TYPES OF PROCESS IN CHILDREN’S SONG LYRICS OF NURSERY RHYMES.

TYPES OF PROCESS IN CHILDREN’S SONG
LYRICS OF NURSERY RHYMES

A THESIS
Submitted to Fulfill the Partial Requirement for the Degree of
Sarjana Sastra

By:

LANAYOT HUTABALIAN
Registration Number 2111420001

ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
2015

DECLARATION

I have accepted myself with university’s policy on academic integrity.
Except where appropriately acknowledge, this thesis is my own work, has been

expressed in my own words and has not previously been submitted for
assessment.
I understand that this paper may be screened electronically or otherwise
for plagiarism.

Medan,

July 2015

Lanayot Hutabalian
NIM. 2111420001

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The greatest thanks to the Almighty Father for all His blessing and
guidance, the writer gives the greatest thankfulness for everything that has been
given along her life, so the writer is able to complete this thesis. This thesis is
aimed to fulfill the requirements for S-1 Degree of Sarjana Sastra at English and
Literature Department Faculty of Languages and Arts.
The writer would like to express her gratitude to those who helped her in
completing this thesis, because without the suggestion, guidance, pray and support

it could be not fulfilled. In this occasion the writer would like to express her
special gratitude to:
 Prof. Dr. H. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of
Medan.
 Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of Faculty Languages and
Arts, State University of Medan.
 Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English Department.
 Dra. Meisuri, MA., the Secretary of English Department.
 Syamsul Bahri, S.S, M.Hum., the Head of English Literature
Department Academic and Nora Ronita Dewi, S.S, M.Hum., as the
Head of English Department.
 Drs. Elia Masa Gintings, M.Hum., her Thesis Adviser for his
guidance, advice, suggestion and comment and the time to supervising
this thesis until complete in making this thesis better.
 Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, M.Pd, Drs. Johan Sinulingga, M.Pd,
Drs. Lidiman Sahat Martua Sinaga, M.Hum., her Examiner of this
thesis who gave their suggestion, comment and motivated to complete
this thesis.
 All lectures and staffs of English Department who helped and given
contribution of knowledge, advice and guidance during her academic

years in English Department.

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 Her deepest love to her parents, T. Hutabalian and M. Sinaga, for
their prayers, love, spirit, motivation and financial support during the
writer’s whole life.
 Her beloved brother Jonaldo Hutabalian, Holmes Hutabalian,
Jupento Hutabalian and her beloved sister Linra Hutabalian and her
family Hyasinta Romauli Silaen and Maria Susianti Gultom, for
their prayers, support and motivation given to the writer as long as she
did this thesis.
 Her friends in English Literature A 2011 Marischa Dwi Fergina
Simanjuntak, Maria Hutabarat, Juli Yohana Zebua, Tesha Lidia
Aritonang,

Yohana

Sihombing,


David

Hutabarat,

Martha

Simanjuntak, Bernika Ursula Sinaga, Septia Elisabeth Nainggolan,
Juni Arta Sari Tambunan and all her friends in Elite A and Elite B’11
that could not be mentioned one by one, thanks for the support, help
and prayers to the writer.
 Her friend in “Novita Kost 19” Gg. Murni, Dyna Nababan, Yenni
Sihotang, Rani Siahaan, for their spirit, motivation and beautiful day
spent together.

The writer realizes that this thesis is still far from being perfect.
Therefore, critics, comment and suggestion for the improvement of this thesis will
be fully appreciated.

Medan,


July 2015

The writer,

Lanayot Hutabalian
NIM. 2111420001

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ...........................................................................................
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................
TABLE OF CONTENTS......................................................................
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................
LIST OF APPENDICES ......................................................................

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CHAPTER I: INRTODUCTION ........................................................
A. The Background of the Study .....................................................
B. The Problem of the Study ...........................................................
C. The Objectives of Study ..............................................................
D. The Scope of the Study ...............................................................
E. The Significance of the Study .....................................................

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CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATUTE ....................................
A. Theoretical Framework ...............................................................
B. Metafunction ...............................................................................
1. Transitivity System ...............................................................

a. Clause ..............................................................................
b. Process ............................................................................
2. Characteristics Types of Process ..........................................
a. Material Process ..............................................................
b. Mental Process ................................................................
c. Relational Process ...........................................................
d. Behavioral Process ..........................................................
e. Verbal Process .................................................................
f. Existential Process ..........................................................
3. Participant .............................................................................
4. Circumstances .......................................................................
5. Song ......................................................................................
6. History of Pop Music ............................................................

