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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents the methodology of the study. First, it will discuss the research method employed in this study. Second, it will present the data source and
how they were gathered. After that, it is followed by description of how the data were processed. The last part of this chapter will explain the data analysis.
3.1 Research Method
According to Johnson 1992, research is cumulative in the sense that researchers attempt to build on and improve upon previous work. Research is an
attempt to reveal the nature of natural phenomenon or the use of the natural phenomenon.
As stated in the previous chapter, this study attempts to answer two questions, namely
„What are the semantic properties of the conceptual meaning of the verb run when it is compared with the verb race, gallop, and sprint
?‟ and „What semantic properties are related to the conceptual meaning of the verb run when it is
put beyond the conceptual meaning? ‟ In order to obtain those two major goals, the
most appropriate method is a dictionary analysis. The writer used single dictionary which provides information on the meaning of words.
Every dictionary has its own definition variation of the lexical items. However, all dictionaries give meanings including their derivatives, compounds,
idioms as well as verbs with their particle or preposition. In this study, the writer used Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English published by Longman in 2001. The
writer has chosen this dictionary as it provides the contextual meanings clearly and is already classified in sequence from its semantic domain.
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3.2 Data Source and Data Gathering
As this study concerns with semantics, it relies on a dictionary as the main source of the data. The writer will use a single dictionary as the source, i.e. Longman
Dictionary of Contemporary English published by Longman in 2001. When a lexicon has more than one meaning, this dictionary provides entries with many definitions
and it has included “signposts” to help the reader find the right definition quickly. A
signpost is a word or short phrase that guides the reader to the right meaning. It may be a synonym, a short definition, or the typical subject or object of a verb. The
signposts are written in bold capital letters, before the definition, and are written using only the words available in the Longman Defining Vocabulary. By having
signposts in every lexicon who has more than one meaning, this dictionary helps the writer find the context for each definition, as the signposts give the short phrase that
leads him to the right meaning. The writer analyzed the words from the content word which includes verbs
only and he did not analyze other content words for this study. First, the writer searched the conceptual meaning of the verb run, race, gallop, and sprint in the
dictionary. The literal meaning of each verb is given in the first definition in entries. After that, to conduct the contextual analysis, the writer gathered other meanings of
the verb run as a single verb. A single verb means that the verb stands alone with no prepositions or articles following it. Afterwards, the writer gathered the meanings of
the verb run as a phrasal verb. The phrasal verb run used by the writer is the combination of the verb run and prepositions or a particle.
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3.3 Data Processing