Objectives of the Study Benefits of the Study

A distinction is sometimes made between content words open classes and function words closed classes when discussing about word Akmajian, et al . , 1984: 65. Examples of content words are brother, run, tall, quickly, and many more nouns, ‘full’ verbs, adjectives, and adverbs that can be said to have meaning as independent words. Function words, in contrast, cannot be easily defined as isolated words, but rather to indicate some grammatical function in a phrase or sentence. Examples of function words include conjunctions and, or, articles and demonstratives the, a, this, that, etc., and prepositions to, from, at, with, etc.. Function words, as the grammatical unit of words, are more likely to be discussed in grammar. While content words are more likely to be discussed in vocabulary Read, 2000: 18. Therefore, in vocabulary learning, we discuss about content words only. b. What is involved in knowing a word? Learning vocabulary means having the knowledge of word. Therefore, we need to know what is involved in knowing a word. There are two types of word knowledge. They are receptive knowledge and productive knowledge. Receptive knowledge is the knowledge of words that is used in listening and reading, whereas productive knowledge is the knowledge of words that is used in writing and speaking. If the word is to be learned for receptive and productive use listening, speaking, reading, and writing, there are some criteria to be consider to “know” a word. Nation 1990:31 classifies the distinction of receptive knowledge and productive knowledge in the form of table. Let us look at table 2.1. Each section is divided into two parts, one dealing with receptive knowledge R, and the other is dealing with productive knowledge P. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Table 2.1 Components of Word Knowledge Nation, 1990: 31 Form Spoken form Written form Position: Grammatical patterns Collocations Function: Frequency Appropriateness Meaning: Concept Associations R P R P R P R P R P R P R P R P What does the word sound like? How is the word pronounced? What does the word look like? How is the word written and spelled? In what patterns does the word occur? In what patterns must we use the word? What words or types of words can be expected before or after the word? What words or types of words must we use with this word? How common is the word? How often should the word be used? Where would we expect to meet this word? Where can this word be used? What does the word mean? What word should be used to express this meaning? What other words does this word make us think of? What other words could we use instead of this one? Table 2.1 specifies the learner’s task in knowing a word. As it is seen in the table above, one of the components of the word knowledge is about the frequency of word. Nation 1990: 38 states that overusing low-frequency words has a comical effect. If time is given to words according to their usefulness in English, then this effect can be avoided. It doesn’t mean that it is not important to learn low-frequency words, but except for special needs, low-frequency words must be learned after knowing high-frequency words. We can know which words are high- PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI