A SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH SENTENCES USED IN READERS’ FORUM OF THE JAKARTA POST

ABSTRACT

The research entitled A Syntactic Analysis of English Sentences Used in Readers’ Forum of The Jakarta Post is descriptive qualitative. The objectives of this research are to describe the sentence types and to determine the sentence type and pattern which is frequently used in Readers’ Forum of The Jakarta Post.

The data of this research consists of 735 English sentences used in Readers’ Forum of The Jakarta Post within thirty editions published from January to February 2008. To gather the data, the researcher uses observation method and documentation method. In addition, the researcher uses structural analysis method to analyze the data. Furthermore, a syntactic analysis is applied as theoretical approach to do the research.

The result of the study shows that the types of sentence used in Readers’ Forum of The Jakarta Post include simple sentence, compound sentence, complex sentence, and compound – complex sentence; while the patterns include SV, SVA, SVC, SVO, SVOC, SVIODO, and SVOA. At the end of analysis, simple sentence constitutes the highest typical occurrences of sentence types with 311 out of 735 sentences or 42,3% and SVOA pattern remains the most frequent occurrences of sentence patterns with 199 out of 735 sentences or 27,1%. It means that the reader of The Jakarta Post tries to give their opinion by using language which is easier to be understood by the other readers, so the other readers can easily understand what they want to convey about.