Background of the Study

1

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Language is a medium of communication. It is an important thing in human life, since without language, we cannot make interaction. By using language someone could make statements, explainor report something and keeping social relations among the other person. Language is used for many purposes. It can information from one mind to another in the world especially English language. Language, human,beings, society, and culture cannot be separated one another. Without the present of language human beings can do nothing. Therefore of course a habit will not appear and so a society. A habit can be seen through the society, and the products of the habit can be said as the culture of the society. So it can be understood clearly the language will be used by a member of society and the habits of the society‘s members are called the culture of the society. The habits or the culture of the a society usually in herit by the generation of the society. Owen 2006:1 says that language can be defined as a socially shared combinations of those symbols. Language which is governed by the provisions in question as above is a cultural and also grammar, language has a very close relationship with grammar where language is a series of rules to learn grammar rules governing for forming a sentence. So to analyze the sentences in the drama, Old and Modern English is needed to help us understand what makes sentences and paragraphs clear and Universitas Sumatera Utara 2 interesting . Old and Modern English can be a part of literature discussions, when we read the sentences used in stories as drama. Old English is prior the beginnings of English, the inhabitants of Great Britain spoke primarily Celtic languages. During the later part of the 5th century, three tribes invade England from Western Germany and Denmark. These tribes spoke a similar languge that, over says, develop into Old English. Modern English began in the 15th century, the transition from Middle Eglish to Modern English began. Much of the transition was due to the expansion of the British Empire throughout the world and to the development of printing. The printing press and increase in publishing of books drove the standardization of the language. spelling grammar was formalized due to the publication of various literary works and pamphlets. The drama which will be discussed in this paper was written by Sophocles born c. 496 B.C.E. in Colonus near Athens, Greece.., died after 413 was one of the three major authors of Greek tragedy. Of his 123 plays, only seven survive in full. We are fortunate that one of these is Oedipus Rex in Greek, Oidipous tyrannos, written soon after 430 B.C., which the accient Greeks themselves considered his best work. Oedipus rex is famous for its smooth and suspenseful plotting, its cosmic ironies and the philosophical questions its raises about the limits of man‘s power and ambitions. The translation by Sir George Young 1837-1930, he called it Oedipus Tyrannus is not only very accurate. But also preserves the feelings of the original Greek to a great extent. The verse forms are reasonable English equivalents; the Universitas Sumatera Utara 3 diction-lightly archaic in the blank verse dialogues, heightened and more involuted in the stanzaic choruses admirably reflects the hieratic nature of Sophocles‘ drama. He concerned with problems of the Greek text and its interpretation have been omited. Several new, very brief footnotes have been added, identifying some Greek and concepts for readers less familiar with classical mythology and lore. Finally, the research of this paper focuses on the Old and Modern English in the drama written by Sophocles entitle Oedipus Rex. This is the background as well as the reason why this paper focus on the analyzing the Old and Modern English.

1.2 The Problem of the Study