THE ANALYSIS OF REFERENCE IN THE TEXT OF READER’S DIGEST MAGAZINE
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THE ANALYSIS OF REFERENCE IN THE TEXT
OF READER’S DIGEST MAGAZINE
By:
Nyoman Putri Aras Kembang
English Department Faculty of Letters
Udayana University
Abstrak
Reference adalah bagian dari grammatical cohesion. Adapun fungsi dari reference adalah untuk membangun suatu kalimat menjadi terstruktur agar mudah di mengerti dan di baca oleh para pembaca. Teori dari cohesion mengacu pada buku Halliday and Hassan dalam buku mereka yang berjudul “Cohesion in Engish” (1975). Adapun tujuan dari penelitian ini yaitu untuk mengidentifikasi dan mengkategorikan jenis-jenis reference di majalah Reade’s Digest magazine Vol.99 No.593 July 2012. Di dalam analysis ini terdapat bagian-bagian referensi seperti orang pertama, orang kedua, orang ketika tunggal dan orang ketiga jamak.
Kata Kunci: kohesi gramatikal, referensi persona, referensi demonstrative.
Cohesive device is one of the important things in making sentences grammatically correct in order to be easily understood by readers. Cohesive devices also play important roles either in short or long sentences. The longer the sentences the more cohesive devices are used. For example, in a text or an article which consists of many sentences certainly apply a number of cohesive devices. The use of cohesive devices also helps the readers to link the ideas or topic discussed in a text. It
is also an important thing although sometimes someone is not aware of the coherence of a text. Generally readers just consume the texts while they do not know how words in texts are structured and organized to make meaningful sentences.
The cohesive devices construct the cohesion of a text because the meaning of cohesion refers to the surface links in text. Linguistically, cohesion is a link among other elements in syntactic structure or discourse structure which is signaled by the use of reference, conjunction, repetition, substitution, and ellipsis. Cohesion has a vital role in creating the unity of text. A non-cohesive text may make the reader or listener lose their concentration. The recipients are not able to obtain the message intended if the information conveyed to him or her is not linked together and this in turn leads to a lack of communication between the writer’s aim and the reader.
This magazine gives the readers information among others challenge of life, medical, health, and humor. Some articles in Reader’s Digest Vol.99 No.593 July 2012 edition which contain types of cohesive devices are very interesting and are used as data. Articles in this edition contain cohesive devices which can build cohesion and coherence and therefore they are easily understood by readers.
What are types of reference found in the text of Reader’s Digest Magazine?
To find and identify types of references in the text of Reader’s Digest
Magazine.
Data source is one of the procedures in research method and from where the data are taken. The data in this research are classified as qualitative
data, they were printed one and were taken from a monthly magazine entitled Rider’s Digest published in July 2012 Vol.99 No.593 and at once was used as data source. Some reasons to choose this magazine as the data source are that it uses English language it consists of interesting articles, and it is worldwide published. In this edition there are several articles and five were chosen randomly for data source respectively: Elephant Woman, Set to Explode?, Life in the Plex, Lake of Life, and To Catch a Thief.
Method and technique of collecting data is the second procedure in research method. This procedure is very important in order to be able to collect the data needed. The following are several steps in collecting data: The whole articles were read, several articles were selected from the magazine, in this step the selected articles were read thoroughly and repeatedly. Through the reading procedures the sentences which were identified consist of words belong to grammatical referential cohesion, continued by were rewritten doing some notes taking and then rewrite parts of the sentences. After doing the note taking and rewriting parts of the sentences the data was then classified into the types of referential cohesion, finally the whole data was presented descriptively for the need of the analysis.
The third or last procedure in a scientific research is method and technique of analyzing data. Since, it is a qualitative research, the qualitative were used. The data which had been collected and classified were qualitatively were analyzed based on the theory of cohesion proposed by Halliday and Hasan. The result of the analysis was descriptively presented,
which meaning it was described and explained using words in the form of sentences.
The category of PERSONALS includes three classes: personal pronouns, possessive determiners (usually called ‘possessive adjectives’), and possessive pronouns.
“I’d never felt such an incredible draw to another being as I did when I first saw Boon Lott,” Katherine recalls. (Reader’s Digest, 2012:45)
Analysis:
In the data above the personal reference I which is mentioned and repeated three times in that rather long sentence is a pronoun functioning as Head. Those three I refer back to or cataphorically refer to the person named Katherine whose position is at the end of the sentence. The position does not change its function as the subject of the sentence and to whom the personal reference I must refer to.
“After a few weeks, Katherine knew she had to call Anon. From thousands of kilometers away, he reminded her of she’d dreamed about opening an elephant sanctuary. “If you can find the money,” he told her, “I’ll find the land and we can open a sanctuary together.” (Reader’s Digest, 2012: 48)
Analysis:
In the data above the personal reference you refers back to
Katherine as the person who will be responsible for the fund of the
elephant sanctuary. This kind of personal reference refers to an anaphora (i.e. looking backward).
“This time the injury was too severe – he died on June 26, 2004, with Katherine still cradling him in her arms.” (Reader’s Digest, 2012:47)
Analysis:
In data above , the demonstrative reference this in the singular noun phrase this time is to identify time itself, with the function as modifier. It refers to periods of time and is followed by noun phrase the injury.
“I would have been one of those aggressive stock traders who would do anything to earn a dollar.” (Reader’s Digest, 2012:129)
Analysis:
In the sentence above the demonstrative reference those refers to or anaphoricaly refers to the noun phrase stock traders which comes after the demonstrative reference those
“The howdah (chairs) on their backs – used to carry tourist – cause damage to the animal’s spines.” (Reader’s Digest, 2012:46)
Analysis:
In the data above the is the demonstrative reference which anaphorically refers back to howdah (chaisr). The use of this type of demonstrative reference produces cohesiveness in the text.
The function of both references (personal and demonstrative) in the five text analyzed is to establish cohesiveness and coherence. The personal references found in the analysis functions as subject, head, determiner, and possessor; the demonstrative references function as modifier and head.
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