G. Prior Research
3. Kinds of Vocabulary
John state that words of this kind, article, preposition, conjunction, auxiliaries are often referred to as functions words and are seen as belonging more to the grammar of the language that its vocabulary. Unlike contents words, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.11
11John Read, Assessing Vocabulary, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)P.18
a. Function Word.
Function word is a word that is uninflected and serve a grammatical function but has little identifiable meaning. Each function word either gives some grammatical information on other word in a sentence or clause, and cannot be isolated from other word, or it may indicate the speaker’s metal model as to what is being said. The are some function words according to Jerremy, are:
a) Preposition
Preposition is a word (or group of words) which is used to show the way in which other words are connected. Example of words: for, of, in, on top of. The example of preposition in a sentence :
1) Bring me two bottles of wine.
2) Put that in the box.
b) Conjunction
Conjunction is a word that connects sentences, phrases or clauses. There are two kind of conjunctions : coordinating and subordinating conjunction.
1) Coordinating conjunctions : these join matching structures like nouns to nouns, verbs to verbs, and so on. In the list, they are, but, or and nor.
2) Subordinating conjunctions : is the words that introduce adjectival and adverbial clauses. The constructions they
introduce contain subjects and verbs, but cannot stay alone as independent sentences. In the list, they are after, although, because, when, etcetera.
c) Pronoun
A pronoun is a word that substitutes a noun or a noun phrase and denote persons or thoings asked for, who/which have/has been prefoiusly specified or understood from the context.
d) Auxiliaries
Auxiliaries is a verb which helps another verb to form a sentence structure complete. Kinds of auxiliary verbs, are : 1) To be : being, been, am, is, are, was, and were.
2) To do : does and did.
3) Have : has and had.
4) Modal auxiliary : can, may, shall, will, must.
e) Article
The article is not included in the class eighth part of speech but the article is grouped in the class of adjective, namely demonstrative adjective. Kinds of article, are :
1) The : The place that I just visited is cozy.
2) A : He goes to the swimming pool twice a week.
3) An : I have an apple.
b. Content words
These words constitutes the bulk of vocabulary of the language. The large body of “content” words constitutes the fourth group of vocabulary items and the chief material usually considered when the vocabulary of a language is discussed. These are the words that function as symbols for the phenomena which we react upon as the world of reality about us.
a) Noun
Noun is a word (or group of words) that is the name of a person, a place, a thing or activity or a quality or idea; noun can be used as the subject or object of a verb. Example of words : Eleanor, Devon, book, sense, town hall. The example of nouns in sentences :
1) Eleanor arrives tomorrow. (noun as subject ).
2) I recommend this book. (noun as object).
b) Verb
Verb is a word (group of words) which is used in describing an action, experience or state. Example of words: write, eat, read, etc. example of verbs in sentence :
1) He wrote a poem.
2) I like riding horses.
c) Adjective
A word that gives more information about a noun or pronoun.
Example of words: kind, better, best, impetuous, etc. The example of adjectives in a sentence :
1) What a kind man!
2) She is so impertuous.
d) Adverb
A word (or group of words) that describe or adds to the meaning of a verb, adjective, another adverb or a whole sentence. Example of words : carefully, at home, in half of hour, sensibly, etc. the example of adverb in a sentence :
1) He walked across the bridge carefully.
2) I like listening to the music at home.12 4. The Problem of Mastering Vocabulary
According to Scoot Thornbury, there are some factors that make words are difficult to learn, such as: pronunciation, spelling, meaning. Other factors make some words more difficult than others such as:
a. Pronunciation
It is occured when some words are unfamiliar to the learners, so that, the learners think the sounds more difficult to pronounce and also difficult to learn by them.
12Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach English, (England: Pearson Education Limited,1998).P..37.
b. Meaning
The meaning can be classified according to the form they attach to. It can be classified into three forms: lexical meaning, morphological meaning, and syntatic meaning. Lexical meaning is the meaning that attaches to words as word. For example, the meaning of a building for human habitation that attaches to house is lexical meaning. Morphological meaning is the meaning that attaches to morpheme. Morpheme is the smallest unit that carries information about meaning or function, and the meaning that attaches to the word arragement in a sentence is the sytatic meaning. For example question attaches to the word arragement in the sentence is he student. A word meaning can also be defined by its relationship to other words. One should also know the denotation and connotation of a word in order to know the negative or positive meanings that occur in the word. 13
c. Spelling
Spelling usually becomes the problem for second or foreign language learners. In indonesia, the spelling of English letters definitely opposite with Bahasa, it is also supported when the writer inerviewed the English teacher. Most of students especially in rural area had difficult to spell the letters because of the effect of their mother tongue. Also sound-spelling mismatches
13Scott Thornbury, How to Teach Vocabulary,(England : Pearson Education Limited,2002)P.13.
commonly caused of errors, either pronounciation or spelling.
There are 9 categories of spelling errors according to Bestgen and Granger, as follow :14
Table.2 Categories of Spelling Errors Categories of spelling error Example Omission of a letter completly – completely
concious - conscious distinc - distinct eople - people
mecanisms - mechanisms throghout – throughout Addition of a letter develope – develop
youngs - young alledged - alleged eightheen - eighteen envolves - evolves ridicoulous – ridiculous Single letter instead of double
letter
especialy – especially robed - robbed
adicts – addicts carots - carrots
14Bestgen, Y and Granger, S. 2011. Categorising Spelling Errors to Assess L2 Writing.
Int. J.Continuing Engineering Education and life-lang learning, vol.4, no.7, (2011): 1-50.
ocurred - occurred occuring – occurring Double letter instead of single
letter
appartments – apartments allmighty – almighty detailled - detailed loosing - losing
proffessors – professors Substitution of one letter lifes – lives
dependend - dependent consecuently - consequently confortable - comfortable engeneering - engineering uncredible – incredible Interchange of two adjacent
letter
concieved – conceived birht - birth
lfie - life
peopels - peoples entreprises - enterprises Involving an apostrophe Its - it’s
womans - woman’s childrens’- children’s Erroneous splitting or joining
of words
business_man - businessman every_one - everyone
(word segmentation error) free_time - freetime every_day - everyday air_pollution - airpollution even_though - eventhough Two or more error of the same
type or of different types
unbalance-imbalance politic - political payed - paid weter - whether dustbinman - dustman theirselves - themselves beggining - beginning configurating - configuring divorcion - divorce
hitted – hit