A study on the depth of vocabulary knowledge acquired by the third semester students of english education study program of Sanata Dharma University - USD Repository
A STUDY ON THE DEPTH OF VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE
ACQUIRED BY THE THIRD SEMESTER STUDENTS OF ENGLISH
EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM OF SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
A THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education
By Antonius Rendy Endrawan
Student Number: 021214031
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM
DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION
FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY
I honestly declare that this thesis, which I wrote does not contain the works or part of the works of other people, except those cited in the quotations and bibliography, as a scientific paper should.
Yogyakarta, March 2007 Antonius Rendy Endrawan
I Dedicate This Thesis to: Jesus Christ Almighty God, Bapak, Ibu (RIP), Mbak Nessy, Mas Sinung, and My “Guidance Angel”.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and above all, my greatest gratitude goes to my Holy Lord for His invaluable blessings and for giving me so many wonderful things throughout the journey of my life. Finally I managed to finish this thesis. Thanks God for everything.
Second, I am also in great debt to my major sponsor Dr. F. X. Mukarto, M.S. for giving me his thoughtful understanding, helpful suggestions, and positive advices, for sparing his valuable time to encourage me to finish my thesis, and for sharing me his great knowledge.
I would like to address my thankfulness to Laurentia Sumarni, S.Pd. and Gregorius Punto Aji, S.Pd. for permitting and for letting me to conduct the test in their classes. I am also very much grateful for the third semester students for their participation in the study and for their great contribution to the completion of this thesis. I would also thank Anita for her unwavering support and maintaining my sanity through her compassion and good counsels.
My gratefulness also belongs to my 2002 PBI fellows, who have supported me unwaveringly: Wisnu, Mima, Krisna, Adjeng, O’ok, Bita, Andre, Regina, Seto, Silvy, Udjo, Reny, I Gede Agus, Ayu, Dedy Kdal, Anton (Bambang), Haryana, Zakti, Heru, Lia, Geol, Utik, Chiko, Kristin, Sapto, Nisa, Galih, Nandaka and Teddy; the Brotowihardjo’s family: Pakde En, Bulik En, Bu Nunuk, Bulik Mur (RIP), Om Kentut, Om Tono, Bayu, Dewo, Bimo, Lintar and Adit; Danik, mBak Tari, and mBak Leli, and those not listed here who have supported me directly and indirectly. Antonius Rendy Endrawan
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ............................................................................................. i
APPROVAL PAGE ...................................................................................ii
ACCEPTANCE PAGE .............................................................................. iii
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ......................................... iv
DEDICATIONAL PAGE .......................................................................... v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..........................................................................vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................... viii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................... xii
ABSTRAK ................................................................................................... xiii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION .............................................................. 1
A. Background ............................................................................................ 1 B. Problem Identification ............................................................................ 3 C. Problem Limitation ................................................................................ 4 D. Problem Formulation .............................................................................. 4 E. Research Objectives ............................................................................... 5 F. Research Benefits ................................................................................... 5 G. Definition of Terms ................................................................................ 5
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................
