ISSN: 2654-5152 Vol. 1 No.

2 (May, 2019)

THE USE OF GRAMMAR TRANSLATION METHOD (GTM) IN TEACHING

BAHASA INDONESIA TO FOREIGN LEARNER

Agustina Lestary
STKIP PGRI Banjarmasin
E-mail: tinalestary@gmail.com

Abstract
Grammar Translation Method (GTM) has been regarded as traditional method of teaching language. Many
teachers might recommend other communicative method. However, in this paper, the writer shares her
experience in teaching Bahasa Indonesia to foreign learners by using GTM. The writer provides the
activities that can be used in this method and describes the characteristics of the learner. After all, just like
other methods, it is important for the teachers to pay attention to the characteristics of the learners before
applying certain methods.
Keywords: Grammar Translation Method, BIPA, teaching method

Introduction processed outside the system itself. Thus, BIPA

Introducing new language to non-
native speaker of the language has never been
easy. There are many things that should be
taken into consideration before teaching a
foreign language, such as the characteristics of
the learner, the environment of the learner, and
not to mention the different cultural background
between the learner’s and the language being
learned. Those things will, then, should be taken
into consideration when the teachers choose the
teaching method and material that could fit the
learners.
Bahasa Indonesia has been learned by
many foreign learners in many different countries
outside Indonesia through formal classes. It is
taught in Indonesian embassies as well as
universities/courses. At least there are 19
Indonesian embassies and 176
universities/courses in 45 countries offer classes
on Bahasa Indonesia (Wiedarti, 2013).
As mentioned earlier, there are some
points that deserve special attention in teaching
Bahasa Indonesia to foreign learners (BIPA).
Wojowasito (1976:38) mentioned that there are
some issues in teaching Bahasa Indonesia,
especially outside Indonesia; (1) the learning of
BIPA is not integrated into the student
environment, (2) BIPA is usually learned in
adulthood or when the students has fully
mastered their first languages, and (3) BIPA is
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learning program needs to be well designed.
The selection of teaching materials
and the teaching techniques in presenting the
teaching materials is surely essential. Like any
other language learning process, it is important
to incorporate aspects of culture and language
into the learning program and present it to the
foreign students. Grammar Translation Method is
one of the teaching methods in teaching
language. This method, however, is regarded as
traditional by many experts and practitioners. It is
not a popular method due to the nature of GTM.
This article is intended to describe the
Grammar Translation Method (GTM) used by the
writer in teaching Bahasa Indonesia to foreign
learner. This method has been widely used in
English language learning and reviewed by many
English teachers and experts. Pros and cons
always come along the application of this method
in English language classroom. This study is
aimed to describe the use of GTM in teaching
Bahasa Indonesia to foreign learner. The
researcher believes that this method is not only
intended for English language classroom but any
other language classroom. Despite the fact that
GTM is considered as traditional method and
gives little room to the learner’s independency,
this method can still be applied in teaching
foreign language. However, there are some
points that a teacher should be paid attention to
before applying this method.
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Theoretical Framework
The Grammar Translation Method
GTM) is a foreign language teaching
methodology derived from classical methods
(sometimes called traditional) method in teaching
Greek and Latin. In this method, the teachers
usually have the students to translate whole texts
word for word and memorize grammatical rules
and exceptions as well as sets of words. This
method relies on the activity of reading and
translating text.
Larsen-Freeman (1986) provides some
typical techniques associated with the Grammar
Translation Method:
1. Translation. The students are instructed to
translate a text on target language to their
native language.
2. Reading comprehension. The students need
to answer some questions and find some
information based on the text they are
learning.
3. Antonyms and synonyms. The students are
instructed to find the antonyms or synonyms
of a set of words.
4. Fill in the gaps. The teacher provides
incomplete sentences and the students are
instructed to fill in the gaps with the words or
terms they have just learnt.
5. Memorization. The students memorize a set
of new vocabularies or grammatical rules.
6. Use words in sentences. Students need to
create sentences to define or describe the
words or terms they have just learnt.
The Grammar Translation Method has
been practiced so widely and has survived so
long for its main advantages. First, many schools
still have classes with large number of students.
GTM is one of the most effective method in
teaching large class is it is a teacher-center
method. Next, the translating of the text into the
first language (L1) technique helps learners to
fully understand the texts and avoid any
misunderstanding
Further, the words and phrases of the
target language could be explained quickly as
the students translated the text. Thus, it saves
time. Even teachers who are not fluent in the
second language (L2) can still teach as it does
not really on the spoken ability of the teachers.
Finally, the students will not have any problem in
responding to the questions as they are most
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likely given in the first language. This helps
teachers to understand whether the students
have learned what they are taught or not.
Nevertheless, many experts have
pointed out some disadvantages of the use of the
grammar translation method for the teaching of
modern languages. Asl (2015) summed up some
flaws in GTM:
1. Speaking and understanding are more
important for learners of modern languages
than reading and writing. However, the
grammar translation method focuses on the
reading and writing skills instead of the
speaking one.
2. Learners must gradually accumulate the
knowledge from the basic to advance level
before they can use the language properly.
This will bring a disadvantage for learners
whose objective of learning the language is for
practical use.
3. Nowadays, teachers and institution prefer
learning through exposure and experience
method while GTM uses memorization of
grammar rules or vocabulary instead.
4. Teachers and learners mostly communicate in
the first language but many experts have
argued the importance of the use of target
language in the classroom.
5. Teacher is the center of the learning process.
Students interact with their teacher with little
to no student-student interaction.
6. Recently, experts and practitioners believe
that translation is not the best technique in
learning a language.
7. The Grammar Translation Method insists on
accuracy which is quite the opposite of the
recent teaching methods which emphasizing
on the fluency.
Despite the objection to this so-called
traditional method, some recent studies have
shown that this method is still applicable to this
day. Elmayanti (2015) highlighted the reasons
why teacher used GTM in language learning.
This method could help the students to improve
their vocabulary and comprehend the text. In
addition, the teaching-learning activities run quite
well. In addition, Khan and Hafiza (2016) also
mentioned that GTM could help the students in
learning English. By applying this method, the
students could understand the new vocabularies
better as they are introduced in their mother
tongue.
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Method
This is a qualitative research as it
provides description based on observation. A
qualitative research, according to Creswell
(2007) is a research that is started with an
assumption and also based on a certain
theoretical framework to learn about social
issues. It allows the researchers to conduct study
by using interviews, observation, or document
review to get a closer look related to the issues
addressed.
In this study, the researcher describes
the use of GTM in teaching Bahasa Indonesia to
Foreign Learner. There was one student in the
class described. The student was a middle-aged
Korean woman who was fluent in English and
Korean. There were 8 meetings and GTM was
constantly used as the method of teaching.
Discussion
The teaching and learning of Bahasa
Indonesia in this class followed specific pattern of
activities; text reading, reading comprehension,
new vocabularies, structures, sentence exercise.
The teacher started the lesson by text reading. A
text in Bahasa Indonesia was given to the
student. She, then, read the text twice; first, the
student read the text aloud and second, she tried
to translate the text into English. The teacher and
the student would discussed some difficult or
new words found in the text.
Once the student understood the text,
the teaching process then moved to specific
grammar rule. In this phase, the student was
given some grammar pattern followed with some
exercises. Drills could also applied during
exercise activity. Once the student understood
the grammar, the class would be ended by
reviewing the material; from the vocabularies to
the grammar.
The material chosen for this class is a
book containing some texts in Bahasa Indonesia.
The texts are simple, mostly telling about daily
activities. The book is chosen for its simple and
effective pattern. The grammar section covers
varied rules, from affixation rules to the sentence
structures. Based on the writer’s observation, the
student struggled the most in understanding
Bahasa Indonesia’s affixation rules.
The technique applied by the teacher
affirms some principles of Grammar Translation
Method; translation, reading comprehension,
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memorization, drilling. First, translation plays
important role in the learning process. In the
class, the student did not only translate the texts
but also the questions given after each text. The
exercises provided by the book was also about
translating texts in target language to English or
vice versa. The teacher also helped the student
with sentence drilling.
The following character of GTM used
in the teaching of Bahasa Indonesia is reading
comprehension. Once the student understood
the texts, she would answer the questions
related to the text. As mentioned earlier, the
questions would be translated to English first.
New words and sentence structures are
introduced in each topic and usually one level
harder than the previous lesson. What was
learned before will be found in the new topic.
Thus, it affirms the principle of GTM which
expect the students to memorize the
vocabularies and structures. Furthermore, the
student practiced forming new sentences by
drilling.
Despite some objections and flaws
argued by many experts (i.e, Asl, 2015) and it is
also regarded as traditional method, GTM is
applicable and adjustable to current language
learning. In addition, the use of different kinds of
texts will expose the students to the use of
language learned in different context. This
means that the application of GTM in classroom
does not necessarily limit the exposure of the
students to authentic texts. The translation of text
and words from the source language to the
mother tongue will help the students to grasp the
meaning of the words and the idea of the text
better.
The memorization of words and
sentence structures will be able to help the
students to the students language use in the
future. Sentence drilling and exercises will help
the students to practice using a structure in many
different forms. As much as the students are
expected to use language fluently, it is also the
hope of any language teachers that the students
use the language properly and accurately.
Although the writer has conducted the
successful teaching process by using Grammar
Translation Method, still, there are some things
that should be noted by those who are about to
apply the same method. The student should
have basic knowledge about Bahasa Indonesia.
The student should, at the very least, know some
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vocabularies. The basic knowledge will help the Science and Research Methodology, Vol.
teachers in introducing higher level concept of 1(3) 16-15.
words and structures.
In addition, this method is effective in Elmayanti, C. (2015). The USe of Grammar
small class in which the students are around 1 or Translation Method in Teaching English.
4 students. The translation and the explanation Journal of English as a Foreign
require quite amount of time, as well as the Language, Vol 5 (2) 125-132.
drilling practice. Thus, having more than four
students in the classroom will require the teacher Khan, A. B., & mansoor, H. S. (2016). The
to shorten the process of translating and Effectiveness of Grammar Translation
lengthening the drilling activities. Method in teaching and Learning of
Although communication in target English Language at Intermediate Level.
language is not the nature of GTM, the teacher International Journal of Institutional &
could try to communicate in the target language Industrial Research, Vol 1 (1) 22-25.
to the students once in a while. The teacher
could make insert short sentences and some Wiedarti, P. (2013). Pembelajaran Bahasa
words in target language in order to familiarize Indonesia Untuk Penutur Asing Hendak
the students to the target language. Kemana? Makalah Kongres Bahasa
Indonesia X. Jakarta: Badan Pembinaan
Conclusion dan Pengembangan Bahasa Kemdikbud.
Despite being regarded as ‘traditional’,
Grammar Translation Method can still be applied Wojowasito, S. (1976). Perkembangan Ilmu
in language teaching. This method indeed Bahasa (Linguistik) Abad 20. Bandung:
focuses more on translation, memorization and Shinta Dharma.
structure drills, yet it can be modified to fit
student’s learning style and needs. The
translation helps the students to get better
understanding, memorization helps the students
in the language use in the future, and the
structure drills will help the students to form
sentences correctly.
The writer has applied this method in
teaching Bahasa Indonesia to foreign learner.
The writer noted that it can help significantly the
student who has known some basic vocabularies
of Bahasa Indonesia. This method is also best fit
for a small classroom as it requires a lot of time
for translating and drilling activities. Finally,
though not required, the target language can be
used once in a while during the teaching-learning
activities.

