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h. Acronyms
Acronyms are words formed from the initial sounds or letter of a string of words. They are the result of forming a word from the first letter or letters of
each word in a phrase. For example:
1 UFO Unidentified Flying Objects
2 Radar Radio detecting and ranging
3 MC Master of ceremony
Considering the theories above, it can be concluded that vocabulary mastery, in this stu
dy, is the students’ knowledge concerning with wordthat deals with the form and the meaning of words in a language. It includes the
elements of vocabulary such as collocation, word grammar, word meaning synonym, antonym, meaning in context, and word formation.
B. Review of Related Studies
The contribution of vocabulary mastery toward reading comprehension has been proven by the former study on it. The study was done in
Tulungagung was conducted by PoerwoRahsono 2008. He investigated the influence of vocabulary mastery toward reading comprehension. He found
that there is a very positive significant influence of the student’s vocabulary
mastery on their achievement in reading comprehension. Research of the correlation between vocabulary mastery and reading
comprehension done in Semarang was conducted by Ratnawati 2006. She
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conducted a kind of correlational research which was done in SMP N 13 Semarang. The data collection technique she used was a test. From the test, it
was found out that the mean of the scores of the vocabulary test is 58.06. It means that the mean of the scores of the vocabulary test is fair. The mean of
the scores of the students’ achievement in reading comprehension is 61.62, which means that the mean of the scores of reading comprehension test is
fair. The result of applying the r
xy
distribution shows that the coefficient correlation is 0.417. It means that there is a significant correlation between
the vocabulary mastery and reading comprehension. In a harmony with Ratnawati, Furqon 2013 also conducted correlational
research. His data were collected from 34 second grade students. The test items of reading comprehension and vocabulary mastery were given to the
students to measure their level of reading comprehension and vocabulary mastery. The results were compared to find out the correlation between those
variables. The findings showed that there was a strong correlation between students’ vocabulary mastery and reading comprehension. The study
concluded that vocabulary mastery was contributive in helping the students to comprehend the texts.
In the light of those facts, it can be concluded that the improvement of vocabulary mastery will be followed by the improvement of reading
comprehension. It also means that students’ vocabulary mastery has contribution to their reading comprehension.
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