The analysis of verb forms in news titles on the business news pages of The Jakarta Post newspaper.
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
THE ANALYSIS OF VERB FORMS IN NEWS TITLES ON
THE BUSINESS NEWS PAGES OF THE JAKARTA POST
NEWSPAPER
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
Frida Rana Pandoyu
Student Number: 084214107
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
2012
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
THE ANALYSIS OF VERB FORMS IN NEWS TITLES ON
THE BUSINESS NEWS PAGES OF THE JAKARTA POST
NEWSPAPER
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
Frida Rana Pandoyu
Student Number: 084214107
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
2012
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PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Do What You Can, With What
You Have, and Where You Are
-Theodore Roosevelt-
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For my beloved parents and
family
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The writer believes that she will not be able to finish this undergraduate
thesis if there were no helps from others. She is very glad to express her gratitude
to those who have given their helps and guidance during her study in the college.
She would like to dedicate her gratitude to particular names below.
First of all, she thanks Lord, Jesus Christ that always guides her in doing
this study from the beginning until the end.
She thanks her advisor Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A. for his time and
guidance in all process of finishing this study. She also thanks her co-advisor
Anna Fitriati, S.Pd., M.Hum. for giving some corrections in this thesis.
She expresses her everlasting gratitude to her beloved parents (Yoab Aspil
Pandoyu and Helmin Wuaten) and brother (Sem Jumbana Pandoyu) who
always give support and prayer in finishing this study. She also thanks her big
family for their support and prayer during her study in Yogyakarta.
She thanks her friends Okin, Vita, Jeni, Piko, Feny, Yeni, Mery, Stevi,
Riska for their support and prayer in finishing this study.
She thanks her brothers Ibam, Dedy, Ekhy, Imank for their support in
finishing this study. She also thanks Audy Arthur Guluda who always supports
her in finishing this study.
Finally, she would like to thank her friends in Yogyakarta, Sisil, Rina,
Sari, Sita, Ifa, Susan, Farel, Lia, Cindy, Tante Dona, Chicie, Ajenk, Ana,
Gaby, Yanti, Dame, Helga, Topan, Daniel, Nico, Prayudi, Dedy, Rigel, Noni,
Gina, Sari, Lei, Odi, Matias, Rengga. Nice to know you all guys.
Frida Rana Pandoyu
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LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN
PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Sanata Dharma:
Nama
Nomor mahasiswa
: Frida Rana Pandoyu
: 084214107
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan
Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
THE ANALYSIS OF VERB FORMS IN NEWS TITLES ON THE
BUSINESS NEWS PAGES OF THE JAKARTA POST NEWSPAPER
beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan
kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan,
mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan
data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau
media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya
maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya
sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya.
Dibuat di Yogyakarta.
Pada tanggal: 30 November 2012
Yang menyatakan
Frida Rana Pandoyu
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ....................................................................................................
APPROVAL PAGE ..........................................................................................
ACCEPTANCE PAGE .....................................................................................
MOTO PAGE ...................................................................................................
DEDICATION PAGE .......................................................................................
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..............................................................................
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ............................
TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................
ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................
ABSTRAK .........................................................................................................
i
ii
iii
iv
v
vi
vii
viii
x
xi
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................
A. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY .........................................................
B. PROBLEM FORMULATION..................................................................
C. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY ................................................................
D. DEFINITION OF TERMS .......................................................................
1
1
5
5
5
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW......................................................
A. Review of Related Studies ........................................................................
B. Review of Related Theories......................................................................
1. The News Title ...............................................................................
a. The Function of News Title ....................................................
b. The Characteristics of News Title ..........................................
i. Using Sharp and Short Words ........................................
ii. Articles are Commonly Omitted ....................................
iii. Verbs are essential .........................................................
iv. Using Present Tense for Past Event ...............................
v. Using Active Voice than Passive Voice .........................
vi. Using Positive Statements .............................................
vii. Using Familiar or Common Abbreviation or Acronyms .
viii. Using Flush-Left Head ..................................................
ix. Often Required Punctuation ...........................................
2. Verb Form ......................................................................................
a. Finite Verb .............................................................................
i. The Base Form ...............................................................
1. The Present Tense .....................................................
2. The Imperative ..........................................................
3. The Present Subjunctive ............................................
ii. The –S Form ..................................................................
iii. The Past Form ...............................................................
b. Non-Finite Verb ......................................................................
i. The Base Form ...............................................................
1. The Bare Infinitive .....................................................
2. The to-Infinitive ........................................................
8
8
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ii. The –Ing Participle .........................................................
1. The Progressive Aspect Following ‘be’ .....................
2. –Ing Participle Clauses ..............................................
iii. The –Ed Participle ..........................................................
1. The Perfect Aspect Following ‘have’ ........................
2. The Passive Voice Following ‘be’ .............................
3. The –Ed Participle Clauses ........................................
21
21
22
23
23
24
24
C. Theoretical framework ............................................................................ 25
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ..................................................................
A. Object of the Study...................................................................................
B. Approach of the Study .............................................................................
C. Method of the study ................................................................................
27
27
29
29
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS .............................................................................. 31
A. The Verb Form in News Title ................................................................... 31
1. Finite and Non-Finite Verb ............................................................. 32
B. The Meaning Revealed by Verb Forms in News Titles .............................
1. Finite Verb ......................................................................................
a. The Base Form........................................................................
b. –S Form .................................................................................
c. The Past Form ........................................................................
2. Non-Finite Verb ..............................................................................
a. The Base Form........................................................................
b. The –Ing Participle..................................................................
c. The –Ed Participle ..................................................................
41
41
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42
43
43
43
44
44
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ......................................................................... 46
BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................
APPENDICES ...................................................................................................
Appendix 1 ..............................................................................................
Appendix 2 ..............................................................................................
Appendix 3 ..............................................................................................
Appendix 4 ..............................................................................................
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ABSTRACT
Frida Rana Pandoyu. THE ANALYSIS OF VERB FORMS IN NEWS TITLES
ON THE BUSINESS NEWS PAGES OF THE JAKARTA POST
NEWSPAPER. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters,
Sanata Dharma University, 2012.
Language has some varieties in practice and one of them is written
language. One kind of written language is newspaper. The main function of
newspaper is to convey information to its readers. News as the main content of a
newspaper will interest the readers to read it if the news title is attractive and
interesting. Moreover, the readers will read the news if the news title uses the
appropriate structure of language and its words, in this case the verb form,
because the news title is the gate to bring the reader to read the news. The writer
chose the news titles of the business news columns of The Jakarta Post
newspaper as the data of the study. Furthermore, the writer would like to analyze
the news titles, because she wants to show the ways the verb forms are used and
to explain the usage of verb forms that were used in the news titles of an English
newspaper.
In this study, there are two objectives which are to be obtained. The first
objective is to find out the verb forms that are used in the business news titles of
The Jakarta Post newspaper of November 15 to17, 2011 edition. The second
objective is to identify the meaning that is revealed by the verb form in the news
titles.
In this analysis, the writer used syntax as the approach of the study. There
were some steps that were done by the writer in analyzing the data. First, the
writer collected the data that was taken from The Jakarta Post Newspaper of
November 15 to 17, 2011 edition in the business news column. Second, the writer
found the theories as the foundation to analyze the data. Third, the writer analyzed
the data to solve the problem formulations in chapter 1. The first problem was
solved by finding out the verb forms used in the data. Then, to see the frequency
of occurrence for each verb form, the writer counted the number of verb forms
with using the XYZ formula. Furthermore, the second problem was solved by
applying theories in chapter II to show the meaning that was revealed by verb
forms in the data.
There were 40 news titles that were found using the verb forms. The others
did not contain the verb forms. The base form of finite verb form was used by 16
news titles or 33.33%. 18 news titles used the –s form, with percentage 37.5%.
The base form of non-finite verb form was used by only one news titles or 2.08%.
The –ing participle form was used by two news titles or 4.16%. The –ed participle
form was used by three news titles or 6.25%. Meanwhile, the verbless news titles
were used by eight news titles, with percentage 16.66%. The meaning which was
revealed by each verb form was that finite verb forms contained time in the past
and present, while the non-finite verb form did not contain any particular time.
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ABSTRAK
Frida Rana Pandoyu. THE ANALYSIS OF VERB FORMS IN NEWS TITLES
ON THE BUSINESS NEWS PAGES OF THE JAKARTA POST
NEWSPAPER. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra,
Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2012.
Dalam penerapannya, bahasa memiliki beberapa variasi dan salah satu di
antaranya adalah bahasa tertulis. Contoh bahasa tertulis adalah surat kabar. Fungsi
utama surat kabar adalah untuk melaporkan informasi kepada pembacanya. Berita
sebagai isi utama surat kabar akan membuat pembaca tertarik untuk membaca jika
judul berita yang digunakan menarik. Lebih lagi, pembaca akan membaca berita
jika judulnya menggunakan kata dan struktur bahasa yang tepat, dalam hal ini
yang dimaksudkan adalah bentuk kata kerjanya, karena bentuk kata kerja adalah
gerbang yang akan mengantar pembaca ke dalam sebuah berita. Penulis memilih
menggunakan judul-judul berita di kolom berita bisnis dalam surat kabar The
Jakarta Post sebagai data analisis. Selanjutnya, penulis akan menganalisis juduljudul berita tersebut untuk menunjukkan dan menerangkan cara penggunaan kata
kerja.
