Textual Meaning on “Umpasa” Batak Toba in Wedding Ceremony

Abstract

This research is aimed in investigating the function of theme of “Umpasa” in Wedding Ceremony of Batak Toba Culture in Pematangsiantar. Theories used in conducting this research were metafunctions, especially textual function for theme functions. Descriptive qualitative and ethnomethodology approach were implemented in this research. Data source was taken from those people who attended the wedding ceremony. The population of this research was the society of Batak Toba people from Pematangsiantar, where all the participants were loved and actived Batak Culture. they are commonly called as king of customs because these people was asked to handle and given a speech in the Toba batak ceremony for example in the wedding ceremony. Sample was any kinds of object which happen in wedding Batak Toba ceremony related to verbal and non-verbal communication Pematangsiantar. Then, the researchers did some procedures in collecting data such as observing, recording, interpreting and generalizing. After carefully analyzing the data, the researchers discovered that the most commonly used types of theme rheme when giving Ulos to the bride and groom during a Toba Batak wedding ceremony are Topical Theme 39, Textual Theme 12, Interpersonal Theme 6, and Ideational Theme is one. Among these, Topical Theme is the most dominant type used in giving Ulos to the bride and groom in a Toba Batak wedding ceremony. This is because, in Toba Batak utterance, people typically use the verb or pronoun in the first position, followed by finite and other structural grammatical elements that differ from those in other languages.