References
Anderson, D. L.-F. (2011). Techniques &
Priciples in Language Teaching. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Asl, E. H. (2015). Comparative Study of
Grammar Translation Method (GTM) and
Communicative Language Teaching
(CLT) in Language Teaching
Methodology. International Journal of
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ISSN: 2654-5152 Vol. 1 No. 2 (May, 2019)

IDENTIFYING EVALUATIVE POSITIONING

IN JOURNALISTIC COMMENTARIES

Ahmad Kailani
Universitas Muhammadiyah Banjarmasin
Email: ahmadikay@gmail.com

Abstract

Media, such as newspapers, take their role in shaping public opinions by positioning the readers, either
to favor or disfavor with specific issues. Even though the sources are the same, the news item may be
presented differently. This is because the news reportings are socially, economically, and politically
conditioned, thus news is always broadcasted from a particular point of view. An attributed source is just
one of the ways journalists work to implicitly position the audiences’ inferences whether they want to
align or disalign the audiences with their attitudinal position. To understand this attitudinal positioning in
journalistic commentary, the current study identifies and describes the evaluative workings of excerpts
of three different newspapers which are called The Guardian Australia, The Jakarta Post (English printed
Indonesian local newspaper, and Daily Mail Australia, regarding the Australian Government’s responses
to the death penalty for the “Duo Bali Nine” in 2015. System of Appraisal is used as the framework to
help understand how reporters’ voices, in particular, position readers to support particular attitudes and
viewpoints, and hold particular beliefs or assumptions about something. The findings indicate that the
three newspapers used affective evaluation at the most although each has different way of amplifying
the issues.

Keywords : evaluative positioning, journalistic commentaries, System of Appraisal

Background attitude toward specific issues. Even though

The death penalty sentence for “Duo Bali
Nine”, the two Australian drug smugglers,
became a worldwide topic of interest, and has
highlighted the relationship between
Indonesia and Australia in 2015. There were
pros and conts regarding this issue. The
opinions were split up into two polarities,
whether the execution was a wise decision
regardless of their positive efforts during
imprisonment or whether the clemency was
the most appropriate option. Media, such as
newspapers, took their role in shaping public
opinions. Media, with their social, economical,
and ideological interests, tried to influence and
position the readers, either to favour or
disfavor these arguments. There was also the
view that media which have a hidden agenda
by blowing up the news and not presenting
“objectivity”. In terms of media’s objectivity,
White (2006) argues that news reporting, as
rhetorical mode is not free of being ” value
laden” and a particular ideology. It always has
an underlying agenda to influence the readers’
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the affordances are the same, the news item
may be significantly different. This is because
the institutions of news reporting are socially,
economically, and politically even
geographically conditioned, thus news is
always broadcasted from a particular point of
view
In terms of value-laden and conditioned
institution, language plays a central position in
news reporting. Fowler (1991) suggests that
“language is not a clear window, but a
refracting, structuring medium”. He added that
“the world of the Press is not the real world,
but a world skewed and judged”. It means that
the language used in media offer various
interpretations, assumptions, or beliefs in
order to influence the readers’ position to a
certain issue. Real events are reported after
being conventionally selected by news team.
It may be totally unworthy in respect to the
substance of news material, but the way it is
presented in news reporting can make it
different. For instance, the whole scene of an
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event is not mentioned, and the selection is
merely made on a partial view. This situation
has the potential to mislead readers’
inferences toward the case. We call this bias.
So, the individual has to read news carefully
and comparatively in order to avoid bias and
find out the truth. To counter this issue, many
news reports use the term “attribution”
whereby the journalist or the author indirectly
or directly quotes the viewpoints from the
external sources. This source can be from the
experts, public figure, the majority, and
government. In this way, it seems that the
journalists are not the ones who judge and
evaluate something, but are quoted sources,
whose interpretations, beliefs, assumptions,
and opinions, pass judgment on to the media
audiences or readers. Although this condition
is set up, it is not a guarantee that media is
free of any value-laden or hidden messages.
An attributed source is just one of the ways the
journalist works to implicitly position the
audiences’ inferences whether they want to
align or disalign the audiences with their
attitudinal position.
Related concepts to language of
evaluation
Before stepping into an examination of the
texts, it is necessary to highlight in brief some
of the core elements of appraisal framework
which can be applied to the analyses of news
reports.
a. Attitude
There are three broad sub sets of meanings
implied by either positive or negative
attitudinal assessment. These are outlined
below.
Affect: deals with expressing positive or
negative emotions or feelings, in terms of
news reporting, these feelings may come from
the author’s affection or those of third parties.
“The elephant in the room is the GST ...
Western Australia feels very poorly treated
under the recommendations that have been
made to the commonwealth government ...
That is grossly unfair and what I sought out
of this meeting was the situation for Western
Australia would get no worse. That’s all I ask
for.” (The Guardian 2015)
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Judgement: our attitudes to the way people
behave, or in other words, assessment on
ethics, moral, law, honesty, normality and
other social values.
The source said that politicians – including the
Prime Minister – were turning a blind eye to
Clarkson's bad behaviour, in the same way
as people once did with Savile, the now
notorious pedophile. (News.com.au 2015)
Appreciation: our evaluations of things, in
respect of its worthiness, aesthetics, by
referencing social values to it.
You won’t find many sunbathers on Gokova
beach, but it’s a great place to picnic and
watch the kite surfers making the most of the
windy conditions. Around the cove is sandy
Akyaka beach, which has sun beds and
parasols and is surrounded by restaurants, as
well as the Azmak river, which is great for a
boat tour. Along the coast is pebbly Cinar
beach, where you can hire a lounger and cool
off in the calm sea. There’s a snack bar for
lunch and beers. A boat trip to Cleopatra
Island is a must, if only to jump off into the
serene and secluded coves. (The Guardian
2015
b. Gradation: deals with the gradability, the
ways the speakers raise or lower the impacts
of the utterances produced and blur or
sharpen the focus of meaning. Slightly,
somewhat, very, completely, totally are some
of instances to force utterances. Whereas, I
was feeling kind of guilty, they are my truly
best friend, are some instances to focus the
meaning of utterances
c. Inscription versus invocation (token)
White (2006) defines inscription or attitudinal
inscription or inscribed attitude as an explicit
attitude of the message sender, in this context,
the reporter’s voice, which explicitly convey
either positive or negative positions by using
attitudinal lexis. This resonates with Austin’s
speech act terms in respect of locution,
illocution, and perlocution. Locution is all the
words uttered, illocution is the intended effect
of the words, and perlocution is the actual
effect of the word. So, attitudinal inscription is
the illocutionary items by which a message
sender tries to envoy perlocution to the
readers. In contrast, the term “invocation”, or
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attitudinal invocation, or invoked attitude, or
token, is used to formulate implicit viewpoints
by activating positive or negative assessment.
It is activated through inferences and
associations. Examples provided below
shows how inscription and invocation are
contrasted. These examples are taken from
White’s (2009) invented examples:
Explicit/inscribed
He entered the room and the class rudely
talked amongst themselves.
Implicit/ invoked
Although the Principal entered the room,
the whole class kept on talking
From example A, we can directly know that
students’ behavior is inappropriate. The word
rudely is typically constrained by its co-textual
content, the teacher (he) entered the room,
and the class (students) talked each other.
The attitudinal value can be easily identified
once the co-text is paid attention. Whereas, in
example B, the attitudinal value is culturally
and ideologically conditioned, that is to say,
this value is dependent on the ideological and
cultural interpretation of the readers to the
texts. Under the appraisal framework, the
second example aims to indirectly signal an
attitudinal response. The words “although”
and “kept on” show an indication of
inappropriateness because it is culturally
expected that students will remain silent when
the teacher enters the classroom.
Accordingly, the greater the degree of
inscription, then the less chance of the readers
being aligned into certain attitudinal position.
White (2006) subdivided attitudinal invocation
into evocation and provocation. He defines
evocation as a trigger of potential positions,
either positive or negative by using truly
informational content. While provocation is a
trigger of positive/negative positions which is
activated through implicitly evaluative
formulation.
d. Evocation
George W. Bush delivered his inaugural
speech as the United States President who
collected 537,000 fewer votes than his
opponent. (White’s 2006 example)
https://journal.umbjm.ac.id/index.php/TEFLA
e. Provocation
Telstra has withdrawn sponsorship of a
suicide prevention phone service- just days
after announcing a $2.34 billion half yearly
profit.
The words just days after indicate a surprising
moment, the unexpectedness, or out of
prediction. So, the underlined word has the
potential to position the readers in a negative
inference of Telstra’s actions.
f. Alignment and Attribution
“Hard news” has a great tendency to attribute
its attitudinal positioning to external source
either directly or indirectly. External sources
can be from experts, influential figures, the
victims of an accident, and any other quoted
sources. The reporter may align, disalign, or
even be neutral vis-à-vis the external sources.
Indeed, the readers may be positioned to favor
or disfavor this point of view.
g. Attribution as attitudinal tokens
It is possible that attributed sources can
activate positive or negative reader’s
inferences. For instance, readers are
indirectly conditioned to regard the inferences
as valid or invalid. Reporters usually use
someone’s expertise, or the one who is well-
known with high social rank, to invoke a
positive view of the attribution.
Example 1
Relationships Australia spokeswoman Susan
Visser has previously told Fairfax Media that
it's not seen as a "normal thing" to go for
counseling if you're having problems or want
to improve your relationship. Australian
Association of Relationship Counsellors
national president Guy Vicars agrees that
people find it "amazingly hard" to get
help. (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2015)
On the other hand, the reporters usually
invoke a negative view by quoting the sources
from those without expertise or the attributed
sources are narrowly presented.
Example 2
A minority of scientists dispute the official
view that greenhouse gasses have
contributed to global warming and that
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reducing emissions and recycling could slow it Method

down (Yates, 2009)
It is obvious that in example 1, the author uses
two experts’ opinions about people’s
willingness to go for counseling when they
face problems or want to improve their
relationship. Such mechanisms can position
the readers to favour that inference, while
example 2 tries to invoke the readers not to
favour that position.
h. Attribution as attitudinal inscriptions
Explicit terms such as rightly, falsely, correctly,
incorrectly, convincingly, and unconvincingly
can trigger the readers to determine their
positions toward the author’s inference.
For example:
The first time I saw Gallipoli the movie I was
too young to know what syphilis was or what
those women had to offer the Anzacs in the
flesh pits of Egypt. But I clearly remember
hating the foppish British officers who ordered
our boys over the top of the trenches to their
death. (The Sydney Morning Herald 2015)
In attitudinal inscription, authors use inscribed
attitudinal evaluation to explicitly align
themselves to the attributed sources and
simultaneously position the readers to align
themselves too.
Objective
The research is aimed to help readers
determine their views on a story, opinion, or
fact and then let them draw their own
inferences.
Sentence Affect Judgement
Prime minister says
clemency for Andrew
Chan and Myuran
Sukumaran would be a
fair response to
Australia’s $1bn
tsunami assistance
To understand attitudinal positioning in
journalistic commentary, I will identify and
describe the evaluative workings of excerpts
of from three different newspapers which are
called The Guardian Australia, and The
Jakarta Post (English printed Indonesian local
newspaper), and Daily Mail Australia,
regarding the Australian Government’s
remarks on its tsunami Aceh aid to Aceh. I will
use system of appraisal developed by Martin
and White (2005) and their colleagues to
examine the evaluative resources in
language. This framework will help me to
understand how news reporting, reporters’
voices, in particular, positions readers to
support particular attitudes and viewpoints,
and influence the readers to hold particular
beliefs or assumptions about something. The
analyses will encompass text identification in
relation to author’s attitude, author’s indirect
implications or associations of a particular
orientation of attitude, and the influence of
external sources (quoted sources) on reader’s
attitudinal orientation..
Results
Text 1 The Guardian (Australia), 18 February
2015
a. Attitudes (affect, judgement, appreciation,
graduation) in text 1
Appreciation Graduation
(focus/force)
a fair response

Tony Abbott has called Has called on, to

on Indonesia to reciprocate:
“reciprocate” for mental process of
Australia’s $1bn aid affect
package after the 2004
tsunami
The prime minister Strengthened:
strengthened his mental process of
public calls for affect.
clemency for Andrew Public call, a
Chan and Myuran warning: affection
Sukumaran with a (noun forms)
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warning on Feel grievously let

Wednesday that down: mental
Australia would “feel process of
grievously let down” reaction.
and would “make our Displeasure :
displeasure known” affection (noun
if Indonesia proceeded form)
with the executions.“
we sent a significant lost : mental a significant
contingent of our process of affect contingent
armed forces to help in
Indonesia with
humanitarian relief and
Australians lost their
lives in that campaign
to help Indonesia
Threats are not part of responds well : a diplomatic
diplomatic language mental process of language
and from what I know, affect
no one responds well
to threats
I hope this does not the true colours
reflect, the statements of Australians
made, the true colours
of Australians,
it should be underlined purely a law
that this issue is purely enforcement
a law enforcement issue,
issue, law enforcement an extraordinary
against an crime
extraordinary crime
Abbott said the delay an encouraging
was “an encouraging sign, best values,
sign” and he hoped best interests
Indonesia “realised
that its own best
values and its own
best interests are
served by not going
ahead with these
executions
We will be letting absolutely
Indonesia know in unambiguous terms
absolutely (focus)
unambiguous terms
that we feel grievously
let down.
He said he did not are ignored: a the best possible
want to “prejudice the mental process of relations (force), a
best possible relations affect very important friend
with a very important (force) , kind of thing
friend and neighbor (focus), the perfectly
but I’ve got to say that reasonable
we can’t just ignore representations
this kind of thing if the (force)
perfectly reasonable
representations we are
making to Indonesia
are ignored by them.
and if it’s right and The underlined
proper for Indonesia to words :
make these amplified
representations, if it’s attitude
right and proper for (amplified
other countries to heed judgement)
Indonesia’s
representations, it’s
right and proper for us
to make the
representations and
for them to be heeded
Abbott said Chan and deserve: a mental
Sukumaran – who process of affect
were part of the Bali
Nine group that sought
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to smuggle heroin from

Indonesia to Australia
– deserved a long time
in jail but they did not
deserve to die
In fact, they have thoroughly thoroughly reformed
become, it seems, reformed characters:
thoroughly reformed characters: force
characters in prison in amplified
Bali judgement
so much better to use so much better:
these people for good force
than to kill them
as a last resort for the the most the most serious of
most serious of crimes serious of crimes:
crimes: force
judgement
(amplified)
Any delay in plans by a relief:
the Indonesian affect (noun)
authorities to execute
Mr Chan and Mr
Sukumaran will be a
relief to the men and
their families
we will continue our The highest level The highest level:
representations at the force
highest level across
the Indonesian
government
a modest opportunity a modest
for people to engage in opportunity
constructive
suggestions and
discussion” aimed at
preventing the
executions

Here the reporter used affect more frequently readers that Australia really wants to build a
compared to other types of attitude. Feelings warm diplomatic communication with
and emotions are preferably used to construe Indonesia. The word like an encouraging
meanings and position readers to align signs, best values, best interest, a modest
themselves with writer’s inferences. By doing opportunity reflect Australia’s willingness to
so, the writer implicitly invites the readers to maintain a good communication. The
feel as Bali Nine convicts feel in this current Guardian Australia aligns with what Abbott’s
situation, and how Australian government call on the Indonesian government, in
really pleads for clemency for these two drug particular, and supports the position that the
smugglers. Furthermore, appreciation, which death sentence must be cancelled.
is mostly positive in this text, implicitly tells the

Text 2 The Jakarta Post, 23 February 2015

Attitudes (affect, judgement, appreciation, graduation) in text 2
Sentence Affect Judgement Appreciation Graduation
(focus/force)
A number of an unusual fund-
activists from the raising event
Pro-Indonesia
Coalition held an
unusual fund-raising
event by collecting
coins for Australian
Prime Minister Tony
Abbott
Many pedestrians to show :
and motorists gave a mental
coins to show their process of affect
support for the
action
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 ISSN: 2654-5152 Vol. 1 No. 2 (May, 2019)

Humanitarian relief be deemed

should not be
deemed the same
as crime
He said it was unethical
unethical for
Australia to link its
humanitarian relief
for victims of the
2004 tsunami in
Aceh with its efforts
to save two
Australians facing
execution soon on
Nusakambangan
Island, Central Java
it [Australia] threaten, raises: very low very low: force
threatens to boycott a mental
Bali and now, it process of affect
raises the
humanitarian relief
matter. Very low,”
he said
They said they were uneasy: affect
uneasy about
Abbott, adding that
Australia had
dispatched its
humanitarian relief
and helped to
reconstruct Aceh for
its own interests

Here the news reporter uses affection more
frequently to position his/her attitudinal
evaluation and implicitly to position the
readers to favour his/her inferences. He/she
negatively uses feelings and emotions to
showcase that Abbott’s remark really hurts
Indonesian people’s feelings. Words like
threaten, uneasy give clues of this emotions.
Additionally, these negative emotions are
amplified by some negative judgement, such
as unethical, very low which explicitly tells the
readers about Indonesia’s condemnation of
Abbott’s statement. By weighing these
components of attitude, we see that The
Jakarta Post disfavors the idea of
reciprocation, in particular, and cancellation of
the death penalty for these Bali Nine pairs, in
general.
Discussions
Text 1
Attitudinal inscription, invocation, and
attribution in text 1
Regarding attitudinal inscription in text 1, the
reporter repeatedly used some locutions, such
as reciprocate, $ 1bn dollars tsunami aid
donation, feel grievously let down, in order to
amplify attitudinal meaning across the text.
https://journal.umbjm.ac.id/index.php/TEFLA
The word “reciprocate” is preferably used by
the writer rather than the other synonyms,
such as pay back, return, repay. This is to
indicate “a must” to do or to feel the same thing
as the one who did that to us. For instance, if
somebody has saved our life, in turn, we have
to reward his kindness. However, in fact, the
doer does not really hope that. The meaning
is also strengthened by the $1 bn dollars of
donation which are restated through the texts.
The same phrases show up three times
through the whole text; Australia’s $1bn
tsunami assistance, Australia’s $1bn package
aid, a billion dollars worth of assistance. It
implicitly tells the readers that Australia spent
a huge amount of money for the aid and
deserve a reciprocal benefit for two countries.
Furthermore, the statement: “an unusual fund-
raising event held by a number of Indonesian
people to collect coins for Australian Prime
Minister” is a factual or informational content which
may potentially lead the readers to condemn Tony
Abbott. It is worth to note, this invocation depends
on the system of values the readers hold. If the
readers think that fund-raising is commonly
conducted only for charity, then collecting coins for
paying back tsunami donation aid will be
inappropriate. Moreover, it is not acceptable to ask
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 ISSN: 2654-5152 Vol. 1 No. 2 (May, 2019)
for reciprocation after showing kindness to
somebody.
The author also uses attribution in the journalistic
commentaries. In this text, the reporter attributed
Abbott’s statements more frequently compared to
the comments from Indonesian side. The idea of
reciprocation and Australia’s affect in regard to the
death penalty was restated many times throughout
the text. This implicitly amplifies the urgency of
abandoning the execution. Interestingly, the author
also quoted positive comments by the opposition
leader, Bill Shorten, regarding the delay of
execution. This is the comment on the delay
provided: “a modest opportunity for people to
engage in constructive suggestions and
discussions”. As we know, opposition party, in
every country, will always comment negatively on
government policy. They try to find any
weaknesses of current ruling government in order
to provoke citizens to align with them. But, in this
case, the author depicts that both government and
the opposition are in harmony. This indirectly
means that Bali Nine pairs deserve for clemency,
because all Australian agree with that; the family
of convicts, the Prime minister, the foreign
minister, and even the opposition party. By using
this attributed evaluation, the author can covertly
position the readers to favour his/her attitudinal
evaluation.
Text 2
The act of collecting coins for Australian Prime
Minister is a satirical act, which is hard to analyse.
As Kreuz and Roberts (1993) suggest that satires
have multiple representations which are
constructed only when the audiences go beyond
the narrative and considers external issues of the
story, such as background of the story. Generally
speaking, when readers encounter a text, he/she
brings the prior knowledge to the text.
Expectations about kind of text being read are one
element of this knowledge. In particular, they
should have the knowledge about the genre of the
text. Satire requires a reader to interact with the
text by using multiple representational
experiences. At various times, satire is used by
those who want to avoid direct reaction for their
direct statement or action (Elliot, 1962). For
example, the act of collecting coins is a way for
Indonesian protester to indirectly respond toward
Tony Abbot’s remark. They wish to do this despite
repressively doing protest. In addition to the nature
of satire, the author of the work pretends the
https://journal.umbjm.ac.id/index.php/TEFLA
ignorance to enlighten the readers. The act of
collecting coins for Abbot is not a kind of
enlightened act for the readers. Like sarcasm,
satire is derisive (cited in Kreuz and Roberts, 1993,
p.102). The act of collecting coins is intended by
Indonesian protesters to mock and condemn
Abbot through an action. This serves as ‘scornful
metaphor’, for how the way Indonesian
demonstrators protest toward Australian
Government.
Attitudinal inscription, invocation, and
attribution in text 2
In text 2, the author positions the readers to
negatively assess Abbott’s comment. The reporter
tries to describe how all Indonesian people feel
uneasy about this situation. A number of activists,
pedestrians, residents, and students are taken as
the representation of Indonesian people who
disagree with Abbot’s statement. By doing so, the
writer wants to state that not only activists who
really concerned with this issue, but all Indonesian
citizens either. The phrase a number of show
collectiveness, a group of people. This attitudinal
inscription may lead readers to infer a negative
evaluation of Abbott’s statement and to support
protesters.
In text 2, Mr. Nasir, Indonesia’s foreign ministry
spokesman, said he hoped that Abbott’s statement
does not reflect “the true colors of Australian”. The
invocation of the phrase by the reporter may shape
readers’ attitudinal evaluation. If Mr. Abbott truly
made that statement on behalf of Australian
people’s voices, the readers may infer that asking
for reciprocation is part of Australian culture. If so,
the reporter successfully positions the readers to
negatively judge that inference.
The author’s attribution is totally different in text 2
compared to text 1. In this text, the reporter
indirectly wants to say that no matter the level of
pressure coming from Australia, the death
execution will be upheld. The reporter attributed
President Jokowi’s and Attorney General
Prasetyo’s clarification about the delay of
execution. The President said that delay is totally
due to the problems in relation to isolation rooms
for the death row convicts, not because of
Australia’s diplomatic pressures. Because the
attributed sources are The President and The
Attorney General, it is much easier for the author
to convince the news audiences. Additionally, the
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 ISSN: 2654-5152 Vol. 1 No. 2 (May, 2019)
writer strengthens his position by displaying a
number of Indonesian people who protest in
relation to Tony Abbott’s call for tsunami
reciprocation. This implicitly tells that Indonesian
people back up their government decision. If we
are the readers, this type of secretive evaluation
may convince us to agree with the author position.
Text 3
Attitudinal inscription, invocation, and
attribution in text 3
In text 3, (Daily Mail Australia), the headline states:
“Hilarious Indonesian protesters present bags of
coins to Australian embassy staff mocking Tony
Abbott’s foreign aid threat”. By using the word
‘hilarious’ the writer tries to provoke the readers to
negatively evaluate what Indonesian protesters
did. Protest or demonstration is commonly done to
advocate something serious, not trivial. Hilarious
protesters mean that they are not serious. The
writer implicitly insults what Indonesian protesters
did. Another derogatory provocation: “but we fail to
see the funny side of the firing squad”. It means
that there is no ‘funny side of the firing squad. This
kind of statement can make Indonesians think that
there is a funny element in this accusation. They
will think that the firing squad is not funny, it is very
scary. They are assigned to take someone’s life.
How we feel that they can entertain us by showing
their funny attitude.
In this text, it is much easier to understand to which
direction the author tends to position the readers’
attitude. To invoke a negative view of the attributed
inference, the author uses only a narrow sense.
For example:
Carrying flags with Mr. Abbot’s face crossed out,
the small group of protesters were photographed
handing over the petty currency to embassy
officials. (The Daily Mail Australia 2015)
The news reporter prefers to use the small group
rather than a number of…, because it will depict
only very few people; not many. This is conditioned
to showcase that not many Indonesian people
disagree with Abbott’s comment on the idea of
reciprocation, only very small number of people.
However, in fact, many Indonesian citizens protest
that. In addition, the word “petty currency” is
preferably chosen rather than “coin”. This is to
show to the public that the value of money
https://journal.umbjm.ac.id/index.php/TEFLA
collected is unimportant. The meaning will be
different if the writer use “coin”. Coin is commonly
associated with small value of money;
nevertheless, it is still decently valued. The
appreciation the writer gives to the thing, either
positive or negative, may contribute to activate
certain attitudinal position of the readers. The
underlined words in that sentence may implicitly
provoke the readers to take negative point of view
on Indonesian protesters.
Conclusion
Journalistic commentaries always have a
tendency to carry value loaded messages. After
analyzing and comparing these texts line by line, I
found that both newspapers, The Guardian
Australia and The Jakarta Post, use affective
evaluation at the most. However, these news
reports are different in terms of amplifying the
affects with other attitudinal components. The
Guardian more frequently use affect and positive
evaluation across the text. These news reports add
graduation to focus and strengthen meanings in
order to implicitly persuade the readers to approve
the inferences. In contrast, The Jakarta Post tries
to use affect which are amplified by negative
appreciations in order to influence readers to
condemn Abbott’s call about reciprocation.
In respect to inscribed attitude, The Guardian
Australia uses specific locutionary items to
emphasize the attitudinal evaluation. These items
are repeatedly used across the text in order to
echo writer’s opinions and inferences. The
locutions such as reciprocate, feel grievously let
down, and tsunami donation occur more often
across the text, whereas The Jakarta Post
attentively choose the word ‘a number of’ to
represent Indonesian’s response toward Abbott’s
remark. Additionally, the two texts quote external
sources, which are from the public figures,
influential politicians, a huge number of people, to
convince the readers about their positions. On the
other hand, text 3, The Daily Mail, tends to provoke
the audiences by presenting derogatory
assessment and narrow sense. It is still far from
hard news ‘objectivity’ category that is to always
attribute journalistic opinions to external source.
The attitudinal position of the reporter, which is
usually stated at the end of text, carries hidden
messages in order to position the readers’
inferences.
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References
Aubusson, K 2015, ‘Why my generation grew up
thinking it was UN-Australian to question
ANZAC’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 April,
Comment, Viewed 17 April 2015,
Http://Www.Smh.Com.Au/Comment/Why-My-
Generation-Grew-Up-Thinking-It-Was-
Unaustralian-To-Question-Anzac-20150417-
1mmee6.Html.
Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the News:
Language and Ideology in the Press.
Guardian readers, 2015, ‘Turkey’s best beaches:
reader’s tips’, The Guardian Australia, 16 April,
Travel, viewed 17 April 2015,
http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/apr/16
/turkeys-best-beaches-readers-travel-tips.
Hurst, D 2015, ‘Tony Abbott Talks Unity But Wa's
Colin Barnett Says He's Angry With Other
States’, The Guardian Australia, 17 April, P.1,
Viewed 17 April 2015,
Http://Www.Theguardian.Com/News/2015/Apr/
17/Tony-Abbott-Talks-Unity-But-Was-Colin-
Barnett-Says-Hes-Angry-With-Other-States.
Ireland, J 2015, ‘Don't break Up With Counselling
Because Of Kevin Andrews’, Sydney Morning
Herald, 17 April, column 8, viewed 17 APRIL
2015, http://www.smh.com.au/comment/dont-
break-up-with-counselling-because-of-kevin-
andrews-20150417-1mmgo5.html.
Kreuz, R. J., & Roberts, R. M. (1993). On satire
and parody: The importance of being
ironic. Metaphor and Symbol, 8(2), 97-109..
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Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. (2003). The language
of evaluation(Vol. 2). Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Network writers, 2015, ‘Clarkson at war with BBC
after Jimmy Savile smear’, new.com.au, 19
March, entertainment, viewed 17 April 2015,
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/clark
son-at-war-with-bbc-after-jimmy-savile-
smear/story-e6frfmyi-1227268758006.
Thomson, E. A., White, P. R., & Kitley, P. (2008).
“Objectivity” and “hard news” reporting across
cultures: Comparing the news report in
English, French, Japanese and Indonesian
journalism. Journalism studies, 9(2), 212-228.
White, P. R. (2009). Media power and the
rhetorical potential of the “hard news” report–
attitudinal mechanisms in journalistic
discourse. Käännösteoria, ammattikielet ja
monikielisyys. VAKKI: n julkaisut, 36, 30-49.
White, P. R. (2006). Evaluative semantics and
ideological positioning in journalistic
discourse. Mediating Ideology in Text and
image: Ten critical studies. Amsterdam:
Benjamins, 37-67.
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VIDEO GAMES: AN INNOVATIVE WAY TO MASTER ENGLISH

