AN ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN THE HEADLINE NEWS OF THE JAKARTA POST.

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AN ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN THE HEADLINE

NEWS OF THE JAKARTA POST

A THESIS

Submitted to Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

By:

VANY TARSIDASARI JAMBAK

Registration Number 209520016

ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN

2014


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Alhamdulillah, the writer express her best gratitude to Allah SWT, for giving the writer blessing, endless love and mercy, especially in the process of accomplishing this thesis. This thesis is aimed to fulfill one of the requirements for the degree of Sarjana Sastra (S-1) at the English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.

In accomplishing this thesis, the writer was helped by so many beloved people and the writer would like to express her gratitude to:

1. Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si. as the Rector of State University of Medan.

2. Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum. as the Dean of Faculty of Languages and Arts 3. Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd. as the Head of English and Literature

Department and Dra. Meisuri, M.A. as the Head of Applied Linguistics Program.

4. Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning M.Pd. as her thesis adviser, for the advice, guidance, comment, and precious time in supervising the draft of writing during the completion of this thesis, Dra. Sri Juriaty Ownie, M.A as her academic adviser, and all her beloved lecturers in English and Literature Department.

5. Her beloved family, her father, Alm. Masril; her mother, Soviah; her beloved

Grandmother, Martina; her Uncle’s family, Afrizal; and her dearest sister


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support in prayer, love, motivation and financial while accomplished this thesis.

6. Her beloved friends, SEMAK (Dewi, Hervina, Juniar, Nurul, Putri, and Siswantia), thanks for your love, happiness, and friendship. Her special thanks also go to all friends in Applied Linguistics A and B 2009, her comrades; Eka, Jojo, Cony and many others that she cannot be mentioned one by one.

7. Her best friends, Rafica Dini, and Tutia Rahmi for their support although they have separated in different majority.

8. All others whose name cannot be mentioned one by one for their help and support. Thanks for everything. May Allah bless us. Amin.

Finally, the writer admits that this thesis still far from being perfect. Therefore, the writer would like to invite the readers to give suggestion for the improvement of this thesis later on.

Medan, February 2014 The writer


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ABSTRACT

Jambak, Vany Tarsidasari. 2014. An Analysis of Cohesive Devices Used in Headline News of the Jakarta Post. A Thesis. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan.

The study deals with the types of cohesive devices used in Headline News of the Jakarta Post. The objectives of study are to identify and to derive the types of cohesive devices dominantly used in headline news of the Jakarta Post. The data consist of seven articles in headline column from online edition. This research is conducted by using descriptive method. There are seven articles which are analyzed in this study. The findings show that there are 162 references, 4 substitutions, 34 Ellipsis, 349 conjunctions, and 36 lexical cohesion occur in this study. The most dominant types of cohesive devices used is conjunction because the writer would like to connect ideas within the text to make its readers easy to understand. Then the writer also would like to make their news more informative. From those findings, it is concluded that cohesive devices is essential for effective writing and comprehension of written discourse especially, in writing news.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ... i

ACKNOWLEGDEMENT ... ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... iv

LIST OF TABLES ... vi

LIST OF APPENDICES ... vii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ... 1

A. The Background of Study ... 1

B. The Problem of Study ... 5

C. The Objective of Study ... 5

D. The Scope of Study ... 5

E. The Significance of Study ... 6

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ... 7

A. Cohesion... 7

B. Cohesive Devices ... 8

C. The Types of Cohesive Devices ... 9

1) Reference ... 9

2) Substitution ... 12

3) Ellipsis ... 14

4) Conjunctions ... 16

5) Lexical Cohesion ... 17

C. The Function of Cohesion ... 19

D. Language in Media... 20

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 22

A. Research Design ... 22

B. The Source of Data ... 22


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D. The Steps of Analyzing Data ... 23

CHAPTER IV: DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ... 24

A. Data Analysis ... 24

1. Reference ... 29

2. Substitution ... 32

3. Ellipsis ... 33

4. Conjunction ... 34

5. Lexical cohesion ... 37

B. Research Findings ... 39

C. Discussion ... 41

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ... 44

A. Conclusion ... 44

B. Suggestion ... 45


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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1. Types of Reference ... 10 Table 4.1. The Percentages of Cohesive Devices Used in the Headline News of

the Jakarta Post ... 24 Table 4.2. The Distribution of Types of Cohesive Devices Used in the Sources of

Data ... 28 Table 4.3. The Categories of Reference Used in Each Article ... 31 Table 4.4. The Categories of Conjunction Used in Each Article ... 36


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LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix A Identification of Cohesive Devices Used in the Headline News of the Jakarta Post ... 49 Appendix B The Headline News of the Jakarta Post ... 70


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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of Study

The word “text” refers to any instance of language, in any medium,

that makes sense to someone who knows the language. We can produce text, when we speak or write. Halliday and Hasan (1976:1) purpose that text can be in the form of spoken or written. A spoken language is in the forms of conversation, speech, storytelling, etc. While written language is reflected in the forms of newspaper, magazine, book, etc.