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CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHOD ............................................
A. Research Design ..........................................................................
B. Data and Source of Data .............................................................
C. The Technique of Collecting Data .............................................
D. The Technique of Analyzing Data ..............................................

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CHAPTER IV: DATA, DATA ANALYSIS,
RESEARCH FINDINGS ...........................................
A. Data .............................................................................................
B. Data Analysis ..............................................................................
1. Number of process ................................................................
2. Percentage of the types of process ........................................

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C. The Analysis of the Occurrences of Verb in the Clause .............

Types of Process
1. The song “Baa, baa, black sheep” ...............................................
2. The song “Humpty Dumpty” ......................................................
3. The song “Mary Had A Little Lamb” .........................................
4. The song “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” ....................................
5. The song “Five Little Ducks” .....................................................
6. The song “Five Little Monkeys” .................................................
7. The song “Over The River” ........................................................
8. The song “Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?” .........
9. The song “Over in the Meadow” ................................................
10. The song “London Bridge” .........................................................
11. The song “Raccoon and Possum” ...............................................
12. The song “Oh! Susanna” .............................................................
13. The song “Old King Cole” ..........................................................
14. The song “This Old Man” ...........................................................
15. The song “Tommy Thumb” ........................................................
16. The song “Go In And Out The Window” ...................................
17. The song “Pat- A- Cake”.............................................................
18. The song “Rock-A- Bye, Baby”..................................................
19. The song “Rain, Rain Go Away” ................................................

20. The song “The Farmer In The Dell” ...........................................

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D. Research Findings .......................................................................

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CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ..................

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A. Conclusions.....................................................................................
B. Suggestions .....................................................................................

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REFERENCES ......................................................................................

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LIST OF TABLES

Tables

Pages

2.1 Types of Process ............................................................................

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2.2 Types of Participant .......................................................................

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2.3 Types of Circumstances .................................................................

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4.1 Number of process .........................................................................

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4.2 Percentage of the Types of Process ................................................

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4.3 Percentage of the Song “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” ..........................

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4.4 Percentage of the Song “Humpty Dumpty” ...................................

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4.5 Percentage of the Song “Mary Had A Little Lamb” ......................

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4.6 Percentage of the Song “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” ................

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4.7 Percentage of the Song “Five Little Ducks” ..................................

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4.8 Percentage of the Song “Five Little Monkeys”..............................

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4.9 Percentage of the Song “Over the River” ......................................

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4.10 Percentage of “Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?” ...

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4.11 Percentage of the Song “Over in the Meadow” ...........................

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4.12 Percentage of the Song “London Bridge” ....................................

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4.13 Percentage of the Song “Raccoon and Possum” ..........................

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4.14 Percentage of the Song “Oh! Susanna” ........................................

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4.15 Percentage of the Song “Old King Cole” .....................................

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4.16 Percentage of the Song “This Old Man” ......................................

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4.17 Percentage of the Song “Tommy Thumb” ...................................

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4.18 Percentage of the Song “Go in and Out the Window” .................

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4.19 Percentage of the Song “Pat- A- Cake” .......................................

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4.20 Percentage of the Song “Rock-A- Bye, Baby” ............................

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4.21 Percentage of the Song “Rain, Rain Go Away” ...........................

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4.22 Percentage of the Song “The Farmer in The Dell” ......................

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LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendices

Pages

Appendix A The Analysis of Process Types in Nursery Rhymes
song lyrics .........................................................................

53-71

Appendix B The song lyrics of Nursery Rhymes ..................................

72-98

Appendix C A Brief Account of Nursery Rhymes ................................

99-100

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of Study
Communication is an interactive process to negotiate the meaning by using
the language. Language is a network of relationship. As human being, people
really need language to do interaction and communication to each other. Clark
(1997:3) states that language stands at the center of human affairs, from the
most prosaic to the most profound. It means that language is very important in
life and is the power of expressing thought and feelings. Language is also the
expression of ideas by writing or any other instrumentality. There are so many
ways to express someone’s thought and feeling by using language, such as by
music, poems, short story, speech, etc.
Music is the expression of someone’s soul. Machlis (1995) states that
music has been called as the language of emotion. It means that by music we
can know what the feeling inside someone’s heart is. We can know if someone
is in sadness or happiness by the music that they heard. Aristotle
(www.Google.com) stated that music has a troubled heart, has a recreational
therapy and foster patriotism. Music takes a big part of every moment in our
life. Because of that, music has the effect that could influence someone to act
to do something. It can be a good thing or a bad thing.
Music which are composed become something that has a musical value and art
inside is called as song. Song is a composition for voice performed by

