9
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Literature Review of Vocabulary
1. Vocabulary
a. Nature of Vocabulary
Vocabulary cannot be separated from the language; it is important part of language. According to Nation
2001: 22 “The importance of vocabulary has been neglected, when people began to realize that learning vocabulary is indeed
not simple matter’’. It means that vocabulary is the important part of language, without vocabulary the language cannot be used to maintain all information in
language. Vocabulary can be defined as sounds that express a meaning and form an independent unit in a language. It can be said that vocabulary is smallest
unit of speech that processes individual meaning to speak and can be used to interact one another and vocabulary can be said as a group of words on certain
language as a part in teaching-learning in a foreign language.
Vocabulary should be taught especially for foreign language teaching learning activity, because even the students have mastered grammatical form they
could not the communication in the foreign language without mastering a vocabulary. To master a language is not easy because some aspects of language
are not easy to learn, it is impossible to learn a language without mastering vocabulary.
In the following, the writer would like to present some definitions of vocabulary. There are several definitions of vocabulary given by some experts:
1 Vocabulary is one of component of language and that no languages exist without words Napa, 1991: 6.
2 Vocabulary is total number of words which with rule for combining them make the language Horby, 1963: 461.
3 Vocabulary is range of words the own to, or used by, a person in a trade, professions, etc. Hornby in Sunarmi, 1993: 3.
4 Vocabulary is a list of words and often phrases, usually arranged alphabetically and defined or translate Grolier, 1986: 246.
5 Vocabulary is a list of words and often, phrases, abbreviations, inflectional forms, usually arranged in alphabetical order and defined or otherwise
identified as in dictionary or glossary Victoria, 1995: 225. 6 Vocabulary is words known and used by one person within a particular trade
or profession Collins, 2002: 272. From those definitions about vocabulary, the researcher can conclude that
vocabulary is a total number of words with meanings and definitions used by someone or students to express the idea in a language.
b. Vocabulary Mastery
Vocabulary is needed people to understand the meaning of words and it helps them to express precisely Burton, 1982: 98. Limited vocabulary mastery
can give bad influences in the teaching – learning process of a language.
Furthermore, mastering vocabulary well is important for the language learner. Vocabulary mastery is a gradual process. To reach out the good
vocabulary mastery someone needs to follow the process. It can be defined as through knowledge of the words of a language. The learners’ vocabulary mastery
is indicated by their ability in producing and understanding the words in their daily life.
Further Krasen and Terrel 1983 stated that vocabulary mastery is also very important for the acquisition process. Acquisition depends significantly in
the comprehensible input. The comprehensibility is dependent directly on the ability to recognize the meaning of the key elements in the utterance.
Cameron 2001: 74 stated that learning word is not something that is done and finished yet. To master vocabulary is to learn new words, meaning, to
increase vocabulary. The learning includes the pronunciation, the meaning, the spelling, the usage, and the part of speech of the words. She also adds that
learning words is a cycle process of meeting new words and initial learning, followed by meeting those words repeatedly, each time extending knowledge of
what the words mean and how they are used in the foreign language. This means that every time learners meet those familiar words again, they directly improve
their knowledge about the words. Vocabulary mastery of course relates to what kinds of words learners have
to master. According to Nation 2001 “The most important group of the words is
Kategori