Definition Of Terms INTRODUCTION

introduce place, this preposition can mean position, target, and distance. At last, in showing movement, the preposition to can mean “from starting point to destination”. The third is from an article written by Norwati Roslim 2014 entitled Prepositions and ESL Learners: the Malaysian Scenario. This article presented by Roslim was a review of the literature on prepositions with a focus on definitions and main difficulties faced by Malaysian students. She figured out that the problem that the Malaysian ESL learners may have in using prepositions was the differences between the use of prepositions in the English language and in the first language of the Malaysian ESL users, that is, Bahasa Melayu. In Malaysian context, it is quite relevant to compare the prepositions in the English language and Malay in an attempt to determine whether there would be difficulties in learning or acquiring English prepositions faced by students whose mother tongue as well as medium of instruction is Malay. Furthermore, she also revealed, as cited from Yong 2001, that Malaysian and Indonesian learners revealed the problems between the Malay and the Indonesian learners in using prepositions were quite similar. Errors were found in the use of correct preposition after a verb, adjective or noun in expressions like add to, attend to, allow for, hope for, conscious of, and based on. These learners also showed the problem in choosing the right preposition in fixed expressions like with great courtesy, in anger, by the back door, on the radio, by train. Based on the three researches previously, the researcher concludes some points. First of all, the researcher discovers something new closely related to the prepositions in which the Indonesian students find difficulties to comprehend. In PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI his research, Wibowo examined the prepositions of place at, in, and on that often cause some errors for English Learners Indonesian students to be mastered. Then, regarding this problem, this research will analyze other English prepositions in which the Indonesian learners also find some difficulties to comprehend them, which are the prepositions for and to. Secondly, the researcher finds several similarities between those researches and the current research. The researcher finds that this research is similar to research conducted by Wibowo, in which the researcher will use several methods, namely test as the research instrument and the use of random sampling to gather the data. The researcher also figures out that this research is identical to Roslim’s research, which is identifying students’ difficulties in learning English as the Second Language. This research will also improve the research done by Wibowo, in which several methods that are not mentioned yet will be provided, such as the theory of random sampling in data gathering procedure. On the other hand, the researcher realizes that there are also several differences between the previous researches and this research. Firstly, unlike the previous researches, the respondents in this research are the sixth semester students of academic year 20152016 at English Letters Department of Sanata Dharma University. Secondly, this research only focuses on the mastery of the students in mastering the preposition of for and to, different from Wibowo’s research, in which his research focused on the preposition of place at, in, and on. Thirdly, this research differs from Sianipar’s, for this study only focuses on the mastery of the use of prepositions for and to whereas she focuses on identifying the functions, positions, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI and meanings of prepositions for and to. The last, this research is dissimilar to Roslim’s research, for her research focuses on the definitions and main difficulties of prepositions faced by Malaysian students.

B. Review of Related Theories 1. Preposition

In English, preposition is an important class of function words. According to Yu, prepositions belong to functional parts of speech and are rather active 2014: 1. She also adds that in English, some prepositions are among the most common words. She says that “Linguists argue that English language is a prepositional one, which indicates that the preposition is one of the most useful and active parts of speech in English” cited from Li, 2007: 11. Moreover, according to Roslim 2014: 1, as cited form Kaplan 1989 and Hughes 1992, preposition is also defined as a word or group of words and often has meanings which have something to do with location or direction and movement and also time or method. She also mentions that the majority of prepositions express relationship between things and events and their basic sense is spatial Borjars and Burridge, 2001. Furthermore, Delija and Koruti, in their research, further explain that prepositions are very confusing and sometimes hardly understandable even for native speakers, and when it comes to students who learn English as second language, the problem is much bigger, for they have to understand all the nuances of the English prepositions, to memorize them and to properly use them 2013: 125.