Dalam analisis ini, terdapat dua tujuan yang akan dicapai. Tujuan pertama
adalah, untuk mencari tau bentuk-bentuk kata kerja yang digunakan oleh judul
berita bisnis dalam surat kabar The Jakarta Post edisi 15-17 November 2011.
Tujuan kedua, untuk memperkenalkan arti yang dinyatakan oleh bentuk kata kerja
pada judul-judul berita.
Dalam analisis ini, penulis menggunakan pendekatan sintaksis. Untuk
menganalisis data penulis menggunakan beberapa langkah berikut. Pertama,
penulis mengumpulkan data dari surat kabar The Jakarta Post edisi 15-17
November 2011 di kolom berita bisnis. Kedua, penulis mendapatkan teori yang
digunakan sebagai pondasi untuk menganalisis data. Ketiga, penulis menganalisis
data untuk menyelesaikan permasalahan pada bab1. Permasalahan pertama
diselesaikan dengan mencari tau bentuk-bentuk kata kerja yang digunakan data.
Kemudian, untuk melihat frekuensi keberadaan untuk setiap bentuk kata kerja,
penulis menghitungnya dengan menggunakan rumus XYZ. Selanjutnya,
permasalahan kedua diselesaikan dengan menerapkan teori di bab II untuk
menunjukkan arti yang dinyatakan oleh bentuk kata kerja pada data.
Dari 48 data, ada 40 judul berita yang menggunakan bentuk kata kerja.
Sisanya tidak menggunakan bentuk kata kerja. Bentuk base dari kata kerja finite
digunakan oleh 16 judul berita atau 33.33%. Bentuk –s digunakan oleh 18 judul
berita, dengan presentase sebesar 37.5%. Bentuk base dari kata kerja non-finite
digunakan oleh 1 judul berita atau 2.08%. Bentuk –ing participle digunakan oleh 2
judul berita atau 4.16%. Bentuk kata kerja –ed participle digunakan oleh 3 judul
berita atau 6.25%. Sementara itu, judul berita verbless digunakan oleh 8 judul
berita, dengan presentase sebesar 16.66%. Arti yang dinyatakan oleh bentuk kata
kerja adalah bahwa bentuk kata kerja finite mangandung waktu di masa lalu dan
sekarang, sedangkan non-finite tidak mengandung waktu tertentu.
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
As a social creature, human being cannot live alone without the presence
of other people. They need others to get socialization and interaction. Therefore,
all people need to communicate. It is a basic to build up a relation with others,
because all people need each other in order to fulfill their life.
Communication has some media to be applied. One of them is a language.
In Cambridge Advance Learner’s Dictionary, it was stated that language is a
system of communication consisting of sounds, words and grammar or the system
of communication used by the people of particular country or profession.
Different people in different countries, professions, educational backgrounds, and
so on might have different language to communicate (2008). It means that when a
person uses language as her communication tools, the language which she is
uttering must consist of words, grammar, and also sound. This idea is supported
by Ronald Wardhaugh. In his book An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, he stated
that there are varieties of possible relationships between language and society.
One of them is social structure may either influence or determine linguistic
structure and/or behavior (Wardhaugh, 1992:10). For example, Nadia, a ten-yearold daughter of rich parents in Jogjakarta called his mother “mami”, but Weni, a
ten-year-old daughter of a food seller in Jogjakarta called his mother “mbok”.
Both of the words in the quotation marks have the same meaning, mother.
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2
Language itself has some varieties in practice. One kind of language
varieties is written language. The written language is significantly more precise
than the oral language. For example, in making a written language − an article in a
magazine − a writer must think first about either the words or the argument that
she will use in her writing. Then, she will read it repeatedly before publishing the
writing, to make sure that what she has done is good, understandable, or polite to
read. It is different from oral language which is not too precise. A speaker can say
anything that comes through her minds. It does not matter if she says something
that not pleased to others. When she is saying something to a person which is not
polite, it cannot be retracted although she asks for apologizing and the person she
is talking to forgives her.
Crystal in his book, Language and the Internet, mentioned about the
differences between the spoken or oral and written language.
Speech is typically time-bound, spontaneous, face-to-face, socially
interactive, loosely structured, immediately revisable, and
prosodically rich. Writing is typically space-bound, contrived,
visually decontextualized, factually communicative, elaborately
structured, repeatedly revisable, and graphically rich. (Crystal,
2001: 25 & 28).
In other words to make a good written language, it must be explicitly thought and
considered first in choosing the right words, structure, or limit of space which are
going to be used.
There are many kinds of written language. One of them is newspaper
language. In The Language of Newspapers, a newspaper was defined as
“ephemeral texts, that is, they are intended only for the day they are delivering the
news” (Reah, 2002: 13). There are newspapers that publish news of a particular
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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region or province, which is known as the local newspapers. There are also
national newspapers that serve news of a country. Then, there are newspapers that
publish news of the whole country in the world, which are called the international
newspapers. In Indonesia, the examples of local, national, and international
newspapers are Tribun Jogja (http://jogja.tribunnews.com/), Media Indonesia
(http://www.mediaindonesia.com/),
and
The
Jakarta
Post
(http://www.thejakartapost.com/).
Besides providing news, newspaper also provides other things that attract
people to look at. For example, a person who wants to know about the TV
program in her favorite TV channel can find the information on a newspaper.
Newspapers, however, contain a range of items; news, comment
and analysis, advertising, entertainment. In fact, the larger part of a
newspaper will be devoted to items other than news, for example,
TV listings and advertisings (Reah, 2002: 2).
However, the main function of newspaper is to convey information to its readers.
News as the main content of a newspaper will interest the readers to read it
if the title of the news is attractive and interesting. News titles in a newspaper
should be short and interesting to attract readers to read. Besides, almost all news
titles have to be short because the available space in a certain column or even in
each column is limited. Reah, in her book The Language of Newspapers, stated
that a news title should encapsulate the story in a minimum number of words,
attract the readers to the story and, if it appears on the front page, attract the reader
to the paper (Reah, 2002: 13). Therefore, it is the work of a journalist that has to
be able to make a very interesting news title, so readers will decide to read the
news. However in making a news title, a journalist must use the appropriate
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
4
structure of language and word, in this case the verb form, so that readers can
easily understand what the news is about. From the appropriate verb form, readers
will immediately understand about the content of the news, because sometimes
readers get confused about the meaning of a news title which is ambiguous. A
verb is a group of words that describes actions, states and events. In the book of
Grammar and Meaning, it was stated that states, events and actions are
represented grammatically by the word-class of verbs. Verbs referring to states
include: be, seem, have, believe, like, hear, ache. Verbs referring to events
include: breathe, fall, become, arrive, float, shine, die. Verbs referring to actions
include: sing, laugh, throw, decide, encourage, push, clean (Jackson, 1990: 16).
As a member of a word class, a verb has an important role in a sentence that is to
make it clear what the sentence is about. Therefore, in this study, it will not
discuss about the verb in general but specifically about the forms of verb. “A verb
word takes on different forms according to its grammatical context and the
grammatical meanings or categories associated with it, while preserving its
meaning as a state, event or action.” (Jackson, 1990: 16).
In this thesis, the writer is going to show the ways the verb forms are used
and to explain the usage of verb forms that are used in the news titles of an
English newspaper. For this reason, the writer uses the business news titles in The
Jakarta Post newspaper as the data.
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B. Problem Formulation
To analyze the topic that the writer has mentioned before, there are two
problems that have been formulated.
1. What verb forms are used in the business news titles of The Jakarta Post
newspaper?
2. What meaning does each verb form reveal in the data?
C. Objectives of the Study
In this paper there are two objectives of the study. The first is to find out
the verb forms that are used in the business news titles of The Jakarta Post
newspaper. The second is to identify the meaning that each verb form reveals in
the business news titles of The Jakarta Post newspaper.
D. The Definition of Terms
In order to avoid misunderstanding on certain terms, there are three key
terms that will be used in this analysis.
1. Verb forms
Verb form is the forms of verb that can be found in each usage of verb.
The normal English verb has five verb forms: The base form (e.g.: I drink
the water.) The -s form (e.g.: She drinks the water.) The past form (e.g.:
She drank the water.) The -ing participle form (e.g.: She is drinking the
water.) The -ed participle form (e.g.: She has drunk the water.) (Quirk,
Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1972: 70-71)
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2. Business news
Business news in a newspaper is news that reports the information about
economic issue. This kind of news always gets attention from businessman
or educated people. This news also gives influence to its readers like
Assegaff said in his book Jurnalistik Masa Kini (Pengantar ke Praktek
Kewartawanan) that not only political issue which can influence us, but
also economic issue gives its effect directly (Assegaff, 1983: 41).
Moreover except serving economic news, business news also serves the
issues of industry, agriculture, and fishery. “Economic news does not only
report on trade issue, but it also reports on other issue such as industry,
banking, labor, market price record, exchange, etc.” (Pg. 42-43).
3. News Title
In Webster dictionary, title is defined as “the name of poem, essay, chapter
book, picture, statute, piece of music, etc.”
News is “the information about recent events that are of interest to
a sufficiently large group, or that may affect the lives of a sufficiently
large group” (Reah, 2002: 4).
News also means the new information which can be shared to
anybody. It is like what Suhandang stated in his book Pengantar
Jurnalistik that “news comes from the word new which refers to the recent
things. In this case, everything new is a material of information to all
people that need it” (Suhandang, 2004: 102-103). Suhandang also defined
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
7
that “news is a report or notice about any actual event which interests
people” (p. 103-104).
Therefore, news title is the name of any information of recent
events that attract people to look it at. Moreover, news title refers to the
word in the leading position of news which will be read firstly by the
reader because it is interesting in its form.
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
In this chapter there are three parts that are going to be discussed; review
of related studies, review of related theories, and theoretical framework. The first
part contains the study which has already been done by some writers that has
relation to this study. The second part discusses the review of some theories that
will be applied in analyzing the object of the study. The last part is the theoretical
framework that concerns with the contribution of the theories and the way they
are applied to answer the problems in the study.
A. Review of Related Studies
The review of related studies discusses the studies whose topic is similar
to this study. The studies also analyze the news titles of The Jakarta Post
newspaper. In the following paragraph, there are two studies which were
conducted by two students from English Letters Department of Sanata Dharma
University.
The first undergraduate thesis entitled “A Stylistic Analysis on Linguistic
Features of News Titles in The Jakarta Post on August 19, 2007 Issue” was
written by Nani Tato Kamba. Her topic discussed the linguistic features that were
found in the news titles of The Jakarta Post newspaper. She divided the linguistic
features into four parts: graphological, phonological, grammatical, and lexical. At
the end of her chapter, she concluded that the linguistic features which she
analyzed affected the news titles. The graphological features affected the ease of
8
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
9
reading, the phonological features gave the rhythm to the text that made it
memorable, the grammatical features made the news title clearly understood, and
the lexical features helped in economizing space-use and beautify the news titles.
The second undergraduate thesis entitled “Linguistic Features Used in The
News Titles of Sport News in The Jakarta Post Newspaper of 2-6 March 2009
Editions” was written by Johanes Trihartanto. Trihartanto discussed the linguistic
features used in the sport news titles which were found in The Jakarta Post
newspaper issued on 2-6 March 2009. The linguistic features that he analyzed
were the graphological, phonological, grammatical, and lexical features. From 61
news titles that he analyzed, he found that some news titles could be applied and
some could not be applied into some linguistic features.
The two studies above are similar to this study which is going to analyze
the news titles of The Jakarta Post newspaper. However in this study, the writer
wants to analyze the verb forms, not the specific linguistic features, used in the
business news titles of The Jakarta Post newspaper.
B. Review of Related Theories
1. The News Title
The name or the head of news in a newspaper is called news title. The
news titles are written in the form of sentences but sometimes the news titles are
written in the form of phrases. These news titles function to advertise their stories
or news.
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
10
a. The Function of News Title
In Experiences in Journalism, it was said that newspaper heads advertise
their stories and promote rapid reading. The heads or news titles should
summarize the main points of a story. It is aimed to give the reader an idea about
the content of the news, because the readers always scan the news titles to decide
which news that they are going to read. The news titles also reflect the tone of
their news, means that if the story is humorous, the headline should suggest the
fact; if the story is tragic, the news title should be tragic in tone (Mulligan, 1943:
232).
b. The Characteristics of News Title
The news titles role as the gates between the reader and the news. The
reader will read the news if the news title gets their attention. Therefore, it is the
work of the writer to make the news titles being attractive to read. News title in a
newspaper is not the same with the title in other literary works, such as novel or
play. In a novel, the title is written for beauty so that phrases are commonly used,
whereas the news titles are written to bring main points of news and advertise it.
In the following part, it will be shown the characteristics of news titles based on
the book of Experiences in Journalism (Mulligan, 1943: 232-245).
i.
Using sharp and short words
It is used to give a vivid summary of the facts in its news. “Use short,
crisp words as much as possible in preference to longer synonyms.” (Mulligan,
1943: 233)
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Example: Enduring hopes on mount Bromo. (The Jakarta Post, September 10,
2011)
The word enduring has two synonyms namely, lasting and durable. It is a
sharp and short word to be used. In this case, the word enduring was chosen
because it is the common word and commonly used.
ii.
Articles are commonly omitted
In the news title of most newspapers, the articles are omitted to shorten
them. It is different from the title of a novel or play that uses the articles.
Example: Govt to soon publish guidance on Hepatitis. (The complete sentence
will be, Govt to soon publish a guidance on Hepatitis). (The Jakarta Post,
September 10, 2011).
iii. Verbs are essential
The news titles that do not contain verbs, either expressed or clearly
understood, are really not heads at all but mere labels (Mulligan, 1943: 233).
Therefore, a verb is used to make a complete statement.
Example:
1) Simpson steals Deutsche Bank Championship (Sentence form with verb
steals)
2) New PM a bureaucrats’ puppet or master? (Adjective phrase form without
verb). (The Jakarta Post, September 10, 2011)
iv.
Using present tense for past event
The present tense or historic present tense in news titles is used to refer to
past events. It is commonly used in news titles as vivid as possible. In The Mass
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Media and the School Newspaper, it was said that to describe the past event, the
present tense is used instead of the past tense. The use of present tense can create
the sense of immediacy to the story. Although the event has already happened, the
historical present tense tries to bring the readers to the situation or event when it
happened (Reddick, 1976: 299).
Example: Mutai runs fastest marathon ever at Boston (The title is in present
tense).
Kenyas Geoffrey Mutai ran the fastest 42.2 kilometers in history to win
the Boston Marathon on Monday. (The first sentence in the first paragraph of the
news represents directly that the news is in the past tense). (The Jakarta Post,
April 20, 2011).
v.
Using active voice than passive voice
The use active voice in a news title unless the passive is necessary to get
the main idea of the opening words of the news (Mulligan, 1943: 234). However,
when it is necessary to use the passive voice, to be is omitted before verb.
Example:
1) Honorary degree neglects people’s suffering (active voice)
2) Bike courier robbed in North Jakarta (passive voice). (The Jakarta Post,
September 10, 2011)
vi.
Using positive statements
A positive statement is more emphatic than a negative statement which is
weak. The use of negative statement can lead the readers to a negative opinion.
Therefore, it is preferred to use the positive statement.
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Example: “Senior debate postponed” is better than “Senior debate will not be held
Friday”. (Mulligan, 1943: 235)
vii. Using familiar or common abbreviation or acronyms
It is used to make readers understand the news titles at once when they
read them.
Example: Australia PM Gillard to focus on energy in North Asia (PM for Prime
Minister). (The Jakarta Post, April 20, 2011)
viii. Using flush-left head
It is used for the news title that uses more than one line. In flush-left
head, each line starts flush at left of the column, with no indentation.
Example:
Charred
corpses line
roads after
voter riots
(The Jakarta Post, April 20, 2011)
ix.
Often required punctuation
It is used to replace certain words or to give stress to the title. For
example, to separate two independent statements, a semicolon or a dash is used, as
in:
1). Band leaders elected; new activities begin
2). Your dreams come true ─ girls to model fashions (Experiences in
Journalism, 1943: 244-245)
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2. Verb Form
A verb is a group of words that describes an action. In the Descriptive
English Grammar, it was stated that “a verb is the part of speech which expresses
action (run, walk, steal, kill, jump), or state of being (suffer, rejoice)” (Harman,
1950: 93). “A popular definition of verbs states that the verb asserts, or predicates.
This is true only in the case of the ‘finite’ phases of the verb; There being a class
of verb forms, the ‘nonfinite,’ which lack the power of asserting” (Pg. 93).
In the news titles, a verb is used to make a complete statement, like what
has explained in the previous part in page 11 about the verb as one of the
characteristics of news titles. “The news titles that do not contain verbs, either
expressed or clearly understood, are really not heads at all but mere labels”
(Mulligan, 1943: 233). However in writing the news titles, the grammar, in this
case the verb forms, is different from the grammar of standard English.
“Newspaper headlines are written in a special kind of language with its own
vocabulary and grammar. Headlines have a special grammar which differs from
that of ordinary sentences” (Yoneoka, 2000).
Verb forms are the forms of verb that can be found in each usage of verb.
According to the book of A Grammar of Contemporary English, “the normal
English verb has five forms: the BASE, the –s FORM, the PAST, the –ing
PARTICIPLE, and the –ed PARTICIPLE” (Quirk, 1972: 70). In the book of A
Student’s Grammar of the English Language, it was stated that “the verb forms
have different functions in finite and non-finite phrases. The –s form and the past
form are always finite (call/calls/called, drink/drinks/drank, or put/puts/put).
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Whereas the –ing participle and the –ed participle are always non-finite
(calling/drinking/putting or called/drunk/put). The base form (the form which has
no inflection) is sometimes finite and sometimes nonfinite” (Greenbaum, 1990:
25). In the following part, it will be discussed about the verb forms based on the
book of A Student’s Grammar of the English Language.
a. Finite Verb
A finite verb is a verb which has a subject. This means that it will become
the main verb in a sentence. A finite verb shows tenses (past or present), or
number (singular or plural). In the book of Descriptive English Grammar, it was
stated that “a finite verb is the verb which asserts or predicates. It is “limited” by
person and number” (Harman, 1950: 93).
Example: The dog runs. The verb runs is in the third person which is a singular
number (Harman, 1950: 93).
The finite verb is divided into three parts, namely the base form, the –s
form, and the past form.
i. The Base Form
The base form is finite verb in the present tense, imperative, and present
subjunctive.
1. The base form functions in present tense in all persons and numbers except
third person singular (which has the –s form).
In English grammar, the present tense is a tense which shows events that
exist now. According to Riyanto in his book of A Handbook of English Grammar,
the present tense is a verb form that is used to express 1). An action that happens
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
16
all the time or habits, for example, I learn English every day; 2). A thing that is
true in general, for example, I am Indonesian; 3). A schedule/time table or a plan,
for example, the bus arrives at 5:30 a.m.; 4). A description and definition, for
example, a doctor works in a hospital (Riyanto, 2007: 112).
In news titles, the use of the present tense is to describe past event. “The
present tense is the fundamental tense in the system of English tenses: in addition
to present events, it can also express future and past events” (Duskova, 1988:
217). Hameed in his article, Tense in News Headlines, stated that in addition to
present events it can also express future and past events. In this sense, the present
tense is temporal. Although future reference of the present tense is usually
complemented with an adverbial of time (the futurity thus being expressed
lexically), this need not always be so, with the future reference being clear from
the context (http://www.iasj.net/iasj?func=fulltext&aId=17758, accessed on
November 2, 2012). However in this study, the use of present tense in news titles
is only to express past events.
Example:
1) Stocks fall as US credit outlook cut.
Asian stocks fell Tuesday for a third day after standard & poor’s cut the
US long-term credit outlook, fueling concern that a recovery in the global
economy may slow. (The first sentence in the first paragraph of the news
represents directly that the news is in the past tense). (The Jakarta Post, April 20,
2011).
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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2. The imperative
Imperative is one of the English moods. In A Grammar of Present – Day
English, it was stated that “the imperative is used to express a command or
entreaty” (Kruisinga E., 1915: 60).
Example: Call at once! (Greenbaum, 1990: 26)
The verb call in the example above shows the expressing of a command or
entreaty.
The imperative is also used to express a command which is negative. The
difference of the negative and not negative command is seen from the difference
intonation only.
Example:
1) Go home.
2) Go and do what you are told. (Kruisinga, 1915: 60)
The command sentence in the first example is the imperative mood which
is not negative. In the second example, it shows the imperative negative in
intonation.
The imperative is not only used to express a command or entreaty. In the
book of A Grammar of Present – Day English, it was stated that the imperative is
also used to express a conditional action resulting in what is expressed by the
following clause connected with it by and. (Kruisinga E., 1915: 60).
Example: Ask too many questions, and you’ll spoil everything. (Kruisinga, 1915:
60)
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The connection word and in the example above shows the expression of a
conditional action.
Furthermore, the imperative form is not used in writing the news titles.
3. The present subjunctive
The present subjunctive has the same form as the infinitive without ‘to’.
“The present subjunctive is the same as the infinitive. The present subjunctive
itself has three uses in modern English. First, it follows verbs, nouns, or adjectives
that express the idea of command, suggestion, or possibility. For example, I
suggested that he leave. This use of the present subjunctive is common in
American English. In British English it is more usual to use should: I suggested
that he should leave. Second, it is used in formal English in clauses beginning
with words such as if; although; whether and lest. For example, If that be the case,
there is little more we can do. Third, it is used in certain fixed phrases. For
example, far be it from me.” (Http://www.talktalk.co.uk/reference/dictionaries
/englis/data/d0082859.html, retrieved on June 9, 2012).
Furthermore, the present subjunctive form is not used in writing the news
titles.
ii. The -s Forms
The –s form is a finite verb in the third person singular present tense. The
–s form is similar to present tense form which expresses an action that happens all
the time, a thing that is true, a schedule or a plan, and a description or definition.
The use of present tense of the –s form in news titles is similar to the
present tense form which shows the past events.
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
19
Example: Obama begins to sell pivotal jobs plan.
US President Barack Obama, seeking to rescue a faltering US economy
and his own re-election prospects, began an uphill battle on Friday to win
Republican support for a US$447 billion jobs plan. (The first sentence in the first
paragraph of the news represents directly that the news is in the past tense). (The
Jakarta Post, September 10, 2011).
iii. The Past Form
The past form is finite verb in the past tense. In the book of A Handbook of
English Grammar, it was stated that the past tense is a verb form that is used to
express 1). An action which happened or took place at a particular time in the
past, for example, I visited Bali last year; 2). Repeated, habitual actions in the
past, for example, I always went to mosque at night (Riyanto, 2007: 136-137).
The past tense is not used to form news titles. “The past tense or the past
participle is often seen in headlines. Passive sentences are constructed in news
headlines with no auxiliary verbs-just the past participle. For example, “Black
Teenagers Attacked in Race Riot” means that the black teenagers were attacked,
not that they attacked somebody else. If the black teenagers did the attacking, the
headline would use the present tense “Black Teenagers Attack”” (Hameed, 2008).
So, it means that the past verb form is not used in writing the news titles. “But
actually, most of them are not past tense but past participle. And the verb ‘be’ is
omitted” (Hameed, 2008).
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b. Non-Finite Verb
A non-finite verb is a verb which has no subject, tense or number. The
only non-finite verb forms are the to- infinitive, -ing participle, or -ed participle.
“A non-finite, or infinite, verb is a verb which lacks the power to assert. It is not
limited by person or number” (Harman, 1950: 93).
Example: The dog running. The –ing participle running makes no assertion; nor is
the expression a sentence, having no predicate (Harman, 1950: 93).
The non-finite verb form is divided into three parts, namely the base
form, the –ing participle form, and the –ed participle form.
i. The Base Form
The base form is non-finite verb in the bare and to- infinitives.
1. The bare infinitive
The bare infinitive is the infinitive form without ‘to’. “Infinitives with to
are referred to specifically as To-Infinitives, in order to distinguish them from
Bare Infinitives, in which ‘to’ is absent” (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/
verbs/infin2.htm, (9 June 2012)). In the book of A Handbook of English
Grammar, it was stated that the infinitive without ‘to’ is used 1). After can-could,
may-might, must-have/has/had to, shall-should, will-would (Riyanto, 2007: 229).
Furthermore, the bare infinitive form is not used in the news titles.
2. The to-infinitive
“The to-infinitive is used 1). As a subject of a sentence, for example, to
know me is to love me; 2). As a modifier of a noun, for example, I have
something to drink; 3). As a modifier of an adjective, for example, this lesson is
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
21
easy to understand; 4). As a modifier of a Wh- word or a clause, for example, I
don’t know what to say; 5). As object of certain verbs or as modifier of certain
verbs, for example, I ask Shinta to come to a seminar; 6). To express a person’s
purpose, for example, he went to Hong Kong to look for a job; 7). To infinitive
with their subjects, for example, it is important for Cecilia to take a TOEFL class;
8). To infinitive with perfect form, for example, he seemed to have known the
answer; 9). To infinitive with passive form, for example, this garden needs to be
watered. (Riyanto, 2007: 225-228).
In the news titles, the to-infinitive is used to show the future plans or
future expectations. “In newspaper and headlines the auxiliary verb such as
‘will/shall’ as well as semi-auxiliary ‘is/are going to are usually used in case of
form of the future construction to express future time. But in headlines, it is a
common to take the form ‘to + verb’ instead of ‘be going to + verb’ or ‘will +
verb’; in other words, an auxiliary verb and the verb be is omitted” (Hameed,
2008).
Example: Toyota to build a new plant in Indonesia.
In the news lead of the news, it was stated that Toyota Motor Corp, Asia’s
biggest carmaker, will build a new factory in Indonesia to meet growing demands
for minicars in the country. The use of the auxiliary will in the news lead shows
that the title is expressing the future plan.
ii. The -ing Participle Form
The –ing participle is a non-finite verb in the progressive aspect following
BE and –ing participle clauses.
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1. The progressive aspect following BE
The progressive form is used to show things that are happening at the
moment speaking. In the book of Grammar and Meaning, it was stated that In
addition to the inflectional forms of the verb word, English has a number of
periphrastic forms of the verb. In the periphrastic forms the main verb is in one of
the non-finite forms and it is preceded by an auxiliary verb. One set of the
periphrastic forms expresses a ‘progressive’ or ‘durative’ aspect: they consist of
the verb be as an auxiliary and the present participle of the main verb (Jackson,
1990: 85-86).
Example: He is calling her now (Greenbaum, 1990: 26)
The example of the sentence above shows that the present participle
calling is followed by the auxiliary is.
“In headlines, the present progressive is used usually to describe
something that is changing or developing, but the auxiliary (is/are) usually left
out” (Swan, 1984: 409). According to Swan, the verb –ing of the future tense and
the present progressive means that a thing is in progress or near future. On that
occasion, in headlines, the verb be is omitted and only the present participle is
used (Pg. 409).
Example: Road side land prices still falling.
The example of the news title above will be Road side land prices are still
falling. The title also expresses that something is changing or developing
(Hameed, 2008).
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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2. The -ing participle clauses
The –ing participle clause functions as a gerund. “A gerund is the –ing
form of a verb used as a noun. A gerund is used in the same ways as a noun, for
example, as a subject or an object.” (Azar, 1993: 150)
Example:
1)
Playing tennis is fun. (The gerund is used as the subject of the sentence).
2)
We enjoy playing tennis. (The gerund is used as the object of the verb
enjoy). (Azar, 1993: 150)
In the news title, the use of the –ing participle clause form is similar to the
progressive aspect following BE form which means to describe something that is
changing or developing.
Example: Keeping it fresh and keeping it local.
The use of –ing participle clause keeping in the news title above shows
that the title is expressing something that is developing. It can be seen in the news
lead of the news which stated that the talented young chef at the Alia Ubud is
leading a new but vigorous movement to make sure all the ingredients in his
kitchen are sourced from Indonesia. (The Jakarta Post, September 10, 2011).
iii. The -ed Participle Fo
THE ANALYSIS OF VERB FORMS IN NEWS TITLES ON
THE BUSINESS NEWS PAGES OF THE JAKARTA POST
NEWSPAPER
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
Frida Rana Pandoyu
Student Number: 084214107
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
2012
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
THE ANALYSIS OF VERB FORMS IN NEWS TITLES ON
THE BUSINESS NEWS PAGES OF THE JAKARTA POST
NEWSPAPER
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
Frida Rana Pandoyu
Student Number: 084214107
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
2012
i
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
ii
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
iii
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Do What You Can, With What
You Have, and Where You Are
-Theodore Roosevelt-
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PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
For my beloved parents and
family
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PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The writer believes that she will not be able to finish this undergraduate
thesis if there were no helps from others. She is very glad to express her gratitude
to those who have given their helps and guidance during her study in the college.
She would like to dedicate her gratitude to particular names below.
First of all, she thanks Lord, Jesus Christ that always guides her in doing
this study from the beginning until the end.
She thanks her advisor Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A. for his time and
guidance in all process of finishing this study. She also thanks her co-advisor
Anna Fitriati, S.Pd., M.Hum. for giving some corrections in this thesis.
She expresses her everlasting gratitude to her beloved parents (Yoab Aspil
Pandoyu and Helmin Wuaten) and brother (Sem Jumbana Pandoyu) who
always give support and prayer in finishing this study. She also thanks her big
family for their support and prayer during her study in Yogyakarta.
She thanks her friends Okin, Vita, Jeni, Piko, Feny, Yeni, Mery, Stevi,
Riska for their support and prayer in finishing this study.
She thanks her brothers Ibam, Dedy, Ekhy, Imank for their support in
finishing this study. She also thanks Audy Arthur Guluda who always supports
her in finishing this study.
Finally, she would like to thank her friends in Yogyakarta, Sisil, Rina,
Sari, Sita, Ifa, Susan, Farel, Lia, Cindy, Tante Dona, Chicie, Ajenk, Ana,
Gaby, Yanti, Dame, Helga, Topan, Daniel, Nico, Prayudi, Dedy, Rigel, Noni,
Gina, Sari, Lei, Odi, Matias, Rengga. Nice to know you all guys.
Frida Rana Pandoyu
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PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN
PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Sanata Dharma:
Nama
Nomor mahasiswa
: Frida Rana Pandoyu
: 084214107
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan
Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
THE ANALYSIS OF VERB FORMS IN NEWS TITLES ON THE
BUSINESS NEWS PAGES OF THE JAKARTA POST NEWSPAPER
beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan
kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan,
mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan
data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau
media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya
maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya
sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya.
Dibuat di Yogyakarta.
Pada tanggal: 30 November 2012
Yang menyatakan
Frida Rana Pandoyu
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PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ....................................................................................................
APPROVAL PAGE ..........................................................................................
ACCEPTANCE PAGE .....................................................................................
MOTO PAGE ...................................................................................................
DEDICATION PAGE .......................................................................................
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..............................................................................
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ............................
TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................
ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................
ABSTRAK .........................................................................................................
i
ii
iii
iv
v
vi
vii
viii
x
xi
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................
A. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY .........................................................
B. PROBLEM FORMULATION..................................................................
C. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY ................................................................
D. DEFINITION OF TERMS .......................................................................
1
1
5
5
5
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW......................................................
A. Review of Related Studies ........................................................................
B. Review of Related Theories......................................................................
1. The News Title ...............................................................................
a. The Function of News Title ....................................................
b. The Characteristics of News Title ..........................................
i. Using Sharp and Short Words ........................................
ii. Articles are Commonly Omitted ....................................
iii. Verbs are essential .........................................................
iv. Using Present Tense for Past Event ...............................
v. Using Active Voice than Passive Voice .........................
vi. Using Positive Statements .............................................
vii. Using Familiar or Common Abbreviation or Acronyms .
viii. Using Flush-Left Head ..................................................
ix. Often Required Punctuation ...........................................
2. Verb Form ......................................................................................
a. Finite Verb .............................................................................
i. The Base Form ...............................................................
1. The Present Tense .....................................................
2. The Imperative ..........................................................
3. The Present Subjunctive ............................................
ii. The –S Form ..................................................................
iii. The Past Form ...............................................................
b. Non-Finite Verb ......................................................................
i. The Base Form ...............................................................
1. The Bare Infinitive .....................................................
2. The to-Infinitive ........................................................
8
8
9
9
10
10
10
11
11
11
12
12
13
13
13
14
15
15
15
16
18
18
19
19
20
20
20
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PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
ii. The –Ing Participle .........................................................
1. The Progressive Aspect Following ‘be’ .....................
2. –Ing Participle Clauses ..............................................
iii. The –Ed Participle ..........................................................
1. The Perfect Aspect Following ‘have’ ........................
2. The Passive Voice Following ‘be’ .............................
3. The –Ed Participle Clauses ........................................
21
21
22
23
23
24
24
C. Theoretical framework ............................................................................ 25
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ..................................................................
A. Object of the Study...................................................................................
B. Approach of the Study .............................................................................
C. Method of the study ................................................................................
27
27
29
29
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS .............................................................................. 31
A. The Verb Form in News Title ................................................................... 31
1. Finite and Non-Finite Verb ............................................................. 32
B. The Meaning Revealed by Verb Forms in News Titles .............................
1. Finite Verb ......................................................................................
a. The Base Form........................................................................
b. –S Form .................................................................................
c. The Past Form ........................................................................
2. Non-Finite Verb ..............................................................................
a. The Base Form........................................................................
b. The –Ing Participle..................................................................
c. The –Ed Participle ..................................................................
41
41
41
42
43
43
43
44
44
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ......................................................................... 46
BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................
APPENDICES ...................................................................................................
Appendix 1 ..............................................................................................
Appendix 2 ..............................................................................................
Appendix 3 ..............................................................................................
Appendix 4 ..............................................................................................
ix
48
50
50
51
53
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PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
ABSTRACT
Frida Rana Pandoyu. THE ANALYSIS OF VERB FORMS IN NEWS TITLES
ON THE BUSINESS NEWS PAGES OF THE JAKARTA POST
NEWSPAPER. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters,
Sanata Dharma University, 2012.
Language has some varieties in practice and one of them is written
language. One kind of written language is newspaper. The main function of
newspaper is to convey information to its readers. News as the main content of a
newspaper will interest the readers to read it if the news title is attractive and
interesting. Moreover, the readers will read the news if the news title uses the
appropriate structure of language and its words, in this case the verb form,
because the news title is the gate to bring the reader to read the news. The writer
chose the news titles of the business news columns of The Jakarta Post
newspaper as the data of the study. Furthermore, the writer would like to analyze
the news titles, because she wants to show the ways the verb forms are used and
to explain the usage of verb forms that were used in the news titles of an English
newspaper.
In this study, there are two objectives which are to be obtained. The first
objective is to find out the verb forms that are used in the business news titles of
The Jakarta Post newspaper of November 15 to17, 2011 edition. The second
objective is to identify the meaning that is revealed by the verb form in the news
titles.
In this analysis, the writer used syntax as the approach of the study. There
were some steps that were done by the writer in analyzing the data. First, the
writer collected the data that was taken from The Jakarta Post Newspaper of
November 15 to 17, 2011 edition in the business news column. Second, the writer
found the theories as the foundation to analyze the data. Third, the writer analyzed
the data to solve the problem formulations in chapter 1. The first problem was
solved by finding out the verb forms used in the data. Then, to see the frequency
of occurrence for each verb form, the writer counted the number of verb forms
with using the XYZ formula. Furthermore, the second problem was solved by
applying theories in chapter II to show the meaning that was revealed by verb
forms in the data.
There were 40 news titles that were found using the verb forms. The others
did not contain the verb forms. The base form of finite verb form was used by 16
news titles or 33.33%. 18 news titles used the –s form, with percentage 37.5%.
The base form of non-finite verb form was used by only one news titles or 2.08%.
The –ing participle form was used by two news titles or 4.16%. The –ed participle
form was used by three news titles or 6.25%. Meanwhile, the verbless news titles
were used by eight news titles, with percentage 16.66%. The meaning which was
revealed by each verb form was that finite verb forms contained time in the past
and present, while the non-finite verb form did not contain any particular time.
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PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
ABSTRAK
Frida Rana Pandoyu. THE ANALYSIS OF VERB FORMS IN NEWS TITLES
ON THE BUSINESS NEWS PAGES OF THE JAKARTA POST
NEWSPAPER. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra,
Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2012.
Dalam penerapannya, bahasa memiliki beberapa variasi dan salah satu di
antaranya adalah bahasa tertulis. Contoh bahasa tertulis adalah surat kabar. Fungsi
utama surat kabar adalah untuk melaporkan informasi kepada pembacanya. Berita
sebagai isi utama surat kabar akan membuat pembaca tertarik untuk membaca jika
judul berita yang digunakan menarik. Lebih lagi, pembaca akan membaca berita
jika judulnya menggunakan kata dan struktur bahasa yang tepat, dalam hal ini
yang dimaksudkan adalah bentuk kata kerjanya, karena bentuk kata kerja adalah
gerbang yang akan mengantar pembaca ke dalam sebuah berita. Penulis memilih
menggunakan judul-judul berita di kolom berita bisnis dalam surat kabar The
Jakarta Post sebagai data analisis. Selanjutnya, penulis akan menganalisis juduljudul berita tersebut untuk menunjukkan dan menerangkan cara penggunaan kata
kerja.
