A STUDY ON THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN

IDENTIFYING SENSE RELATION ( SYNONYM AND

ANTONYM ) IN SENTENCE AT SMP N 36

PEKANBARU

BY :

DEWI RARA ARMIATI

0810041745012

ENGLISH STUDY PROGRAM

TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY

LANCANG KUNING UNIVERSITY

PEKANBARU

2011

TABLES OF CONTENT

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background…………………………………………………... 1

1.2 The Problem and Its Setting…………………………………. 2

1.3 The limitation of problem …………………………………… 2

1.4 The formulation of the problem……………………………… 3

1.5 The general objective of the study……………………………. 3

1.6 The definition of term………………………………………… 3

CHAPTER IITHEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 The nature of sense relation…………………………………... 4

2.2 Synonym……………………………………………………… 5

2.3 Antonym……………………………………………………… 6

2.4 Context clue…………………………………………………… 7

CHAPTER III RESEACH METHODOLOGY

3.1 The specific objective of the study…………………………… 9

3.2 The location and time………………………………………… 9

3.3 The population and sample…………………………………… 9

3.4 The research design…………………………………………… 10

3.5 The data collection technique…………………………………. 10

3.6 The data analysis technique…………………………………… 11

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

In Indonesia, English is taught to the students beginning from elementary school up to

colleges. The ultimate goal is to enable the students to use English, in speaking and writing.

Based on 1985 SMP curriculum the need of English subject senior high school is to

provide the students with the skills which enable them to communication in English, this

means that SMP are expected to have knowledge of English and skills of listening, reading,

writing and speaking.

To improve the four skills above, vocabulary is significant point. Harmer ( 1991: 153 )

stated that if language structure make up the skeleton of language, so vocabulary provides the

vital organs and the flash. In addition, Rivers ( 1983: 125 ) has also argued that the

acquisition of an adequate vocabulary in essential for successful foreign language, because

without an extensive vocabulary, learners will be unable to use the structure and the function

learners may have learned for comprehensible communication. So, vocabulary is one of the

important aspects of language to be mastered by students in learning English.

The sense of a word is its statable meaning ‘out of context’ - i.e. a meaning that can apply

across many contexts in which the word is used. Senses are what we find when we look up

words in the dictionary and, as we have seen, words often have more than one sense - they

are polysemous.

The senses of words are also a matter of their relations to other words. In this session, we

will look at three major sense relations: synonymy (similarity), antonymy (opposition), and

hyponomy (inclusion). Before we begin, note that we are concerned with relations among the

senses of words more than relations among words themselves.

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Synonym and antonym is sense relation use suffix and prefix. For example the synonym of

the word “attend” is “visit” while the antonym is leave. Another example is “the door is open”

and “the windows are closed”. Students usually identify the sense relation of the two underlined

words above as antonym bur actually the sense relation of these two words is synonym.

In relation to the statement above, the writer would like to conduct a research under the

title “A STUDY ON THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN IDENTIFYING

SENSE RELATION (SYNONYM AND ANTONYM) AT SMPN 36 PEKANBARU”.

1.2 The Problem and Its Setting

Sense relation have become an important part of study of language ( palmer, 1981 : 29 ).

So, when student study English, they must study about sense relation. In the 1994 curriculum

for the first year students of junior high school, the sense relation that they studied only

synonym and antonym. So, they are expected to understand about these two sense relations.

In fact, most of them have problem in identifying it.

The writer observer that there are some factors which might influence the students’

ability in identifying synonym and antonym. They are as the following. The first factor is

from teacher, may be inappropriate technique that is used by the teacher. The second factor is

from students’, they have difficulty in memorizing English vocabulary. The last factor is

from teaching material, it is too many teaching materials that must be learned, mean while

the time is not enough. From the description above, the writers comes to question :

How good is the students’ ability in identifying synonym and antonym words ?

Are the students able to identify synonym and antonym word without prefixes

and suffixes ?

1.3 The Limitation of the Problem

The problem in this study is limited to students’ ability in identifying synonym and

antonym word without prefixes and suffixes. The students must matter 600 words. In this

research, the writer takes 10% or 60% words from the teaching material. The words are taken

based on the topics presented in the curriculum. The topics are education, environment, family,

astronomy, healthy, sport, clothes, tourism, mass media and population.

