population have equal and independent chances of being included in the research. However, not all the members of the population will be chosen to be the sample of
the research. In this research, the writer randomly selected six fan-fiction authors who live in Indonesia and do not study the English language specifically before
selecting their fan-fictions to be the objects of this study. In the end, there were 27 fan-fictions to be analyzed in this study.
3.2 Instruments and Data Gathering Technique
The instrument employed in this study was table notes of structural ambiguity which was found in the fan-fictions. The writer made brief notes during
the data gathering, listing each ambiguous phrase found while reading the fan- selected fictions. The table notes consisted of four columns. The first column was
for numbering. The second column would be for the title of the fan-fictions, including the authors’ name and the posting date. The third column was for the
sentences found containing structural ambiguitiy and the last column was provided for the ambiguity itself. The table notes are presented in the table 3.1
below: Table 3.1 Table Notes of Ambiguity Found in the Fan-fictions
No. TitleAuthorPosting
Date Sentences Found
Ambiguity
1. Change Over by Kei
Kyuuketsuki posted on 30 September,
2011 I had it all. Even the glass
dishes with the tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof that
they were crafted by the honest and simple hard working and
diligent people of… wherever. the tiny bubbles
and imperfections
2. Etc…
To gather the data, in the uneven semester of academic year 20122013, the writer selected 27 fan-fictions randomly from six Indonesian authors from
Live Journal. The chosen fan-fictions were both one-shot and multi-chaptered ones from various genres. After having the fan-fictions collected, the writer then
read the fan-fictions to find the structural ambiguity occurring in the fan-fictions before listing the structural ambiguity in the table notes which presented the data
that later would be analyzed.
3.3 Data Analysis Technique
For the analysis, the writer used the data obtained from the previous table notes. Answering the first research question, the writer would have all the data
listed in the table notes. The writer then calculated the result of the structural ambiguities found in the fan-fiction based on which type of phrase the ambiguities
which occurred. The formula below will show how the data were calculated based on Bungin’s formula as cited by Tambunan 2009, p. 19 in her thesis:
= f
n x 100
where: N
= Percentage of the ambiguity category f
= Individual frequency of ambiguity category n
= Total number of all data Having all the results of the percentage of the structural ambiguity, the writer then
sorted the data based on the most likely occurring ambiguous phrase.
Schlenker 2006, p. 8 states that a sentence or phrase which corresponds to two distinct syntactic tree diagrams is structurally ambiguous. Since the data
are structural ambiguities which are caused by equivocal phrasing or amphibology, to answer the second problem of the research, the writer first drew
two tree diagrams of each ambiguity to explain why the phrase was considered ambiguous. Therefore, in order to know whether the phrases found were
structurally ambiguous or not the writer had to check the phrases using the simple syntactic tree diagram or flat structure by O’Grady, Dobrovolsky and Katamba
1997, p. 185. The writer did not use the X-bar theory since the writer is not very familiar with the theory. Moreover, the purpose of drawing syntactic tree in this
study is only to see the ambiguity aspect found in the phrases. So, it does not really matter to use the flat structure instead of the X-bar theory.
Using a computer program called Syntax Tree Editor; the writer generated each tree diagram from each meaning derived from the ambiguous phrase. Among
the other similar programs, Syntax Tree Editor is the easy-operating-program to draw the tree diagram, even though there will be a repetition of drawing the same
syntactic category symbol, so, in the end, the writer had to edit the tree diagram manually.
As an example, the phrase ‘old men and women’ is structurally ambiguous because there are two different meanings derived from two different tree diagrams
from this phrase. The figure 3.1 and 3.2 below shows whether this sentence is structurally ambiguous or not.