Dalam analisis ini, terdapat dua tujuan yang akan dicapai. Tujuan pertama
adalah, untuk mencari tau bentuk-bentuk kata kerja yang digunakan oleh judul
berita bisnis dalam surat kabar The Jakarta Post edisi 15-17 November 2011.
Tujuan kedua, untuk memperkenalkan arti yang dinyatakan oleh bentuk kata kerja
pada judul-judul berita.
Dalam analisis ini, penulis menggunakan pendekatan sintaksis. Untuk
menganalisis data penulis menggunakan beberapa langkah berikut. Pertama,
penulis mengumpulkan data dari surat kabar The Jakarta Post edisi 15-17
November 2011 di kolom berita bisnis. Kedua, penulis mendapatkan teori yang
digunakan sebagai pondasi untuk menganalisis data. Ketiga, penulis menganalisis
data untuk menyelesaikan permasalahan pada bab1. Permasalahan pertama
diselesaikan dengan mencari tau bentuk-bentuk kata kerja yang digunakan data.
Kemudian, untuk melihat frekuensi keberadaan untuk setiap bentuk kata kerja,
penulis menghitungnya dengan menggunakan rumus XYZ. Selanjutnya,
permasalahan kedua diselesaikan dengan menerapkan teori di bab II untuk
menunjukkan arti yang dinyatakan oleh bentuk kata kerja pada data.
Dari 48 data, ada 40 judul berita yang menggunakan bentuk kata kerja.
Sisanya tidak menggunakan bentuk kata kerja. Bentuk base dari kata kerja finite
digunakan oleh 16 judul berita atau 33.33%. Bentuk –s digunakan oleh 18 judul
berita, dengan presentase sebesar 37.5%. Bentuk base dari kata kerja non-finite
digunakan oleh 1 judul berita atau 2.08%. Bentuk –ing participle digunakan oleh 2
judul berita atau 4.16%. Bentuk kata kerja –ed participle digunakan oleh 3 judul
berita atau 6.25%. Sementara itu, judul berita verbless digunakan oleh 8 judul
berita, dengan presentase sebesar 16.66%. Arti yang dinyatakan oleh bentuk kata
kerja adalah bahwa bentuk kata kerja finite mangandung waktu di masa lalu dan
sekarang, sedangkan non-finite tidak mengandung waktu tertentu.
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PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
As a social creature, human being cannot live alone without the presence
of other people. They need others to get socialization and interaction. Therefore,
all people need to communicate. It is a basic to build up a relation with others,
because all people need each other in order to fulfill their life.
Communication has some media to be applied. One of them is a language.
In Cambridge Advance Learner’s Dictionary, it was stated that language is a
system of communication consisting of sounds, words and grammar or the system
of communication used by the people of particular country or profession.
Different people in different countries, professions, educational backgrounds, and
so on might have different language to communicate (2008). It means that when a
person uses language as her communication tools, the language which she is
uttering must consist of words, grammar, and also sound. This idea is supported
by Ronald Wardhaugh. In his book An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, he stated
that there are varieties of possible relationships between language and society.
One of them is social structure may either influence or determine linguistic
structure and/or behavior (Wardhaugh, 1992:10). For example, Nadia, a ten-yearold daughter of rich parents in Jogjakarta called his mother “mami”, but Weni, a
ten-year-old daughter of a food seller in Jogjakarta called his mother “mbok”.
Both of the words in the quotation marks have the same meaning, mother.
1
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
2
Language itself has some varieties in practice. One kind of language
varieties is written language. The written language is significantly more precise
than the oral language. For example, in making a written language − an article in a
magazine − a writer must think first about either the words or the argument that
she will use in her writing. Then, she will read it repeatedly before publishing the
writing, to make sure that what she has done is good, understandable, or polite to
read. It is different from oral language which is not too precise. A speaker can say
anything that comes through her minds. It does not matter if she says something
that not pleased to others. When she is saying something to a person which is not
polite, it cannot be retracted although she asks for apologizing and the person she
is talking to forgives her.
Crystal in his book, Language and the Internet, mentioned about the
differences between the spoken or oral and written language.
Speech is typically time-bound, spontaneous, face-to-face, socially
interactive, loosely structured, immediately revisable, and
prosodically rich. Writing is typically space-bound, contrived,
visually decontextualized, factually communicative, elaborately
structured, repeatedly revisable, and graphically rich. (Crystal,
2001: 25 & 28).
In other words to make a good written language, it must be explicitly thought and
considered first in choosing the right words, structure, or limit of space which are
going to be used.
There are many kinds of written language. One of them is newspaper
language. In The Language of Newspapers, a newspaper was defined as
“ephemeral texts, that is, they are intended only for the day they are delivering the
news” (Reah, 2002: 13). There are newspapers that publish news of a particular
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
3
region or province, which is known as the local newspapers. There are also
national newspapers that serve news of a country. Then, there are newspapers that
publish news of the whole country in the world, which are called the international
newspapers. In Indonesia, the examples of local, national, and international
newspapers are Tribun Jogja (http://jogja.tribunnews.com/), Media Indonesia
(http://www.mediaindonesia.com/),
and
The
Jakarta
Post
(http://www.thejakartapost.com/).
Besides providing news, newspaper also provides other things that attract
people to look at. For example, a person who wants to know about the TV
program in her favorite TV channel can find the information on a newspaper.
Newspapers, however, contain a range of items; news, comment
and analysis, advertising, entertainment. In fact, the larger part of a
newspaper will be devoted to items other than news, for example,
TV listings and advertisings (Reah, 2002: 2).
However, the main function of newspaper is to convey information to its readers.
News as the main content of a newspaper will interest the readers to read it
if the title of the news is attractive and interesting. News titles in a newspaper
should be short and interesting to attract readers to read. Besides, almost all news
titles have to be short because the available space in a certain column or even in
each column is limited. Reah, in her book The Language of Newspapers, stated
that a news title should encapsulate the story in a minimum number of words,
attract the readers to the story and, if it appears on the front page, attract the reader
to the paper (Reah, 2002: 13). Therefore, it is the work of a journalist that has to
be able to make a very interesting news title, so readers will decide to read the
news. However in making a news title, a journalist must use the appropriate
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
4
structure of language and word, in this case the verb form, so that readers can
easily understand what the news is about. From the appropriate verb form, readers
will immediately understand about the content of the news, because sometimes
readers get confused about the meaning of a news title which is ambiguous. A
verb is a group of words that describes actions, states and events. In the book of
Grammar and Meaning, it was stated that states, events and actions are
represented grammatically by the word-class of verbs. Verbs referring to states
include: be, seem, have, believe, like, hear, ache. Verbs referring to events
include: breathe, fall, become, arrive, float, shine, die. Verbs referring to actions
include: sing, laugh, throw, decide, encourage, push, clean (Jackson, 1990: 16).
As a member of a word class, a verb has an important role in a sentence that is to
make it clear what the sentence is about. Therefore, in this study, it will not
discuss about the verb in general but specifically about the forms of verb. “A verb
word takes on different forms according to its grammatical context and the
grammatical meanings or categories associated with it, while preserving its
meaning as a state, event or action.” (Jackson, 1990: 16).
In this thesis, the writer is going to show the ways the verb forms are used
and to explain the usage of verb forms that are used in the news titles of an
English newspaper. For this reason, the writer uses the business news titles in The
Jakarta Post newspaper as the data.
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
5
B. Problem Formulation
To analyze the topic that the writer has mentioned before, there are two
problems that have been formulated.
1. What verb forms are used in the business news titles of The Jakarta Post
newspaper?
2. What meaning does each verb form reveal in the data?
C. Objectives of the Study
In this paper there are two objectives of the study. The first is to find out
the verb forms that are used in the business news titles of The Jakarta Post
newspaper. The second is to identify the meaning that each verb form reveals in
the business news titles of The Jakarta Post newspaper.
D. The Definition of Terms
In order to avoid misunderstanding on certain terms, there are three key
terms that will be used in this analysis.
1. Verb forms
Verb form is the forms of verb that can be found in each usage of verb.
The normal English verb has five verb forms: The base form (e.g.: I drink
the water.) The -s form (e.g.: She drinks the water.) The past form (e.g.:
She drank the water.) The -ing participle form (e.g.: She is drinking the
water.) The -ed participle form (e.g.: She has drunk the water.) (Quirk,
Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1972: 70-71)
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
6
2. Business news
Business news in a newspaper is news that reports the information about
economic issue. This kind of news always gets attention from businessman
or educated people. This news also gives influence to its readers like
Assegaff said in his book Jurnalistik Masa Kini (Pengantar ke Praktek
Kewartawanan) that not only political issue which can influence us, but
also economic issue gives its effect directly (Assegaff, 1983: 41).
Moreover except serving economic news, business news also serves the
issues of industry, agriculture, and fishery. “Economic news does not only
report on trade issue, but it also reports on other issue such as industry,
banking, labor, market price record, exchange, etc.” (Pg. 42-43).
3. News Title
In Webster dictionary, title is defined as “the name of poem, essay, chapter
book, picture, statute, piece of music, etc.”
News is “the information about recent events that are of interest to
a sufficiently large group, or that may affect the lives of a sufficiently
large group” (Reah, 2002: 4).
News also means the new information which can be shared to
anybody. It is like what Suhandang stated in his book Pengantar
Jurnalistik that “news comes from the word new which refers to the recent
things. In this case, everything new is a material of information to all
people that need it” (Suhandang, 2004: 102-103). Suhandang also defined
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
7
that “news is a report or notice about any actual event which interests
people” (p. 103-104).
