form
It is defined as the selection of one member of a class of forms to represents others in the class, such as: this, that, those and these. Example:
These book. That cats.
(These books / this book.) (That cat / Those cats.)
(Those tables / that table.) (These students / this student.) 3) Alternative Form
It happens when students do not know or are confused of the use of verbs (infinitive and past participle).
Example:
I seen my brother yesterday. (I saw my brother yesterday).
The utterances above have incorrect verbs seen and saw instead of saw and seen respectively.
d. Misordering
Misordering errors are characterized by the incorrect placement of a morpheme or group of morphemes in an utterance. The sentences can be right in presented elements, but wrongly sequenced.
Example:
