MODALIZATION IN THE OPINION COLUMN OF THE JAKARTA POST.

MODALIZATION IN THE OPINION COLUMN OF THE

JAKARTA POST

A Thesis

Submitted to Post-Graduate School English Applied Linguistic Program in

Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Magister Humaniora

By:

FEBRIKA DWI LESTARI

Registration Number: 8116111008

ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTIC STUDY PROGRAM

POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN

MEDAN

ABSTRACT

Lestari, Febrika Dwi. Modalization in the Opinion Column of The Jakarta Post.

English Applied Linguistics Study Program. Postgraduate School. State

University of Medan. 2014

This study addresses modalization used in the opinion column of The Jakarta

Post. This study was based on descriptive qualitative approach. The research attempts

to analyze the types of modalization used in The Jakarta Post, how it is used or

realized, and to investigate why it is used the way it is. The data were collected by

applying documentary techniques by collect the texts from the opinion column of The

Jakarta Post especially the political text. There were 10 political texts of the opinion

column taken as the source of the data. The data were analyzed by the types of

modalization, value of modalization and orientation of modalization proposed by

Halliday. The finding in this study indicates that there were two types of modalization

used in the political text of the opinion column of The Jakarta Post, namely

probability and usuality. Probability is the dominant types of modalization used in the

opinion column. Modalization is used / realized by three terms in the text; they are

types, value, and orientation of modalization. In terms of value of modalization , it is

indicated that the medium modalization is mostly used in the text. While in the

orientation of modalization subjective implicit is the most dominant orientation used

in the political texts. Those findings indicate that in writing the opinion still fill with

the uncertainty of the writer or the writer feels lack of confident with their opinion.

This was caused by that most of the opinion talked about political event that mostly

in the future and to avoid the offence of the readers.

ABSTRAK

Lestari, Febrika Dwi. Modalisasi dalam Kolom Opini Pada Koran The Jakarta

Post. Program Studi Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris. Sekolah Pascasarjana.

Universitas Negeri Medan. 2014

Penelitian ini membahas tentang modalisasi yang digunakan dalam kolom

opini di Koran The Jakarta Post. Penelitian ini berdasarkan pendekatan deskriptif

kualitatif. Penelitian ini bermaksud untuk menganalisis jenis modalisasi yang

digunakan di Koran The Jakarta Post, bagaimana modalisasi tersebut

digunakan/direalisasikan dan mengapa modalisasi digunakan seperti pada text. Data

dikumpulkan dengan menerapkan teknik documenter dengan mengumpulkan teks

dari kolom opini terutama teks politik. Ada 10 teks politik yang diambil sebagai

sumber data. Data dianalisis dengan jenis, nilai dan orientasi modalisasi dengan

menggunakan teory Halliday. Temuan menunjukkan bahawa ada 2 jenis modalisasi

yang digunakan yaitu probabilitas dan keseringan. Probabilitas adalah jenis yang

paling sering digunakan dalam teks opini. Modalisasi digunakan/direalisasikan

melalui 3 istilah, yakni jenis, nilai dan orientasi modalisasi. Dalam nilai modalisasi,

ditemukan bahwa nilai medium adalah yang paling sering digunakan. Sementara

untuk orientasi, subjektive implicit adalah yang paling dominan digunakan. Kesemua

temuan di atas menunjukkan bahwa dalam menyampaikan opininya, penulis masih

memiliki rasa ketidakyakinan atau merasa kurang percaya diri dengan opininya

mengenai kejadian politik yang dikomentari. Hal ini dikarenakan kebanyakan teks

dalam kolom opini adalah membahas tentang kejadian politik yang akan terjadi

dimasa depan dan untung mengindari pertentangan dengan pembaca.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In the name of Jesus Christ the most Gracious Greatest Savior.

First of all, I would like to say praise to Jesus Christ who has given chance and health to the writer in order could finish this thesis on time. There are so many difficulties were found along this study, but it is all by His great blessing and mercy that the writer could do this work.

Her special gratitude goes to Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M. Pd, as the Head of English Applied Linguitics Study Program and all lecturers, for the valuable knowledge and instruction they have imparted to her during the years of studying.

