Type of the Study Data and Sources of the Data Instruments of the Research

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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD

A. Type of the Study

This study employed a descriptive-qualitative method. A qualitative method refers to the research procedures which produce descriptive data such as people’s own written or spoken words and observable behaviour Bodgan and Taylor, 2002. According to Arikunto 1993: 208, there is no hypothesis in descriptive research as it describes a phenomenon without making any hypothesis. In this type of research, the researcher collects the data, analyzes them, and draws a conclusion without making any generalization. Applying a descriptive-qualitative method, this research aims at describing the characteristics of mathematics texts in Bilingual Mathematical Textbook 7B of Junior High School published by Erlangga using Halliday’s Functional Grammar theory. In analyzing the data, this research used content analysis in which the researcher related the contexts of the data with the analyzed data in order to make replicable and valid inferences from the data to their context. This research also applied a semantic content analysis, which analyzes the data in terms of meanings, yet it focuses on the lexicogrammar content analysis, which analyzes the data using transitivity system.

B. Data and Sources of the Data

According to Chapelle 1998, the unit of analysis for Systemic Functional Linguistics is the text because the functional meaning potential of language is realized in units no smaller than texts. The data of the research were in the form of clauses, which formed mathematics texts taken from Bilingual Mathematical Textbook 7B of Junior High School published by Erlangga.

C. Instruments of the Research

The main instrument in this research was the researcher herself. She acted as the planner, data collector, analyst, and finally the reporter of the research findings. It is in accordance with Moleong 2007: 168 who states that in qualitative research the main instrument is the researcher. The secondary instrument was the data sheets in which transitivity classification of the data were recorded. The classification was used as the direction to conduct the identification of the process types, the inherent participants functions and types, and circumstantial elements.

D. Procedure of the Research