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singing or alongside musical instruments and it contains vocal part that are
performed (sung) with human voice and feature word (lyrics) and commonly
accompanied by musical instrument. The writer analyzed song because that
song can be describes the feelings and thought of someone, so the writer
interested to analyzed them. There are some kinds of song such as song for
adult and children. But in this research, the children’s song that analyzed
because in the children’s song besides can be to entertain, it can also to give the
contribution to the children’s education, so the writer interested to analyzed
them. Though, most of the adult’s song in nowadays to entertain only not to
give the positive meaning in the song. Song which interprets in words called as
lyrics. Lyrics are created by the singer or composer. They usually make an
interaction and communication to their listener or fans with the language that
they use in their lyrics. The language of the lyrics itself can express different
meaning. It can be also said that song always send message in every lyrics and
every song has lyrics which gives a long and different meaning according to
the language use. The language of the lyrics in a song can gives different
meaning which can influence someone to act to do something. In this thesis the
writer analyzed the children’s song lyrics especially the song lyrics of Nursery
Rhymes.
Nursery Rhymes is a famous collection of the children’s song and also the
poems. Nursery Rhymes can provide fun and entertainment to children in the
same way as fairy tales and bedtime stories, but like those other narrative forms

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they also serve to support important learning processes: they encourage
interaction, they tell interesting stories and they teach lots of words and ideas.
In Indonesian setting the nursery rhymes is like the song of Nina Bobo. It use
intended to help a child sleep.
Process refers to a semantic verb (doing, happening, feeling, sensing,
saying, behaving and existing) and anything that it expresses like event,
relation, physical, mental or emotional state when sorted in the semantic
system of the clause is classified into material, mental, relational, behavioral,
verbal and existential. The clause from the point of view of its interpersonal
function, the part it plays as a form of exchange between speaker and listener.
It concerned with the clause in its experiential function, its guise as a way of
representing patterns of experience. Language enables human beings to build a
mental picture of reality, to make sense of what goes on around them and
inside them. The clause plays a central role, because it embodies a general
principle for modeling experience- namely the principle that reality is made up
of Processes (Halliday 1994:127).
Process is representing the experience of human being or what goes on
around and inside them, of course, it has a close relation with the experience
of people (listener) especially the children to imitate the song that has a
language quality to develop the ability of children thinking in the lyrics of
nursery rhymes.
However, several studies on types of process and transitivity have been
done previously. Adeyemi Doramola, Ph.D, Faculty of Arts, Department of

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English University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba, Lagos, NIGERIA (2011) studied
about The Choices of Processes and Translation of Psalm One. This research
showed that the processes of material, mental, relational and existential are
found in the text, behavioral and verbal are not found in it. These two have
been established to be process in English and Yoruba although they do not
exist in this text.
Sabbachat, A., et al English Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities,
Universitas Padjadjadran, Bandung Indonesia (2014) studied about Material
Process in Transitivity of the English Clauses: Functional Grammar Approach.
This research showed that verbs in transitivity can contain the material process.
Another research is Sehriz Naz et al. Institute of English and Modern
Languages, Government College University Faisalabad, Pakistan (2012)
studied about Political Language of Benazir Bhutto: A Transitivity Analysis of
Her Speech Democratization in Pakistan. The research showed that she could
employ linguistic choices quiet perfectly according to the situation and if her
use of material processes show her strong determination to reestablish
democracy in an autocratic country, the mental processes ascertain her agony
and anxiety seeing despotism. She wins the heart of people by using relational
and behavioral processes.
Based on the explanations, it is interesting to analyzed types of process
used in children’s song lyrics of Nursery Rhymes in order to find out the
dominant process used because in the song lyrics there are several types of
process that containing the meaning of each lyrics.

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The writer focused on types of process in children song lyrics of nursery
rhymes because by applying the children song lyrics it can help to develop of
children’s thinking and also the process in the song by choosing the word
choice that suitable to the children. The writer used Halliday’s theory which
divided the types of process into six types those are material process, mental
process, relational process, behavioral process, verbal process and existential
process.

B. The Problem of the Study
Based on the background presented, the problem of the study can be
formulated as follows:
1). what types of process are used in children’s song lyric?
2). what is the dominant type of process used in children’s song lyrics?
3). what is the implication of types of process used in children’s song lyrics?

