LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY IN THE WEDDING CEREMONY OF BATAK TOBA

In this article, my attempt is to reveal language and identity in the wedding ceremony of Batak Toba based on the consideration that language is an important part of any society, because it enables people to communicate and express themselves. Language is an important source of continuity and identity in a culture. Batak Toba is one of the ethnic groups of Batak society. Identity is very important in Batak Toba wedding ceremony. The social identity can be directly identified through the family name which is attached to every person from birth. In a wedding ceremony, the specifics of identity can be identified through the roles, action and language used. The identities of those people involved in the ceremony are really very unique and is interesting to investigate. The language expressed, the role and action done will always be related to one’s own identity. The uniqueness of identity is always related to family name of the groom and the bride giver sides. This event shows the significance of language in preserving culture and on the other way round this wedding tradition is hoped to maintain the existence of Batak Toba language

A HIGHLIGHT ON PRAGMATICS

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THE SEMIOTICS OF BATAK TOBA SOCIETY MARRIAGE TRADITION

This paper seeks to find out the semiotics of traditional marriage in Batak Toba society. Marriage is one of the culture universals being that it is contracted in every society of the world, but its mode of contract varies from one society to the other. Marriage is one of life’s major passages; it is one of the most profound rites of passage that a person or couple can experience. In many cultures marriage is generally made known to the public through marriage ceremony. This paper unravels the semiotics of a marriage tradition in Batak Toba Society. Batak Toba is one of the ethnic groups of Batak society which is still doing wedding tradition as one of its cultural activities. The theoretical framework is the semiotic approach which has to do with the conception of signs by Charles Sanders Peirce. According to Peirce, ‘meaning’ is a triadic relation between a sign, an object, and an interpretant. There are three types of signs: icon, index and symbol. This work reveals the meaning of icons, indexes and symbols in the marriage tradition

REPRESENTATIONS OF BEAUTY, LOVE, HOMESICK AND MEMORY TO HOMELAND EXPRESSED IN THE LYRICS OF BATAK TOBA SONGS

Bahasa adalah bagian dari budaya sebagai sarana berkomunikasi bagi anggota komunitasnya. Setiap budaya memiliki caranya sendiri untuk mengekspresikan cinta menggunakan kata-kata, frasa atau ucapan tertentu sebagai sistem tanda. Leksikon bahasa Batak Toba bersifat spesifik, terkait dengan kebiasaan, tradisi, dan cara hidup. Apa yang mereka pikirkan dan alami dalam kehidupan sehari-hari diungkapkan melalui bahasa, seperti kebiasaan dan tradisi yang biasanya mereka lakukan yang tercermin melalui lirik lagu dalam bahasa asli Toba Batak yang menyampaikan beberapa pesan kepada para pendengar. Artikel ini membahas ungkapan representasi kebanggaan, cinta, rindu rumah, dan memori ke tanah air dalam sepuluh lagu tentang tempat- tempat yang menunjukkan tanah air di wilayah Batak Toba: Pulo Samosir, Danau Toba, Rura Silindung, Aek Sibulbulon, dll. Representasi tersebut ditemukan dalam lirik tradisional Lagu-lagu Batak. Semiotika Peirce yang dikembangkan oleh Fiske (1990) digunakan dalam penulisan artikel ini. Temuan signifikan dalam artikel ini adalah tempat-tempat yang disebut sebagai Bona-pasogit atau tanah air didasarkan pada isi yang disajikan dalam lirik dan informasi mengenai tempat-tempat yang disebutkan dalam setiap lagu

Deixis Analysis on Joe Biden’s Speech “Remarks on Afghanistan”

In communication, a speaker sometime uses language features which to point or indicate objects, places, persons, times, and text passages in a specific context. This language features are called deixis or deictic expression. The aim of this study is to find out and describe what kind of deixis and reference used by Joe Biden in his speech. In conducting the study, the researcher conducts the descriptive qualitative method because the result and discussion of this study is presented in a word and descriptive form and focused on quality of the researcher’s interpretation. This study applied the classification of deixis by Stephen C. Levinson (1983). There are 203 words of person deixis, 54 data of place deixis, 45 data of time deixis, 12 data of social deixis, and 31 data od discourse deixis. The result show that person deixis is mostly use by Joe Biden in his speech. This implies that the speech is considered as important so that the speaker express himself as the president as the center of the speech. The result show that the speech by Joe Biden is not only contains of deixis, but it also contains of reference. The result show that there are two types of reference in Joe Biden’s speech, namely Personal reference and demonstrative reference. This study also applied the theory of reference by Halliday and Hasan (1976). This implies that the speech is not only attract people to understand of what, who, when, and where the speaker means, but the speech is also considered as a text and meaningful

USING WHATSAPP AS AN INSTRUCTIONAL TOOL TO ENHANCE READING AND WRITING SKILLS: INDONESIAN EFL LEARNERS' PERCEPTION

This study intends to examine Indonesian EFL learners’ perception of using WhatsApp as an instructional tool to improve reading and writing skills. Covid-19 pandemic has made online learning compulsory for both teachers and students in which it is such a novel experience of instructional mode for some. WhatsApp as a pedagogical tool is thought to be feasible and readily available for the students and teachers to use at any time. With its features and capabilities to send multimedia messages such as images, recordings, audio, videos, and PDF files, it is believed to be potential to be used as a pedagogical tool. A five-point Likert scale questionnaire (1=strongly disagree; 2=disagree; 3=neutral/no opinion; 4=agree; 5=strongly agree) was employed to answer the research question. The result shows that the students perceived that using WhatsApp as a pedagogical tool can enhance reading and writing skills (average response = 3,53). It indicates that as a pedagogical tool, WhatsApp can be taken into account to be integrated into online learning

LEARNERS’ PROBLEMS IN TRANSCRIBING WORDS IN CONNECTED SPEECH

This study is intended to investigate the difficulties encountered by the students of English department in transcribing words in connected speech where assimilation occurs. The assimilation investigated is limited to alveolars /t, d, n) to the neighbouring sound palatal /j, k,g/. Pronouncing words in connected speech is one of the problems that show up in learning EFL. The way words are spoken in isolation and in connected speech may differ significantly. Dealt with the difference, there are two questions to answer in this study. Question one is how students transcribe words in connected speech where assimilation occurs; question two is to describe what sound is assimilated to what sound. To answer the question of the study, descriptive qualitative design is applied. Data were collected from 50 students by giving 7 sentences to transcribe where assimilation occurs in a part of the sentences. Students were asked to transcribe the whole sentences and describe what sound has been assimilated to what sound. The result shows that 18 students can transcribe correctly the phonetic transcription of the assimilated sounds and describe what sound is assimilated to what sound. There are 32 students who transcribe the sentences as isolated words and cannot show where assimilation occurs. Thus, there is no description of the assimilation by these students. It leads to say that knowledge of pronouncing words in connected speech is poor. This suggests improvement by giving more practices in pronouncing not only individual words but words in connected speech. Students also need listening exercises to crosscheck the transcription they make while listening. &nbsp