Dina Rafidiyah
Muhammad Julian Adhitama
Denny Wianto

English Education Department, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education,

University of Muhammadiyah Banjarmasin
Email: rafidiyahdina@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

The best way to learn a language is by immersing yourself into it. One way to immerse into English is by
using video games as one of the innovative ways to master English. This media enables gamers to get
exposed to the target language since they play it for long times. The aim of this paper is to find out the reason
why the subjects of the present research play video games and how it can help them to learn English. Lastly,
this paper also wants to find out how viable applying video game in classroom’s lesson. The research
methodology is phenomenology approach. The data were garnered from in-depth interview, the participants
answered the questions correctly and coherently to be considered having good English. Subjects of this
research are six people with different backgrounds; they were united by their love of video games and their
use of English in video games online community. The results of this study were the subjects play video game
to entertain themselves through gameplay, story-driven, competitiveness of the game, interaction with other
players and releasing stress. All participants agreed that video games help much in improving their English
ability. Almost all participants considered that video games could be brought ito English classes, with some
considerations

Keywords: Video Games, Innovative Way, Phenomenology Approach

teaching method could be integrated with English

INTRODUCTION
Video games have been around for more than
20 years and it has become so advanced. It is
practically a simulation rather than mere game.
Firstly, video game graphic has become more
realistic recently and it helps with the immersion.
Secondly, talent and work that have been put into
the voice and the character of model also
contribute to an interesting narration pulling
players into the game world. Lastly, the control for
video games has been refined where someone can
play without having to spare a thought on the
controller when playing which lead them to be
absorbed in the game.
Using game-based approach from the early
ages of schooling helped students to gain the
language not as a set of rules, but as the tool of
communication. Playful atmosphere can stimulate
students’ motivation, make students feel confident
and safe, and create positive attitudes toward
foreign language learning. Therefore, game-based
in the school curriculum (Griva, Semoglou, &
Geladari, 2010).
Games can motivate students to learn subject
because of three reasons: basic information was
given, therefore, students can win the game,
learning content is related to the curricula, and
multy-sensory engagement can support
experiental learning (Furió, Juan, Seguí, & Vivó,
2015). We can use video games for the same
reasons. This is very important to consider how
children these days are familiar with technology,
much more technologically literate than elder
person at times. It will also help them to be
interested with learning English because they have
been playing video game ever since they were still
in elementary.
Marcellino (2008) mentioned that there are
many obstacles for English teachers in Indonesia
to apply competence based, because of two sides’
limitations. On one hand, teachers do not have the
ability to master English, so they are incompetent
to teach the language. The teachers also fail to

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make students intrigued enough for them to be
motivated in learning English. One of the reasons
is that how teachers revert to use traditional way of
teaching which led to boredom.
On the other hand, students’ culture may hinder
them from being active in classroom. They are
afraid of expressing their English because their
peers perceive this is arrogant or show off. They
are also afraid of making mistakes, so the other
students will make fun of them. They also never
object if the teacher make mistakes.
Therefore, we need to find new way to make
teachers and students engaged in the classroom.
This is why Video Game is one of the ways to be
utilized in classroom. Not only it is effective, it is
also favorable by students as deduced in a
qualitative research by Barr (2018) where he
mentioned that video game help with their skills in
communication, resourcefulness, and adaptability.
Not only that, video game can be a catalyst for
students’ interaction and discussion with their
peers. This might also help students’ higher order
thinking skills, or HOTS.
Out-of-School exposure can be one solution to
develop learners’ language proficiency. Therefore,
classroom interaction could not help much.
According to Wilde, Brysbaert, & Eychmans
(2017), the most out-of-school activities that can
influence the Dutch-speaking-children (aged 10-
12) are gaming, social media using, and speaking.
The participants of the research is those who
love playing games. They have often interacted
with those from overseas. Next, they have been
playing video game since they were young. This
phenomenon is “Incidental Language Learning”
where someone acquires new words and structure
through simply engaging in a communicative
activities, or in other word, they are learning the
meaning based on context rather than from theory
(Hulstijn, 2008).
The purposes of this paper are to find out the
reason why the subjects of the present research
play video games and how it can help them to learn
English. Lastly, this paper also wants to find out
how viable applying video game in classroom’s
lesson.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Using video games for teaching language skills
and vocabulary are very common in several
studies. Yudintseva (2015) held synthesis of
twenty-six researches to identify digital game-
based on second language learning. He mentioned
that there are many positive effects of video
https://journal.umbjm.ac.id/index.php/TEFLA
games, especially in gaining new vocabulary.
Some commercial games have benefits also in
reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills,
depending on gaming experience, learners’
gender, specific educational objectives, and
second language proficiency.
One of the studies was done by Parsayi &
Soyoof (2018) about video games related to
language learning also story telling. The study
used qualitative approach for ten EFL and ESL
from 18 – 26 years learners. Video games help the
participants with listening and reading skills, so
they can win the game.
In the case of violent video game exposure
(VVE), there is a study about the negative effect by
Greitemeyer (2018). This quantitative research
involved 499 women and 499 men, about reported
aggressive behavior in the past six months. The
result is VVE has bad impact for not only the
players but also their environments or social
network.
METHODOLOGY
This study used qualitative approach
‘Phenomenology Study’, to gain in depth
information through interview (Korstjens & Moser,
2017). Respondents were invited through online
post. The invitation was posted on Facebook. The
researcher could interview 6 respondents.
The respondents came from various
backgrounds. Respondent 1 (R1) was a College
student in 7th semester majoring communication.
Respondent 2 (R2) was a high school student in
his 3rd year, so were Respondent (R5) and
Respondent (R6). Respondent 3 (R3) was
interactive fiction author. Respondent 4 (R4) has
just graduated from college. What these
respondents shared were their love playing video
games and how they learned English through
video games.
The interview was conducted using Discord
server. Discord is an online chat and call just like
Skype. However, Discord has stable connection
and is much more reliable than Skype. The
interviews itself were done in real time and
recorded using Audacity. After that, the recorded
interviews were transcribed and encoded.
The analysis was to interpret the meaning of the
experiences of each respondents about playing
video games and their reflection about how they
learnt English. As the result, we can gain detailed
description about the phenomenon, then compare
it with the previous researches to enrich the
analysis (Moser & Korstjens, 2018).
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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ‘I ate it yesterday’. If I don't know the tenses i will
reply with I eat it”
What do they like from video games?
- R3 confirmed this and elaborate it with,
- R1 answered with immersive gameplay
“…English has been part of my life and thanks to
and story driven content. He elaborated more by
knowing a bit of English, I got into my current job
adding “…. I always love roleplaying. When I feel I
and met lots of people in the forum. Imagine if I
am the character, participate in their combat and
didn't know any English my life would be in
shenanigans and building fictional relationship
completely different one and not to mention I
either for purely event or for pursuing late-game
wouldn't be here right now. (laugh)”
gear by maximize the affection. …” He also added
- R4 agreed then added “I learn more
“…And also their interaction to player that feels so
English words that's (did) not come from study in
real, like a person. Relying on us (Player) and
school from video game”
acknowledge that we are useful in our own way.”
- R5 answered by “yes, video games help
- R2 also answered the same as R1 by
me learning English. from the reading, listening,
answering with stories (of the game)
and grammar. Since almost all of the Offline
- R3 concur with two of the previous
games, including Visual Novel, RPG, and others
respondent and add “… The competitive nature
have what they call ‘Conversation’ and ‘Choosing
behind the game, like Pokemon VGC for example.
which is the good option or bad option’ by
- R4 played game for the story and the game
conversation, for RPG we do follow the quest and
mechanic or in another word, gameplay.
then meeting the NPC and then kill him. Oh sorry,
- R5 mentioned, “I like to be an OP character
and then talking about the quest”
basically a god that control console command.” He
- R6 said “Basically true. Learning English
added, “for first person shooter, I just like to shoot
pronunciation. For example there are three way of
people using a Sniper Rifle or be a pilot”
saying ‘tangga’ in English, ladder, stairs, and
- R6 mentioned that Video games could
steps. Most people only knows that English only
release stress. He also added “... It's great to meet
consist of bad words, but there are much more than
other people online, but if you play offline, it can
that.”
still be entertaining.”
In conclusion, all respondents agree with it,
From these, we can conclude that most of these
albeit with different reasoning.
people played video games for their stories. This
was appropriate considering most of video games
What is your thought if video games are
text and dialogues come from the story. This can
incorporated with English materials?
be quite an incentive because when someone is
curious about something and try to understand it
- R1 welcomed the idea and said “That's the
themselves, the information will be effectively
kind of English lecture I want. It is easier to
stored in their memory.
understand. Not by textbook, but real example.”
Not only that, video games can release stress.
- R2 elaborated more with, “…people have
This is also true considering video game is created
their own ways of learning like reading a text,
for entertainment purposes. It can make them
listening someone's conversation, and usually
relaxed. This is perfect for unconscious learning
doing the same activity for a long time will make us
method. While it is not effective in one setting, from
bored but games have their own ways to makes
sheer quantity of times people play video game, it
things interesting”
can build up on par with people that learn English
- R3 has mixed reaction in the subject
in class maybe even more.
matter, “An interesting idea, if it makes to learn
English fun and easy, then I am all out for it. But
Based on your experience, does video game
then again, there are people who don't like video
help you practice your English? How so?
games, so it might depends on the person.”
- R1 said, “Absolutely. It helps me remember
- R4 followed similar vein with what R3 has
some difficult word and applying more direct
told us, “(I) agree with it, since I already seen one
conversation, especially fantasy-driven content.”
in my university before, but I think not all school
- R2 mentioned, “Yes, It helps a lot. I can
gonna accept that method. Some people,
answer some questions right because of the
especially elders, only think games as games.
tenses for the example like ‘Where is my apple?’,
(And) just for fun purpose only.”

