CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter discusses about
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 Every scientific
work, whether it is in the form of article, thesis or dissertation, must begin
with an abstract. An abstract is a short summary written by a writer or
researcher in the beginning page of his or her thesis or research report (Pusat
Bahasa Departemen Pendidikan Nasional Jakarta, 2008). Its size can be as few as
90 words or as long as a full page. An abstract has information on the topic,
the research problem, research design, basic findings, conclusion and suggestion.
Readers then use the abstract to screen information and decide whether the
entire report should be read. In addition, Neuman (2000:472) stated that
abstracts serve several functions: for the less interested reader, they tell
what is in a report and for readers looking for specific information, they help
the readers determine whether the full report contains important information.
Abstracts also give serious
readers who intend to read the full report a quick mental picture of the report
which makes reading the report easier and faster.” The easier the readers read
the abstract, the easier they understand the research report content. Hence,
since an abstract is a significant part of an academic writing that
[1] [1] will be firstly read
by educational people, it becomes extremely important then for researchers to
make their abstracts as clear as possible through making a wellstructured
sentences and united text.As the beginning page of theses
written by students of English Letters and Language Department of UIN Maulana
Malik Ibrahim of , for instance, abstracts must be written as clear and concise
as possible. Consequently, to make the theses readers easy to understand the
content, students must be able to establish good structured sentences and
well-built paragraphs. It is of course not easy to be done. Students must use
their writing skill. Therefore, for those who are not accustomed to write, this
may become a trouble.
Additionally, Wijaya (2001:1)
said that writing at first comes from an idea in the head. Then the person who
has the idea reveals and expresses it in the form of written language. However,
writing is not simply a matter of expressing the ideas in good language on a
piece of paper. Writing will not be easy to understand if the relation among
parts is not tightly related. Therefore,writing is not just a matter of using
good language, but also a matter of using ability to create unity in a text.
From this statement, it can be concluded that to create a good writing, students
have to combine their skill of using a well-patterned language and their ability
to relate sentences and paragraphs to become a united text.
Concerning that thing, Tanskanen
(1993) stated that the unity of a text could be only achieved when its
sentences and paragraphs are cohesive and coherent. This statement is exactly
true since the cohesive devices in a text can be only fit together through
coherence devices that will link them to be one unity.
[1] [1] Furthermore,
cohesion, based on Halliday and Hassan (1976), refers to semantics or meaning
relation that exists between two or more elements within a text, which is
independent of the structure; for example, between proper name and a subsequent
personal pronoun, such as “Anne” and “she”. In addition, Halliday and Hassan
(1976:5) noted that cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some elements
in the text is dependent on that of another. In other words, one element presupposes
the other element, in the sense that it cannot be effectively decoded except by
recourse to it. When this happens, a relation of cohesion is established, and
the two elements, the presupposing and the presupposed, are thereby integrated
into a text.Then it is clear that the basic concept
of cohesion is actually relying on the meaning dependence between a thing and
something that refers to.
Additionally, in case of meaning
relation, Halliday and Hassan (1976:5) argued that the more general meanings in
language are expressed through grammar while the more specific meanings are
expressed through vocabulary.
Therefore, Halliday and Hassan
later classified cohesion into grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion.
Grammatical cohesion consists of reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction
whereas lexical cohesion consists of reiteration and collocation.
Besides cohesion, there is
another important element that writers need in order to make their texts
united, that is coherence. Oshima and Hogue (1983) and Willis (1964) proposed
that coherence refers to the sticking together of the parts that is achieved
when there is a clear transition or link between the major part of [1] [1] sentences, that is
the paragraph. Similarly, a paragraph is coherent when its major parts and the
sentences are closely joined to each other. Next, Oshima and Hogue (1983)
stated that coherence can be achieved by four ways, they are; the use of a repeating
key nouns, the use of a pronoun, the use of a transition signal, and through
logical order.
Based on the explanation above,
it can be realized that it is not an easy thing to make a good abstract and
develop it. To be a good writer, students must apply the theory of writing they
have learned at class into an actual and continuous practice. One of the ways
to do it is by practicing the cohesion and coherence principle appropriately in
writing.
Realizing its function, the
researcher notices that writing has become one of the basic subjects at schools
and universities. It is proven by the fact that at the State Islamic University
Maulana Malik Ibrahim of , for instance, Writing subject is one of the basic
compulsory subjects beside Listening, Reading, and Structure. Basically, what
is taught in writing classes is how to get the skill of writing, both
practically and theoretically. By doing so, it is hoped that students are not
only able to understand the theory, but also able to apply it into a good writing.
However, derived from the
researcher’s preliminary research, in fact, not all thesis abstracts written by
students of English Letters and Language Department of UIN Maulana Malik
Ibrahim have fulfilled the requirements
of a good writing which is cohesive and coherent such those proposed by Haliday
and Hassan (1976) and Oshima and Hogue (1983). The [1] [1] researcher found
that some students still make mistakes in applying the cohesion and coherence
principles. As an example, when students are supposed to write the reference
‘they’, they use ‘it’. Not only that, the illogical orders of ideas within or among
paragraphs are also often found. These all kinds of mistakes occur mostly in
the students’ thesis abstracts. This reality shows that some students are
actually able to write with good idea and language, but unfortunately, they are
lack of paying attention to the cohesion and coherence that construct unity of
the complete abstract writing. As the result, this may cause confusion and
misleading for the readers in understanding the thesis abstracts written by the
students of English Letters and Language Department of UIN Maulana Malik
Ibrahim .
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