7 A. Theoretical Description .......................................................................... 7
1. What is a word ................................................................................ 7
a. Real and Potential Vocabulary Knowledge .............................. 10 b. Active (Productive) and Passive (Receptive) Vocabulary
Knowledge .............................................................................. 10 c. Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge ......................... 12
3. L2 Lexical Development ................................................................. 13 a. Formal Stage of Development (WordAssociation Stage) ........ 14 b. LemmaMediation Stage (ConceptMediation Stage) ............... 14 c. IntegrationStage (Final Stage of Development) ....................... 15
4. Model of Vocabulary Acquisition .................................................... 16 5. Vocabulary Mapping Determinants ................................................. 18 a. From Input to Intake: Quality Determinants ............................. 18
1) Context of Learning ............................................................. 18 2) Intrinsic Difficulties of Second Language Vocabulary ......... 19 3) Learner’s First Language ..................................................... 19 4) Vocabulary Teaching Strategy ............................................. 20 5) Learner’s Strategies for Discovering Meaning ..................... 20 b. From Intake to Lexicon: Consolidation Strategy ...................... 20 c. From Lexicon to Output: Language Use and Feedback ............ 21
6. Componential Analysis of Meaning ................................................. 22 a. Types of Meaning Relation ...................................................... 22
1) Inclusion .............................................................................. 22 2) Overlapping ......................................................................... 22 3) Complementation ................................................................ 23
b. Procedures for the Componential Analysis of Meaning ............ 24 1) Analyzing a Meaning of a Lexical Unit in One’s Mother
Tongue ................................................................................ 24 a) The Verticalhorizontal Procedures ................................ 25 b) Overlapping Procedures ................................................. 25
2) Determining the Meaning of a Lexical Unit in a Foreign Language ............................................................................ 25 a) Analysis of Meaning on the Basis of Context ................. 25 b) Determining a Meaning of a Lexical Unit with the Help of Informants ................................................................. 26 c) The Use of Dictionaries in the Analysis of Meaning ....... 26
B. Theoretical Framework ............................................................................ 26
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY .......................................................... 29
A. Method .................................................................................................... 29 B. Participants .............................................................................................. 30 C. Instrument ............................................................................................... 30 D. Data Gathering Procedures ...................................................................... 31 E. Data Analysis Procedure .......................................................................... 32
CHAPTER IV: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS .................................... 33
A. Results .................................................................................................... 33 1. The Meaning of the Verb SEE ......................................................... 33 2. The Meaning of the Verb ASK ........................................................ 35
4. The Meaning of the Verb GET ........................................................ 38 5. The Meaning of the Verb MAKE .................................................... 39
B. Discussion ............................................................................................... 41 1. The Mapping of L2 Vocabularies .................................................... 41 2. Cases Wrong Meaning Mapping ...................................................... 45
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ............ 49
A. Conclusions ............................................................................................. 49 B. Recommendations ................................................................................... 49
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................... 52
APPENDIX I .............................................................................................. 55
APPENDIX II ............................................................................................. 65
ABSTRACT
Endrawan, Antonius Rendy. 2007. A Study on the Depth of Vocabulary
Knowledge Acquired by the Third Semester Students of English Education Study
Program of Sanata Dharma University.Vocabulary learning is central to language acquisition whether the language is a first, second or foreign. In the past years, vocabulary was often neglected in the language teaching and learning because it was thought that learners could learn it by themselves. Recently, the studies addressing the issues on second language vocabulary teaching and learning have got special attention. It could be seen from the flourish of experimental studies and materials development related to second language vocabulary teaching and learning. However, the studies mostly are focused on the measures of vocabulary sizes rather than on the depth of vocabulary knowledge (quality of learners’ vocabulary knowledge) of specific words or the degree of such knowledge, on the growth of L2 lexicons and on the number of words gained or forgotten over time.
The present study is intended to study the depth of vocabulary knowledge acquired by the third semester students of English Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. It tried to answer just one research question: What is the depth of vocabulary knowledge acquired by the third semester students of English Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University?
The research was a descriptive qualitative study. The participants of the research were the third semester students of English education study program of Sanata Dharma University. A test was conducted to gather the data. The participants were asked to give a selfreport on the knowledge of the meaning of ten English verbs. The instrument used was the modified version of Vocabulary Knowledge Scale proposed by Wesche and Paribakht. Due to the large amount of data, only the meanings of five verbs were analyzed.
The results of the study showed that the depth of vocabulary knowledge of the students varies on every tested verb. It may confirm Jiang’s statement that a learner’s mental lexicon may contain second language vocabularies that are at various stage of development. The results of the study also showed that the students may no longer rely on the Indonesian translations equivalent in recognizing the meaning of the tested verbs indicating that they have built L2 lexical networks in their lexicon.
