1
AN ANALYSIS OF REFERENCE FOUND IN STUDENTS’ PARAGRAPH (A Descriptive Study at the English Department of STKIP PGRI West Sumatera)
Oleh:
Samnisil *)
**) Armilia Riza dan **) Dona Alicia Staff Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat
ABSTRAK
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui tipe-tipe referen yang ditemukan dalam paragraf mahasiswa jurusan bahasa inggris di STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian deskriptif kualitatif yang bermaksud untuk menggambarkan dan mengolah data berdasarkan fakta dilapangan. Penelitian ini ditujukan kepada mahasiswa bahasa inggris sesi 2012 B di STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat, Padang. Penelitian ini fokus pada tipe-tipe referen yaitu referen persona, referen demonstratif dan referen komparatif dalam bahasa inggris yang diklasifikasikan dalam bentuk anaphora dan katapora, penelitian ini juga menggambarkan fungsi dari tipe-tipe referen dalam paragraf mahasiswa. Referen adalah hubungan yang terjadi antara unsur yang mengacu dengan unsur yang diacu dalam sebuah paragraph. Jumlah data dalam penelitian ini adalah sebanyak 24 paragraf mahasiswa di sesi 2012 B. Sumber data dari penelitian ini adalah paragraph mahasiswa, yang mana dokumen tersebut diperoleh dari dosen yang mengajar mata kuliah menulis. Data diambil secara acak dan dibatasi sebanyak 24 paragraf mahasiswa di sesi 2012 B. Peneliti dalam mengolah data menggunakan teori Halliday dan Hasan, selanjutnya data dikelompokan berdasarkan tipe-tipenya. Berdasarkan hasil dari menganalisa 24 data selama penelitian, peneliti dapat menyimpulkan bahwa semua tipe-tipe referen muncul dalam paragraf mahasiswa di 2012 B, tipe referen yang paling banyak ditemukan adalah referensi persona dalam bentuk anaphora, selanjutnya referen demonstratif juga dalam bentuk anaphora. Tipe referen komparatif juga ditemukan dalam paragraph mahasiswa, tetapi lebih sering dalam bentuk katapora.
Keywords: Students’ Paragraph, Reference
*) Penulis
**)pembimbing
2 INTRODUCTION
Writing is one of the crucial skills to be learned in English. There are some reasons why writing must be learned. The first, writing is a process of communicating about something on a paper, the writer can express the feeling that the writer wants to share to the readers on paper.
The second, writing as process in delivering meaning needs more practice. The practice will help the writer to write fluently, so that the meaning can be caught by the readers. The third, the writer must consider the purpose of writing.
Moreover, writing is also included the most difficult skill because there are some components that the writer should consider to produce good writing such as content, organization, grammar, syntax, word choice, purpose and writer‟s purpose. These term cause the problem for the English students when they taking English subject. The effect is when the students write English, they do not create the English text themselves, they only translate their thought word from their native language into English, even with incorrect grammatical.
In the other hand, to compose a good writing text the writing text should be organized as coherence as possible. The sentences in a good writing must be related to each other to compose a good paragraph, which has related meaning. The ways of transferring the information sometimes leads to misunderstanding and even misinterpretation, the readers sometimes feel confused about the text that they have read. There are some requirements in a text, one of them is reference.
Reference is used to reduce the occurred words because most of texts usually use the same words in building meaningful text, so that, both the readers and the writer should have capability in understanding about the reference itself, for the readers should have background knowledge about reference related to the text.
Meanwhile, the writer should know about differences of the used types of reference itself.
In general, reference is something that refers to or designates something else, acts as a connection or a link between two things. It is used to refer to the word entity that has already been mentioned. The function of reference in a written text is to avoid repeated word.
Dealing with the function of reference, it is often found in a paragraph. Paragraph is the writing consists of three until four sentences that have one topic or main idea. According to Boardman (2008:3) paragraph itself is the basic unit of academic writing in English. It can be said paragraph as the building blocks of writing. Paragraphs organize ideas and help the readers follow writer train of thought. Written text without paragraph are difficult to read and important ideas hard to identify.
The learning of writing paragraph is learned as one of subjects in STKIP PGRI West Sumatera, the second year students of English department of STKIP PGRI West Sumatera Padang.
Therefore, the students are expected to be able to write a paragraph with the components includes the use of reference. In fact, based on the researcher‟s and her classmates experience in English department of STKIP PGRI West Sumatera Padang, there are many problems found in writing English. Firstly, the students afraid of making mistakes as the result of lack of knowledge. Secondly, the students did not have new ideas in writing. As a result, their writing was almost the same one other. In the same words, the students found difficulties to explore their ideas to make their writing batter and how to organize ideas in a good paragraph. Finally, the students have low of motivation to practice writing English the language because they are still confuse in doing writing.
