The Relation among Syntactic Units, Tenses and Meanings in Students Writing

Abstract

Writing is an interesting activity which can develop students skill and help them to express themselves. For the teacher, students writings can be data source for her linguistic research. This paper depicts the relation among syntactic units, tenses and meanings taken from the students writing. The objectives of this research are to reveal the ill constructed syntactic units, to show what types of sentences the students often use, and to show how the message can be conveyed.

The methodology of this research is descriptive qualitative research. This study is included into qualitative research. Hence, the theories of research methodology taken from books are compiled by Punch (1998), Ritche and Lewis (2003), and Sugiyono (2009). The used theories are syntax theory compiled by Miller (2002) and Carnie (2007), theories of Semantics compiled by Griffiths (2006), Hofmann (1993), Saeed (2001), Palmer (1981), the theories of general linguistics compiled by Traugott and Pratt (1980), Quirk (1985), O Grady (1989), Burling (1992) and Chaer (2003), theories of grammar compiled by Burton (1994), Deterding and Poedjosoedarmo (2001) and Azar (1989) and theory of writing compiled by Oshima and Hogue (2007).

The results of this research are how the message is relayed in the end. The messages written in the students essay are not clear because of the poorly constructed syntactic units and the improper tenses. In addition, the students tend to use either simple sentences or compound sentences in their writing.