CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
D. Concept of Vocabulary
Vocabulary is one of the materials studied by students of all level of schools in Indonesia. It has been mastered if they want to master English well. Words are an important part of our life. We think with words. We also speak, listen, read, and write with words. Words help us communicate our ideas. They also help us understand other people‟s ideas.
Developing the vocabulary is one of the most useful projects you can undertake. It is impossible to be successful in study language without mastering the vocabulary. Vocabulary is a central of language and of
critical importance of typical language. Without sufficient vocabulary, people cannot communicate effectively or express his ideas in both oral and written form. To support the speaker‟s interaction in communication, vocabulary becomes important because it can be used as basic foundation to construct a word into a good sequence of sentence. Therefore, the students should have to obtain vocabulary mastery. Hocket (in Celce- Murcia and McIntosh, 1978: 129) states that vocabulary is the easiest aspect at a second language to learn and it hardly requires formal attention in the classroom. Hornby (1995: 1331) defines “vocabulary as a list of words used in book, etc. usually with definition and translation”.
According to Finnochiaro (1974: 73) there are two kinds of vocabulary, namely active vocabulary and passive vocabulary. Active vocabulary refers to the words the student understands, can pronounce correctly and use them constructively in speaking and writing. On the other hand, passive vocabulary refers to the words in which the students can recognize and understand while they are reading or listening to someone speaking, but they do not use the words in speaking or in writing.
Based on the definition above, I conclude that the more vocabulary the learners have, the easier for them to develop their four skills (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) and learn English as the foreign language generally.
2.Kinds of Vocabulary
Language experts classify vocabulary into some different type;
According to Leny (2006) deals with vocabulary items consist of two types, receive vocabulary and productive vocabulary. Nation (2001) defines receptive vocabulary as word which can be recognized when it is heard (what is the sound like), when it is seen (what is it look like). In the other word, it knows all thing of that word. Meanwhile, productive vocabulary is word which is able to be pronounced, to be written, to be spelled, how to use grammatical pattern. However and whatever the terms are used by the language experts. It refers to recognition and production of word when the person does communication to the other; they usually refer to some meanings.In relation to kinds of vocabulary, Nation (2001) states that there are four categories of vocabulary in the non-fiction text they are:
1) High frequency words. These words are almost 80% of the running words in the text.
2) Academic words. Typically, these words make up about 9% of the running words in the text.
3) Technical words. These words make up about 5% of the running words in the text. It is used by people working in a specialized field.
4) Low-frequency words. There are the words of moderate frequency that does not manage to get into the high-frequency list. They make up over 5% of the words in an academic text.
The explanation above we can conclude that there are some kinds of vocabulary. They are receive vocabulary and productive vocabulary,
general vocabulary and special vocabulary, active and recognition vocabulary, traditional vocabulary it covers verb, adjective, noun and adverb. Beside that, there are four catergory in vocabulary such as high frequency words, academic words, Technical words, and low-frequency words
3.Teaching Vocabulary
Vocabulary is very important for second language learners; only with sufficient vocabulary learners can effectively express their ideas both in oral and written form. Thus they should have a good idea of how to expand their vocabulary so that they can improve their interest in leaning the language. Language teachers, therefore, should posses considerable knowledge on how to manage an interesting classroom so that the learners can gain a great success in their vocabulary learning. Teaching vocabulary plays an important role in language acquisition because the mastery of vocabulary will help students to master all the language skills; speaking, listening, writing, and reading. The vocabulary will make the students practice life and will strengthen belief that English can be used to express the same ideas or feeling they express in their native language (Finochiaro, 1974:38) Furthermore, in teaching vocabulary the teacher can introduce the list of vocabulary that is taken from the book. The teacher uses and adds other vocabulary which is relevant to the students. Teacher needs a good knowledge on their teaching materials. When they have to teach the students about vocabulary, teachers should know the general knowledge of
vocabulary, words and also the meaning. The words or vocabulary can be spoken and written. Wallace (1982:207) explains that teaching vocabulary should consider these following factors:
a. Aims
The aim of teaching vocabulary is to make the teacher easy to formulate the materials, which will be taught to the students.
