Figurative Language in Students’ English Book

Sri Minda

doi:10.35307/asiantj.v1i1.8

Abstract

This research was carried out to investigate the types of figurative language found in reading texts at grade X students’ book, the dominant type of figurative language and to find out the students’ difficulties in understanding the figurative language. The design of the research was qualitative in which content analysis research was conducted. The source of the data was high school students’ English textbook in Padangsidimpuan. The instrument to collect the data was content analysis checklist, test and interview. Some of the students were interviewed by the researcher to know their responses on the use of figurative language. The data was analyzed based on three theories proposed by Keraf. The findings of this research are: there are 6 types of figurative language in English reading text at grade X students’ book. They are personification, hyperbole, metonymy, euphemism, antithesis, and repetition, the dominant types found in this text are personification; and the students’ difficulties in understanding the language are lacking of the linguistic knowledge that is semantic meaning and lacking of socio-cultural understanding in the phrases and sentences.

Highlights

Reading is an activity of recognizing and interpreting of a written text and it is really close to the form of the language
From 11 types of figurative language proposed by the Keraf (2009:113 and 2007:117-118), there are 6 types of figurative language exist in the reading texts
In order to find out the students’ students’ difficulties in understanding figurative language stated in the English reading texts, the researcher analysed the data from the interview and reading test

Summary

Introduction

Reading is an activity of recognizing and interpreting of a written text and it is really close to the form of the language. The form of the language includes letter, words, phrases and clauses (Harmer, 2003). Doing reading can increase people experiences, develop people knowledge, improve people skill in academic areas especially the way to applied the grammatical rules, or even people can get way out of their problem. One of important parts to enrich students’ knowledge is the ability to comprehend an article. Through a serious learning process, the ability of comprehending an article can be obtained. This is will be the teacher’s responsibility to be able to present a meaningful learning especially reading.

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Conclusion