Background of the Study

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter consists of five sections outlining the description of this study namely background of the study clarifying the reason why this study is conducted, research questions, objectives of the research, and benefit of the study which respectively show two leading questions functioning as a frame of this research, research aims and what this study achieves in the end of the analysis. The study is conducted to give the linguistics and literature field a scholarly discourse especially in ways of analyzing literary text by using systemic functional linguistics SFL which is supported by register theory, a theory about context situation in a text.

1.1 Background of the Study

Meta-function in relation to our ecological and social environment as suggested by Halliday 2004: 29 is for making sense of our experience and acting out our social relationships. This suggestion deals with the purposes of literary work functions as an object lesson in which ‗Clara‘ is a literary work. ‗Clara‘ the data of this research, as referring the term ‗text‘ proposed by Baldick 2003: 257 - the actual wording of a written work or a specific work chosen as the object of analysis - can be specified that ‗Clara,‘ is a text since consists of actual wording of a writing work therefore ‗Clara‘ is appropriate to analyze. According to Eggins 2004: 23, text has been glossed as authentic products of social interaction. Linguistically, she says that text refers to any passage, spoken or written of whatever length which forms a unified whole and 1 ‗Clara‘ is a written text by Seno Gumira Ajidarma. Using the term ‗syntax‘ proposed by Tallerman 2011: 19 furthermore can concluded that ‗Clara‘ as a text which is written and manipulated in all sorts of ways in process of its creation. It is a try of an author to convey different meanings. In short that meaning is the main motive why one manipulates the sentences. Syntax is such a field for the writers or speakers to express all the meanings that they need to put across. In the simplest cases, this might mean altering the basic word order of a sentence, emphasizing or downplaying a particular phrase, or asking a question, or grouping words together in different ways to modify the meaning. This section gives a preliminary idea of some typical syntactic constructions found in languages. It is so ‗Clara‘ as a text where the author constructs it in such a manner to modify the meaning. ‗Clara‘, the text that I use for this research is a literary text which has a background in 1998 humanity tragedy. Clara is originally written in Bahasa Indonesia entitled Clara Atawa Gadis yang Diperkosa which is able to download freely in http:duniasukb.com 20070414clara-atawa-wanita-yang-diperkosa. This short story then translated into English by Michael H. Bodden, a professor of Southeast Asia studies program in University of Victoria in 1999 which is able to download freely link www.warscapes.com. As what proposed by the term ‗syntex‘ above, ‗Clara‘ as a text obviously contain of idea and opinion about what the author wants to convey. As we know that literary text is a manifestation of a certain social life which is written by an author for any purposes; criticizing any certain policies of any certain lives, comprising any certain lives with any social lives, describing or offering a different life from which they experience in their lives and so on and in conveying the meaning properly the author manipulates clauses and sentences in all sorts of ways for different meanings. It can be seen later in every analysis supported by systemic functional linguistics SFL and register theory done for ‗Clara‘ so that how a clause linked, projected, expanded, enhanced to another sentences and how certain words chosen and so on can be grasped and understood. This 2,747 word short story is a description of political situation of Indonesian around 1998. A short story which has a background in humanity tragedy of 1998 however can not reflect what was really happen in that time therefore the register theory is needed to show context situation in that text. It is such as social warfare between the bourgeoisies Chinese and indigenous Indonesian and how those bour geoisies is brutally treated by ‗Indonesian.‘ As narrated in ‗Clara,‘ the Chinese ethnics became the object of the Indonesian abhorrence till those ethnics at last experience bad treatment committed by Indonesian such as torturing, raping and even killing that ethnic. Their properties such as houses, cars and shops are burnt. The word ‗Clara‘ in this short story is a representative of a bourgeois character who experiences those brutal treatments. She is raped by a mob, her car is burnt and even in other places her family and neighbor are also treated the same. ‗Clara‘ is well-known short story not only engendered by the writer but also caused by the popularity of that 1998 humanity tragedy itself. The celebrity of this short story has encouraged many peoples to read it and give any attentions such as what done by Michael C. Bodden who translated Clara Atawa Gadis yang Diperkosa into English ‗Clara‘. Besides the celebrity of this short story describing the heartbreaking and piteous of that humanity tragedy of 1998, referring to what constituted by literary work‘s function – an object lesson is appropriate to analyze as a try and effort to make it as an object lesson. Not to imitate it by how we get a lesson for the peace and the better life. It is the core of meta-functions - making sense of our experience and acting out our social relationships. 1.2 Research Questions To achieve the goal of this research, these following research questions are formulated namely: 1. What meta-functions are applied in ‗Clara‘? 2. How are meta-functions realized in register situational context in text to reveal the meaning of ‗Clara‘? 1.3 Objectives of the Research The core objectives of this research are to answer two questions formulated above namely 1 What meta- functions are applied in „Clara‟? and 2 How are meta-functions realized in register situational context in text to reveal the meaning of „Clara‟? Based on these two research questions, there are some key words that we need to know as objectives and why do they are needed to know. They are meta-functions and register devices. As suggested by Halliday 2004: 29, meta-functions, in relation to our ecological and social environment, stand for making sense of our experience and acting out our social relationships. It deals with the purposes of literary work functions as an object lesson in which ‗Clara‘ is a literary work. Knowing meta-functions mean knowing three aspect of functions or meanings namely ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning which respectively function to know how the writer construes the experience, how he represents the reality of language, and how the clause‘s experiential meaning is realized simultaneously with its interpersonal meaning and textual meaning. In construing the experience of text, the writer uses some words which is linguistically can be grouped into some process types like material, behavioral, mental and so on. These process types properly give the reader situational reality about of certain discourse in the text known as register theory. The analysis of meta-functions furthermore supported by register theory because however a literary work is certainty made inspired from a certain discourse and what is really happen in the text is like light and mirror, what we have in text can not mirror what is really happen in its discourse therefore it is register theory needed to know.

1.4 Benefit of the Research