The writer owe her deep and sincere gratitude to her first adviser Prof. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd, and her second adviser Prof. Amrin Saragih, P.hD, for their valuable advice, guidance, insight and precious time spent on supervising and commenting this thesis until it appears in its present form. Without their help, personal example and faith in the quality of this work, this thesis could never have been completed.

The writer also very grateful to all examiners for this thesis, Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S, Mara Untung Ritonga, M. Hum., Ph. D, and Dr. Syahron Lubis, M.A for their valuable question, critics and correction. Their extensive knowledge and experience have been of great value to me.

Then, a very special debt of gratitude is directed to his beloved parents, St. M. Lumbantoruan and R.P Hutajulu, together with his beloved brother, Rincan Budiyanto, S.Pt, sister in-law, Eka Melisa Lestari, SE, and her sisters, Agnes Tri Susanti, S.Pd and Dewi Septiani, S.Psi and the cutest niece, Maria Jill Hamoraon whose love and encouragement have carried me this far. Her thanks also goes to her relatives, Bg Ella and Family, Hutajulu’s Family, Omi Jill. Thanks for your love, caring and help during the study.

The writer also would like to thank all friends of LTBI Angkatan 20 for all the happiness, laughs, and kind helps during the class. Your unending love and

support have helped me through the years in this study. Especially, Vidya, Tari, Iwa, K’ Coy, K’ Saurma, Lily, K’ Zikra, a great thanks given to all of you guys, for your support, help, patience, motivation and encouragement during this hard time.

I would like to give a special thanks to the special friend of mine, Hestika Ginting, S.S, Emma Sasa, S.S and Meilinda Saragih, S.S who help me through the hardest time. You are like my own sisters and I am proud to be the part of this friendship and hope that this will last forever. I also have to thank the lovable, Dra. Netty F. Hutabarat for her pray, support, encouragement and most valuable advices.

Her thanks also goes to the staff of LTBI, Bg. Farid for many helps regarding with the administration problem and also the staff of LTBI Library who has given a lot of help during the writing of this thesis.

Last but not least, she must confess that she has done to accomplish this thesis but she is been fully aware that it is still far from being perfect. Therefore, any critics, suggestions, or comments that given to make the thesis better will be highly appreciated.

Medan, Maret 2014

Febrika Dwi Lestari Reg. Number 8116111008

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... i

ABSTRACT ... iii

ABSTRAK ... iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... v

LIST OF TABLES ... vii

LIST OF APPENDICES ... viii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Background of the Study ... 1

1.2 The Problems of the Study ... 8

1.3 The Objectives of the Study ... 9

1.4 The Scope of the Study ... 9

1.5 The Significance of the Study ... 10

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.1 Systemic Functional Grammar View on Modality... 11

2.2 Modality ... 13

2.2.1 Types of Modality ... 18

a. Modalization ... 20

b. Modal Auxiliaries ... 23

2.2.2 Area of Modality ... 26

2.2.3 Value of Modality ... 27

2.2.4 Realization of Modality ... 29

2.2.5 The Orientation of Modality ... 29

2.3 Opinion Column of Newspaper ... 31

2.4 Language Features in Politics ... 33

2.5 Modality in Text ... 34

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD

3.1 Research Design ... 38

3.2 Source of Data ... 38

3.3 Technique for Collecting Data ... 39

3.4 Technique for Analyzing Data ... 39

3.5 Trustworthiness of the Data ... 40

CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS, FINDING AND DISCUSSION 4.1 The Data and Data Analysis ... 42

4.1.1. Types of Modalization Used in the Texts ... 42

4.1.2. The Use/Realization of Modalization in the Text ... 47

4.1.2.1 Types of Modalization... 47

4.1.2.2 The Value of Modalization ... 64

4.1.2.3 The Orientation of Modalization ... 72

4.1.3 Reason Modalization used in the Opinion Column ... 78

4.2 Finding ... 80

4.3 Discussion ... 81

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1 Conclusions……….. ... 85

5.2 Suggestions……….. ... 86

REFERENCES ... 87

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1. The Types of Modality ... 20