Newspaper has a big influence in daily life. Newspaper is one form of written language because the news is presented in the form of article that consists of headline, lead, body and conclusion. It is a printed periodical whose purpose to deliver news and other information. The news which delivered talking about local or general news, recent occurrences, information of something that has lately taken place or something before unknown, fresh findings, and recent intelligent.

In this study, the writer uses the Jakarta Post as a source of data. Jakarta Post is the largest English newspaper in Indonesia who’s owned by PT. Bina Media Tenggara, and the head office is in Jakarta. So far over 50,000 news articles are stored in their database. Jakarta Post has three editions such


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Jakarta Post consist of various fields such as Headlines, National, Opinion, World, Business, Sports, People, etc.

Since 1994, The Jakarta Post has become the first global Indonesian newspaper under a project nicknamed “Go International”. The Jakarta Post recruits new journalists, marketing, and advertising staff on each year to keep up its reputation as independent news and to satisfy the demand of its readers. This newspaper has a goal to improve the standard of English Language media

in Indonesia and would deepen the reader’s insight into their vast archipelago

or government.

Language and text have relation each other. A language can create the meaning of a text. The unity meaning the text called cohesion. Halliday and Hasan (1976) argue that the design of cohesion in text is connected to

semantic ties or “ relations of meanings that exist within the text, and that define it as a text” (Michael and at all, 2013:129-133). It means that cohesion can be defined as the links that hold a text together and give it meaning. The general meaning of cohesion is embodied in the concept of text. Cohesion is the most important thing needed in the cohesiveness of a text or discourse, including in the journalistic text (Fadjrin, 2011:3). It shows that cohesion helps the process of understanding by using its connective. Connective are words of phrases making the information effective in the language, so that the information will easy to understand.

Halliday and Hasan (1976:10) state that cohesion refers to the range of possibilities that exist for linking something with what has gone. Within text,


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if an item previously mentioned is referred to again and dependent with another element, it is considered a tie or cohesive device. Without cohesive device, the sentences would seem lack of relationship to each other. Therefore cohesive devices hold big influence within the text. Cohesive device will help the participants in interpreting a text. The cohesive devices are tools that when used appropriately enalbe the writer to hang sentences and text segments together (Fakeuade and Sharndama, 2012:300-318).

Written text will be conceived of as the written record of a potential communicative event, or one meaningful part of it, where the intended mode of communication between writer and reader is written word (Moreno, 2003:111-165). In presenting an article, the writer must be able to arrange the ideas within the text so that the reader can get the same understanding with him. Because, when we read a text, rarely happens that the people sometimes repeat what the previous already stated in order to avoid misunderstanding. Moreover, Yule (1986:106) states that the analysis of cohesive devices in a text gives us some insight on how writers structure, what they want to say and may be crucial factors in our judgement on whether something is well-written or not.

Cohesive device or types of cohesion consist of five such as reference, conjunction, substitution, ellipsis, and lexical cohesion (Halliday and Hasan, 1976:4). The first is reference, it discuss about the relation of an item that are related in what they refer to. The second is conjunction, it discuss about a semantic relation that explicitly marked. The third is substitution, it discuss


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about a linguistic element that is not repeated but replaced by substitution item. The fourth is ellipsis, it one of the identical linguistic elements that omitted and the last is lexical cohesion, it discuss about the repetition of an item.

Based on the explanation above, the writer is interested in studying cohesive devices used in The Jakarta Post. Besides to get a deep understanding about cohesive devices, especially in a text which have been learned in Writing and Functional Grammar class, this study also challenging to be researched. It will be boring to see the same word for several times. And to avoid such things we need the cohesive devices to make the information effective in the language so that the information easy to understand. For

example, “This description was from Murtala, a resident in North Aceh who set up an organization for war survivors like himself”. The word “himself” in this sentence is personal reference which refers to “Murtala”.

The writer chooses the headline news of “The Jakarta Post” because it has the standard and one of the famous English newspaper in Indonesia which must be written cohesively so the readers get the information clearly. There are seven articles that will be analyzed; all of them taken from the headline news of The Jakarta Post on April, 2013.Considering the reason above, the writer presents the study entitled An Analysis of Cohesive Devices Used in


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B. Problem of Study

Based on the background of the study above, the writer would like to analyze the following problems:

1. What are the types of cohesive devices used in the articles of Jakarta Post? 2. Why the types of cohesive devices are used in the articles of Jakarta Post

as they are?

