1

JURNAL

THE ENGLISH CONJUNTIONS OF POLITICAL ARTICLES IN THE

JAKARTA POST

NAME : TAUFIQ QURRAHMAN

NIM : 0801305083

JURUSAN : SASTRA INGGRIS

  • 1.    Abstrak

Tulisan ini berjudul The English Conjunctions Of Polotical Articles In The Jakarta Post. Tujuan dari pada penelitian ini adalah untuk mengamati dan menganalisis jenis kata sambung yang digunakan dalam koran harian politik, The Jakarta Post, dan bagaimana penggunaan kata sambung tersebut.

Data yang digunakan untuk penulisan ini diambil dari dua belas artikel dari The Jakarta Post yang diterbitkan pada Selasa 23 Juni 2009 sampai Jumat 26 Juni 2009. Kemudian data penelitian ini dikumpulkan. Menurut Brown dan Rodgers (2002:6 ), data dalam makalah ini dianalisis dengan menggunakan metode kualitatif yang mengacu pada metode di mana data dianalisis dan cara alami tanpa manipulasi apapun. Teori yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini didasarkan pada konteks situasi oleh Halliday M AK dan Hasan dalam buku mereka yang berjudul Bahasa, Konteks dan Teks; Aspek Bahasa dalam Perspektif Sosial-semiotik.

Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan jenis konjungsi yang digunakan dan bagaimana penggunaan kata sambung itu sendiri.

Kata kunci: kata hubung, penggunaan kata hubung, article politik

  • 1.    Introduction

Language is used as a means of communication by human being to communicate to each other in their daily lives either written or spoken. The sender or the receiver must avoid misunderstanding. In communication, the sender needs ability to convey the idea so that the receiver accepts without any other interpretation. Nowadays, English language is used in international communication and becomes lingua franca. The need for written information has been rising slightly, therefore, the news has been written in English language.

Halliday (1985:10) mentions three functions of writing text. They are an action, entertainment and information. The written text used for action are public signs, product labels, television and radio guides, then comic strips, drama and newspaper are used for entertainment and advertisement and political pamphlets are used for information.

Newspaper is one of the written texts. According to Hornby (1995:856), newspaper is a printed publication daily or weekly, with news, opinion, and advertisements. People read newspaper because of their need for the information. Nowadays in Indonesia many people start reading English newspaper because they have already understood English.

Article mostly occurs in newspaper. It covers every aspect of human life depending on the types of newspaper in which it appears. Political news is the reason why people read a newspaper. Since politics is a process of forming and dividing authority in society such as decision making process, especially in a country.

When people read newspaper sometimes they cannot understand the conjunction which occurs in a text. They do not know the types of conjunction, the meaning and how it is used in the texts. The analysis in this study is needed in order to know more about the types of conjunction, the meaning and how it is used in the texts.

The written text especially found in the newspaper is considered good when it is well organized, well structured, coherent, and cohesive. In a text organization, it emphasizes the physical appearance of the text, not about the

language. The text structure emphasizes about how the language in the text is exploited as to achieve the intended goal of the writer. The coherence talks about the unity of idea or the message from the start to the end of the text. Meanwhile cohesion talks about the interrelation between sentences, paragraph that form the text.

  • 2.    Problems of Study

Based on the background, there are two problems focused in this study, they are as follows:

  • 1)    What types of conjunction are used in the political articles of The Jakarta Post?

  • 2)    How are the conjunctions used in the political articles of The Jakarta Post??

  • 3.    Aims of the Study

Generally, this study tries to apply the linguistic theory on discourse analysis namely grammatical cohesion theory that focuses on the conjunction markers. Specifically, this study has two basic aims referring to the previous problems stated. The aims of this study are;

  • 1)    To identify the types of conjunction used in political articles of The Jakarta Post.

  • 2)    To analyse how the conjunctions are used in political articles of The Jakarta Post.

  • 4.    Research Method

In this section, there are three points of discussions covering data source, method and technique of collecting data and method and technique of analyzing data.

  • 5.    Analysis

This chapter is concerned with the analysis of the data source in the daily newspaper The Jakarta Post. To identify the types of conjunction used in The Jakarta Post is the discussion in this chapter. The analysis on this chapter is based on the concept of conjunction proposed by Halliday and Hasan as a part of the theory of the cohesion in the Cohesion in English (1976).

The data found were classified according to their types and the analysis is based upon their variants in the sentences, which can be divided into four categories, they are: Additive, Adversative, Causal, and Temporal. Then how the conjunctions are used in political articles in The Jakarta Post.

  • 1.    The Use of Conjunctions

After last week's widely panned "debate" by the presidential candidates, their running mates - two ex-generals and a US-educated economist - are tonight expected to stage a livelier exchange.

  • 2.    The Type of Conjunctions

From the article above, there were several type conjunctions which were found such as: Simple additive relation (Additive) which was presented by and, also; Simple causal relation (Causal) which was presented by therefore; Durative relation (Temporal) which was presented by during; Simple temporal relation (Temporal) which was presented by previously; Conclusive and sequential relation (Temporal) which was presented by at the end; and Simple adversative (Adversative) which was presented by only, even though, yet;

Example of simple additive relation:

  • 1.    We are told that as a poor country and we should feed our own people first before we express our sympathy for millions of oppressed Myanmarese.

  • 2.    Indonesia, therefore, needs to begin formulating a post-ASEAN foreign policy.

  • 6.    Conclusion

In the previous chapter, conjunction used in the political articles of The Jakarta Post has been analyzed. From the analysis there are some points that can be concluded as the answers to the problems of this writing. There are four types of conjunction occurring in 12 articles The Jakarta Post that were taken as the data source of this writing. There are additive, adversative, causal and temporal.

There is one type of additive relation occurring in the text. The type is simple additive relation. Simple additive relation is presented by the words 'and' and 'or'. The conjunction and in the sentence is used to add the information of what has been said before. The semantic relation of conjunctive or relation is used to indicate the explanation from the previous idea.

In the adversative relation there is one type of adversative occurring in the text. The type is simple adversative. Simple adversative is presented by expression only and though/although. The conjunction only normally comes before a subject it refers to. It may occur in initial position and phonologically reduced or in the other words, the word only does not have one meaning. Similarly, tough/although as conjunctive is always phonologically reduced or does not have one meaning, it may occur initial!)

In relation to causal, there is only one type occurring in the text. The type is simple causal relation. Simple causal relation is presented by the conjuntion so. The function of conjunction so in the text is to show the relationship between cause and consequence.

  • 7.    References

Aron, P. 2005. "The Use of Conjunctions in the Article Stranger in Paradise in Hello Bali Magazine" (thesis). Denpasar: Udayana University.

Brown, J.D. and T.S. Rodgers. 2002. Doing Second Language Research. New York: Oxford University Press.

Halliday, M.A.K. and Hasan, R. 1976. Cohesion in English. London and New York: Longman.

Halliday, M.A.K. and Hasan, R. 1985. Language. Context, and Text: Aspect of Language in a Social - semiotic Perspective. Victoria: Deakin University Press.

Hornby, A.S. 1995. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press.

Ling, S.C. 2008. Corpus-based Study of Differences in Explicitation Between Literature Translations for Children and for Adults (serial online), Jun., (cited 2008. Available from: URL: http://translation1ournal.net/journal/45explicit.htm)

Nunan. David. 1993. Discourse Analysis. London: Penguin Books.

Pratama. A.D.Y. 2007. "The Analysis of Conjunctions Used in Bisnis Bali Newspaper" (thesis). Denpasar: Udayana University.

Rahayuni. N.K.S 2006. "The Analysis of Conjunction on Opinion Article Texts in The Jakarta Post" (thesis). Denpasar: Udayana University.

Shi, A. 2004. The Importance of Teaching Cohesion in Translation on a Textual Level-A Comparison of test scores before and after teaching (serial online), Jun., (cited 2004, Available from: RL:http://accurapid.com/journal/28edut1.htm).