Table 2.2. The Realization of Modalization ... 22

Table 2.3. Modal Adjunct ... 22

Table 2.4. Positive and Negative Poles ... 27

Table 2.5. The Value of Modalization ... 28

Table 2.6. The Orientation of Modality ... 30

Table 4.1. The Sub Modalization Types ... 43

Table 4.2. Value of Modalization ... 45

Table 4.3. Modalization Indicators ... 48

Table 4.4. Modalization Value ... 65

Table 4.5. Indicators of Modalization Value ... 67

Table 4.6. The Total of Orientation of Modalization ... 72

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix 1 The Full Text of Political Texts ... 91 Appendix 2 Types and Value of Modalization ... 108 Appendix 3 The Realization of Modalization ... 117

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1The Background of the Study

Modality is a part of interpersonal elements that can be considered as comment or attitude (Fowler, 1991:85). It is a broad expression of a speaker’s or writer’s attitude toward the situation or event described by a sentence or in regard to the proposition expressed by the sentence. Fowler (1991) states that modality is differentiated into four types of comment namely truth, obligation, permission and desirability. Truth means that the speaker or writer indicates a commitment to the truth of any proposition is uttered. Then obligation means the speaker or writer stipulates the participants to perform the action to the proposition. Permission means that the speaker or writer gives permission to do something. Next, the last, desirability means that the speaker or writer indicates agreement/disagreement of proposition.

The explanation above brings us to some important functions of the language; firstly, language is used as the purposes of communication and social cooperation. In this function language enables us to influence people’s behavior in detail, thereby makes communication and social cooperation possible. Secondly, language can also function as an instrument of thought. A philosopher, for example, uses language to clarify and develop his ideas on subject so here language is used as an instrument of thought. Thirdly, language can also be used for an expressive purpose. As an outcome of human social activities, language plays a variety function in human communication. Halliday (1994:10) has identified three functional components of meaning in language which is called

metafunction namely, ideational function where language is used to represent ideas, interpersonal function where language is used to exchange ideas and textual function where language is used to organize ideas.

As explained above, one of the functions of language as purposed by Halliday is interpersonal function where the language is used to enable us to participate with communicative acts with other people. It means here in this function we use language to interact to other, to establish and maintain the social link with them. In interacting with other, we usually tell things for purpose such as influence people’s attitude/behavior, provide information, explain our attitude, etc. In other words, we use language to exchange the transaction between speaker and listener.

Moreover, since modality is referred to as "a form of participation by the speaker in the speech event", and since it is through modality that "the speaker associates with the thesis an indication of its status and validity in his own judgment" (through the comment whether it is truth, obligation, permission or desirability), thus "intruding" and taking up a position (Halliday 1970: 335), modality is placed as part of the interpersonal function. This is the case since it expresses "a role relationship between the speaker and hearer" in the sense that "the speaker is taking upon himself a particular communicative role" through which he determines both his own role as well as the hearer's in relation to each other (Halliday 1970:325). Therefore as one of the realizations of interpersonal function, modality is divided into modalization and modulation. Modalization concerns with giving some options to express judgments of probability and

that are probability (how likely it is to be true) and usuality (how frequently it is true). For example it is naïve to deny Jokowi’s presidential aspirations. He has been in politics since contesting-and winning- the Surakarta mayoral election in 2005. His surprise win in the Jakarta election last year must make the move up the ladder tempting……(opinion column of The Jakarta Post, Sunday, 28 July 2013), the writer here exchanges the information to the reader and gives judge that Jokowi’ winning in the election must make the move up the public confidence. The speaker conveys confidently in the truth of what he/she is saying based on a deduction from the facts he/she known. On the other hand, modulation deals with option to express judgment of obligation and inclination. For example “Another bombshell in the hydrocarbon industry: The Jakarta Corruption Court this week jailed three executives from Chevron Pacific Indonesia, the largest oil producer in the country, in a controversial case that should have been handled as a civil case” (opinion column of The Jakarta Post, Sunday, July 21, 2013), the modality used in this sentence indicates obligation, means that the Jakarta Corruption Court obligates to handled the case of the bombshell in the hydrocarbon industry as the civil case.

Modality has been originally understood as the truth value of the proposition logicians. It also might be construed as the relativization of the validity of sentence meaning to a set of possible worlds or way in which people could conceive the world to be different (Kiefer, 1994:2515). This means that, modality allows the language users to express what is, what would be, what may be and what should be. It can be said that, interpersonal function is realized by using a delicate modality system, by which something can be affirmed or denied,

doubted or contradicted, insisted on or accepted with reservation, etc. what stance a speaker or a writer takes depends largely on the modality system underlying the clauses. In other words, modality will express different degree of the speaker or writer commitment to proposition.