ABSTRAK
Endrawan, Antonius Rendy. 2007. A Study on the Depth of Vocabulary
Knowledge Acquired by the Third Semester Students of English Education Study
Program of Sanata Dharma University.Kosakata adalah suatu hal yang pokok dalam pengenalan bahasa baik itu bahasa ibu, bahasa kedua, ataupun bahasa asing. Dahulu kosakata sering diabaikan dalam pengajaran dan pembelajaran bahasa karena muridmurid dianggap bisa mempelajarinya sendiri. Barubaru ini penelitian membahas isu tentang pembelajaran dan pengajaran kosakata bahasa kedua mendapatkan perhatian khusus. Ini bisa dilihat dari berkembangnya penelitianpenelitian dan pengembangan materi yang berhubungan dengan pengajaran dan pembelajaran kosakata bahasa kedua. Tetapi, penelitianpenelitian itu kebanyakan lebih difokuskan pada penghitungan vocabulary sizes daripada depth of vocabulary atau kualitas peangetahuan arti kosakata bahasa kedua.
Penelitian ini dimaksudkan untuk meneliti depth of vocabulary knowledge dari mahasiswa semester tiga, program study pendidikan Bahasa Inggris di Universitas Sanata Dharma. Penelitian ini mencoba menjawab satu rumusan masalah: Apakah the depth of vocabulary knowledge dari mahasiswa semester tiga, program studi pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma?
Penelitian ini termasuk dalam penelitian deskriptif kualitatif. Subjek penelitian ini adalah mahasiswamahasiswa semester tiga, program studi pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma. Untuk mengumpulkan data digunakan sebuah tes yang meminta subjek penelitian untuk memberikan selfreport tentang pengetahuan dari arti sepuluh kata kerja Bahasa Inggris. Instrumen yang digunakan adalah modifikasi dari Vocabulary Knowledge Scale yang dibuat oleh Wesche dan Paribakht. Dikarenakan besarnya jumlah data, hanya arti dari lima kata kerja yang diteliti.
Hasil dari penelitian in menunjukkan bahwa depth of vocabulary
knowledge dari mahasiswa bervariasi pada setiap kata kerja. Hasil tersebut
mungkin membuktikan pernyataan Jiang bahwa mental lexicon dari pelajar mungkin berisi katakata bahasa asing yang berada pada level perkembangan yang berbeda. Penelitian ini juga menunjukkan bahwa para mahasiswa mungkin tidak lagi bergantung pada persamaan kata dalam bahasa Indonesia untuk mengenali arti kata kerja yang diteskan yang juga megindikasikan bahwa mereka sudah mempunyai L2 lexical network.
LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.1 Meaning Frequency of the Verb SEE ........................................... 34 Table 4.2 Meaning Frequency of the Verb ASK ........................................... 35 Table 4.3 Meaning Frequency of the Verb KEEP ......................................... 37 Table 4.4 Meaning Frequency of the Verb GET ........................................... 38
Table 4.5 Meaning Frequency of the Verb MAKE ...................... 40
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
IntroductionThis chapter presents the background of the conducted research, the purpose of the research, the scope of the problem that would be discussed in the research, the benefits that may be obtained from the research and the definition of terms related to the study.
A. Background
Vocabulary learning is central to language acquisition, whether the language is first, second or foreign (Decarrico, 2001: 285). In the past years, the area of vocabulary learning and teaching was often neglected, because it was thought that vocabulary could be left behind and the students could learn it by themselves. Indeed, there was a period when too much vocabulary learning was regarded as positively dangerous thing (Seal, 1991: 296). Although vocabulary has not always been recognized as priority in language teaching, interest in its role in second language teaching has grown rapidly in recent years. It is evidenced by the booming of experimental studies and pedagogical materials that most of which are aimed to address the issues in second language vocabulary learning and teaching. Most research on L2 acquisition to date, however, has focused on estimates of vocabulary size or breadth measures rather than on the depth of vocabulary knowledge of specific words or the degree of such knowledge, on the
(Wesche & Paribakht, 1996: 13; Schmitt, 1998: 282). One obvious limitation of test measuring the vocabulary size is that they do not measure how well given words are known (Read, 1998 quoted in Wesche and Paribakht 1996: 13). Schmitt (1998: 281) says that vocabulary research that is focused on the size of lexicons and the number of words learned through various activities has generated little understanding on how individual words are acquired.
