43 is the best way
– finding the equivalence in the target language to have the same sense and response Larson, 1984, p. 20.
There are three things which have to be considered in doing translation: 1 using natural language, 2 transferring as much as possible the meanings from the
source language the target language, and 3 evoking the same sense from the source language to the target language Larson, 1984, p. 6.
B. Theoretical Framework
In this chapter, the researcher will discuss the theories that will be used to answer the main problems in this study. There are two major questions arise
regarding the importance of mastering English idioms by ELESP students. 1.
What are the major strategies involved in processing the meanings of English idioms?
2. How effective do the strategies lead the semester four students of ELESP
to intended meanings? To answer the research questions, the researcher provides some theories related to
idioms. However, only some theories will be used as the main theories, and others will be used to support the major theories.
The first problem is about finding major strategies to process the intended meanings of English idioms. Theoretically, the answer to the question will be
some strategies which are often used by the students. Therefore, in an attempt to solve the first problem, the researcher uses theories in processing the meanings of
idioms, namely, the three influencing factors in comprehending idioms: transparency, familiarity, and context; DCT; CA; and also direct translation. They
44 will be used as the main theories because they have strong relation with strategies
used to comprehend the intended meanings of English idioms. By using those theories, the researcher will try to explain why most ELESP students prefer using
certain strategies to using other strategies. Other theories about idioms such as types of idioms and categorizations of idioms: pure idioms, semi-idioms, and
literal idioms will be used as the secondary theories. The second problem is about the effectiveness of the strategies in leading
the students to the actual meanings. In theory, the answer to the question will be the effectiveness of the strategies which lead the students to the correct meanings.
Since effectiveness is rather difficult to describe, the researcher will present it in the form of percentage. The higher the percentage the more effective the strategies
are, and vice versa. Thus, theories on processing the meanings of idioms will still be used as the major theories. The reason is that since the question is about the
effectiveness of making use of certain strategies, the theories which are the foundation of the strategies are the most suitable theories. Besides, the researcher
will also use theories of meaning and other theories on idioms: classification of idioms and types of idioms to convince the results and make some interpretations.
Basically, all of the theories in the theoretical description will be used to answer the research questions. However, they have their own roles in helping the
researcher to answer the problems.
45
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents the methodology which was used to solve the problems in this research. This section will comprise research method, research
setting, research participants, instrument and data gathering technique, data analysis technique and research procedure.
A. Research Method
To meet the objectives of the study, the researcher used descriptive research as the methodology. Gall, Gall and Borg 2007, p. 300 claim that
descriptive research belongs to quantitative research which aims to describe phenomena that happen in educational field. Therefore, usually descriptive
research is involved in determining the question ‘what is’ such as what kinds of
activities typically occur in sixth-grade art classes? Gall, Gall Borg, 2007, p. 301. Since the purpose of this research is to describe the characteristics of certain
phenomena, thus it is not used to test a certain hypothesis Ary, Jacobs, Razaiveh, 1990, p. 381. Moreover, Wiersma 1995, p. 91 states that as a
quantitative research, the data will mostly be in the form of numbers and it is designed to enable the researcher to make valid interpretations based on the data.
Therefore, to get sufficient data, survey was chosen as a part of the research design.
Ary, Jacobs, Razaiveh 1990, p. 381 say that survey belongs to descriptive research. Definition of survey research is proposed by Creswell 2003,