It is realized that the principal function of the language is a tool of communication. Language that used in communication is not only in form of spoken language but also in written form. When we use language, whether it is orally or writing, our main purpose is to convey some sort of message to other people. The message may be kind of informative or inquiring but it may also be persuasive, attempting to influence the hearer or reader, implicitly and explicitly, toward a desired attitude or behavior.

There are many kinds of written form of communications and one kind of it is newspaper. Knowing the features in news can help us get more accurate information around the world, and can fully enjoy the fastness and convenience of the information age. Newspaper contains a range of items; news, comment and analysis, advertising, entertainment, editorial, opinion and many other. Newspaper as one kind of form of communications enables the writer and the reader to communicate through the writing. One of important factors in communication strategy is we should know to whom that language is used or what is the aim of the communication. In this case, the writer should know how to use the language in order to reach the aim of communication.

In reading the newspaper, there is an interaction between the speaker and the reader. In this kind of interaction it would be quite natural that the

writer-what she/he has to say and employ accordingly all the language resources available to help the reader interpret the message as successfully as possible. This should hold true whether the writer’s objective is to entertain readers in narratives or to convince them of the points in his/her argument in expository text.

The writer effort in writing to help the readers decode and interpret the message successfully, could be motivated by his/her not so entirely conscientious to win them over to his/her particular view of an issue and in fact could manifest itself in the form of language manipulation (Mineshima,2009). Newspaper can report one and the same incident of a demonstration quite differently based on their ideological or point of view of the writer.

Thus this study addressees the use of modalization in the opinion column of The Jakarta Post. The researcher chooses this newspaper because as the largest English language newspaper in Indonesia much information delivered to the reader. Nowadays more and more people read The Jakarta Post newspaper. The Jakarta Post is considered as the leading national newspaper published in English. Since its conception in 1983 the daily has developed into a prestigious newspaper respected for its independent view and bold coverage of various national and international events. In 1994, The Jakarta Post became the first Indonesian newspaper to go global. The Jakarta Post is the first and so far the only Indonesian newspaper that internationally acknowledged. With its system, The Jakarta Post now reaches not only certain class of people who live in big cities but also any citizen who is interest in reading the news.

As mentioned above, there are some items contained in the newspaper, and one of them is Opinion Column which is appear in kind of argumentative writing.

Opinion Column exists to allow the reader to comment, give view on or draw conclusion from an event. It contains people opinion in the sign of protest, criticism, even their response toward tangible phenomenon. Word and expressions are tools writer used to impress other with their writing. It is not easy to write, especially by using the language that is not belongs to us, in this case English. As modality relates to human’s conceptualization, while English is not a mother tongue of Indonesian, it can be said that Indonesian writer will have different conceptualization with English. For example the clause in the opinion column of The Jakarta Post, “often times, an election is no more than a showoff ….” This clause is categorized as modalization-usuality because of the use of word “often”. But there will be different perception for the word “often” for native and non native speaker. This differentiation was caused by many things, which one of that is the culture of native and non-native speaker. So the writer of this column should pay attention to the meaning of words and expression and know how to use them accurately, clearly and appropriately. Selecting precise words and using language distinctly allow the reader to catch the idea immediately.

Modality provides more step in the analysis, showing that it links not only between form and content, but also between content and function. When a certain type of modality is chosen, a writer is not only expressing an attitude or demanding an action, a bigger concern also taken to enhance interpersonal relationship and invite discussion. Halliday and Matthiesen state there are three basic values for modality high, medium and low (2004:148). With these values a writer can signal their degree of certainty about the validity of proposition. They

are saying. In other words, different modals express different degree of commitment by the user of those modal verbs. In other words, Modality is a sign that the writer is presenting a personal view rather than objective facts.