Therefore, news title is the name of any information of recent
events that attract people to look it at. Moreover, news title refers to the
word in the leading position of news which will be read firstly by the
reader because it is interesting in its form.
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
In this chapter there are three parts that are going to be discussed; review
of related studies, review of related theories, and theoretical framework. The first
part contains the study which has already been done by some writers that has
relation to this study. The second part discusses the review of some theories that
will be applied in analyzing the object of the study. The last part is the theoretical
framework that concerns with the contribution of the theories and the way they
are applied to answer the problems in the study.
A. Review of Related Studies
The review of related studies discusses the studies whose topic is similar
to this study. The studies also analyze the news titles of The Jakarta Post
newspaper. In the following paragraph, there are two studies which were
conducted by two students from English Letters Department of Sanata Dharma
University.
The first undergraduate thesis entitled “A Stylistic Analysis on Linguistic
Features of News Titles in The Jakarta Post on August 19, 2007 Issue” was
written by Nani Tato Kamba. Her topic discussed the linguistic features that were
found in the news titles of The Jakarta Post newspaper. She divided the linguistic
features into four parts: graphological, phonological, grammatical, and lexical. At
the end of her chapter, she concluded that the linguistic features which she
analyzed affected the news titles. The graphological features affected the ease of
8
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
9
reading, the phonological features gave the rhythm to the text that made it
memorable, the grammatical features made the news title clearly understood, and
the lexical features helped in economizing space-use and beautify the news titles.
The second undergraduate thesis entitled “Linguistic Features Used in The
News Titles of Sport News in The Jakarta Post Newspaper of 2-6 March 2009
Editions” was written by Johanes Trihartanto. Trihartanto discussed the linguistic
features used in the sport news titles which were found in The Jakarta Post
newspaper issued on 2-6 March 2009. The linguistic features that he analyzed
were the graphological, phonological, grammatical, and lexical features. From 61
news titles that he analyzed, he found that some news titles could be applied and
some could not be applied into some linguistic features.
The two studies above are similar to this study which is going to analyze
the news titles of The Jakarta Post newspaper. However in this study, the writer
wants to analyze the verb forms, not the specific linguistic features, used in the
business news titles of The Jakarta Post newspaper.
B. Review of Related Theories
1. The News Title
The name or the head of news in a newspaper is called news title. The
news titles are written in the form of sentences but sometimes the news titles are
written in the form of phrases. These news titles function to advertise their stories
or news.
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
10
a. The Function of News Title
In Experiences in Journalism, it was said that newspaper heads advertise
their stories and promote rapid reading. The heads or news titles should
summarize the main points of a story. It is aimed to give the reader an idea about
the content of the news, because the readers always scan the news titles to decide
which news that they are going to read. The news titles also reflect the tone of
their news, means that if the story is humorous, the headline should suggest the
fact; if the story is tragic, the news title should be tragic in tone (Mulligan, 1943:
232).
b. The Characteristics of News Title
The news titles role as the gates between the reader and the news. The
reader will read the news if the news title gets their attention. Therefore, it is the
work of the writer to make the news titles being attractive to read. News title in a
newspaper is not the same with the title in other literary works, such as novel or
play. In a novel, the title is written for beauty so that phrases are commonly used,
whereas the news titles are written to bring main points of news and advertise it.
In the following part, it will be shown the characteristics of news titles based on
the book of Experiences in Journalism (Mulligan, 1943: 232-245).
i.
Using sharp and short words
It is used to give a vivid summary of the facts in its news. “Use short,
crisp words as much as possible in preference to longer synonyms.” (Mulligan,
1943: 233)
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
11
Example: Enduring hopes on mount Bromo. (The Jakarta Post, September 10,
2011)
The word enduring has two synonyms namely, lasting and durable. It is a
sharp and short word to be used. In this case, the word enduring was chosen
because it is the common word and commonly used.
ii.
Articles are commonly omitted
In the news title of most newspapers, the articles are omitted to shorten
them. It is different from the title of a novel or play that uses the articles.
Example: Govt to soon publish guidance on Hepatitis. (The complete sentence
will be, Govt to soon publish a guidance on Hepatitis). (The Jakarta Post,
September 10, 2011).
iii. Verbs are essential
The news titles that do not contain verbs, either expressed or clearly
understood, are really not heads at all but mere labels (Mulligan, 1943: 233).
Therefore, a verb is used to make a complete statement.
Example:
1) Simpson steals Deutsche Bank Championship (Sentence form with verb
steals)
2) New PM a bureaucrats’ puppet or master? (Adjective phrase form without
verb). (The Jakarta Post, September 10, 2011)
iv.
Using present tense for past event
The present tense or historic present tense in news titles is used to refer to
past events. It is commonly used in news titles as vivid as possible. In The Mass
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
12
Media and the School Newspaper, it was said that to describe the past event, the
present tense is used instead of the past tense. The use of present tense can create
the sense of immediacy to the story. Although the event has already happened, the
historical present tense tries to bring the readers to the situation or event when it
happened (Reddick, 1976: 299).
Example: Mutai runs fastest marathon ever at Boston (The title is in present
tense).
Kenyas Geoffrey Mutai ran the fastest 42.2 kilometers in history to win
the Boston Marathon on Monday. (The first sentence in the first paragraph of the
news represents directly that the news is in the past tense). (The Jakarta Post,
April 20, 2011).
v.
Using active voice than passive voice
The use active voice in a news title unless the passive is necessary to get
the main idea of the opening words of the news (Mulligan, 1943: 234). However,
when it is necessary to use the passive voice, to be is omitted before verb.
Example:
1) Honorary degree neglects people’s suffering (active voice)
2) Bike courier robbed in North Jakarta (passive voice). (The Jakarta Post,
September 10, 2011)
vi.
Using positive statements
A positive statement is more emphatic than a negative statement which is
weak. The use of negative statement can lead the readers to a negative opinion.
Therefore, it is preferred to use the positive statement.
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
13
Example: “Senior debate postponed” is better than “Senior debate will not be held
Friday”. (Mulligan, 1943: 235)
vii. Using familiar or common abbreviation or acronyms
It is used to make readers understand the news titles at once when they
read them.
Example: Australia PM Gillard to focus on energy in North Asia (PM for Prime
Minister). (The Jakarta Post, April 20, 2011)
viii. Using flush-left head
It is used for the news title that uses more than one line. In flush-left
head, each line starts flush at left of the column, with no indentation.
Example:
Charred
corpses line
roads after
voter riots
(The Jakarta Post, April 20, 2011)
ix.
Often required punctuation
It is used to replace certain words or to give stress to the title. For
example, to separate two independent statements, a semicolon or a dash is used, as
in:
1). Band leaders elected; new activities begin
2). Your dreams come true ─ girls to model fashions (Experiences in
Journalism, 1943: 244-245)
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
14
2. Verb Form
A verb is a group of words that describes an action. In the Descriptive
English Grammar, it was stated that “a verb is the part of speech which expresses
action (run, walk, steal, kill, jump), or state of being (suffer, rejoice)” (Harman,
1950: 93). “A popular definition of verbs states that the verb asserts, or predicates.
This is true only in the case of the ‘finite’ phases of the verb; There being a class
of verb forms, the ‘nonfinite,’ which lack the power of asserting” (Pg. 93).
In the news titles, a verb is used to make a complete statement, like what
has explained in the previous part in page 11 about the verb as one of the
characteristics of news titles. “The news titles that do not contain verbs, either
expressed or clearly understood, are really not heads at all but mere labels”
(Mulligan, 1943: 233). However in writing the news titles, the grammar, in this
case the verb forms, is different from the grammar of standard English.
“Newspaper headlines are written in a special kind of language with its own
vocabulary and grammar. Headlines have a special grammar which differs from
that of ordinary sentences” (Yoneoka, 2000).
Verb forms are the forms of verb that can be found in each usage of verb.
According to the book of A Grammar of Contemporary English, “the normal
English verb has five forms: the BASE, the –s FORM, the PAST, the –ing
PARTICIPLE, and the –ed PARTICIPLE” (Quirk, 1972: 70). In the book of A
Student’s Grammar of the English Language, it was stated that “the verb forms
have different functions in finite and non-finite phrases. The –s form and the past
form are always finite (call/calls/called, drink/drinks/drank, or put/puts/put).
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
15
Whereas the –ing participle and the –ed participle are always non-finite
(calling/drinking/putting or called/drunk/put). The base form (the form which has
no inflection) is sometimes finite and sometimes nonfinite” (Greenbaum, 1990:
25). In the following part, it will be discussed about the verb forms based on the
book of A Student’s Grammar of the English Language.
a. Finite Verb
A finite verb is a verb which has a subject. This means that it will become
the main verb in a sentence. A finite verb shows tenses (past or present), or
number (singular or plural). In the book of Descriptive English Grammar, it was
stated that “a finite verb is the verb which asserts or predicates. It is “limited” by
person and number” (Harman, 1950: 93).
Example: The dog runs. The verb runs is in the third person which is a singular
number (Harman, 1950: 93).
The finite verb is divided into three parts, namely the base form, the –s
form, and the past form.
i. The Base Form
The base form is finite verb in the present tense, imperative, and present
subjunctive.
1. The base form functions in present tense in all persons and numbers except
third person singular (which has the –s form).