C. Objectives of Study

Based on the problems of the study above, the objectives of the study are follows:

1. To identify the types of cohesive devices used in headlines news of the Jakarta Post.

2. To derive the types of cohesive devices dominantly used in headlines news of the Jakarta Post.

D. Scope of Study

This study will focus on the cohesive devices found in Jakarta Post. The study will analyze ten articles of The Jakarta Post on April 2013. This study uses the theory of Halliday and Hasan to analyze the the use of cohesive devices which consists of five types. They are reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion.


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E. Significance of Study

The research finding is expected to be useful in theoretically and practically.

1) Theoretically significance

It is expected to give additional information about how to analyze types of cohesive devices which found in the headline news of The Jakarta Post. 2) Practically significance

It is expected that this study is useful for the lecturers and he students of State University of Medan, especially at English and Literature Department in the cohesion study. Hopefully, this study is also expected to be a useful reference for the next student who will discuss this topic.


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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

A. Conclusion

After analyzing the types of cohesive devices used in headlines column of the Jakarta Post, the five types of cohesive devices were found in seven articles. The types of cohesive devices are reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. From the findings, it is concluded that cohesive devices is hold important part in writing news. Cohesive devices will help the readers to focus well on the topic and for clearer emphasis and understanding of the text.

Conjunction is the most dominant used in this study. It means that news consist of many clauses so that needs to use many conjunction. It also show that news give many information for its readers. Beside conjunction, there is reference which also gives many distributions in news. Reference is the dominantly used after conjunction. This is occurred because the writers of news would like to keep the identity of ideas and participants in text to make their news clearly and easy to understand.

Among the five types of cohesive devices, substitution and ellipsis are in the least position. It shows that the two types of cohesive devices


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investigate both of them in spoken discourse, especially in spontaneous speech in different study.

There are some functions of cohesive devices used in this study. The function of reference used in this study is to identify the participants within the text which consist of personal, demonstrative, exophoric and endophoric. The function of substitution is to indicate a replacement of one item with another which consists of nominal and clausal substitution. The function of ellipsis is to indicate the omission of a word or part of sentence which consist of nominal and clausal ellipsis. Then, the function of conjunction used in this study is to indicate a relation of a sentence with another which consists of additive, adversative, clausal, and temporal conjunction. The last, the function of lexical cohesion used is to indicate the relation words in a text which consist of reiteration and collocation.

B. Suggestion

Having seen the result of the study, suggestions are staged as following.

1. For those who want to take cohesive devices study as the tool of their research, they must understand and learn more about this study. They may take the different object of the research such as from advertisements, movie, literary work like novels or short stories, television show, radio program, or the others so that it will make the research to be more interesting.


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2. It is suggested that the writers should be concerned about the use of cohesive devices used in presenting their idea.

3. The findings of this research can be used as a reference to give better understanding for the future researcher, provide additional information and comparison that might be relevant to the study.


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REFERENCES

Abusaeedi, Ali Asghar Rostami. 2010. Use of Cohesive Ties in English as a Foreign Language Students’ Writing. Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies, (2)1, 137-158.

Bloor and Bloor. 1995. The Functional Analysis of English: A Hallidayan

Approach. China: Edward Arnold.

Fadjrin, Nurul Laili Mariani. 2011. An Analysis of Grammatical and Lexical

Cohesion on the Journalistic Text of VoANEWS.COM. Thesis. Jakarta:

Universitar Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta.

Fakeuade, Gbenga and Emmanuel C. Sharndama. 2012. A Comparative Analysis of Variations in Cohesive Devices in Professional and Popularized Legal Text. British Journal of Arts and Social Sciences, 4(2), 300-318.

Halliday, MAK and Ruqaiya Hassan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London and New York: Longman.

Hatim, Basil and Ian Mason. 1997. The Translator as Communicator. London and New York: Routledge.

McConville, Mike and Wing Hong Chui. 2007. Reseach Methods for Law. Great Britain: Edinburgh University Press.

Michael and at All. 2013. Cohesion in News Articles: A Discourse Analysis Approach. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English

Literature, 2(3), 129-133.

Moreno, Ana I. 2003. The Role of Cohesive Devices as Textual Constraints on Relevance: A Discourse-as-process View. International Journal of English


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Muslimah, S.I. 2007. An Analysis on Cohesion in Short Poetries of Robert Frost. Thesis. Malang: UIN.

Paul, R and Goione, P.W. 1973. Perception and Persuasion; A New Approach to

Effective Writting. New York. Montclair State University.

Rahman, Zuhair Abdul Amir Abdul. 2013. The Use of Cohesive Devices in

Descriptive Writing by Omani Student-Teachers. Oman. Sage Open.