As explained above, modality, in simplest sense, indicates a speaker’s or writer’s special way of conceptualizing a world view. According to Fowler in Bonyadi (2011), language does not allow us to say something without conveying an attitude to that something. In other words hardly one can find a piece of written and spoken text as purely objective, neutral, or value-free. It is basically the writer’s point of view, angle of vision, angle of telling, or authorial interest that determines the essence of a story style and that provides the story with its particular feel and color (Simpson, 1993 in Bonyadi, 2011). It means there are cases when different modal verbs are used by different newspaper or writer to report the same pieces of news. This is happened as the consequences of different writer that will have different point of view. In such cases, each of the modals used contributes to the formulation of a certain communicative context within which the readers of the news process that particular piece of news. Research has shown that writers use of modal expression to communicate their stance toward their statements and their constitutes a rhetorical feature crutial to writing (Biber, 2006). The use of lexical verbs involves lexical, tense and voice choices that most non-native writers are not able to make.

Authors of similar studies on modality have also noted the difficulties face by non-native writers in providing evidential justification for their claims (Carlson, 1988, Hyland and Milton 1997 in Salazar). The above facts urge the writer to analyze further on modality especially modalization on the opinion

column of The Jakarta Post. Discourse of analysis on the news has had many years of history and most of the analysis is about vocabulary, features, rhetorical and grammatical features of English news. It seems it is significant to analyze the modality (modalization). Its role in the opinion text is the writer tend to make use of this property of modalization to establish either a favorable or unfavorable bias throughout the text to manipulate the reader’s opinion. it can be used to find out how the opinion writers express their opinions and it can help people understand about the opinion writing. And this is also important to ease the process of communicative interaction between the writer and the reader. Thus, this study seeks to ascertain the connection between meanings of different modal used by the writer in opinion column. Modality that involved in this study is modalization (how valid the information).

1.2The Problems of the Study

Based on the background of the study the problems are formulated as in the following.

1. What types of modalizationare used in the Opinion Column of The Jakarta

Post?

2. How is modalization used by the writer in the opinion column of The

Jakarta Post?

3. Why is modalization used the way it is in such context in the opinion column of The Jakarta Post?

1.3The Objectives of the Study

The objective of this research are.

1. To find the types of modalization used inthe Opinion Column of The

Jakarta Post

2. To describe the use of Modalization used in the Opinion Column of The Jakarta Post

3. To investigates why modalization used the way it is in the Opinion

Column of The Jakarta Post

1.4The Scope of the Study

The study applies the concept of modality in systemic functional linguistic (SFL) proposed by Halliday. SFL is particularly suitable for the type of this research since it is enable us to analyze any passage and relate it to its context in the discourse, and also to the general background of the text; who it is written for, what is its angle on the subject matter and so on (Halliday, 1990:34). This research will be focused on the occurrences of modalization covering probability and usuality and the values of modalization used in opinion column of The Jakarta Post. Thus, there are some realization of modality (modalization) such as modal verb, modal adverb, adjective, etc, here this research is focused on the use of modal verb as the indicator of it. Since the opinion column consist of many topics to be discussed, this study focused on the topic of political opinion text as the most genre that accused of using language manipulatively. Therefore politic is a very interesting topic that always is a topic of discussion, especially in Indonesia.

1.5The Significance of the Study

Findings of this reasearch are expected to be relevant and useful theoretically and practically. Theoretically, the findings are useful for linguistic development. It enriches discussions about the application of functional grammar in media text. Practically, the findings are expected to be useful for the students and those who are interested in language of newspaper or mass media. From the pedagogical point of view, this research is also expected to be useful to the teacher in teaching English especially in skill of writing consider the growing number of students majoring in English language studies in Indonesia. Certain characteristics of newspaper such as varying genre, standard language use will encouraged the use of newspaper language as input to language teaching material. The students also can profit from this study since it may enhance their rhetorical awareness in media discourse. Thus the finding of this study on modalization can provide the English teacher and student with the required knowledge about the discourse in a certain genre, making them ready to use the newspaper text in the classroom. Through this, it is possible to provide the students with the logic of the ideas and the organization and development of the argument/opinion in the text of opinion column.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1Conclusions

Having analyzed the data, conclusions are drawn as the following. (1) In conveying their opinion, the sub modalization – probability and

usuality – are indicated in the political text of the opinion column but they were not used by all the opinion’s writers in writing the opinion.

