Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Everybody needs information. We can get infromation easily in the short time and directly from the other city and country. We can get an information from mass media. Mass media are media technologies that are intended to reach a large audience. Mass media are separated into three kinds, they are: Broadcast media such as radio, television, and recorded music, Print media such as newspaper, magazine, and book, and Internet media such as e-mail, website, and blogs. Newspaper is the object of this analysis. In Indonesia, there are so many kinds of newspaper like Sinar Indonesia Baru, Seputar Indonesia SINDO, Kompas, Jakarta Post, Times etc, and the writer chooses Jakarta Post as a data in her research for the analysis. Jakarta Post is one of the best newspapers in Indonesia which use English. Many information is provided by the Jakarta Post such as headline, opinion, national, business, Jakarta and paper edition, however, it lacks of a news about around the World, Sport, Archipelago, Editorial, Lifestyle, etc. In this thesis, two articles of editorial are used as data for analysis that found in Jakarta Post. Editorial is a special page dedicated to the writer for giving opinion. However, a newspaper may choose to publish an editorial in the front of the page. In most English language press, it is rarely done and topics are important. Editorial has been closely related to written language. It uses language as a tool of expression the writer’s feeling, emotion, thought for communication. It communicates and shares specific information by writing the journalists Universitas Sumatera Utara experiences, feeling, and information. Newspaper consists of texts. The texts are combination of the range of words, sentences which have a meaning. Halliday 1985: xvii says, “A text is a semantic unit, not a grammatical one. But meanings are realized through wordings; and without a theory of wording—that is, a grammar—there is no way of making explicit one’s interpretation of the meaning of a text.” Sentences and words are not so sharply set off one another; they are no different in kind—both are units in the grammar. Language is kind of Linguistics. How language is put together and how it works are systemized in grammar or rules for forming words and making sentences. Through grammar of a language someone understands how text work and the structure of sentences. Furthermore, Halliday 1985: xiv views a language is interpreted as a system of meanings, accompanied by forms through which the meanings can be realized. Language consist of three levels, they are : Phonology talking about the sound of language, Lexicogrammatical talking about the construction of making sentences and discourse talking about the unity of clause to imagine the meaning. Language of text has three functions or it is called as metafunction of language Gerot Wignell, 1994: 12, they are: Ideational Function, Interpersonal Function, and Textual Function. From the view of Interpersonal Function, a text serves as a media for individuals. The language is used to interact with opeople, to build and maintain relationships with them, to please them, and influence their behavior, get help or sympathy for them. It is realized by The Mood System. Universitas Sumatera Utara From Textual Function view, it is explained that text is as a system organizes messages in unified manner so that chunks of massages fit logically with others around them and with the wider context in which the talking or writing takes place. That realized by Theme System of Language. In ideational function, text is used to talk about our experience, to describe, states and the entities involved. Language serves as a coding system which deals with the relation between man and nature. The Ideational function consists of logical and experiential function. The experiential function is realized by the transitivity system . Transitivity is normally understood as the grammatical feature which indicates if a verb takes a direct object. In relation to this research, the analysis of the editorials uses the system of transitivity covering the Process, Participants and Circumstances. With different participant types for different process types will be found in the two articles of editorial that taken from the Jakarta Post newspaper. In the concept of transitivity found in Halliday’s Introduction of Functional Grammar, The Process consist of Material Processes Processes of doing; Mental Processes processes of sensing; Verbal Processes processes of saying; Behavioural Processes processes of physiological and psychological behaviour; Existential Processes represents that something exist and happen. The participants are directly involved in the process such as who does says, is, exists, behaves or senses. Participants are also centrally involved in the process by being affected by it, the one that is done to, sensed, etc. While circumstances are typical adjuncts. They answer such questions as when, where, why, how, how many and as what. Processes, participants and circumstances are the three elements of transitivity which analysing in this research. In this research is analysing the Universitas Sumatera Utara transitivity system because the elements of transitivity can held a clauses. As we known that Transitivity is analysed at clause level. Text is a range of clauses. Every clause has message for the readers. As it is known that text is semantic unit which has a massage in every clause. Through processes, participants and circumstances of clauses someone understands how text work and the structure of sentences. Processes, participants and circumstance try to get the meaning or message of the text to deliver the readers in the editorial texts of Jakarta Post as a source. Every element of transitivity has different function. Processes have function that tell us about the activity of the participant in clauses. Processes are center of transitivity. Processes are realized by verbs to show the activity and to know what the participants doing of the clauses, such as: doing, sensing, physiological and psycological behaviour, saying, being and having. The processes also can hepl us to get the message or meaning in every clause around abuot the activies of participants. But not all of the clause have a processes. In minor clause has not a processes, such as: “Hi Good afternoon greeting, oh, So high exclamations.” Participants and Circumstances are incumbent upon the doings, happening, feeling and beings. Participants follow the Processes of the clause. In every Processes have different participants. The function of Participants is to know who doing the activities in the clause. In this research is analysed about transitivity system in editorial text to know that the activities participant in every clause and to make easy for the reader to catch the message from the text. The readers can know what the writer is going to say in their writing in the editorial text. Universitas Sumatera Utara

1.2 Problem of The Study