Studies on the students’ vocabulary knowledge have been conducted inside the Sanata Dharma English Education Study Program. Two of them were conducted by Susilo (2001) and Saputro (2005). Susilo (2001) in his study measured the controlled active vocabulary of the students. He found that there were significant differences of students’ vocabulary size in every semester. He concluded that there were gradual improvements of students’ vocabulary sizes along with their length of study. Another study was conducted by Saputro (2005). He investigated the lexical richness in the written work of Indonesian students learning English as foreign language. He found that there were significant differences of lexical density indices of written work between second semester and fourth semester but the others are static. The study also showed that the higher the students’ proficiency level, the students produced more word types and used word types that are less frequent.
Boogards (2000: 494), quoting Wesche and Paribakht (1996: 424), says that the other types of test on vocabulary knowledge are also necessary because advanced learners need depth and speed of access as well as range in their vocabulary knowledge, for ease and precision of comprehension as well as for essential dimension, it does not mean that the other dimension i.e. depth of knowledge is not important. For advanced learners it is important that they acquire more senses of polysemous word and learn more about possible collocates, special uses, and so on (Boogards, 2000: 495).
The present study is conducted with the aim to study the depth of vocabulary knowledge of the third semester students of English Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. The study is focused on the third semester students who are considered as the sophomore students. From the study, an assumption of depth of vocabulary knowledge of EFL learners in the initial level could be gained, so that further research aiming to observe the development of vocabulary knowledge could use the results or finding of this study as one of the related references.
B. Problem Identification
Lexical knowledge is more a matter of degree than ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and implies far more than just knowing one meaning for each form (Wesche & Paribakht, 1996: 14 cited in Boogards, 2000: 498). Knowledge of words concerns to the knowledge of its form, its position, its function and its meaning. Thus, assessing vocabulary either in L1 or L2 context should consider all of those four aspects. Testing vocabulary in a second or foreign language is not as straightforward an affair as is sometimes thought (Boogards, 2000: 490). The design of the test depends on what one wants to know about the learners’ vocabulary knowledge. The appropriate material and adequate procedures should Greidanus and Nienhuis (2001) states that a word could be known in all sorts of degrees: from knowing that a given form is an existing word to knowledge including all four aspects of word knowledge which are knowing its form, its position, its function, and its meaning. Vocabulary knowledge of either L1 or L2 learners expands in breadth or the learners’ vocabulary sizes (the number of known words grows) and also in depth (the knowledge concerning the words already known increases, in other words, the quality of what the learners know increases) (Greidanus & Nienhuis, 2001: 567).
C. Problem Limitation
The discussion of the research would be limited on the depth of vocabulary knowledge acquired by the students of English Education Study Program focused on the third semester students. The investigation of the students’ depth of vocabulary knowledge covers the discussion on the students’ meaning mapping on the tested English verbs.
D. Problem Formulation
The general problem of the investigation, the study on the depth of vocabulary knowledge of the third semester students of English Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University, is formulated into more specific problem below:
1. What is the depth of vocabulary knowledge acquired by the third semester students of English Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma
E. Research Objective
The research would be intended to answer the questions that are formulated in the problem formulation above that is to find out the depth of vocabulary knowledge acquired the third semester students of English Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University.
F. Research Benefits
The result of the study could be used as one of the references for the next study intended to investigate the development of the students’ depth of vocabulary knowledge or any researches conducted in the field of vocabulary teaching and learning. The finding could also be used as a tool to evaluate the instructional processes and practice in the department particularly in the field of vocabulary teaching and learning and in making necessary adjustment for improvement.
