The objectives of the study are to find out the lexical density in short stories and to find out the lowest lexical density in O. The result of the analysis showed that: (1) The lexical density of four short stories written by O. Henry have high lexical density , this is because each of the short stories has more than forty percent lexical density. It has 44.9%. The low lexical density in the short story is caused more by the grammatical units than the lexical units in the text.
INTRODUCTION
- The Background of the Study
- The Identification of the Problem
- The Scope and Limitation of Study
- The Formulation of Problem
- The Objective of the Study
- Significant of the Study
Lexical density can be used as a criterion for producing a good short story with balanced lexical and grammatical units. A short story is difficult to understand if the text has a low lexical density. Readers can choose an appropriate short story based on the complexity of the lexical density in the story.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Theoretical Framework
- Discourse Analysis
- Lexical Density
- Lexical Items (Content Words)
- Noun
- Verb
- Adjective
- Adverb
- Grammatical Items (Function Words)
- Auxiliary Verb
- Modal
- Pronoun
- Preposition
- Determiner
- Conjunction
- Short Story
- O. Henry’s Biography
Johansson (2008) states that "Lexical density provides a measure of the proportion of lexical items (i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) in a text." For more information on lexical density about how lexical items and grammatical items are formed in the sentence, here are the cases taken from Halliday. The lexical items are in bold and the grammatical items are in italics. From the examples above it shows that the first sentence contains higher lexical items than the second sentence.
Both sentences prove that the sentences made up of higher lexical items are easier to understand than the sentence in the form of grammatical items. Alami et al. explain that lexical items are the main content words that carry information. Halliday (1985) defines lexical items as part of an open system rather than a closed set because it is possible to add new items.
The conclusion is lexical items or content words are parts that carry high information in text and are called open classes where new words can be added. He defines adverbs counted as lexical items are all adverbs derived from adjectives. Gelderen (2002:17) claims "The function of grammatical items is to make the lexical categories fit together." The most important grammatical elements are auxiliary verb, modal, pronoun, preposition, determiner and conjunction.
This shows that those grammatical items only functioned to complete the lexical items to form a meaningful clause.
Relevant Studies
34; the assertion that there were only 'Four Hundred' people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has appeared who takes the record, and his greatest appreciation of human interest has been preferred to mark the field of these little stories of the 'Four Millions.'" He had an evident love of the city, of which he called "Baghdad-on-the-Subway", and many of his stories are set there, while others are set in small towns or other cities.
His last work was "Dreams", a short story intended for The Cosmopolitan magazine, which remained unfinished at the time of his death. texts, which are divided into 4 procedural texts, 5 report texts and 2 narrative texts, which are made in the textbook. This means that the texts are not difficult and suitable for lower secondary school students. Another relevant study is "Lexical Density and Grammatical Complexity of Reading Material for Tenth Grade Senior High School Students" by Rina Lestari.
This study reveals the lexical density and grammatical complexity formed in English Alive Textbook reading texts and the type of genre that has the highest density of both lexical density and grammatical complexity. The data of the research was the English reading text of English Alive Textbook for Class Ten High School, published by Yudhistira. The result of the analysis showed that: (1) lexical density is formed by the unification of lexical units and grammatical units, while grammatical complexity is formed by the unification of simple and complex sentences in the text. 2) Lexical density affects the difficulty of reading texts if there is a higher percentage of lexical items, while grammatical complexity also affects the difficulty of reading texts if there is a higher percentage of complex sentences compared to simple sentences.
This research is expected to explain the lexical density in the short stories written by O.
Conceptual Framework
Written discourse is often read by people because it uses longer words and more complex sentences to make the message more interesting. It means that short story is affective story and contains only fictitious events of the writer, by reading short story we can indirectly understand vocabulary, spelling, sentence structure, tenses, sentence type etc. It is intended to teach, entertain or enlighten. , and simply appreciate a literary work for its own sake.
People can easily get a short story not only in a magazine or story book but they can get it through a specific application that provides various short stories. As readers, sometimes they cannot understand the story they have read because they find a problem in the text. One way to measure whether or not a short story is readable is by measuring the percentage of lexical items in the story.
To know the percentage of lexical density, we need to identify lexical items and then we count with Ure's formula. The lower lexical density in the story shows that the story is less of information, it shows that the story is more difficult to understand. The measures of lexical items are really important to do to find out that short stories fit with the reader's ability or not.
The researcher hoped that this research would be helpful for the readers to know the lexical density in short stories, and it would be helpful for the other authors to consider writing the good story with the balance between lexical items and grammatical items.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
- Research Desgin
- Data and the Source of Data
- The Technique of Collecting Data
- Technique of Analyzing the Data
Draw conclusions based on the result of lexical density in short stories written by O. The title of short stories are The Little Match Girl, Hearts and Hands, The Gift of the Magi and What you Want. It was terribly cold; it was snowing and it was almost quite dark, and it was evening: the last evening of the year.
But in the corner, in the cold hour of dawn, sat a poor girl with rosy cheeks and a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall - frozen on the last evening of the old year. While the mistress of the home is gradually settling down from the first to the second stage, take a look at the home. With a swirl of wings and still brilliant sparkles in her eyes, she ran erratically through the door and down the stairs to the street.
Although the watch was magnificent, he sometimes looked at it quietly because of the old leather strap he used instead of a chain. It wasn't anger, or surprise, or disapproval, or horror, or any of the feelings she was prepared for. The delicious relief of cold metal applied to his burning soles was his nightly joy.
For the writers, they must consider how the lexical density of the short story should be made for the readers.
DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS
Data
Data Analysis
The little girl had already stretched out her feet to warm them as well; but-the little flame went out, the stove disappeared: she had only the remains of the burnt-out match in her hand. A snow-white tablecloth was spread on the table; on it was a splendid china service, and the roast goose was steaming. Thousands of candles burned on the green branches, and brightly colored pictures that she had seen in the shop windows looked down on her.
The lights of the Christmas tree rose higher and higher, she saw them now like stars in the sky;. As they made their way down the aisle of the bus, the only free seat offered was an upturned one facing the attractive young woman. Something beautiful, rare and sterling - something almost worthy of being owned by Jim.
If the Queen of Sheba lived in the apartment across the air shaft, Della would have hung her hair out the window to dry one day just to appreciate her Majesty's jewels and gifts. In various masquerades the streets, bazaars, and walled houses of the western city of romance were filled with the same kind of people that our interesting old friend, the late Mr. from the strings in the central offices of all the enchanted cities a wire pulled, and a young man twenty blocks away looked at a wall clock and then put on his coat.
'Young man,' said the caliph, ignoring the lightheartedness of the hatsweeper, 'I perceive that you are studious. And after I got some of it out of the soap business, I made the rest in corn and wheat futures. He took off his socks, pulled his bed close to the door, stretched out luxuriously and placed his agonized feet against the cold bars of the cell door.
Research Findings
According to Ure, if the lexical density exceeds 40 percent, it accounts for a higher lexical density. It has a low lexical density because the text contains more grammatical items than lexical items. Henry has a high lexical density, this is because each of the short stories has a lexical density of over forty percent.
They can use this study to present short stories with balanced composition between lexical items or content words and grammatical items or function words. For readers, they can choose the appropriate short story based on the complexity of the lexical density. It can help them set the story easier when they want to read.
Male-female discourse difference in terms of lexical density Research Journal of Applied Science, Engineering and Technology.