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 ISSN: 2654-5152 Vol. 1 No. 2 (May, 2019)
- R5 disagree with the notion, however
concur that it may work but only if the game choice
is appropriate to use.
- R6 lament the fact that video game has bad
reputation in education and disagree with the
notion.
1/3 (R1 and R2) completely agree with the idea.
R1 implied that he become bored with using
textbook in lesson and really want to use another
mean of learning. R2 added how video games
have the accessibility for those that learn visually,
auditory, and kinistetic. After all, video game is built
from several components such as visual, audio,
and the mean to interact with it.
Another 1/3 (R3 and R4) are not completely
sure with the notion. While they do like the idea,
they have several issues when it comes to video
games. One of the issues is that how only several
people like video games. Another is that how video
game may not be accepted because some peole
see this is only an entertainment without looking as
a media to learn (Abbasi & Hadadi, 2014).
The last 1/3 (R5 and R6) disagree with the
proposal. R5 went into a tangent and closed off
with “… I couldn’t recommend just choosing any
games for teaching”. R6 told the researchers that
video game is infamous in education. Many
children can be addicted to video game instead of
learning with it. It is certainly a hard thing to do to
balance it.
CONCLUSION
Video games have been around for quite a
while. From a game where you are playing a
classic game like pong to full-blown AAA grade that
make the game more challenging and exciting.
This challenge and excitement may be used as
media of learning. However, conventional
language teaching still has gaps for more
innovative and fun way to learn language.
The reasons gamers play video game are
gameplay, story, competitive nature, interaction
with other players, and releasing stress. Moreover,
all participants agree that video games improve
their English. Lastly, it can be concluded that video
games can be applied to English class with some
consideration.
ACKNOLEDGEMENT
Our deepest gratitude to University of
Muhammadiyah Banjarmasin, for supporting this
research. This research was presented in The
https://journal.umbjm.ac.id/index.php/TEFLA
Second INACELT held by IAIN Palangkaraya on
16-17 November 2018.
REFERENCES
Abbasi, H., & Hadadi, A. (2014). The Possible
Negative Outcomes of Putting Learners in
Spotlight. Procedia - Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 98, 3–8.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.381
Ahadi, S. D., & Marandi, S. S. (2014). Social
Software in the Classroom: The Case of
Wikis for Scaffolding. Procedia - Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 98, 100–108.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.394
Barr, M. (2018). Student attitudes to games-
based skills development : Learning from
video games in higher education. Computers
in Human Behavior, 80, 283–294.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.11.030
Furió, D., Juan, M. C., Seguí, I., & Vivó, R.
(2015). Mobile learning vs. traditional
classroom lessons: A comparative study.
Journal of Computer Assisted Learning,
31(3), 189–201.
http://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12071
Greitemeyer, T. (2018). The spreading impact of
playing violent video games on aggression.
Computers in Human Behavior, 80, 216–
219. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.11.022
Griva, E., Semoglou, K., & Geladari, A. (2010).
Early foreign language learning:
Implementation of a project in a game-based
context. Procedia - Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 2(2), 3700–3705.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.03.575
Korstjens, I., & Moser, A. (2017). Series: Practical
guidance to qualitative research. Part 2:
Context, research questions and designs.
The European Journal of General Practice,
23(1), 274–279.
http://doi.org/10.1080/13814788.2017.13750
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Marcellino, M. (2008). English language teaching
in Indonesia: A continuous challenge in
education and cultural diversity. TEFLIN
Journal, 19(1), 57–69.
Moser, A., & Korstjens, I. (2018). Series: Practical
guidance to qualitative research. Part 3:
Sampling, data collection and analysis.
European Journal of General Practice, 24(1),
9–18.
http://doi.org/10.1080/13814788.2017.13750
91
Parsayi, F., & Soyoof, A. (2018). Video games:
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The interface between langugae learning
and storytelling. International Journal of
Pedagogies & Learning, 13(2), 103–118.
Wilde, V. De, Brysbaert, M., & Eychmans, J.
(2017). Learning English through out-of-
school exposure. Which levels of lanuage
proficiency are attained and which types of
input are important? Artevelde University
College Ghent (Vol. 91).
Yudintseva, A. (2015). Synthesis of research on
video games for the four second language
skills and vocabulary practice. Open Journal
of Social Sciences, 03(11), 81–98.
http://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2015.311011

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ISSN: 2654-5152 Vol. 1 No. 2 (May, 2019)

HEDGES, BOOSTERS, AND TAG QUESTIONS

USED BY BANJARESE MEN AND WOMEN

Ninuk Krismanti
STKIP PGRI Banjarmasin
Email: ninukkrismanti@gmail.com

Abstract

The main focus of this study is to investigate how Banjarese men and women use hedges,
boosters, and tag questions in their conversations. By analyzing how language features used
by different genders in Banjarmasin, it is hoped that gender-based social segmentation in the
given society can be revealed. The data of this study are taken from three conversations with
all-men participants, all-women participants, and cross-gender participants. The conversations
investigated are transcribed before analyzed using interactional sociolinguistics approach.
From this study, it is found that Banjarese women use more hedges than its men. Moreover,
the frequency of boosters and tag questions used by both genders is not significantly different.
However, Banjarese men commonly use tag questions for politeness purpose, while women
mostly use them for showing uncertainty. As the conclusion, based on their frequencies and
purposes of using hedges, boosters, and tag questions, women and men’s position in
Banjarese society are still unequal. Banjarese women tend to be more aware of their roles in
the society that it affects their language choices.

