CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the
Study
As
social being people need a means of communication to express feeling, thoughts
and desires, which is called language. This language must be understood by the
members of the group. Each group has its own characteristics of language, such
as accent and stress. Some experts try to define what the meaning of language
is.
Hornby
in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English (1989:699)
states that language is a system of sounds, words, patterns, etc. used by human
to communicate thoughts and feelings. In tone with it, Wardhaugh in Brown
(1987: 4) says that language is a system of
arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Furthermore, Brown
in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary
of English Language (1987:4) says that language is a systematic means of
communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds,
gestures, or marks having understood meaning. From those three definitions of
language, I can say that language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols to
communicate thoughts, ideas, or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs,
sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meaning.
There
are two forms of language, spoken and written form. The spoken form comes
first. It can exist freely without writing, whereas the written form has never
been known to exist without speech. We start learning how to use spoken language
since we were still a kid. At that time, we just listened to other persons’ speech
and tried to imitate them. By doing it everyday it becomes easier to communicate
using the spoken language. On the contrary, written language is more difficult
to be learned. In writing, we need to
pay attention to a lot of things.
Some
of those things are vocabulary, grammar and the arrangement of sentences we
make. Since we use language as a means of communication, we need to find the right
words to send a message. Some words cannot be used in any context. For example,
the word add in “I can add my
knowledge.” is not appropriate. Though add means put something together with
something else so as to increase the size, number, amount, etc. (Hornby,
1989:13), but it doesn’t mean that the word can be used in that sentence. It is better to use enrich in the sentence.
The
way we choose the right words is not enough to send a message to other people.
We also need the right structure of words. It is known as Grammar. By looking
at its definition we will get the figure of what grammar is and how it works. According
to Hornby in Oxford advanced Learner’s
Dictionary (1989:542), grammar is defined as rules for forming words and combining them into
sentences. While Harman in Ulfa (2000:4) says that grammar is the study of words
and their function. Moreover, Robert in Aswadi (2002:11) states that grammar is
an analytical and analogical study of sentences. Still in Aswadi, Robert says
that grammar is the total set of signals
by which a given language expresses its meaning or the total structure of a
language. So I can say that grammar is an analytical and analogical study for
forming words and combining them into sentences to express its meaning or the
total structure of a language.
Verb
as part of tenses in grammar is important. It contains some information. It
tells an event and the time it happens, whether it happened in the past, at
present or in the future. Willis (1981:6) says that a verb gives an indication of
the time of occurrence of the action or state of being. For example, we cannot say
“now I continued my study in SMA”. By looking at its adverb of
time, we know that the process of study in SMA is still happening. So, it is
more appropriate to say “now I continue my study in SMA”. When we use the right verbs, it doesn’t mean
that the sentences we write will be good sentences. The verbs should be
combined in a good order with other words in the sentences. For example, it is
better to write “the benefit of doing it is to make????????????????
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