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3 Context of Learning
Context of learning refers to the teachers, textbooks, and materials. If a teacher has low competence in explaining the students will model that wrong
explanation. Besides, carelessnes can make errors as well. Norish 1983: 21 mentions that the material or the style of presentation can loosen the students’
interest. In other words, carelessness is closely related with lack of motivation.
c. Error Analysis
Error analysis is a category of linguistic analysis that focuses on the errors
learners make. Researchers are interested in errors because they are believed to contain valuable information on the strategies that people use to acquire a
language Dulay and Burt, 1972. The investigation of errors can be at the same time diagnostic and prognostic. It is diagnostic because it can tell us the learner’s
state of the language Corder, 1967 at a given point during the learning process and prognostic because it can tell course organizers to reorient language learning
materials on the basis of the learner’s current problems.
B. Theoretical Framework
Professions that are either directly or indirectly associated with writing require people to have good English writing skill. Formal writing is required for
being accepted in working world as writing skill plays a central role in all elements of life.
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As one variety of formal writing, academic writing is a compulsory course for sixth semester students of English Education Study Program of Sanata
Dharma University as it will serve as fundamental skill to other following compulsory courses such as Seminar on Language Teaching, Research on English
Language Teaching, Thesis Writing, Service Program Design, and Thesis course. Since the sixth semester students of Writing VI course have encountered
overall writing courses, they must be able to produce good diction. They should be at the level where they no longer make diction errors in formal writing.
Nevertheless, they perhaps find difficulties selecting the right words in academic writing. Since they may produce inappropriate diction in developing their
academic writing, some experts’ points of view are used as the references. To obtain the thorough information of the students’ diction, the integration of diction
features for academic writing suggested by O’Hare and Gerson becomes the main instrument. It is used as the guidance in evaluating the students’ diction in
academic writing. In brief, some experts’ points of view play some significant roles in
exploring, identifying, and analyzing the students’ diction in terms of formality, accuracy, clarity, and concision. It serves as the basis of the research that leads to
the data analysis and interpretation. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents detailed discussion about the methodology employed in this study. This includes the descriptions of the method of research, the
participants, the setting, the instruments, the procedure, and the data analysis.
A. Method of Research
This study was a descriptive research. It was designed “to obtain information concerning the current status of phenomena” Ary et al, 1990: 381.
At the same time the research was done without their being influences by the investigator. Therefore, there was no treatment toward the students’ diction in
academic writing. The data were purely natural without the researcher’s interference.
Descriptive research consists of several methods. To obtain the specific information, the research employed document analysis method. Documentary
analysis is a research method applied to written or visual materials for the purpose of identifying specific characteristics of the material Ary et al, 2002: 442.
Since this study explored the diction in the students’ academic writing as a major focus for investigation and interpretation, qualitative research was applied.
Sprinthall 1991: 100 further states that the data gathered in qualitative research are purely descriptive and not numerical. Therefore, there was no hypothesis
formulated in the research. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