C. The Objectives of the Study
The objectives of the study are:
1). to find out the types of process used in children’s song lyrics.
2). to determine the dominant type of process used in children’s song lyrics.
3). to describe the implication of types of process used in children’s song
lyrics.

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D. The Scope of the Study
This study focused on analyzing types of process used in children’s song
lyrics of Nursery Rhymes. There are twenty (20) children’s song lyrics to be
analyzed using Functional Grammar (Halliday 1994; 2004).

E. Significance of the Study
The significance of this study are expected to be useful for:
1) Those who are interested in studying of types of process in transitivity.
2) The reader in understanding message and meaning effectively.
3) The students especially the students of English and Literature Department
who want to analyze text focused on experiential function of language.
4) The listeners of music especially children’s song fans in increasing and
developing their knowledge about process, and for getting the same
interpretation and perception with the writer.
5) The next researchers who interested to this subject matter.

CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. CONCLUSIONS
Having analyzed all the data of the types of process in children song lyrics
of Nursery Rhymes, the conclusions are drawn as the following:
1.

There are six types of process that found in the song lyrics of Nursery
Rhymes with the total number of process were 233 clauses.

2.

Types of process and the percentage each of process in children song lyrics
of Nursery Rhymes are material process (53.22%) from 124 clauses,
relational process (20.17%) from 47 clauses, then followed mental process
(10.73%) from 25 clauses, then verbal process (10.30%) from 24 clauses,
existential process (4.72%) from 11 clauses and behavioral process
(0.86%) from 2 clauses. The dominant types of process which is used in
children song lyrics of Nursery Rhymes is material process with the total
number and percentage is 124 (53.22 %).

3.

The implication of the types of process in children’s song lyrics of Nursery
Rhymes found that nursery rhymes set to music or song aid in a children’s
development and also to supports the assertion that music and rhyme
increase a child’s ability in spatial reasoning which leads to greater success
in school.

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B. SUGGESTIONS
After analyzing all the data of the types of processes in children’s song
lyrics, the suggestions that can be offered are:
1.

The readers are suggested to understand about the process and its types, so
that they comprehend about the clarification and the meaning of each topic
in the thesis and it can be to enlarge their knowledge about this study.

2.

For the other researchers who are interest to make the research about the
process and its types to do further research or analysis by applying the
whole aspect of Systemic Functional Grammar.

3.

For the student English Department who learn Functional Grammar should
be able to understand about the process and its types, so that they will
know and get the meaning of message that implied in the text or to share
information.

4.

For the children song’s composer to choose the best words choice in the
song lyrics, so that it can be to developing the reader’s thinking.

REFERENCES
Arikunto, S. 2006. Procedure Penelitian : Suatu Pendekatan Praktek. Jakarta:
Rineka Cipta.
Bloor, Thomas and Marrier, Bloor. 1995. The functional analysis of English: A
Hallidayan Approach. London: Edward Arnold.
Burns, R.B.1994. Introduction to Research Methods. Melbourne : Longman
Australia
Clark, H & Eve V.C. 1997. Phycology and Language : An Introduction to
Psycholinguistics. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Halliday, MAK. 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Sidney: Gerd
Stabler.
Halliday, MAK. and Matthiessen Christian. 2004. An Introduction to Functional
Grammar: Third Edition. New York: Hodder Arnold
Halliday, MAK. 2007. Linguistic Studies of Text And Discourse: Volume 2 in the
collected works of MAK Halliday, New York: Continuum.
Machlis, J. 1995. The Enjoyment Of Music . New York: Norton & Company.
Reamer, B. & J.R, G. Evans, 1972. The Experience of Music. New Jersey :
Prentice-Hell
Sabbachat, Aat. 2014. Material Process in Transitivity of The English Clauses: A
Functional Grammar Approach. JLLALW Journal: Vol. 5 No. 2
Saragih, A. 2006. Introducing Systemic Functional Grammar. MEDAN : FBS
UNIMED (Unpublished)
Saragih, A. 2010. Introducing Systemic Functional Grammar. MEDAN : FBS
UNIMED (Unpublished)
Thompson, Geoff. 1996. Introducing Functional Grammar. Republic of China:
Edward Arnold
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursery_rhyme/accessed on Jan 29, 2015

http://www.kidspot.com.au/kids-activities-and-games/nurseryrhymes+15.htm/accessed on Jan 28, 2015

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http://brainz.org/24-terrifying-thoughtful-and-absurd-nursery-rhymeschildren/accessed on Jan 29, 2015
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle/accessed on Feb 09, 2015
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