Profiling Vocabulary in The Reading Materials of BSE Bahasa

Inggris Kelas X

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides background of the study, problem identification, research questions,

purpose of the study, scope of the study and significant of the study.

1.1 Background of The Study

Vocabulary Profile (VP) is counting the percentage of words that learners used at

different vocabulary frequency levels in their writing or the relative proportion of words

from different frequency levels (Lauver & Nation, 1995, p.311). Nation and Heatley

(1996) assumed that the profiles could be information about the vocabulary encountered in

the textbook that belong to K-1 words (the first 1,000 frequent words), K-2 words (the next

2,000 frequent words), AWL (Academic Word List) and off-list words (the words which

not belong to those three groups). K-1 words is the most frequent words occur in any text,

while K-2 words is assumed as the difficult word to learn especially for high school

students level because it is less common occurs in a text. Moreover, academic word list

(AWL) is a list of academic words which frequently used in academic setting for example

journal articles, textbook and so forth then off-list words is a group of words which are

usually proper noun (names of places or peoples’ name) and technical words (a specialized

words used in a certain discipline) which students have no need to learn in the level of high

school.
 Moreover, the existence vocabulary in a learning materials could be measure by

Vocabulary Profiler. Vocabulary profiler is an online database created by Heatly, Nation

and Coxhead (2002) used for text analysis focusing on the word frequency and producing

a list of vocabulary which do not belong in the standardize word lists. The output of

Vocabulary Profiler program is developed from Lexical Frequency Profile (LFP)

originated by Laufer and Nation (1995) the output includes the word types, word tokens

and word families occurs in the text.

Profiling vocabulary must be conducted to look up the vocabulary coverage through

existing reading materials. Through vocabulary profiling teachers will know the coverage

of vocabulary presents in the existing reading materials and guide teachers to teach

vocabularies which students need to learn. In the relation of reading comprehension, based

on Schmitt’s and Grabe’s study revealed that the more learners’ know the vocabulary, they

will have better reading comprehension, moreover to comprehend reading text students

need to have sufficient vocabulary knowledge.

According to Hirsch (2003) students need to know 95% of the words in a text for

adequate reading comprehension, moreover (Nation, 1990:24) assumed that English

foreign learners need productive vocabulary at least 3000 high-frequency in order to be

capable with university reading tasks. Senior high school students must be acquire at least

2000-3000 high-frequency words to face university reading tasks. Nevertheless according

to (Nurweni, A & Read, J, 1999) high school graduates learners must have 4000-5000

English words as the requirements to enter the university.

 Research related to vocabulary profiling had been conducted by (Astika, 2016) this

study revealed that the overall profile of vocabulary exist in the Junior High School English

textbook composed by Ministry of Education and Culture was below 95% of the

vocabulary coverage in standard level for easy comprehension. A study conducted by

(Sundara , 2014) that is vocabulary profiling of UN (Ujian Nasional) reading text in terms

of examining part of speech (function words) and grammatical words, this study indicated

that not all of part of speech covered in the reading texts of UN (Ujian Nasional), moreover

for the overall vocabulary coverage exist in the textbook there is only 525 words belong to

the 2,000 vocabulary list. Vocabulary profiling also revealed in corpus based lexical study

on frequency and distribution of Coxhead’s AWL word families in medical research

articles (RAs) conducted by (Chen & Ge, 2007) stated that the amount of academic word

list in medical research articles is 292 (51,2%) which is far from complete of the academic

word vocabulary required that is only 10% of 570 vocabularies.

Nevertheless some existing reading materials do not consider the need of

vocabulary for high school students level which need 2,000-3,000 level of vocabulary

includes high frequency words, low frequency words, academic words and technical words

to comprehend a reading text. Hence, the standardize vocabulary must be used as a

consideration to decide what vocabulary need to be focused on in the reading materials in

order to reach the standard level of vocabulary needed by the students.

Considering these condition the writer interested in conducting a research related

to the vocabulary profile of reading materials. In this study the writer investigates the

vocabulary of BSE Bahasa Inggris SMA/SMK Kelas X in reading texts. Based on the issue

presented, the writer focuses on the overall coverage of vocabulary frequency belong to
 the standardize vocabulary in NGSL (New General Service List) composed by Phillips

Culligan and Browne (2013) and New Academic Word List (NAWL) Composed by

Browne and Coxhead (2013). This study also obtaining the distribution of content words

or lexical items (part of speech: verb, noun, adjective and adverb) and function words or

grammatical words.

1.2 Research Questions

With reference to identify problem in the background study, this study formulated main

research questions and subsidiary questions:

Main question:

What are the coverage of vocabulary frequency in the overall reading materials of BSE

Bahasa Inggris kelas X?

Subsidiary questions:

1. What are the standardized vocabularies encountered to the reading materials?

2. What are the content words exist in the reading materials?

3. What are the function words exist in the reading materials?

1.3 Purpose of The Study

This study will be obtaining the coverage of words frequency in the reading

material of BSE Bahasa Inggris Kelas X which belong to the NGSL (New General Service

List) and NAWL (New Academic Word List) and profiling the vocabulary in terms of the

distribution of content words and function words exist in the reading materials.
1.4 Scope of The Study

This research focuses on obtaining the word frequency and word families in the

reading text in each units of BSE Bahasa Inggris Kelas X Edisi Revisi 2017 written by

written by Utami Widiati, Zuliati Rahmah, and Furaidah (2014) and published by The

Ministry of Education and Culture. The word frequency will be calculate with (Cobb, 2010)

Vocabulary Profiling (VP) software. Then compared the vocabulary lists in the existing

materials with the New General Service Lists (NGSL) by Culligan Philips and Charles

Browne (2013) and New Academic Word List (NAWL) composed by Browne and

Coxhead (2013). After the word frequency counted, this study will be examining the

distribution of vocabulary in terms content words or word classes (verb, adjective, noun

and adverb) and function words or grammatical words.

1.5 The Significant of The Study

This study offers some benefit, the following are:

1. This study will be beneficial for book writers to improve the textbook

comprehensibility especially in vocabulary knowledge rubrics for senior and

vocational school students.

2. The result of this study is beneficial for enriching the students’ vocabulary knowledge.

3. This study offers valuable information related to the enrichment of reading materials

vocabulary.

4. This study will offer valuable information regarding the vocabulary coverage in the

BSE Bahasa Inggris Kelas X.

5. Teacher will be able to decide what vocabulary level they would like students to work

on and what activities are planned.