The word are taken from each topic randomly which include adjective, adverb, verb and

noun.

1.4 the formulation of the problem

The problems of the research are formulated as follow :

1. How good is the ability of the students in identifying both synonym and antonym of

SMPN 36 Pekanbaru ?

2. Which sense relation is easy or difficult for the students to identify ?

1.5 The General Objective of the Study

The general objective of the study is to know the ability of the students of SMPN 36

Pekanbaru in identifying synonym and antonym.

1.6 The Definition of the Term

1. Study : is the result of an investigation of subject, thing word observing ( Hornby,

1998: 128 ). In this study, a study means that the result observing for second years

students about synonym and antonym.

2. Ability is skill of power to do something physical or mental ( Hornby, 1980; 2). In

this study ability means that the students able to answer the correctly.

3. Synonym is use to mean sameness of meaning ( Palmer, 1981: 88). In this research

the synonym word is defined as the word that has the same meaning

4. Antonym oppositeness of meaning ( Palmer, 1981: 94). In this research antonym is

defined as the word that has opposite meaning.

5. Sense relation is linkage of traits pf the words feeling or word association ( Ruffment,

1999: 52). In this research sense relation is defined as synonym antonym.

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CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 The Nature of Sense Relation

In general, sense relation is important part in learning language. The main reason for this

is that if learners study about the language, they will learn about the relation of the words and

sentences meaning.

As Ruffment ( 1993 : 52 ) states that sense relation is linkage of traits of the words

feeling or words association. It means that the relation of the word makes a good sentences or

passage in meaning and grammar.

In addition, by having ability in identifying sense relation, it will be easy for learners to

know the meaning of the words, the relationship of the words and sentences meaning, as in

the words” beautiful and pretty”. If a learner has ability in identifying sense relation of the

two words, it will be easy for learners to know the meaning of the two words, the meaning of

the sentence and the sense relation of the two words above because they are almost have the

same in meaning.

On the other hand, if two words have oppositeness in meaning, it is called antonym. Or

example in the words” wide and narrow”, the meaning of the two words is contradiction. So

their relation is antonym. As Palmer ( 1988: 30-31 ) states in the quotation below “ most

scholars who have dealt with sense have been primarily concerned with sentence meaning

and its relation to words meaning”.

Furthermore, there are some relations between words. As Palmer ( 1988 : 100) states

that there is one word with several meanings. This is polysemy, it means that the same words

may have a set of different meaning. For example : the words “bank”. The first meaning is

share of the river and another meaning is financial institution.

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2.2 Synonym

Roffment ( 1993 : 131 ) says that word that sound different but have the same or nearly

the same meaning such words are called synonym. It means that the words are synonym

when they have almost the same meaning. For example, tail and tale are homonym, tail and

tale are homophone.

Then, the words are synonym when they have nearly the same meaning. As Roffment

( 1993: 131 ) says that there are not perfect synonyms. It means that there are not two words

have exactly the same meaning. For example : does he wear a turban, a fez or hat? The word

turban is nearly the same meaning for the word fez or hat.

In addition, synonym is award or phrase with the same or nearly the same meaning as

another in the same language (Oxford, 1995 :1212). It means two words with the same

meaning to “ receive”. It is not only between two words but also between words and phrase.

The word “famous” is nearly the closest meaning as a phrase “successful and rich”. Beside, it

must be in the same language. The words “amor” ( Greek ) and “love” (English) have the

same meaning. Both words are different in spelling, but they have the same meaning when it

translate into Indonesia. Actually those words have the same meaning. They are different

because they are different language.

Two words seldom have the same meaning (Nattul, 78: Harmer:156). They are

synonym because they appear in the same context. For example: the word “shut” and “close”

have the same meaning in the sentence “shut/close the window”. Both words can replace each

other. But, the word close cannot be replaced by word “shut” in the sentence “the meeting

closed at five o’clock in the evening”. It has the same meaning as “finished”. In this context,

the words “close and finished” are synonym. So, synonym can be defined as the same

meaning as another in the same language but often with different implication and association

(Hornby, 1974:879)

According to Haas ( 1981 : 50-51) propose different type of synonym. They are

cognitive and plesynonym. Haas ( 1981:270) describes cognitive synonym is a pair of lexical

items must have semantics properties I common. It means that the meaning of items in

cognitive synonym would have identical, for example :

He is sitting in the sofa

He is sitting in the coach

From the example above, it can be explain that some people may always use sofa instead

of coach. But if they know the two words, they will understand both sentence and interpret to

the same thing.

Haas ( 1981: 91) states that the limit of plesynonym in the opposite of direction along the

scale of synonym is more difficult to be specified. For example : it was not foggy last Friday,

just misty.

From the statement and example above, it can be concluded that the opposite of foggy

and misty in the scale of synonym is very difficult to be differentiated, but the two words have

nearly the same meaning. As Haas ( 1981 : 95) states that the word of plesynonym is power

of not exactly and more exactly.

2.3 Antonym

Another sense relation is antonym. Ruffment ( 1993 : 132 ) states that words are

opposites in meaning are often called antonym or the meaning of the words may be partially

defined by saving what it is not, for example : dead means not alive.

Further Palmer ( 1981 :94) states that antonym is opposite in meaning, in short, antonym

is opposite of synonym. But the status of two words are very different and foe most

antonyms a set of relationships hold between the comparative form.

From the quotation above, it can be concluded that the words are antonym when they

have opposite in meaning or when one word has the same meaning “not”. For example :

female and not female. In addition, the relation between words in antonym relation is

comparative form. For example :

The river is narrower than the sea

The sea wider than the river

Then, antonym can be divided into two sub-classes. They are polar antonym, overlapping

antonym.

Haas (1981:209) states that polar antonym typically evaluatively neutral and objectively

descriptive. Such as inches, grams, miles per hour. It means that scale of polar antonym can

be measured. For example : lonh-short, heavy-light, fast-slow, wide-narrow, thick-thin, etc.

Haas ( 1981 : 211) overlapping antonyms all have an evaluative polarity as part of their

meaning : one term is commend. It means that by overlapping antonym commendatory and

deprecatory. For example ; good-bad, pretty-plain, kind-cruel, polite-rude, save-dangerous,

honest-dishonest.

In additional, Ruffment ( 1993:134) states that in English there are number of ways to

form antonym :

By adding the prefix un. For example : likely become unlikely, able become

unable and fortunate become unfortunate.

By adding no. for example : entity-nonentities then conformist become

nonconformist

By adding in. for example : tolerant become I tolerant, discrete become

indiscrete, descent become indescent.

By adding prefix ill, asin illegal.

By adding prefix mis, as in misbehave.

By adding prefix dis, as in displase.

By adding suffix less, as in toothless.

2.4 Context Clue

As stated in 2.1 “ two words seldom have the same meaning ( Nuttal: 78, armer : 156).

They are synonym because they appear in the same context. According to Sharpe ( 2000 :

318), a context is the combination of vocabulary and grammar that surround a word. Context

can be a sentence or a passage. Kingsley and Heffner ( 1984 : 98) support the definition.

They state that a context clue refers to overall environment of a word. It is surrounding or a

circumstance that includes the words immediate verbal accompaniment of other words and

sentences. So, from the context students can guess the meaning of unfamiliar word. For

example ; I need individual room, because I would like to spend the night by myself.

They key clue is in the form of the key words that will support the meaning of word

“individual” is the “,myself”.

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In this chapter the writer is going to discuss the specific objective of the study, the

location and time of the research, the population and sample, the research design, the data

collection technique and data analysis technique.

3.1 The specific objective of the study

There are two specific objective of the study

to describe and determine the students’ ability in identifying synonym and antonym.

To describe which sense relation ( synonym and antonym ) is dofferent or easy for the

student to identify.

3.2 The location and time

The research was conducted at SMPN 36 Pekanbaru,. It was held fro april 2 to june 15,

2011.

3.3 The population and sample

Gay ( 1987 : 102 ) says “ population is about group of interest for researcher to which

she/he would like the result of the study to be generalized. Mueller ( 1992 ; 150 ) states that

population is all individuals which have certain characteristic and to which a researcher wants

the result of study to be generalized. Here, the target population of this study is all of the second

years students of SMPN 36 Pekanbaru in the academic year 2011/2012. There were two classes

in this level.

In taking the sample, the writer used cluster- sampling technique. Lapin in Nurtiati

( 2001 : 15 ) says that cluster-sampling technique is obtained the sample by selecting the sample

from on the population on the basis of sample random sampling. The sample comprises a cencus

of each random cluster selected. In this study, selecting a random sample used lottery technique

by assigning every class a number. In taking sample, it takes 15 students in class 1A and 15

students in 1B. So, the total sample are 30 students.

3.4 The Research Design

This study is a descriptive research which aims at describing and interpreting data on the

ability of the second years students of SMPN 36 Pekanbaru in identifying synonym and

antonym.

3.5 The Data Collection Technique

The technique used to collect the data for this study is by giving a test in the form of

sentences that include underlined word and students would identify the underlined word based

on synonym and antonym. There are two ways to answer the question. The first way, it contains

four options ( a, b, c, d) one of them is the correct answer. The are 30 items all together while the

second way, it contains two underlined word and students must identify the sense relation of

them. Here are 30 items all together. So, the total of the items is 60. the test time is 90 minutes.

The distribution of the test items is shown as the following table :

Table 1

The Blueprint of the Test

No topic Test item Number of

items

Total

1 Education 3 Synonym

3 antonym

7, 15, 41

19, 29, 28

6

2 Environment 3 Synonym

3 antonym

3, 31, 59

5, 44, 50

6

3 Family 3 Synonym 2, 10, 39 6

3 antonym 20, 30, 32

4 Astronomy 3 Synonym

3 antonym

8, 47, 57

17, 34, 48

6

5 Healthy 3 Synonym

3 antonym

4, 6, 12

23, 42, 60

6

6 Sports 3 Synonym

3 antonym

1, 13, 35

18, 40, 54

6

7 Clothes 3 Synonym

3 antonym

11, 43, 45

27, 38, 52

6

8 Tourism 3 Synonym

3 antonym

56, 33, 49

58, 22, 24

6

9 Mass media 3 Synonym

3 antonym

9, 51, 53

21, 25, 26

6

10 Pollution 3 Synonym

3 antonym

14, 37, 55

16, 36,46

6

Total 60

Here the example one underlined word of the test :

1. It is different as day and night

a. Unlike

b. Same

c. Dissimilar

d. Identical

Here the example two underlined word of the test :

Direction :

1. Identify the underlined words according to their sense relation ( synonym and

antonym ) in the following sentence.

2. Choose and cross “S” for synonym and “A” for antonym of the letters given on the

night.

- The door is open that windows are unlock [S/A]

The try out means to find out the difficulty level of each item. The difficulties level

of item shows how easy or difficult a particular item. It is calculated by using the formula :

FV = Difficulty level

R = The number of correct answer

N = The number of student ( Heaton, 1975 : 172 )

All the item analysis are recorded together in tabulator form. The items that have level

lower 0.30 is rejected because it is too difficult or higher than 0.70 is rejected because the item is

too easy (Heaton, 1975:172)

Item discrimination shows the extent to which the item discriminates between the

students, here the writer separates the students, the upper group answering to the lower group

answering. The formula used is:

D = discrimination level

U = upper group answering

L = lower group answering

N = the number of students (Heaton, 1975:174)

The standard deviation will be calculated by using the formula :

SD = Standard deviation

= total all the results

N = Number of students (Hatch and Farhady, 1982:59)

The reliability of the whole test is calculated by using the following formula :

Rii = reliability

N = the number of item in the test

M = the mean score of the test for all test

X = standard deviation of all the test score (Heaton, 1975:173)

3.6 Data Analysis Technique

To analyze the data, writer used the following formula

N = Number of correct answer x 100

Number of items

N = score of ability level

To compute the average score from the test given, all score added and divided by the

total number of the students. To get the average score the following formula is used:

Where:

x = mean/average

= sigma

X = score

N = total number (Heaton, 1975:175)

To know whether the test is easy or difficult for the students to use, the following formula

is used:

Where:

D = the percentage of difficulty level

E = total number of mistake

I = total number item for each category

N = number of respondents

The primary data will be analyzed by using the following classification. They are very

bad, bad, mediocre, good and very good. The calculation of the data will be switched the level

interval of the classification before being interpreted.

Table 2

Level interval of classification

Number Score Level of ability

1 0-35 Very poor

2 36-56 Poor

3 57-76 Average

4 77-85 Good

5 86-100 Excellent

Carol, (1970) in Yossy rahayu (2005:24)

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