Keywords: hedges, boosters, tag questions, gender, Banjarese society

INTRODUCTION In other words, hedges, boosters, and tag

Do men and women speak differently? This
question may easily get a ‘yes’ answer as long as
people – especially feminists – still believe that
the world that we live in is patriarchal. However, in
what way they speak differently and to what
degree they are different may not be as easy to
address. When you go questioning further about
the difference between men and women’s
linguistic behaviors, a serious investigation needs
to be conducted. My curiosity as a researcher and
my interest to gender study drove me to
investigate conversations in Banjarese language
– my mother tongue – to reveal whether or not
men and women talk differently in this society.
Because there are too many linguistic aspects of
the two genders that can be studied, I limit my
research on three features of language: hedges,
boosters, and tag questions.
Hedges, boosters, and tag questions are
common devices used as intensifiers in any
language. Hedges and tag questions are
functioned to mitigate possible threats for the
interlocutors as well as to show doubts. In
contrast, boosters are used for showing certainty.
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questions are tools used by language users to
modify their degree of assertions, to give tone to
the intended meanings behind their utterances.
Research findings regarding differentiation
between men and women’s use of hedges,
boosters, and tag questions vary from one
researcher to another. Those who believe that
men use more boosters while women use more
hedges and tag questions include Lakoff (1975)
and Holmes (1990). Meanwhile, the findings of
Granqvist (2013) and Pellby (2013) show
otherwise. The variations in previous researchers’
findings are most likely caused by the fact that
they investigated people coming from different
cultural and social backgrounds. Thus, it is only
wise not to claim anything about men and
women’s frequency of hedges, boosters, and tag
questions in a certain socio-cultural background
before analyzing the occurrences of the three in
the utterances produced by the speakers of that
given society.
METHODS
In this study, I investigated three
conversations taken places in different domains.
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All conversations recorded were done in casual
situation so that the language used by the
participants was natural. The participants of the
conversations becoming the data were all-men
participants, all-women participants, and cross-
gendered participants.
There were 306 utterances analyzed to
reveal whether or not men and women in
Banjarese society talk differently in terms of their
use of hedges, boosters, and tag questions.
These utterances were transcribed
orthographically because the focus of the study
did not fall on the phonetic analysis. Moreover,
silence and other paralinguistic findings were
neglected in the study.
I applied a simple mathematical formulation
to calculate the percentage of hedges, boosters,
and tag questions found in each gender to ease
my contrast. To relate my findings to social and
cultural situation underlying the conversations
investigated, I based my discussion on Holmes’
claims on women’s linguistic behavior (Holmes,
2013).
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The findings of this study are summarized in
the following table:
GENDER HEDGES BOOSTERS TAG
QUESTIONS
MEN 11 37% 27 59% 25
WOMEN 19 63% 19 41% 30
Table 1 result of analysis
From what I analyzed, only in terms of
hedges do women outnumber men significantly.
The results of two other features of language do
not show significant difference between men and
women’s use of boosters and tag questions. More
detailed explanations on each language feature
becoming my focus of study will be discussed in
the following parts of the paper.
Hedges
Based on the result of study, of 30 hedges
found in the data, 63% of them were uttered by
women. This is in line with Holmes’ arguments
about the roles of women in society (2013).
According to Holmes (2013), women are social
value keepers. Their behaviors are models
reflecting desired values of the community.
Women also have the burden of passing these
values to their children. That is why when a kid
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misbehaves, normally people will put blames on
his/her mother instead of father. This role of
women makes them aware of their language
choice better than men. Thus, they tend to hedge
more than men to mitigate the effects of their
utterances when talking. The following excerpt is
the example of how a Banjarese woman uses
hedges in the conversation:
Excerpt 1
W1: Aku kam kadanya pang handak meugai
buruknya kawanlah… tapi inya tu kada tapi
kawa diasi pandirannya.
I don’t actually have any intention to
reveal my friend’s flaws, but what comes
from her mouth is not always the truth.
W2: Iyalah? Mun bepander pina iya aja pang
sidin tuh.
Really? She sounds convincing when talking
Hedges in women’s speech might be
uttered for two reasons: showing politeness and
showing hesitation. The two are still related to
women’s subordinate status. The ones with lower
status need to be more polite than those in higher
status. Women are easily labeled bad when using
‘impolite’ language. On the other hand, ‘impolite’
language can show masculinity for men and is
45%
often considered acceptable and normal. This fact
55% makes women use hedges as one way to make
their utterance sound more polite.
Hedges are also used to show hesitation.
This reason of hedging is found both in men and
women’s utterances. Hedging when in doubt is an
effective tool to give information without taking full
responsibility of it. Moreover, hedging when in
doubt also shows that the speakers do not want
to put themselves in knowing-it-all position.
Please observe this following excerpt for a better
understanding on how to hedge to show
uncertainty:
Excerpt 2
Woman Mun kada salah dangar semalam tuh ada
1: pang si anu… bini Rahmat tu betakun soal
rumah. Handak nukar rumah pinanya.
Tawari ei ampun ikam.
If I heard it right, Rahman’s wife asked
information about house. She may want to
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buy one. Try offering her your house then.
Woman Bini Rahmat yang mana? Yang semalam
2: kita tadapat di undangan tuh kah?
Whom are you talking about? Is she the
one whom we met in the party?
In the excerpt 2, “mun kada salah dangar (If
I heard it right)” is the hedge employed by the
speaker to show her hesitation on the information
she was intending to convey. By using hedges,
speakers try to lessen their guilt when they utter
false information.In short, hedging can save
speakers’ face when the information is found
invalid or wrong.
Furthermore, the results of this study show
that when the intimacy among speakers increases
through jokes, women tend to hedge less than
they did when talking about serious topics. In
other words, women feel safer of being frontal
with words when joking. The hedges that they use
to mitigate the force of assertions are forgotten for
a while when jokingly teasing or mocking other
speakers from both genders. On the contrary,
men hedge more when joking. It shows that
actually men try to lessen the impact of their jokes
when talking with women. They more hesitate in
using straight words when joking with women. It
shows their attempt of being gentlemen who are
not harsh with words when dealing with women.
Boosters
In terms of boosters, I found that the
frequency of booster occurrences in men and
women’s utterances are not significantly different.
However, men tend to boost when talking about
serious topics while women tend to boost when
talking about casual topics. The examples of how
a man and a woman use boosters in
conversations are displayed in the following
excepts:
Excerpt 3
Woman Uma ngerinya banjir sampai kaitu lah…
1:
What a terrific flood…
Man 2 Pasti sudah kena pemerintah pulang yang
: disalahkan… padahal dasar warganya jua
buang sampah sembarangan.
The government will indeed be the one to
blame again…
It is actually the people who threw their
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garbage as they wished.
Excerpt 4
Woman Aku handak mencobai ngegym di parak
1: pasar tu ih. Jarnya bagus di sana
I want to try the gym near the market.
People said it is a good place there.
Woman Ih kenapa di situ? Mun aku nalah hakun
2: wadah Rei tuh. Inya pelatihnya tuh sabar
mun.. mun di situ tuh
Why going there? If I were you, I would go
to Rei’s. The trainer is patient there.
Men’s boosters commonly indicate their
certainty. When talking about serious topics such
as the cause of flood, men boost more. They want
to show they know what they are talking about
without any doubt. In this sense, I conclude that
men’s speech is their channel of showing their
identity as someone trustworthy and responsible.
This conclusion is based on the fact that men
increase their degree of certainty for serious
conversation because they try to convince their
speaking opponents to believe in what they utter.
This also indicates that they are responsible of
any information they utter as they don’t use
hedges to mitigate the possibility of being blame
for uttering misinformation.
On the other hand, women boost more
when talking about casual topics such as gym
location in town with other women as displayed in
excerpt 4. They boost because they want to show
they know better than other women. Women use
more boosters when the conversation is set in all-
women-participant setting. However, when talking
with men, usually they boost less and hedge
more. This indicates that women’s boosters are
not intended to show responsibility; they are used
as status symbols. Women are more aware of
social status than men (Holmes, 2013). For this
reason, women tend to use language as the
channel to show their social status. Therefore,
when talking with other women, women boost
more to show their level of education, level of
richness, and so on.
Tag questions
Similar to boosters, the frequency of
occurrences of tag questions uttered by
Banjarese men and women does not show
significant difference. However, the two genders
commonly use tag questions for different
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purposes. Men tend to use tag questions to show
politeness while women use tag questions to
show uncertainty. In this study, men use tag
questions more than women when talking to older
people as seen in the following excerpt:
Excerpt 5
Young Politikus ni kadada yang kawa dipercaya
Man: lo, Pak?
None of the politicians can be trusted,
can’t they Sir?
Old man (Ketawa) ya… namanya mereka sudah
: tau nyamannya jadi wakil ini… wakil
rakyat… jadi ya janji terus supaya dipilih
lagi.
(Laugh) it is because they already know
how good it is to be people’s
representative. They keep on making
promises to be voted again.
By using tag questions such as “lo” in
Banjarese, men try to appreciate older people’s
opinions. Tag questions are linguistic tools that
enable our speaking opponents to feel invited to
chip in their ideas, comments, or opinions to
respond to our utterances. Thus, tag questions
uttered by men are usually their way to show their
respect toward their speaking opponents.
Meanwhile, women use tag questions more
frequently when talking about serious topics. This
shows that the purpose of their tag questions is to
show uncertainty. The example of tag question
used by a Banjarese woman to show uncertainty
is displayed in the following excerpt:
Excerpt 6
Woman Penelitian ampun sidin ni harusnya pakai
1: metode tri.. triangulasi lo?
His research should apply triangulation
method, shouldn’t it?
Woman Hmmm… kada harus jua pang. Perasaku
2: kadapapa jua kaya itu aja
Hmmm… It is not necessary. I think it’s
okay to leave his research as it is.
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Tag question “lo” in the excerpt 6 above serves a
different function from the one used in excerpt 5.
In excerpt 6, tag question “lo” was uttered
because the speaker was not sure about her own
opinion. Women tend to use tag questions more
often when talking about serious topics. They
seek for agreement from their speaking
opponents by inserting tag questions in their
utterances when they are unsure on something.
Also, tag questions uttered by women are often
their way to share responsibility. When they do
not wish to take a full responsibility of their
utterances, women can opt to use tag questions
to seek for support.
CONCLUSION
The conclusions that can be drawn based on the
results of the study include:
1. Women use more hedges than men.
However, when the intimacy among
speakers increases, women tend to drop
their hedges and speak straightly.
2. The frequency of boosters and tag
questions used by men and women is not
dramatically different, yet the purposes are
often not similar.
3. The results of the study show social
segmentation where Banjarese women
are still inferior compared to men. It affects
their way of using language.
REFERENCES
Granqvist, K. P. (2013). Hedges, Boosters, and
Tag Questions in The Big Bang Theory – A
Gender Perspective (Unpublished BA
thesis). Göteborgs Universitet, Göteborgs.
Holmes, J. (1990). Hedges and Boosters in
Women’s and Men’s Speech. Language
and Communication, 10, 185-205.
Holmes, J. (2013). An Introduction to
Sociolinguistics (fourth edition). Routledge:
London and New York.
Lakoff, R. (1975). Language and Women’s Place.
New York (Harper and Row): New York.
Pellby, E. P. (2013). An Analysis of Hedging in an
American City Council (Unpublished BA
thesis). Gävle University, Gävle.
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WORD LEVEL TRANSLATION OF USER MANUAL FOR SAMSUNG GALAXY

Rezqan Noor Farid

Universitas Muhammadiyah Banjarmasin
rezqanfarid@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

User manuals are always included in the package of electronic products to make sure the optimality
of devices usage. Those manuals are often delivered in English and local languages. This research is
intended to measure the equivalence level of translation and also aimed at revealing the strategies of
translation used in the manual. The data are taken from the user manuals of Samsung Galaxy Young GT-
S5360 series Mobile Phone. The manual is printed in two versions: English and Indonesian. Both of the
manuals are available online on www.samsung.com. The source language (SL) data are taken from
English version, as for the target language (TL) data are taken from Indonesian version. The data consist of
100 various instructions for the users. The analysis of word level equivalence is used to analyse the data.
First, the writer took 100 sentences from the sources. Second, the data were then analysed to find words
that is not literally equivalent with source language and to analyse the strategies which are used by the
translator. Third, the writer then gives comments about the naturalness of translations based on the
strategies used by the translator. Based on the analysis of data, the writer found that there are five
strategies of translation in word level equivalence used by the translator. The strategies are: (1) translation
by a more general word (super ordinate), (2) translation using more neutral word / less expressive word, (3)
translation by cultural substitution, (4) translation using a loan word, and (5) translation by paraphrase using
unrelated words.

Keywords: translation, equivalence, word level.