Furthermore, based on the pre- observation through students‟ paragraph from session 2012 B of academic years 2012 at STKIP PGRI West Sumatera, the researcher found some of the reference use in students‟ paragraph.
3 The most of students usually use the same words in building meaningful in their writing paragraph. The readers sometimes feel confused about the paragraph that they have read. Reference has a great role in creating a good writing text. Reference is to make the paragraph comprehensively understandable and avoiding repetition to use the same word. In order hand, reference can reduce sense of monotonous. Reference can avoid misunderstanding about the meaning of writing text.
REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE
Reference
Lyons in Brown and Yule (2003:28),
“reference is the relationship that holds between words and things is the relationship of reference:
words refer to things”. It means, the reference is something that refers to the word that have mentioned. In addition, Halliday and Hasan (2004:534) define reference as the specific nature of the information that is signaled for retrieval. Thus, reference helps the readers to get the core idea of the text. The meaning of reference is something used to identify something or someone, in other words, it used as an introduction of people, places and things into a text.
Reference is a property arising from the meaning relations between lexical items and sentences. It is clear that reference is used in text that has related meaning between them. In addition, Renkema (2004:104) states reference as the act of referring to a preceding or following element, deals with a semantic relationship. The term reference is used in semantics for the relationship between words and one element to other in a text.
Referencing indicates how the writer introduces participants and keeps tracks of them throughout the text. It means that the referent word used to identify something or someone that has already mentioned in the text or used as an introduction of people, places and things into a text. Reference is not simply a relationship between the meaning of a word or phrase and an object or person in the word. It is a social act in which the speaker assumes that the word or phrase chosen or identify an object or person will be interpreted as the speaker intended. It
means that the occurrences of reference will be successful if the speaker and the listener have the same knowledge about the reference that are being uttered.
On the other hand, Cutting (2007:7) says reference is the act of using language to refer to entities in the context. In short, by using reference the writer is able to correlate one sentence to next sentence, in order to get the core idea of the text, reference helps the writer in avoiding of the same words usage for the one text, make the text comprehensively understandable, the reader will get meaning from the text easily and use to avoid misunderstanding in comprehending a text.
Types of Reference
Cutting (2002:9) Reference can be Exophoric and Endophoric. Exophoric reference is there is no previous mention of the reference in the preceding text, exophoric reference dependent on the context outside the text for its meaning. Whereas, endophoric reference is a referring expression links with another referring expression within the text that it is cohesive with the previous or follows mention on the referent in the text, it is called Endophoric reference. So, from those explanations above, the researcher conclude exophoric reference is the context outside of situation in the text but it does not cohesive with the previous or follows mention in the text. The endophoric reference is cohesive with the previous or forward mention in the text.
Cutting (2002:10) states there are two types of Endophora, they are: Anaphora and Cataphora. These can be identified into three sub-types of referential cohesion: personal, demonstrative and comparative reference. It is supported by Renkema (2004:106) who divide reference into two types, namely: anaphora and cataphora reference.
Halliday and Hasan (2004:37) there are three types of reference: personal, demonstrative and comparative.
1. Personal Reference
Personal reference is reference by means of function in the speech situation, through the category person. The category of personal include the three classes of personal pronouns, possessive determiners and possessive pronouns
4 (first person, second person and third person) and it intersected with the number of singular and plural.
2. Demonstrative Reference
Demonstrative reference is essentially a form of verbal pointing. The speaker identifies the referent by locating it on a scale of proximity. The circumstantial (adverbial) demonstratives here, there, now and then refer to the location of a process in space or time, they normally do so directly. The remaining (nominal) demonstratives this, these, that, those and the refer to location of something. Typically some entity person or object that is participating in the process. They occur as elements within the nominal group.
3. Comparative Reference
Comparative reference is indirect reference of identity or similarity. There is a frame as reference, sometimes which is the same or different, like or dislike, equal or unequal, more or less. Halliday and Hasan (2004:39) recognize two types: general comparison and particular comparison. Firstly, general comparison is meant comparison that is simply in terms of „likeness an unlikeness, without respect to any particular property: two things may be the same, similar or different. General comparison is expressed by a certain class of adjectives and adverbs. The adjectives function in the nominal group either as deictic or epithet.
The adverbs function in the clause as adjunct.
Furthermore, in particular comparison means comparison is in respect of quantity and quality. It is also expressed by means of ordinary adjectives or adverbs, not of special class, but ordinary adjectives and adverbs in some comparative form.
