1

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. Background of The Study

Language is a main means of human communication. It is

used in daily activities by everyone to help their interactions

with one another. It can be used for expressing, conveying,

and showing something that people want, think, and feel. In

other words, when socializing with the others, people cannot

ignore the position of language. Therefore, language

competence becomes one of primary needs in humans life.

Among numerous languages, the most widely utilized

language in the world is English. It is used as a foreign

language by almost every non-European country, including Indonesia.

Moreover, it has been considered as one of required subjects of

education in Indonesia. So that, the students in almost all

educational levels such as elementary, secondary, and

tertiary have to learn how to use it from basic until advance

skill. Therefore, English becomes one of languages that is

needed in all of aspects, especially in education.

There are many skills of English which are considered to

be primary mastered, like listening, speaking, reading, and

writing. The skills are correlated and cannot be separated each other.
 2

Furthermore, those ones are the skills that should be learned step by step. In

other words, they are the critical requirements for the students to

communicate well in English. Therefore, all of skills of English

should be taken into account.

As one of English skills, writing is the most difficult skill

among other skills. In writing activity, someone should be able

to share all of his/her knowledge and other skills for producing

a good writing. Usually, it can be produced from some good

activities or habits like reading, listening, and thinking.

Therefore, the process of writing skill needs other activities to

produce a good writing.

Furthermore, through writing activity, someone can

express his/her ideas or feeling. There are many kinds of

writing text that can be used for sharing the ideas or feeling,

namely narrative text, descriptive text, argumentative text,

and exposition text. All of genre of the text above have a role

and generic structure that must be understood by someone

who wants to convey his/her ideas or feelings.

Descriptive text is one of text types that is usually used

for describing something. It has been widely known that this

text type is used for describing people, animals, things, or

places. Furthermore, in it the researchers can explain the

characteristic of the thing generally and specifically based on

 3

what they see, feel, hear, or think naturally. Therefore, the

reader can get the information from descriptive text about the

things even though they are not seen the thing directly.
Writing is one of the skills that can describe someones

English competence. It requires some complicated rules not

only in coherence context but also in cohesion context. Both

of them are very important for those who will write something

well. Furthermore, if someone who will write a good text, they

have to write with a good coherence and cohesion. Therefore,

when someone has a good coherence and cohesion in writing,

it means that he/she has a good mastery in English.

One of the vital elements of writing is lexical cohesion.

There are two kinds of cohesion. They are grammatical

cohesion and lexical cohesion. Both of them are very

important in the process of writing. Grammatical cohesion

refers to a combination of items between sentences that form

grammatical aspect. Then, it consists of reference, substitution, ellipsis,

and conjunction. While lexical cohesion is the relationship among

word in a text or sentences. Also, there are two categories of lexical

cohesion namely general category include repetition, synonymy, hyponymy,

meronymy, and antonymy, and instantial category include equivalence,

naming, and semblance. Furthermore, if one word with another

 4

word is not connected each other, some sentences or texts

will be difficult to understand. Therefore, it comes more vital

in the process of writing.

Teaching writing becomes a crucial aspect in the

university. Usually, English lecturers need that all of their

students can write well. Moreover, by writing the students can

share their knowledge and imagination to another people. If

the students get some troubles in their writing, it will make

their writing unacceptable by some people. Consequently, the

lecturers should guide them in the process of writing.

STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro, one of colleges in Metro city,

Lampung, is a college that is applying writing subject in

English Education Study Program as the most significant

subject. The aim of this subject is that the students can create

writing product from the most basic level until advanced level.

By taking this course, the students are expected to be able to

make sentence, paragraph, essay and writing undergraduate

thesis. However, most of students are still confused of how to

write well especially when they write some paragraphs like

descriptive paragraph. Thus, writing becomes the higher level

of English skill that is very important for all students,

 5

especially the students of English Study Program of STAIN

Jurai Siwo Metro.

Lexical cohesion becomes one of problems in English

Education Study Program of STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro. In the

process of writing paragraph, the context of lexical cohesion is

about how the way the word relates to each other so that

textual continuity is created. Nevertheless, the students still

get difficulty when they write a paragraph with a good lexical

cohesion. Therefore, sometimes the students writing

paragraph cannot be understood by the reader.

In this case, the researcher has conducted a pre survey

on January 21, 2016 by asking them to write descriptive text

based on what they want. The researcher conducted the pre

survey among the sixth semester students of English

Education Study Program of STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro that

followed discourse analysis subject especially about lexical

cohesion. Furthermore, the researcher took seven students as

a participant. Here is the result of the pre survey:

Table 1
Data Pre Survey of Lexical Cohesion (General)
Score of types of general category
Types of Total
found in students text
general Example
A
category AI DI RS TU ZI ZL
A
Repetition Have, give, 5 7 4 6 4 2 4 32
 6

friend, etc.
Popular-
Synonymy 1 1 4 - 1 2 1 10
famouse
Male/female
Antonymy - - - - - 2 - 2
Black/white
Animals-
Hyponymy 1 3 - 2 2 - 2 10
reptiles
Lampung-
Meronymy 4 - 1 8 2 4 1 20
Metro
Source: The result of pre survey was from analyzing on
lexical cohesion of the students writing descriptive
text at the sixth semester students of English study
program of Stain Jurai Siwo Metro on January 21,
2016.1

Moreover, from the seven students, most of students

used repetition in their text. Then, only one student that did

not use synonymy, one student that used antonymy, two

students did not use hyponymy, and one student did not use

meronymy. Therefore, repetition type becomes the highest

type and antonymy becomes the least type in this category of

lexical cohesion on the students writing descriptive text.

Table 2
Data Pre Survey of Lexical Cohesion (Instantial)
Score of types of instantial category
Types of Total
found in students text
instantial Example
A
category AI DI RS TU ZI ZL
A

1The result of pre survey Lexical Cohesion on the students writing

descriptive text, on January 21, 2016
 7

As a wife and
Equivalence - - 1 - - - 1 2
mother
I like call them
Naming hello for the - - - - 1 - 1 2
male
Turtles are
kind of reptiles
Semblance - - - 1 - - - 1
and are cold
blooded
Source: The result of pre survey was from analyzing on lexical
cohesion of the students writing descriptive text at the sixth
semester students of English study program of Stain Jurai
Siwo Metro on January 21, 2016.2

In conclusion, from the seven students, all of students

used the types of lexical cohesion in general category.

However, repetition becomes the highest type that is usually

used by the students meanwhile in the instantial type, the

students rarely used in their text. For that reason, the

researcher is interested to analyze lexical cohesion of the

students writing descriptive text at the sixth semester

students of English Education Study Program of STAIN Jurai

Siwo Metro in academic year 2015/2016.

B. Focus of the Study

In this research, the researcher focused on analyzing of

students understanding of lexical cohesion in writing

descriptive text among the sixth semester students of English

2Ibid.
 8

Education Study Program at STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro in

academic year of 2015/2016.

C. Problem Formulations
Based on the focus of the study, the researcher formulated

the problem by following research questions:

1. How is the level of students understanding about the

types of lexical cohesion on their writing descriptive text?

2. What are the types of lexical cohesion that are usually

used by the students writing descriptive text?

3. Why do the students usually use the certain type of lexical

cohesion in their writing descriptive text?

4. Why do the students rarely use the instantial category of

lexical cohesion in their writing descriptive text?

D. Objectives and benefits of the study

1. Objectives of the study
The following are some objectives of the research that are

wanted to be reached by the researcher.

a. To analyze the students understanding about the types

of lexical cohesion on writing descriptive text made by

the sixth semester students of English Education Study

Program of STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro in academic year

2015/2016.
b. To find the types of lexical cohesion that are usually

used by the students on writing descriptive text made

by the sixth semester students of English Education

 9

Study Program of STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro in academic

year 2015/2016.
c. To know the reason of the students that usually use the

certain type of lexical cohesion on writing descriptive

text made by the sixth semester students of English

Education Study Program of STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro in

academic year 2015/2016.

d. To know the reason of the students that rarely use the

instantial category of lexical cohesion on writing

descriptive text made by the sixth semester students of

English Education Study Program of STAIN Jurai Siwo

Metro in academic year 2015/2016.

2. Benefits of the study

Generally, this research is aimed to be information in

developing the quality of the students understanding

about lexical cohesion in writing descriptive text.

Specifically, the benefits of the study are:

a. For the students

The first benefit of this study is for the students as

additional knowledge that makes them realize the importance of

using lexical cohesion in their writing.

b. For the lecturers
The second benefit is for the lecturer as an input

supporting of the lecturers of English Education Study Program of

 10

Islamic State College of Jurai Siwo Metro in teaching writing

subject. Moreover, it will aware them about their

students difficulties in writing and the importance of

lexical cohesion to reduce the difficulty.

c. For the principle
The last benefit of this study is for the principle as one

of important material in making a policy. Moreover, the

principle can hopefully make some policies concerning

to a supplying of writing sources in STAIN Metro to

improve students writing performance.