Introduction 8) Translation by illustration

Electronic devices always have a user Method

manual included to make sure the optimality of
devices usage. Those manuals are often
delivered in English and a local language. This
research is intended to measure the equivalence
level of translation and also aimed at revealing
the strategies of translation used in the manual.
Commonly, there are several strategies applied in
translation to achieve word level equivalence.
1) Translation by a more general word
(superordinate)
2) Translation by a more neutral/less
expressive word
3) Translation by cultural substitution
4) Translation using a loan word or loan word
plus explanation
5) Translation by paraphrase using a related
word
6) Translation by paraphrase using unrelated
words
7) Translation by omission
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The data is taken from the user manuals
of Samsung Galaxy Young GT-S5360 series
Mobile Phone. The manual is printed in two
versions: English and Indonesian. Both of the
manuals are printed online on 2011 as pdf files
and taken from www.samsung.com. The data is
taken from both of the manual versions. The
source language (SL) data are taken from English
version, as for the target language (TL) data are
taken from Indonesian version. The data are
consisted of 100 various instructions for the user
of mobile phone.
To analyse the data, the writer uses
comparison at word level equivalence. The steps
in analysis of the data are:
1. The writer took 100 sentences from
the sources.
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2. The data then analysed to find words
that is not literally equivalent and to
analyse the strategies which are used
by the translator. In this table the data
became 20 because in a sentence is
found more than 1 word in SL that is
not equivalence with its translation in
TL.
3. After found the strategies that are
used, the writer extract and arrange
the data based on the strategies
applied to them.
4. The writer then gives comments about
the naturalness of translations based
on the strategies used by the
translator.
Finding and Discussion
Based on the analysis of data, the writer
found that there are five strategies of translation
in word level equivalence used by the translator.
The strategies are: (1) translation by a more
general word (super ordinate), (2) using more
neutral word / less expressive word, (3)
Translation by cultural substitution, (4) Translation
using a loan word, and (5) Translation by
paraphrase using unrelated words. The findings
will be described below.
1. Translation by a more general word
(super ordinate)
In translating some words in the manual,
generally the translator use this strategy in order
to give more general meaning and to overcome a
relative lack of specificity in the target language
compared to the source language. The data 1 – 7
in table 3 show clearly the strategies which are
used and its purpose.
Data 1:
(SL) When your battery is low, the device
will emit a warning tone and display a low
battery message.
(TL) Ketika baterai hampir habis,
perangkat akan mengeluarkan suara
peringatan dan menampilkan pesan
baterai hampir habis.
In the data 1, the word ‘emit’ is translated
into mengeluarkan. In fact, word ‘emit’ equivalent
with memancarkan, but the meaning of word
memancarkan is usually paired with light/cahaya
not sound/suara. The translator then takes more
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general word mengeluarkan to translate word
‘emit’.
Data 2
(SL) Using an incompatible memory card
may damage your device or the memory
card and can corrupt data stored on the
card.
(TL) Penggunaan kartu memori yang tidak
sesuai dapat merusak perangkat atau
kartu memori, dan dapat merusak data
yang tersimpan di dalam kartu.
In data 2, the translator use word merusak
means damage. As for Corrupt in source text
means to change something become useless
which is in Indonesian means mengubah sesuatu
menjadi tidak berguna. The translator then uses
merusak because there is no equivalence of word
corrupt in Indonesian.
Data 3
(SL) Slide a hand strap through the slot
and hook it over the small projection.
(TL) Sisipkan tali gantungan melewati
lubang dan kaitkan pada tonjolan kecil.
In data 3, word slot is translated into
lubang. In fact, In Indonesian slot is equivalence
with celah which means space in a thing or a tool.
But here, the translator use lubang which is the
general word of celah to make the sentences
more natural for Indonesian reader.
Data 4
(SL) To avoid scratching the touch screen,
do not use sharp tools.
(SL) Agar layar sentuh tidak tergores,
jangan gunakan benda tajam.
In data 4, Tools means peralatan in
Indonesian, it is subordinate of benda. The
translator use benda to generalize the meaning of
tool for Indonesian reader.
Data 5
(SL) For best performance, tap the touch
screen with your fingertip.
(TL) Untuk hasil terbaik, sentuh layar
sentuh dengan ujung jari Anda.
In data 5, Tap means knock which is
translated as ketuk, in case the screen of the
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product cannot be knocked /ketuk, to make it
natural the translator use sentuh or touch.
Data 6
(SL) Touch once with your finger to select
or launch a menu, option, or application.
(TL) Sentuh sekali dengan jari Anda untuk
memilih atau membuka menu, pilihan,
atau aplikasi.
Launch means to begin something which
is translated as memulai, to make it more natural
in Indonesian context the translator use
membuka.
Data 7
(SL) This device will provide you with high
quality mobile communication and
entertainment based on Samsung’s
exceptional technology and high
standards.
(TL) Perangkat ini memberi Anda
komunikasi dan hiburan seluler berkualitas
tinggi sesuai dengan keunggulan teknologi
dan standar tinggi Samsung.
In data 7, word ‘Exceptional’ means ‘much
greater than usual’ which is translated as
luarbiasa, to make it more natural in Indonesian
context the translator use more general word
keunggulan.
In conclusion, what the translators has
done is to go up a level in a given semantic field
to find a more general word that covers the core
propositional meaning of the missing hyponym in
the target language.
2. using more neutral word / less
expressive word
There are two data in which the translator
uses more neutral word or less expressive word
to translate the word in SL into TL. The data are
number 8 and number 9 in table 3.
Data 8
(SL) The items supplied with your device
and available accessories may vary
depending on your region or service
provider.
(TL) Item yang disertakan bersama
perangkat dan aksesoris yang tersedia
mungkin berbeda tergantung kawasan dan
penyedia layanan Anda.
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In this data, the equivalence word for
‘supplied’ is menyediakan/ memenuhi. It is
translated into disertakan to make the sentence
natural in Indonesian context. The use of
disertakan is not change the whole sense of the
sentence.
Data 9
(SL) Slide a hand strap through the slot
and hook it over the small projection.
(TL) Sisipkan tali gantungan melewati
lubang dan kaitkan pada tonjolan kecil.
In this data, in order to maintain the sense
of the sentence, word sisipkan is used by the
translator instead of using menyelipkan or
meluncurkan as the literal equivalence of slide.
Based on the explanation above, the writer
conclude that the purposes of using more neutral
word or less expressive word to translate the
word in SL into TL by the translator are for
maintain the sense of the sentence and make it
natural for target language reader. It is the
strategy which is mostly used the translator.
3. Translation by cultural substitution
Third strategy that is used by the translator
is translation by cultural substitution. The use of
this strategy can be seen on data 10. The reason
why this strategy is used because by culturally
substituted, the translation will give the reader a
concept with which s/he can identify, something
familiar and appealing.
Data 10
(SL) Plug the small end of the travel
adapter into the multifunction jack.
(TL) Colokkan ujung kecil adaptor travel
ke colokan multifungsi.
Plug means to fill a hole with a piece of
suitable material, it is equivalent with pasangkan,
but to be easier to understand and accepted by
Indonesian reader the word colokkan is used
because it is common in Indonesia to ‘colokkan’
something in a hole than ‘pasangkan’ something
to a hole.
4. Translation using a loan word
The fourth strategy is translation using a
loan word. In the translation of the manuals, the
translator tends to use loan word from SL text to
use in TL text because the loan words that are
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used are now common for TL (Indonesian)
reader, it also does not need any additional
information or explanation for those loan words.
The use of this strategy can be seen on data 11
through 19 in table 3.
Data 11
(SL) Content in this user manual may
differ from the product, or from software
provided by service providers or carriers,
and is subject to change without prior
notice.
(TL) Konten dalam buku panduan ini
mungkin berbeda dari produk, atau dari
perangkat lunak yang disediakan oleh
penyedia layanan atau pembawa, dan
dapat berubah tanpa pemberitahuan
terlebih dahulu.
Data 12
(SL) Available features and additional
services may vary by device, software, or
service provider.
(TL) Fitur yang tersedia dan layanan
tambahan mungkin berbeda untuk setiap
perangkat, perangkat lunak, atau penyedia
layanan.
Data 13
(SL) Formatting and delivery of this user
manual is based on Google Android
operating systems and may vary
depending on the user’s operating system.
(TL) Format dan penjelasan buku panduan
pemakai ini berdasarkan sistem operasi
Google Android dan bisa berbeda
tergantung sistem operasi pengguna.
Data 14
(SL) The battery icon will also be empty.
(TL) Ikon baterai juga akan kosong.
Data 15
(SL) When you insert a memory card in
your device, the file directory of the
memory card will appear in the sdcard
folder.
(TL) Ketika Anda memasukkan kartu
memori ke dalam perangkat, direktori file
kartu memori akan muncul pada folder
sdcard.
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Data 16
(SL) Insert a memory card with the gold-
coloured contacts facing down.
(TL) Masukkan kartu memori dengan
kontak berwarna emas menghadap ke
bawah.
Data 17
(SL) Formatting your memory card on a
PC may cause incompatibilities with your
device.
(TL) Memformat kartu memori di sebuah
PC dapat menyebabkan
ketidakkompatibelan dengan perangkat
Anda.
Data 18
(SL) Control your touch screen with the
following actions
(TL) Kontrol layar sentuh dengan tindakan
berikut.
Data 19
(SL) You can activate or deactivate
wireless connection features and access a
list of notifications, such as messages,
calls, events or processing status.
(TL) Anda dapat mengaktifkan atau
menonaktifkan fitur koneksi nirkabel dan
mengakses daftar notifikasi, seperti pesan,
panggilan, peristiwa, atau status proses.
The word konten, fitur, format, ikon,
direktori, kontak, ketidakkompatibelan, kontrol,
and notifikasi from data 11 through data 19 are
loan words from SL, those word are used
because TL (Indonesian) reader already familiar
with them. Those words also sound more modern
and high class.
5. Translation by paraphrase using
unrelated words
The last strategy that is used by the
translator is paraphrase using unrelated word.
This is can be seen on data 20.
Data 20
(SL) Formatting and delivery of this user
manual is based on Google Android
operating systems and may vary
depending on the user’s operating system.
(TL) Format dan penjelasan buku panduan
pemakai ini berdasarkan sistem operasi
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Google Android dan bisa berbeda

tergantung sistem operasi pengguna.

The real translation for delivery in this

sentence is ‘give something’ to achieves a high
level of precision in meaning penjelasan is used.

Conclusion

There are five strategies of translation in word

level equivalence used by the translator. The
strategies are: (1) translation by a more general
word (super ordinate), (2) using more neutral
word / less expressive word, (3) Translation by
cultural substitution, (4) Translation using a loan
word, and (5) Translation by paraphrase using
unrelated words.

E. References

Baker, Mona. (2018). In Other Words : A

Coursebook on Translation (3rd Edition). London:
Routledge.

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 ISSN : 2654-5152 Vol. 1 No. 2 (May, 2019)

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF OUTLINING IN IMPROVING

STUDENTS’ PARAGRAPH WRITING SKILL

Tenny Murtiningsih

Teacher Training and Education Faculty, English Department

University of Muhammadiyah Banjarmasin
Email: Tennymahatma@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

This is classroom action research. The objective of this research is to find out the effectiveness of outlining
in improving students’ paragraph writing skill for English Department Students, Teacher Training and
Education Faculty, University of Muhammadiyah Banjarmasin. There are 6 students as the respondent of
this research. The researcher took them as the respondent when they studied Writing 2 subject. The
researcher got the data from the treatment in 2 cycles that were conducted in this research, the questionnaire
that was distributed to the respondents above and also the observation during the cycles.
The descriptive analysis in cycle 1 shows that the mean score is 71.3333, the minimum score is 63.00, the
maximum score is 80.00 and the standard deviation is 5.85377. Meanwhile cycle 2 shows that the mean
score is 76.6667, the minimum score is 70.00, the maximum score is 85.00 and the standard deviation is
5.16398. The research result explains that there is significant improvement in students’ paragraph writing
skill by using outlining. The student’s paragraph writing skill is improved. Beside that the result of questionare
and observation shows that outlining really works to improve students’ paragraph writing skill.

