The Arrangement of Subtopics The Offer of Prime Minister’s Resignation
Then, similar to The Korea Herald, The New York Times also reiterates the lexical items which refer to the sadness of the people especially the family of the
victims due to the ferry disaster, but by different lexical choices. That is the lexical item of “sadness” by its synonym “grief”.
ii. Collocation
In The New York Times, there are 9 chains of lexical items which occur as collocation which support the text in building its lexical cohesion. Each chain has its
own semantic relation which conveys the context about the resignation of South Korea‟s Prime Minister.
The first chain of lexical items occurs in the first subtopic about the offer of Prime Minister‟s resignation. Those lexical items are “apologized”, “offered to
resign”, “angry” and “saddened”. In this topic, the semantic relation between those lexical items can be
described as cause and effect. The lexical items of “angry” and “saddened” are the cause of the appearance of the lexical items of „apologized‟ and
“offer to resign”. On other words, the offer of Prime Minister‟s resignation is caused by the anger of the public and the condition of them which is saddened by the
disaster. Then, the second subtopic is about the critics toward the government about
their bad response to the disaster. This subtopic is represented by the chain of lexical items including the lex
ical items of “failing to respond”, “fumbling”, “quickly”, and “efficiently”.
The next chain of lexical items occurs in the subtopic of the Prime Minister‟s statements in his resignation. The lexical items which occur as collocation in this
subtopic are “apology” and “saw”, “sadness”, and “fury”. Then, the next subtopic is
about the irregularities on the operator of the ship which cause high death toll. This subtopic only appears in The New York Times. The lexical items which collocate are:
„instructed‟, „stay‟, „listing dangerously‟, „sinking off‟, „criminal charges‟, and „accidental homicide‟. One of the irregularities done by the crew is instructing the
passenger to stay in their cabin while the ship was listing dangerously and finally sinking off. This act is accused as criminal charges, including accidental homicide.
The New York Times , as I said earlier, it only shows the irregularities in the crew and
operator which mention the detail of the accusation to crew. Then, The New York Times continues the topic with the topic about the
governmental issue related to the resignation of the Prime Minister. In The Korea Herald
, the governmental issue related to the resignation of the Prime Minister is only perceive by the subtopic of the acceptance of the resignation by the President,
while in The New York Times, the subtopic also covers about the governmental culture in South Korea.
In The New York Times also occurs the other collocation of lexical items which share the context about the governmental culture in South Korea. The lexical
items which collocate in this subtopic are „ceremonial‟, „executive‟, „fired‟, „scandal‟,
and „failure‟. The meaning relation of these chains of cohesive items is that in South Korea, the position of being Prime Minister is „ceremonial‟, while the power is in the
President as the „executive‟. These lexical items have contrasted meaning. Then, the lexical items of „fired‟ means that the culture in South Korea, the official will be fired
when there is a „scandal‟ or „failure‟. That is the culture in the government of South Korea.
The next chain of lexical items occurs in the subtopic of the recent report about the death toll and rescue struggle. This subtopic only appears in The New York
Times . The lexical items that collocate are
„remained‟, „not changed‟, „trying‟, „challenging‟, and „trapped‟. The report of the death toll until the articles published
remained the same, not change. The divers were trying to rescue the passenger, but they face challenging situation.
Then, the last chain of lexical items in The New York Times occurs in the subtopic of the grief of the nation due to the disaster. This topic only appears in The
New York Times . The lexical items which occur as collocation are: „paroxysm of
grief‟, „shame‟, „cheering‟, „banned‟, „comedy‟, „suspended‟, „trips‟, „canceled‟, „Buddhists‟, and „paraded‟. Those lexical items describe how the disaster causes a
really deep grief to the people in South Korea. The lexical items which represents „happiness‟ such as, „cheering‟, „comedy‟, and „trips‟ were met by the lexical items
which represent „prohibition‟ such as „banned‟, „suspended‟, and canceled‟. This is how South Koreans express their grief. This part of the news article
shows how The New York Times concerns with what people feel about the disaster. The Korea Herald
does not mention this subtopic.