Function of Reference
There is function of reference that stated by some experts. First, Yule (1996: 17) says that function of reference as referring expressions. It can be said the reference as an act in which a writer uses linguistic forms to enable readers to identify something. It means that referring expressions to a large extent, on what the writer assumes the readers already knows. It clearly
tied to writer‟s goals (for example, to identify something) and the writer‟s belief (the readers be expected to know that particular something).
Referring expressions allows the readers to see how a person can be identified via the expression.
RESEARCH METHOD
The design of this research was a descriptive qualitative. According to Gay and Airasian (2000:275) “descriptive study determines and describes the way things are. It means that descriptive research spell out the way things are, elaborate the case or research problem clearly. It concludes that the research describe the symptoms, facts, events that are or have occurred in words form specific and clearly. In summary, descriptive research described the events, fact or phenomenon in words form not in numerical, to make the things clear the researcher should spell out vividly and detail to avoid confusion.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
After analyzing the data, the researcher has gotten the result of this research. Every research question had been answered by document analysis. It is used to answer the research question about “What types of references used in students’ paragraph at the English Department of STKIP PGRI West Sumatera Padang?” In answering this research question the research used document analysis to collect the data. By doing analysis document, the researcher found that were there three types reference used in students‟ paragraph from session 2012 B of English department STKIP PGRI Padang. It contained of three types of reference that suggested by Halliday and Hasan (2004:37) namely: personal, demonstrative and comparative reference. Personal, demonstrative and comparative reference. They are 10 personal references they are: we, us, our, him, he, they, them, it, their, and his. 2 demonstrative references, they are: this, and there. 1 comparative reference: other.
The result of second research question
“What are the functions of reference in students’
paragraph at the English department of STKIP PGRI West Sumatera?”. in answering this research question the research did analysis document and using theory Yule and Cutting.
The researcher found the functions of using
5 reference from session 2012 B of English department STKIP PGRI Padang known as referring expressions.
DISCUSSION
By doing analyzing students‟ paragraph, the researcher had gotten the result of all research questions in this research. Based the research finding above, the researcher found the students used three types of reference that suggested by Halliday and Hasan(2004:37). The function of reference above known as referring expressions. The researcher found personal, demonstrative and comparative reference as referring expressions function in the students‟
paragraph because allows the readers to see how a person can be identified via the expression, it could be refer to the readers and the writer.
Furthermore, the researcher found the type that is most dominant used in the students‟
paragraph from session 2012 B. That is personal type of reference, after that, it followed by demonstrative, and comparative. Most of students used this type to introduce something that has already mentioned and introduce someone as subject pronoun, object pronoun, possessive pronoun and substitute things to make their paragraph more comprehensively and the using of reference could reduce the use of repetition words and avoid sense of monotonous in written text.
CONCLUSION
The researcher was found 16 references from three types. Based on finding the data, the researcher classified the data into three types of reference which is suggested by Halliday and Hasan (2004:37). They are personal, demonstrative and comparative reference.
Personal reference is the most reference that found in students‟ paragraph.
From the data above, the researcher found 10 personal references, 2 demonstrative references and 1 comparative references.
Personal reference is reference by means of function in the speech situation, through the category person. The category of personal includes the three classes of personal pronouns, possessive determiners and possessive pronouns.
Demonstrative reference is essentially a form of verbal pointing. The speaker identifies the referent by locating it on a scale of proximity.
Comparative reference is indirect reference of
identity or similarity. There is a frame as reference, sometimes which is the same or different, like or dislike, equal or unequal, more or less.
In brief, the using of reference in written text can reduce the use of repetition words and also to avoid the readers‟ boredom. Besides, reference is the ways of transferring the information sometimes leads to misunderstanding and even misinterpretation, the readers sometimes feel confused about the text that they have read.
SUGGESTION
There are many types that can be studied from reference, such as functions, kinds or types, and forms. In this research, the researcher research about the types and function of reference in students‟ paragraph from session 2012 B. The research is not perfect yet, therefore the researcher suggests others to conduct the relevant studies about reference in different topic. Afterwards, the researcher hopes this research can be useful for the readers who are interested in this topic for further analysis. In addition, the researcher hopes the lecturer should teach reference appropriate by explaining the types and the function of references. Besides, it is hoped that all of students‟ can use reference in writing paragraph to reduce sense of monotonous.
REFERENCES.
Cutting, Joan. 2002. Pragmatic and Discourse.
London and New York: Routledge.
Gay, L.R & Peter Airasian. 2000. Educational Research Competencies for Analysis and Aplications. New Jersey: Prentice- Hall,Inc.
Halliday, M.A.K and R Hasan. 2004. Cohesion in English. London and New York:
Longman.
Lyons, John. 2003. Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. Great Britain: Cambridge University.
Renkema, Jan. 2004. An Introductory Textbook Discourse Studies. Philadelphia:
Benjamin Publishing Company.
Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