Keywords: improvement, paragraph writing, outlining

INTRODUCTION
There are four language skills. One of them
is writing. By writing, we can express our idea,
share the messages, and also have
communication with others. Nunan (2003) states
that writing is the mental work of inventing ideas,
thinking about how to express them, and
organizing them into statements and paragraphs
that will be clear to a reader.
Writing is as productive skill also needs to
be improved. When the students’ writing skill gets
improvement, it can support the student’s English
competency. Patel and Jain (2008) states that
writing skill must be taught and practiced. This
idea also supported by Nunan (2003). Nunan
states that writing almost always improves with
practice. It means that the students must be
taught what the writing skill is and gives some
opportunities to have practices in writing so they
will get improvement in their writing skill. Or in
otherword, the students will get improvement in
writing when they have more practices in writing
and it can be taught also at the class.
The previous study conducted by
Kartawijaya (2018) shows that the students
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should get sufficient writing practices to stimulate
the student’s skill in writing and expressing
thought in a good passage.
So there is no choice, if we want to improve the
student’s writing skill, it is just giving them some
writing practices.
According to the lesson plan for the third
semester student’s of English Department,
Teacher Training and Education University of
Muhammadiyah Banjarmasin, teaching writing
for the student is emphasized to paragraph
writing. In this case, the student is given the
knowledge of paragraph writing, kinds of
paragraph and more practices in paragraph
writing.
According Oshima and Hogue (2006)
paragraph is a group of related sentences that
discuss one main idea. The idea explains more in
the paragraph. There are three parts of the
paragraph, namely topic sentence, supporting
sentences and also concluding sentences.
Beside that a good paragraph must reflect a unity
and a coherence. All of them should be given first
before they study about kinds or genre of
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paragraph and write a paragraph. They need to
master how to develop a paragraph better before
giving kinds or genre of the paragraph and askes
them to have a paragraph writing.
Meanwhile giving knowledge of kinds or
genre of paragraph writing is also important for
the students. As Syahri (2008) states that
presenting a various genres of written text to
rouse their motivation to write is a paramount
importance in teaching writing at the present
time. It means that student’s motivation in writing
can be driven by giving some genres of
paragraph writing in their writing practices. It is
natural, because every paragraph genre has
different goal in writing, and also different writing
product. So it can avoid student’s bored in writing
and gives a challenge to write for the students. At
last, it will give them motivation to write.
It is not a secret anymore that some of the
students have lack writing competency. It is
because there are some aspects deal in writing.
They are punctuation, vocabulary, spelling, word
choice, word arrangement, grammar and time
management to write, etc. Those aspects
influence the student’s ability in producing a
paragraph writing even for the respondents of this
research. Some of the respondents have low
competency in writing skill. To cover those
problems, the lecturer should have a better
technique in teaching paragraph writing, so it can
help the student to cover the process of writing
paragrph.
One of the techniques to improve the
student’s ability in paragraph writing is by using
outlining. An outline is like an architect’s plan for
a house (Oshima & Hogue.1998). It designs
what we are going to write in our paragraph
writing. We can write our ideas that we want to
explore in a paragraph outline. The ideas that we
write in the outline must be written systematically.
Brandon & Brandon (2005) also states that
outlining is the tool that most people think of in
connection with organizing.
It means that the outline must be well organized.
It should in good order or good structure that
connects one to others. Futhermore the outline
also must show the connection with the
paragraph writing. The ideas that we write in an
outline should be presented also in the paragraph
writing.
The sentences that we write in the paragraph that
are as outline development must be related with
the outline. In conclusion, there must be a
connection between both of them.
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Oshima & Hogue (1998) explained more
that outlining will help us to improve our writing
skills. It will help us organized our ideas. Our
ideas will come in good ordering and hierarchical.
Indeed, we will strict on the topic sentence. We
won’t write anything that doesn’t have correlation
with the topic in our paragraph writing. Because
the things that we will write in our paragraph
writing has been planned in our outline before.
Writing a paragraph writing by using
outlining also gives us effective time
management. We will write our paragraph writing
smoothly, because we have prepared our ideas
in our outline before. As Nehiley (2004) in Latief
(2014) mentioned that an outline allows the
students to write rapidly and fluently.
Since outlining is useful in developing
paragraph writing. We can chose which outlining
that we want to write in writing paragraph outline.
There are two main outline form, namely :
sentence outline (complete sentence) and topic
sentence (key word or phrases) in a paragraph
outline. So we can format our outline in anyway
that we think is suitable for processing our
paragraph writing.
RESEARCH METHOD
This research is classroom action research
(CAR). The subject of the research is The
students of English Department, Teacher
Training and Education of University of
Muhammadiyah Banjarmasin who took writing 2
subject at that time. There were 6 students as the
respondent.
The research problem is : How is the effective
outlining in improving students’ paragraph writing
?
This research tries to describe the process of
outlining in improving students’ paragraph
writing skill. In this research, the researcher
assessed the effectiveness of outlining in
improving students’ paragraph writing.
According to Latief (2012), Classroom
Action Research is done by the teacher to solve
their classroom problems or to improve the
quality of their classroom practices to get
students’ better English achievement.
The researcher did two (2) cycles for this
research. Every cycle has 4 steps. Briefly, it
discuses below :
Planning • Selecting the topic
that will be given to
the students to
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develop paragraph researcher planned to explain about

outline
Action • Give introduction
descriptive paragraph outline more detail first.
about paragraph So they had paragraph background
outline and knowledge.
paragraph writing.
• Give the topic to the
students and asked b. Action and observation
Cycle 1 them to develop the In this step, the researcher told about outlining
topic into paragraph
outline and how to develop the theme into an outline
• Then ask them to by giving an example.
write their outline to In this step, the researcher also explained
paragraph writing
Observation • Monitoring the action about paragraph writing.
• Answer some After that, the researcher gave the students
question related to some themes and asked them to choose one.
subject
• Collecting the data Those themes were about places or scenes.
Reflection • Evaluating and After the students choose one, then the
analyzing the data researcher asked them to develop it into
Revised Plan • electing the topic
descriptive paragraph outline in fifteen
which is helpful for minutes. There were some questions comes
the students to from them when they started to develop the
develop paragraph
writing by using outline. The question were about how to
outlining organized their idea into the outline and even
Action • Review of about some vocabularies related to
developing
paragraph outline their own theme.
• Give the topic to the For the question about outline organizing, the
students and asked researcher answered it in detail. But for the
them to develop the
topic into paragraph question about vocabulary, the researcher
outline asked them try to find out by them selves.
• Then ask them to
write their outline to
After they finished to write the outline, the
Cycle 2 paragraph writing researcher asked them to give their outline to
Observation • Monitoring the action the researcher for checking it. In this step, the
• Answer some researcher gave feedback for their paragraph
question related to
subject outline.
• Collecting the data Some of the students had mistake in writing
Reflection • Evaluating and the outline form. They mix between complete
analyzing the data
sentence and phrases in developing their
outline. It is forbidden in writing paragraph
The researcher got the data by collecting the outline. There was discussion between
students’ writing score from both of the cycles researcher with the students about their
above, observation during the research and also paragraph outline one by one.
give them the questionnaire. After the researcher finished to check, she
The research analysis is about the success, the gave back the outline to the students and
failure and the obstruction during the research. asked them to develop their paragraph outline
Based on the analysis, the researcher can decide to descriptive paragraph writing.
whether continue or not for the next cycle. When the students finished to write their
descriptive paragraph, then the researcher
tried to check their work again. The researcher
RESULT AND DISCUSSION checked the paragraph by using writing
scoring rubrics. There are some element in
Cycle 1 writing scoring rubrics, namely: format of
a. Planning writing, mechanics, content, organization and
According to the lesson plan, the students also grammar and sentence structure
must be taught about descriptive paragraph (Oshima & Hogue.2006). The result of Cycle 1
writing. This paragraph described about as written in the table below :
places or scenes. In line with this rule, the

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No Score Freq % Valid Cum students gave the outline to the

% %
1 50-55 - - - -
researcher for checking.
2 56 – 60 - - - - As the cycle 1, here the researcher also
3 61 – 65 1 16,7 16,7 16,7 gave some feedback for their outline.
4 66 – 70 2 33,3 33,3 50,0
5 71 – 75 2 33,3 33,3 83,3
There wasn’t no fundamental mistake in
6 75 – 80 1 16,7 16,7 100,0 their outline. It means that they got better
7 81 -85 - - - - understanding in developing paragraph
8 86 – 90 - - - - outline.
Total 6 100, 100,0 - Next, the students tried to develop the
0 paragraph outline to descriptive
paragraph writing again. When they
finished, they gave it to the researcher to
According the table above, there was no check. In this cycle, they needed short
students got 50-60. 16,7% students got 61-65. time to write the paragraph.
33,3 % students got 66-70. 33,3 % students It seemed the paragraph outline was
got 71-75 and 16,7 % students got 75-80. really work to develop in writing process.
Next, The researcher checked the
c. Reflection paragraph by using scoring rubrics as the
Based on the result above, we can conclude cycle 1 before.
that : The result of descriptive paragraph by
a. There was still a student who got a using outlining in cycle 2 as follow :
problem in paragraph writing by using
outline. No Score Freq % Valid Cum
% %
b. There were some students who got fair 1 50-55 - - - -
understanding in paragraph writing by 2 56–60 - - - -
using outline. 3 61–65 - - - -
4 66–70 1 16,7 16,7 16,7
c. During the discussion, the researcher 5 71–75 3 50,0 50,0 66,7
knew that they still have problem in 6 75–80 1 16,7 16,7 83,3
vocabulary and outlining structure 7 81-85 1 16,7 16,7 100,0
8 86-90 - - - -

Cycle 2 Total 6 100,0 100,0 -

a. Revised plan
Revised planning was taken to develop According to the table above, 16,7 %
better outcome in paragraph writing. student got 66-70. 50,0 % students got
In this cycle, the researcher still focused 71-75. 16,7 % student got 75-80. And
in descriptive paragraph but it described 16,7 % student got 81-85.
about a person who they know. To make
easier the writing process, the researcher
asked them to bring a picture of someone Descriptive Statistics
in the class.
N Min Max Mean Std
Deviation
b. Action and observation Cycle 6 63,00 80 71,3333 5,85377
In this step, the researcher review some 1
vocabularies related to someone’s Cycle
2
6 70,0 85,00 76,6667 5,16398

performance first at the class. It was given

to develop students’ vocabulary. So it
When we try to compare between cycle 1
could drive them easily in writing process.
and cycle 2, it seemed that there was
Next, she asked the students to wrote
improvement in the mean scoring from the
paragraph outline to describe someone in
data above. It proves that there was
the picture. It was given in fifteen minutes.
improvement in students’ paragraph
They seemed focus in the picture and
writing skill by using outline. Developing
outlining. When the time ended. The
writing outline before writing the
paragraph is really work. Based on the

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result above, we know that outline is 9 Developing 6

paragraph
useful in paragraph writing. outline
helps to
c. Reflection write some
ideas
Based on the result above, we can 10 My idea 5 1
conclude that : rarely
a. There was no student anymore who comes out
when I I
got a problem in paragraph writing by must
using outline. It showed that no develop
paragraph
student got score 61-65. writing first
b. The students’ understanding in 11 Paragraph 6
paragraph writing by using outline outline
gives much
increases. positive
point in my
To establish the result of this research, paragraph
12 Paragraph 6
the researcher also shared the outline
questionnaire to the respondents above. gives much
negative
The result of the questionnaire is listed in point in my
the table below : paragraph

No Statement Number of student as

the respondent The result of this questionnaire :
Yes No Sometimes
1 Develop an 5 1 1. All of the students really know about the
outline
before function of paragraph outline and parts of
develop the paragraph.
paragraph
2 Know the 6
2. All of the students agree that paragraph
function of outline is helpful , to help them to focus on
paragraph the theme and help them to write some
outline
3 Know the 6
ideas.
parts of 3. No students agree that paragraph outline
paragraph will give bad effect to develop their
4 Paragraph 6
outline is imagination and paragraph.
so helpful 4. Some students agree that they will have
to develop idea easily through paragraph outline
the
paragraph 5. Developing paragraph outline doesn’t
5 Paragraph 6 spend much time for them
outline help
to focus on
the theme
6 Paragraph 1 2 3 CONCLUSION
outline
gives The result of this research shows that there is
limitation to
write other significant improvement to students’ paragraph
idea except writing skill by using outlining for English
the idea
which is
Department Students, Teacher Training and
written in Education University of Muhammadiyah
the outline Banjarmasin. It shows that the mean score in
7 Paragraph 6
outline lose
cycle 1 is 71.3333 and the mean score in cycle 2
me out to is 76,6667. It means that the mean score in cycle
develop the 2 is higher than the mean score in cycle 1. Beside
imagination
8 Developing 5 1 that the data from the questionnaire and
paragraph observation during the research shows that most
outline of the students support that outlining gives the
spends
much time positive feedback for their paragraph writing skill.
The idea of the paragraph is organized. The

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paragragh writing becomes systematic, good

ordering and hierarchical, well planned and strick
on the topic sentence. Beside that outlining offers
writing more rapidly and fluently. It gives us more
effective in time management when writing.
Outlining really works to improve paragraph
writing skill.

REFERENCES
Nunan, David. Pratical English Language
Teaching. 2003. Mc Graw Hill, New York,
USA
Patel, MF & Jain, M. Praveen. English
Language Teaching. 2008. Sunrise
Publishers & Distributors. Jaipur.
Oshima, Alice & Hogue, Ann. Writing Academic
English. 1998. Longman
Oshima, Alice & Hogue, Ann. Writing Academic
English. 2006. Longman
Latief, Adnan Muhammad. Research Methods
on Language Learning An Introduction.
2012. Universitas Negeri Malang. UM
Press
Syahri, Indrawan. The Development of
Paragraph Writing Test for The Students
of English. Forum Kependidikan, Volume
28, Nomor 1, September 2008. Universitas
Muhammadiyah Palembang
Brandon, Lee & Kelly Brandon. Paragraphs &
Essays with Integrated Reading. 2011.
CengageLearning,USA
Kartawijaya, Sukarta. Improving Students’
Writing Skill in Writing Paragraph through
an OutlineTechnique. 2018. Circula
Journal of Teaching and Learning, Vol 3
No 3
Latief, Amirudin. Using Outlining technique to
improve the ability of Students of Islamic
Education Study Program in Writing A
Recount Text. Premise Journal of English
Education. Vol. 3 No 1. April 2004

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