Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 presents introduction of the study which consists of background of the study, reasons for choosing the topic, research problems, objectives of the study, significance of the study, and the outline of the research report. Description of subchapter is presented as follows.

1.1 Background of the Study

Human beings are the only creatures that are given special abilities by the God. They can adapt, think, survive and analyze natural phenomena. By using their special abilities, they can improve their life to be better. They can use their abilities because they have a part of body called brain. The human brain is very complex than the other creatures, for instance animals. This is why the human beings are called as the most perfect and special creatures. Besides, something that makes them more special than the others is their way to express their feeling, thought, and emotion. They express their feeling, thought, and emotion through a tool called language. Language is one of the most important things in communication and it is used as a tool of communication among the nations in all over the world. Hence, the language cannot be separated with a term called linguistics. The word linguistics is derived from Latin lingua meaning language, while the suffix ics indicates the name of a science Yunitasari 2012. Linguistics concerns with language, that is human language. According to Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary Third Edition, linguistics is the systematic study of the structure and development of language in general or of particular languages. In other word, linguistics is a basis for the scientific study of human language from various aspects, such as sounds, words, and grammar rules. Linguistic is a general science of language; therefore, it has some branches of scientific study, such as phonology, phonetics, semantics, syntax, discourse, pragmatics, and morphology. Traditionally, morphology can be stated as a study of internal structure of words Katamba 1993: 19. The word “morphology” is derived from the Greek word morphe meaning “form” and logos meaning “science” Carstairs and McCarthy 2002:16. Morphology belongs to the area of grammar involving the structure of words and its relationships between words. Morphology also involves a term called morpheme. Morpheme is the smallest meaningful units of language Carstairs and McCarthy 2002. It means that a morpheme cannot be separated to smaller units which are either meaningful by itself or sign of grammatical function like plural or singular sign in a noun Katamba 1993:20. There are two kinds of morpheme; free morpheme and bound morpheme. Free morpheme is a morpheme which can stand alone, such as nation, while bound morpheme cannot stand alone and it must be attached to a free morpheme, as in -al in national. The word formation, such as nation + -al becomes national which absolutely cannot be separated to morphology because morphology also engages the word formation. There are many techniques known in English word formation, such as blending, clipping, compounding, etc. As an impact of the developing era and globalization, the use of English has been applied in many countries. Almost all of the countries in this world learn English. Moreover, some of them use English as their foreign language. Indonesia, one of the countries in South East Asia which follows the development of globalization era has applied the English as a subject in education curriculum. However, the application of English in Indonesia is not only in the education, but also almost all elements of life in Indonesia. For example, it can be found in advertisement boards in Indonesia. There are many advertisement boards in Indonesia that use English as the word selection to attract the readers or consumers to use or buy the products. One of the regencies in Indonesia that uses many advertisement boards in English is Kendal regency. It is located in Central Java, in the west of Semarang city and in the east of Batang regency. Kendal regency belongs to a region where the industrialization runs fast. This is why many of businessmen try to build their business in Kendal regency. To attract the consumers and promote their new products, they use some ways, such as online media and advertisement boards. It is easy to find advertisement boards in Kendal regency, even, many of advertisers or businessmen use English words in their advertisement boards. They have applied some strategies in forming the English word, for example compounding. Compounding is one of the ways of forming a new word. It is the combination of lexical categories nouns, adjectives, verbs, or preposition to create a larger word, for instance camp + fire becomes campfire O’Grady et.al. 1997: 143. In this study, I try to find out, classify, and analyze the process of English word formation found in advertisement boards in Kendal regency. I have a notion that by conducting a research on the use of English word, especially in advertisement boards is interesting because there are a few researches about it and I am attracted in linguistics, especially morphology. Besides, I hope that my study will be useful for the readers who are interested in learning the process of English word formation.

1.2 Reasons for Choosing the Topic I choose the topic of his study based on the following reasons: