CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents background
of the study, problems of the study, objectives of the study, significance of
the study, scope and limitation, and definition of the key terms.
1.1 Background of the Study As human being, we
cannot avoid making errors. As our greatest prophet Muhammad SAW has said in
hadist: It means that each person makes a lot of errors and the best person who
makes errors is the one who makes correction (Al-Ashqolani, 1995:650). In other
words, it is impossible for someone to learn something without making errors, particularly
in learning a language. Errors in learning language may occur in both speaking
and writing. This present study focuses on the errors of students’ writing because
it is more conscious effort than speaking.
Writing is one of language skills
that is important to express ideas and opinions in the form of scientific
writing. However, it is considered difficult by some writers because it needs
some processes: we think out sentences and consider various ways of combining
and arranging them, we reread what we have written as a stimulus to further
writing, we should make notes, drafts, and we also need to revise it for satisfying result.
Besides, a good grammar and a good organization are also required in order to
be a good writing. In short, writing is neither easy nor spontaneous activity.
Writing is also very important in
academic level since the students’ works are mostly in the written form. In
this level, this writing is called academic writing. Oshima and Hogue (1991:2)
define that academic writing is the kind of students’ writing required to do in
college or university because it differs from other kinds of writing such as
personal, literacy, journalistic, or business writing.
Furthermore, there are some types
of writing in academic level. One of them is writing argumentative essay. Smalley
and Ruetten (1986:319) define an argumentative essay as an essay that has
purpose to convince or to persuade.
Therefore, it is more difficult
than the other essays.
To be a good argumentative essay,
it must consist of some paragraphs, including introductory paragraph, one or
more development paragraphs which show logical development of the theme and its
details, and the last is conclusion paragraph. The most important thing to be
considered in writing argumentative essay is introductory paragraph because it
can capture the readers’ attention. As Wingersky. at. al (1992:221) states that
the purposes of an introductory paragraph are to get the reader’s attention and
to let the readers to know what will be covered in the essay. There are some
types of introductory paragraph; one of them is dramatic entrance. It is an
introductory paragraph in which the author opens with a narrative, description,
or a dramatic example pertinent to the topic (Smalley and Ruetten, 1986: 143). In short, writing
dramatic entrance introductory is a type of introduction that is very
interesting.
Moreover, problems faced by some
writers, particularly students of English letters and language department of , are not only in the organization of writing,
but also in the grammar. It can be shown by some students’ writing in which we
can find many ungrammatical structure in constructing sentences. Therefore, it
needs to be given more attention. One way to know the students’ problems is by
analyzing their writing. Here, there are some ways to analyze their writing.
One of them is by analyzing their errors in constructing sentences in their
writing.
Students’ errors in constructing
sentences could be interpreted as the result of two sources. They are either
because of the interference of the students’ native language or do to their
incomplete learning of the target language. As Brown (in Indriati, 1994) states
that students’ errors are usually caused by the interference of the native
language and over generalizing a particular item in the target language beyond
legitimate bounds. Therefore, it is considered difficult for students to write correctly
since the systems of target language are different from their native language
systems. In other words, it seems reasonable that students who find difficulties
in learning English as target language will make errors.
Students’ errors may occur in
different components of language: in grammar, in pronunciation, or in lexicon.
In other words, students’ errors may occur in different linguistic categories,
such as phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and discourse. One of
language components which is crucial to be considered is grammatical structure,
one division of which is syntax. Syntax is one of grammatical systems that
concerns with sentence construction. As Matthews (1981: 1) defines that syntax
is the branch of grammar dealing with the ways in which words, with or without
appropriate inflections, are arranged to show connections of meaning within the
sentence.
Moreover, there are many ways to
analyze the types of syntactic errors; one of them is by analyzing the types of
errors with regard to the surface structure alternation. It is one of
categories of errors proposed by Dulay, Burt, and Krashen.
(1982: 146) that consists of
addition, omission, misformation, and misordering.
Therefore, by analyzing students’
writing we can know the weaknesses of students’ grammar, particularly on
constructing sentences, in order to give teachers and learners advantages such
as determining emphases in explanation and exercises for teachers and also
improving learners’ ability.
There are some researchers, of
course, has conducted a research in the same field, such as Subagio (1999), a
student of State University of , who has analyzed about “common grammatical
errors in speaking made by the English students at IKIP . Rahayu (2000) has
also analyzed about “Errors on English complex sentences made by the third year
students of English education department of State University of ”. The same
study has also conducted by Purwatiningsih (2004), a student of Brawijaya
University, entitled “The grammatical errors in tenses at the people articles
of Jakarta Post during the month of October, 2003 period. The
fact that students of English letters and language department of still
face problems in learning English as a foreign language has encouraged the
researcher to study errors. Therefore, the researcher chooses a title “syntactic
errors in the argumentative essays of the students of English letters and language
department of .” 1.2 Problems of the Study Based on the background
of the study above, the problems of the study are: 1. What types of syntactic errors are found in
the argumentative essays of the students of English letters and language
department of ? 2. How do the syntactic errors occur in the
argumentative essays of the students of English letters and language department
of ? 1.3 Objectives of the Study Concerning
with the previous problem of the study, the objectives of the study are: 1. To identify the types of syntactic errors
found in the argumentative essays of the students of English letters and
language department of 2. To
describe how the syntactic errors occur in the argumentative essays of the students
of English letters and language department of .
1.4 Significance of the Study The finding of this
study is generally expected to be able to give a valuable contribution both
theoretically and practically.
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