G. Definition of Terms
In order to avoid misunderstanding in perceiving and understanding some important terms in this study, some significant terms related to this study would be defined as follows:
1. Depth of vocabulary knowledge Depth of vocabulary knowledge refers to the students’ quality of vocabulary knowledge (Read, 2000: 90). Mukarto (2005: 156) affirms that depth of vocabulary knowledge covers the depth and breadth of meaning dimension of a given word. The depth of meaning refers to the knowledge of both syntactic and semantic features that constitutes the core meaning of a word while the breadth of meanings refers to the multiple meaning senses of a word. 2. Meaning mapping
Meaning mapping is the representation in the mind of a word meaning: both syntactic and semantic features within the boundary of a word which make up the meaning of that word (depth of meaning) and the multiple meaning senses of a word (breadth of meaning) (Mukarto, 2005: 157).
CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
IntroductionThis chapter presents the literature review of the study. It is divided into two parts. The first part is the theoretical description containing review of the related theories to the study and the second part is the theoretical framework of the study.
Theoretical Description 1. What Is a Word?
Word is not an easy concept to define, either in theoretical terms for various applied purposes (Read, 2000: 17). Read makes some basic distinctions as the basic points to define words. One is the distinction between tokens and types. This distinction refers to the counting of words in a text. Individual words occurring more than once in the text are counted each time they are used refer to as tokens (Read, 2000: 18). For example, the word walk in a text occurs as
walked, walking and walks is counted three times. On the other hand, the number
of types is the total number of the different word forms, so that a word that is repeated many times is counted only once. Another distinction is between function words and content words. The words like the, a, to, and, in and that are seen as belonging more to the grammar of the language than to its vocabulary. This kind of words – articles, prepositions,
While content words – nouns, ‘full’ verbs, adjectives, and adverbs – they have little if any meaning in isolation and serve more to provide links within sentence, modify the meaning of content words and so on.
These content words may occur in various forms. For example, the word “wait” may occur as waits, waited, waiting. They would be normally regarded as the same word in different forms. These different forms are the result of inflectional endings adding to a base form without changing the meaning or word class of the base. The base and the inflected forms of a word are known as lemma (Read, 2000: 18). Content words may also have a variety of derived forms that often change the word class and add a new element of meaning. For example, the derived forms of the word happy: happily, happiness, happier. Even though they have slight semantics differences, all of these words are closely related in form and meaning. Such a set of word forms sharing a common meaning is known as a
word family.
Cruse (2000: 80) distinguishes word forms and lexeme. Word forms are individuated by their form, whether phonological or graphic. Lexeme could be regarded as groupings of one or more word forms which could be individuated by their roots and/or derivational affixes. So, the words run, runs, running and ran are word forms belonging to the same lexeme “run”. While walk, walks and
walked belongs to a different lexeme. Walk distinguished from the former by its
root: likewise obey, obeys, obeying and obeyed belong to single lexeme and disobeys, disobey, disobeying and disobeyed having the same root as the first set, belonging to different lexeme, distinguished this time by the possession of the
2. Vocabulary Knowledge
Richards (1976: 7789 cited in Mukarto 2005: 152) proposed several aspects on assumption of vocabulary knowledge. According to Richards, knowing a word means:
1. knowing its relative frequency and its collocation 2. knowing the limitation imposed on its use 3. knowing its syntactic behavior 4. knowing its basic forms and derivations 5. knowing its association with other words 6. knowing its semantic value 7. knowing many of the different meanings associated with the words
Nation (1990: 31) adopted Richards’ assumption of word knowledge; he added the receptive and productive knowledge and several other considerations and reorganized them.
Form Spoken form R what does the word sound like? P how is the word pronounced? Written form R what does the word look like? P how is the word written and spelled Position Grammatical position R in what patterns does the word occur? P in what patterns must we used the word? Collocation R what words and types of words could we express
P what words or types of words must we use with
this word?