b. Quantity
The teacher has to decide the number of vocabulary items to be learned. The learners will get confuse or discouraged if they get many new words. Therefore, the teacher should select new words, which can easy to understand by the learners.
c. Need
In teaching vocabulary, the teacher has to choose the words really needed by the students in communication.
d. Frequent exposure and repetition
Frequent exposure and repetition here means that the teacher should give much practice on repetition so that the students master the target words well. They also give opportunity to the students to use words in writing or speaking.
e. Meaningful presentation
In teaching vocabulary the teacher should present target words in such a way that the meaning of the target words are perfectly clear and unambiguous.
f. Situation and presentation
The teachers tell the students that they have to use the words appropriately. The use of words depends on the situation in which they are used and depends on the person to whom they are speaking.
4. Word Classes
A word is a single unit of language which has meaning and can be spoken or writen (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary). Word is a microcosm of human consciousness Thornbury (2002:1). Word is classified based on their functional categorized, it is called part of speech, (Harmer, 1998:36). The kinds of part of speech are:
a. Verb
The verb is the most complex part of speech. Its varying arrangements with nouns determine the different kinds of sentences, statements, questions, commands, exclamations.
There are three important types of verb to be aware of:
1) Auxiliary verbs
These are “be, do, have and the modal auxiliary verbs (shall, should, will, would, can, could, may, might, mush or ought to)”. They are used with main verbs in affirmative, negative sentences, and question formation (Harmer, 1998:38)
For example: We cannot afford to pay for a hotel.
We are studying at our friends‟ house.
2) Main verbs
These carry the main meaning (Harmer, 1998:38).
For example: She arrived at six o‟clock.
He wrote a poem to his girls‟ friend.
3) Phrasal verbs
These are formed by adding an adverb or a preposition (an adverb and a preposition) to a verb to create new meaning (Harmer, 1998:38).
For example: Can we put off the wedding till after the funeral?
4) Transitive and Intransitive
a) A Transitive verb needs a direct object to complete its meaning or it cannot stand alone.
For example: The plants need water.
b) An intransitive verb can stand alone in the predicate because its meaning is complete.
For example: The plant grows.
5) Regular and Irregular verb
a) Regular verbs are formed by adding “ed” call-called, arrive-arrived.
b) Irregular verbs change completely in the past tense: go-went-gone.
For example: Taufik went to the school by bus yesterday.
b. Adjective
Adjective is a word used to express the nature or condition of a thing, whether it is inanimate objects, places, living things, time, or others.
In its use in a sentence, are usually used to describe the state of the subject or object of the sentence.
There are five important types of verb to be aware of:
a) Descriptive adjective
Descriptive adjective is a word which describes nouns and pronouns.
These adjective provide information and attribute to nouns/pronouns they modify or describe.
Example : I have a fast car.
I am hungry b) Quantitative adjective
Quantitative adjective provides information about the quantity of the nouns/pronouns. This type belongs to the question category of “how much” and “how many”
Example : I have 20 bucks in my wallet They have three children c) Demonstrative adjective
Demonstrative adjective directly refers to something or someone.
Demonstrative adjectives include the words: this, that, these, those.
Example : That building is so gorgeously decorated This car is mine
These cats are cute
Those flowers are heavenly.
d) Possessive adjective
Possessive adjective indicates possession or ownership, some of the most used possessive adjective are my, his, her, our, their, your. All these adjective always come before a noun.
Example: My car is parked outside His cat is very cute Our job is almost done
e) Indefinite adjective
Indefinite adjective are describes or modifies a noun unspecific, they provide indefinite/unspecific information about the noun, the common indefinite adjectives are few, many, much, some etc.
Example: I gave some candy to her I want a few moments alone