(2) In realizing the use of modalization in their opinion the writers of the

opinion of The Jakarta Post used sub modalization – probability with the medium value. Having this probability with medium value indicates that the writer of the opinion column has the uncertainty in giving their opinion through the text. The lack of uncertainty in the opinion written by the writer is strengthen by the using of subjective implicit orientation of modalization as the most dominant orientation of modalization used in the opinion text that shows the uncertain point of view of the opinion writer. Although it seems it is lack of the certainty in the opinion, the writer provides the opinion with the objectivity. It means that the opinion sometimes construed as an unquestionable fact. By having objective explicit as the second orientation of modalization that dominantly used in the text, the writer still have a chance to convince the reader to the fact they said. The used of this orientation might persuade people that the writer’s opinion is correct and thus readers might agree with his idea/point of view more quickly.

(3) Modalization is used by the writers when they are trying to indicate to the reader to what extent they align themselves with the evidence they are reporting in their opinion since one of the purposes of the political text is to persuade the reader. It’s also due to the thing that being talked about is the one that has not happened yet or future events, besides the things in political field is unpredictable.

5.2Suggestions

With references to the conclusions, suggestions are staged as follows: 1. It is suggested that the opinion column writers or journalist to

apply the strategy of modality in their text to convey their point of view so they can persuade the reader about their point of view and make the reader accept the idea.

2. It is suggested that the students of English department to have a good comprehension in modality’s theory. Therefore, they are able to see and comprehend the message in any text from the perspective of functional grammar and more clearly understand the text.

3. Students or other researcher are suggested to do further research in

modality theory on other type of text. It is suggested because different text will have different use of modalization and also to enable us to see the contrast or the comparison or the similarities of the using modality among the texts.

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Vazquez, I and Diana Giner. 2008. Beyond Mood and Modality: Epistemic Modality Markers as Hedges in Research Article. A Cross-Disciplinary Study. Revista Alicantina de EstudiosIngleses 21. Accessed on March 15, 2013

Yuningsih, Betris. 2010. Claims of Fact in Opinion-Editorial Columnist Sections of The New York Times Online Newspaper (A Thesis). Malang: The State Islamic University Maulana Malik Ibrahim

Yuyun, Ignasia. 2010. A Study of Arguments in Senior High School Debate. JurnalPenelitianVol 14, No. 1, November 2010. Accessed on Desember 20, 3013

Zheng, Tongtao. 2000. Characteristics of Australian Political Language Rhetoric: Tactics of Gaining Public Support and Shirking responsibility. November,

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1 Conclusions

Having analyzed the data, conclusions are drawn as the following. (1) In conveying their opinion, the sub modalization – probability and

usuality – are indicated in the political text of the opinion column but they were not used by all the opinion’s writers in writing the opinion. (2) In realizing the use of modalization in their opinion the writers of the

opinion of The Jakarta Post used sub modalization – probability with the medium value. Having this probability with medium value indicates that the writer of the opinion column has the uncertainty in giving their opinion through the text. The lack of uncertainty in the opinion written by the writer is strengthen by the using of subjective implicit orientation of modalization as the most dominant orientation of modalization used in the opinion text that shows the uncertain point of view of the opinion writer. Although it seems it is lack of the certainty in the opinion, the writer provides the opinion with the objectivity. It means that the opinion sometimes construed as an unquestionable fact. By having objective explicit as the second orientation of modalization that dominantly used in the text, the writer still have a chance to convince the reader to the fact they said. The used of this orientation might persuade people that the writer’s opinion is correct and thus readers might agree with his idea/point of view more quickly.

(3) Modalization is used by the writers when they are trying to indicate to the reader to what extent they align themselves with the evidence they are reporting in their opinion since one of the purposes of the political text is to persuade the reader. It’s also due to the thing that being talked about is the one that has not happened yet or future events, besides the things in political field is unpredictable.

5.2 Suggestions

With references to the conclusions, suggestions are staged as follows: 1. It is suggested that the opinion column writers or journalist to

apply the strategy of modality in their text to convey their point of view so they can persuade the reader about their point of view and make the reader accept the idea.

2. It is suggested that the students of English department to have a good comprehension in modality’s theory. Therefore, they are able to see and comprehend the message in any text from the perspective of functional grammar and more clearly understand the text.

3. Students or other researcher are suggested to do further research in modality theory on other type of text. It is suggested because different text will have different use of modalization and also to enable us to see the contrast or the comparison or the similarities of the using modality among the texts.

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