In English grammar, the present tense is a tense which shows events that
exist now. According to Riyanto in his book of A Handbook of English Grammar,
the present tense is a verb form that is used to express 1). An action that happens
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
16
all the time or habits, for example, I learn English every day; 2). A thing that is
true in general, for example, I am Indonesian; 3). A schedule/time table or a plan,
for example, the bus arrives at 5:30 a.m.; 4). A description and definition, for
example, a doctor works in a hospital (Riyanto, 2007: 112).
In news titles, the use of the present tense is to describe past event. “The
present tense is the fundamental tense in the system of English tenses: in addition
to present events, it can also express future and past events” (Duskova, 1988:
217). Hameed in his article, Tense in News Headlines, stated that in addition to
present events it can also express future and past events. In this sense, the present
tense is temporal. Although future reference of the present tense is usually
complemented with an adverbial of time (the futurity thus being expressed
lexically), this need not always be so, with the future reference being clear from
the context (http://www.iasj.net/iasj?func=fulltext&aId=17758, accessed on
November 2, 2012). However in this study, the use of present tense in news titles
is only to express past events.
Example:
1) Stocks fall as US credit outlook cut.
Asian stocks fell Tuesday for a third day after standard & poor’s cut the
US long-term credit outlook, fueling concern that a recovery in the global
economy may slow. (The first sentence in the first paragraph of the news
represents directly that the news is in the past tense). (The Jakarta Post, April 20,
2011).
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
17
2. The imperative
Imperative is one of the English moods. In A Grammar of Present – Day
English, it was stated that “the imperative is used to express a command or
entreaty” (Kruisinga E., 1915: 60).
Example: Call at once! (Greenbaum, 1990: 26)
The verb call in the example above shows the expressing of a command or
entreaty.
The imperative is also used to express a command which is negative. The
difference of the negative and not negative command is seen from the difference
intonation only.
Example:
1) Go home.
2) Go and do what you are told. (Kruisinga, 1915: 60)
The command sentence in the first example is the imperative mood which
is not negative. In the second example, it shows the imperative negative in
intonation.
The imperative is not only used to express a command or entreaty. In the
book of A Grammar of Present – Day English, it was stated that the imperative is
also used to express a conditional action resulting in what is expressed by the
following clause connected with it by and. (Kruisinga E., 1915: 60).
Example: Ask too many questions, and you’ll spoil everything. (Kruisinga, 1915:
60)
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The connection word and in the example above shows the expression of a
conditional action.
Furthermore, the imperative form is not used in writing the news titles.
3. The present subjunctive
The present subjunctive has the same form as the infinitive without ‘to’.
“The present subjunctive is the same as the infinitive. The present subjunctive
itself has three uses in modern English. First, it follows verbs, nouns, or adjectives
that express the idea of command, suggestion, or possibility. For example, I
suggested that he leave. This use of the present subjunctive is common in
American English. In British English it is more usual to use should: I suggested
that he should leave. Second, it is used in formal English in clauses beginning
with words such as if; although; whether and lest. For example, If that be the case,
there is little more we can do. Third, it is used in certain fixed phrases. For
example, far be it from me.” (Http://www.talktalk.co.uk/reference/dictionaries
/englis/data/d0082859.html, retrieved on June 9, 2012).
Furthermore, the present subjunctive form is not used in writing the news
titles.
ii. The -s Forms
The –s form is a finite verb in the third person singular present tense. The
–s form is similar to present tense form which expresses an action that happens all
the time, a thing that is true, a schedule or a plan, and a description or definition.
The use of present tense of the –s form in news titles is similar to the
present tense form which shows the past events.
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Example: Obama begins to sell pivotal jobs plan.
US President Barack Obama, seeking to rescue a faltering US economy
and his own re-election prospects, began an uphill battle on Friday to win
Republican support for a US$447 billion jobs plan. (The first sentence in the first
paragraph of the news represents directly that the news is in the past tense). (The
Jakarta Post, September 10, 2011).
iii. The Past Form
The past form is finite verb in the past tense. In the book of A Handbook of
English Grammar, it was stated that the past tense is a verb form that is used to
express 1). An action which happened or took place at a particular time in the
past, for example, I visited Bali last year; 2). Repeated, habitual actions in the
past, for example, I always went to mosque at night (Riyanto, 2007: 136-137).
The past tense is not used to form news titles. “The past tense or the past
participle is often seen in headlines. Passive sentences are constructed in news
headlines with no auxiliary verbs-just the past participle. For example, “Black
Teenagers Attacked in Race Riot” means that the black teenagers were attacked,
not that they attacked somebody else. If the black teenagers did the attacking, the
headline would use the present tense “Black Teenagers Attack”” (Hameed, 2008).
So, it means that the past verb form is not used in writing the news titles. “But
actually, most of them are not past tense but past participle. And the verb ‘be’ is
omitted” (Hameed, 2008).
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b. Non-Finite Verb
A non-finite verb is a verb which has no subject, tense or number. The
only non-finite verb forms are the to- infinitive, -ing participle, or -ed participle.
“A non-finite, or infinite, verb is a verb which lacks the power to assert. It is not
limited by person or number” (Harman, 1950: 93).
Example: The dog running. The –ing participle running makes no assertion; nor is
the expression a sentence, having no predicate (Harman, 1950: 93).
The non-finite verb form is divided into three parts, namely the base
form, the –ing participle form, and the –ed participle form.
i. The Base Form
The base form is non-finite verb in the bare and to- infinitives.
1. The bare infinitive
The bare infinitive is the infinitive form without ‘to’. “Infinitives with to
are referred to specifically as To-Infinitives, in order to distinguish them from
Bare Infinitives, in which ‘to’ is absent” (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/
verbs/infin2.htm, (9 June 2012)). In the book of A Handbook of English
Grammar, it was stated that the infinitive without ‘to’ is used 1). After can-could,
may-might, must-have/has/had to, shall-should, will-would (Riyanto, 2007: 229).
Furthermore, the bare infinitive form is not used in the news titles.
2. The to-infinitive
“The to-infinitive is used 1). As a subject of a sentence, for example, to
know me is to love me; 2). As a modifier of a noun, for example, I have
something to drink; 3). As a modifier of an adjective, for example, this lesson is
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easy to understand; 4). As a modifier of a Wh- word or a clause, for example, I
don’t know what to say; 5). As object of certain verbs or as modifier of certain
verbs, for example, I ask Shinta to come to a seminar; 6). To express a person’s
purpose, for example, he went to Hong Kong to look for a job; 7). To infinitive
with their subjects, for example, it is important for Cecilia to take a TOEFL class;
8). To infinitive with perfect form, for example, he seemed to have known the
answer; 9). To infinitive with passive form, for example, this garden needs to be
watered. (Riyanto, 2007: 225-228).
In the news titles, the to-infinitive is used to show the future plans or
future expectations. “In newspaper and headlines the auxiliary verb such as
‘will/shall’ as well as semi-auxiliary ‘is/are going to are usually used in case of
form of the future construction to express future time. But in headlines, it is a
common to take the form ‘to + verb’ instead of ‘be going to + verb’ or ‘will +
verb’; in other words, an auxiliary verb and the verb be is omitted” (Hameed,
2008).
Example: Toyota to build a new plant in Indonesia.
In the news lead of the news, it was stated that Toyota Motor Corp, Asia’s
biggest carmaker, will build a new factory in Indonesia to meet growing demands
for minicars in the country. The use of the auxiliary will in the news lead shows
that the title is expressing the future plan.
ii. The -ing Participle Form
The –ing participle is a non-finite verb in the progressive aspect following
BE and –ing participle clauses.
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1. The progressive aspect following BE
The progressive form is used to show things that are happening at the
moment speaking. In the book of Grammar and Meaning, it was stated that In
addition to the inflectional forms of the verb word, English has a number of
periphrastic forms of the verb. In the periphrastic forms the main verb is in one of
the non-finite forms and it is preceded by an auxiliary verb. One set of the
periphrastic forms expresses a ‘progressive’ or ‘durative’ aspect: they consist of
the verb be as an auxiliary and the present participle of the main verb (Jackson,
1990: 85-86).
Example: He is calling her now (Greenbaum, 1990: 26)
The example of the sentence above shows that the present participle
calling is followed by the auxiliary is.
“In headlines, the present progressive is used usually to describe
something that is changing or developing, but the auxiliary (is/are) usually left
out” (Swan, 1984: 409). According to Swan, the verb –ing of the future tense and
the present progressive means that a thing is in progress or near future. On that
occasion, in headlines, the verb be is omitted and only the present participle is
used (Pg. 409).
Example: Road side land prices still falling.
The example of the news title above will be Road side land prices are still
falling. The title also expresses that something is changing or developing
(Hameed, 2008).
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2. The -ing participle clauses
The –ing participle clause functions as a gerund. “A gerund is the –ing
form of a verb used as a noun. A gerund is used in the same ways as a noun, for
example, as a subject or an object.” (Azar, 1993: 150)
Example:
1)
Playing tennis is fun. (The gerund is used as the subject of the sentence).
2)
We enjoy playing tennis. (The gerund is used as the object of the verb
enjoy). (Azar, 1993: 150)
In the news title, the use of the –ing participle clause form is similar to the
progressive aspect following BE form which means to describe something that is
changing or developing.
Example: Keeping it fresh and keeping it local.
The use of –ing participle clause keeping in the news title above shows
that the title is expressing something that is developing. It can be seen in the news
lead of the news which stated that the talented young chef at the Alia Ubud is
leading a new but vigorous movement to make sure all the ingredients in his
kitchen are sourced from Indonesia. (The Jakarta Post, September 10, 2011).
iii. The -ed Participle Fo