THE REALIZATION OF INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN COURSE NEWSLETTERS: A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE

This study investigates the realizations of interpersonal meaning in newsletters offering online courses by general and Islamic educational institutions, and whether or not the realization of this strand of meaning by the two groups of institutions is similar. Twelve newsletters from six educational institutions (three general and three Islamic) offering online courses were used as the data. Using Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004) grammar of interaction, the study found some similarities and differences in the realization of interpersonal meanings in the two groups of newsletters. Regarding the mood types, both institutions mostly use declaratives realizing the speech function of statement. Following this is imperative that is frequently employed to make offer and, in fewer frequency, command. The study also found that modalities and modulation are only used sparingly by both institutions. The dominant use of declaratives suggests that most of the writers of these newsletters provide information without creating an imagined dialogue with their readers. The relatively high use of offer in the data is hardly surprising due to the nature of the genres of newsletters. In addition, the small number of modality used in the newsletters demonstrates that the text producers prefer to present their propositions and proposals as facts

Analysis of punctuation error in one author of alternate universe on Twitter

This study analyzes the punctuation errors found in the three AUs titles belonging to one author on Twitter. Particularly, this study aims to determine what types of errors appear in the three AUs and what factors cause the errors. The data for this study were obtained from the author's Twitter account entitled Happy Birthday, Kai, Celebrity Crush, and Illustrious. Furthermore, the study used a qualitative case study design to identify the punctuation error found in AU on Twitter and the types of errors by using the theory of Burt, Dulay, Krashen (1982). Meanwhile, the factors of occurrence of errors were examined by using the theory of Brown (1994). The results revealed that the author made three types of errors: omission, addition, and misinformation. The most dominant type that appeared was omission 19 times. Then, these three types of errors arise due to 2 factors: the intralingual error factor and the context of learning factor. Nevertheless, these three AUs still have many readers and receive many likes. However, correct punctuation is considered necessary because it can affect the reader's understanding

ENGLISH WRITING SKILL ANALYSIS OF FIRST YEAR INDONESIAN TERTIARY STUDENTS IN A UNIVERSITY IN BANDUNG

Abstract This article reports a study on English writing skill of Indonesian tertiary students. The purpose of the study is to examine students’ initial ability in writing English compositions.  The subjects of the study are 22 university students in their first year at English Language and Literature study program at one university in Bandung. The data are taken from students’ descriptive essays written in the classroom. The texts are then analyzed based on writing rubrics developed by Lane and Lange (1999) to see the recurrent global and local errors, supported by analytic writing rubrics proposed by Jacobs et al. (1981) to see the students’ writing ability in general. The results of the study show that the recurrent errors made in twenty-two English descriptive essays are singular/plural nouns for local errors and sentence structure for global errors. In terms of analytic view, errors in language use are the most frequent errors made by the students. The findings provide useful information for constructing teaching materials for English writing in this study program.Keywords: writing skill, descriptive text, composition scoring technique, analytic scoring technique, global and local errors. Abstrak Artikel ini melaporkan hasil kajian mengenai keterampilan menulis bahasa Inggris mahasiswa. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk memotret kemampuan awal menulis mahasiswa dalam bahasa Inggris. Adapun subjek penelitian adalah 22 orang mahasiswa tingkat I di Program Studi Bahasa dan Sastra Inggris, di sebuah universitas di Bandung  yang dipilih untuk mengetahui kemampuan awal mereka. Data diperoleh melalui karangan deskriptif yang ditulis di kelas.Teks dianalisis dengan menggunakan rubrik penilaian yang dikembangkan oleh Lane and Lange (1999) untuk tataran global dan lokal (global and local errors); dan rubrik penilaian analitik yang dikembangkan oleh Jacobs (1981) untuk melihat keterampilan menulis mahasiswa secara umum. Analisis data menunjukkan bahwa kesalahan yang paling banyak dilakukan mahasiswa pada tataran lokal terkait pemarka nomina tunggal dan jamak (singular/plural nouns), sedangkan pada tataran global, kesalahan pada struktur kalimat (sentence structure) merupakan kesalahan yang paling sering dilakukan oleh mahasiswa. Dari sisi analitik, kesalahan pada penggunaan bahasa merupakan kesalahan yang paling sering ditemukan dalam kebanyakan tulisan mahasiswa.Hasil temuan ini diharapkan dapat memberikan masukan bagi penyusunan bahan ajar matakuliah menulis di lingkungan program studi. Kata kunci: keterampilan menulis, teks deskriptif, teknik penilaian tulisan, teknik penilaian analitik, kesalahan global dan local

INDONESIAN TERTIARY STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE OF LOCAL CULTURE VS TARGET CULTURE READING MATERIALS IN ENGLISH READING CLASS

This paper aims at portraying Indonesian tertiary students’ attitudes towards the use of local and target culture reading texts in English reading classes with regard to today’s role of English. It has been widely recognized that today’s role of English is as an international language (EIL) and as a lingua franca (ELF). Regarding this international role of English language, ideally teaching and learning English should be matched with appropriate pedagogical approach, in this case, EIL pedagogy approaches. In other words, teaching and learning EIL should be different from teaching and learning of any other second or foreign languages. Since Indonesia is categorized as an EFL country, it is interesting to find out whether this issue has an impact on ELT practices such as English reading class in this country. The subjects of the study are first year English Education Department students. The data were gained by delivering Likert scale questionnaire to the students on their attitude towards the reading materials given to them in one semester. In addition to this, an interview was conducted to verify the data and gain further information. The findings revealed that in general they show positive attitude to both local culture and target culture reading materials, with the majority of them prefer reading target culture reading materials. Furthermore, a considerable number of the students also acknowledge the importance of the use international culture along with English language teaching