Reah, Danuta. 2002. The Language of Newspaper Second Edition. London: Routledge.

Renkema, Jan. 1993. Discourse Studies: An Introductory Textbook. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Renkema. Jan. 2004. Discourse Studies: An Introductory Textbook. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.


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E. Significance of Study

The research finding is expected to be useful in theoretically and practically.

1) Theoretically significance

It is expected to give additional information about how to analyze types of cohesive devices which found in the headline news of The Jakarta Post. 2) Practically significance

It is expected that this study is useful for the lecturers and he students of State University of Medan, especially at English and Literature Department in the cohesion study. Hopefully, this study is also expected to be a useful reference for the next student who will discuss this topic.


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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

A. Conclusion

After analyzing the types of cohesive devices used in headlines column of the Jakarta Post, the five types of cohesive devices were found in seven articles. The types of cohesive devices are reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. From the findings, it is concluded that cohesive devices is hold important part in writing news. Cohesive devices will help the readers to focus well on the topic and for clearer emphasis and understanding of the text.

Conjunction is the most dominant used in this study. It means that news consist of many clauses so that needs to use many conjunction. It also show that news give many information for its readers. Beside conjunction, there is reference which also gives many distributions in news. Reference is the dominantly used after conjunction. This is occurred because the writers of news would like to keep the identity of ideas and participants in text to make their news clearly and easy to understand.

Among the five types of cohesive devices, substitution and ellipsis are in the least position. It shows that the two types of cohesive devices don’t have any application in written discourse. It could be interesting to


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investigate both of them in spoken discourse, especially in spontaneous speech in different study.

There are some functions of cohesive devices used in this study. The function of reference used in this study is to identify the participants within the text which consist of personal, demonstrative, exophoric and endophoric. The function of substitution is to indicate a replacement of one item with another which consists of nominal and clausal substitution. The function of ellipsis is to indicate the omission of a word or part of sentence which consist of nominal and clausal ellipsis. Then, the function of conjunction used in this study is to indicate a relation of a sentence with another which consists of additive, adversative, clausal, and temporal conjunction. The last, the function of lexical cohesion used is to indicate the relation words in a text which consist of reiteration and collocation.

B. Suggestion

Having seen the result of the study, suggestions are staged as following.

1. For those who want to take cohesive devices study as the tool of their research, they must understand and learn more about this study. They may take the different object of the research such as from advertisements, movie, literary work like novels or short stories, television show, radio program, or the others so that it will make the research to be more interesting.


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2. It is suggested that the writers should be concerned about the use of cohesive devices used in presenting their idea.

3. The findings of this research can be used as a reference to give better understanding for the future researcher, provide additional information and comparison that might be relevant to the study.


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REFERENCES

Abusaeedi, Ali Asghar Rostami. 2010. Use of Cohesive Ties in English as a Foreign Language Students’ Writing. Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies, (2)1, 137-158.

Bloor and Bloor. 1995. The Functional Analysis of English: A Hallidayan Approach. China: Edward Arnold.

Fadjrin, Nurul Laili Mariani. 2011. An Analysis of Grammatical and Lexical Cohesion on the Journalistic Text of VoANEWS.COM. Thesis. Jakarta: Universitar Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta.

Fakeuade, Gbenga and Emmanuel C. Sharndama. 2012. A Comparative Analysis of Variations in Cohesive Devices in Professional and Popularized Legal Text. British Journal of Arts and Social Sciences, 4(2), 300-318.

Halliday, MAK and Ruqaiya Hassan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London and New York: Longman.

Hatim, Basil and Ian Mason. 1997. The Translator as Communicator. London and New York: Routledge.

McConville, Mike and Wing Hong Chui. 2007. Reseach Methods for Law. Great Britain: Edinburgh University Press.

Michael and at All. 2013. Cohesion in News Articles: A Discourse Analysis Approach. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 2(3), 129-133.

Moreno, Ana I. 2003. The Role of Cohesive Devices as Textual Constraints on Relevance: A Discourse-as-process View. International Journal of English Study, 3(1), 111-165.


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Muslimah, S.I. 2007. An Analysis on Cohesion in Short Poetries of Robert Frost. Thesis. Malang: UIN.

Paul, R and Goione, P.W. 1973. Perception and Persuasion; A New Approach to Effective Writting. New York. Montclair State University.

Rahman, Zuhair Abdul Amir Abdul. 2013. The Use of Cohesive Devices in Descriptive Writing by Omani Student-Teachers. Oman. Sage Open.

Reah, Danuta. 2002. The Language of Newspaper Second Edition. London: Routledge.

Renkema, Jan. 1993. Discourse Studies: An Introductory Textbook. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Renkema. Jan. 2004. Discourse Studies: An Introductory Textbook. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.