A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND INDONESIAN WAYS OF EXPRESSING THANKS

A RESEARCH DESIGN BY WULAN MARISWANI Student Registration Number 2006 111 280 English Education Study Program Language and Art Education Department

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF PGRI PALEMBANG 2008

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND INDONESIAN WAYS OF EXPRESSING THANKS

1. Background Just as birds have wings, man has language. The wings give the bird its peculiar aptitude for locomotion. Language enables mans intelligence and passions to acquire their peculiar character of intellectual and sentiment. Language is human and non-instinctive method to communicate ideas, feelings, and desire by mean of a system of some symbols. Whatever people many do when they get together whatever they play, flight, make love, or make mobiles they transfer their ideas one other by having a language. Here language can be functioning as a means of communication. People primarily use language as important media to have an understandable communication. English is one of the international languages used for communication among nations in the world. Besides, a lot of scientific books and literary works are written in english. Therefore, it is important to learn english. In Indonesia, English is taught as a compulsory subject to high school and college students. The objective of teaching English to Indonesian students is that the students are able to communicate in english both orally and in writing. To achieve this objective, the students should have the four language skills. The students should also learn the language components such as pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Besides to be able to communicate well, the students should know the communication acts, such as greeting, requesting and expressing thanks. Expressing Thanks is the manner of behaving or course of the action of showing ones gratitude or refusing ones offer politely (Hornby,1974:894). For example, Thanks You is used to thank someone for what he / she has done or given. Indonesian students often find it difficult to learn English Expression of Thanks. For example, the students often say or write incorrectly: (1) Thanks Very Many instead of Thank You Very

Much Thank You So Much, (2) Thank for the gift instead of Thank for the gift, and (3) Im deeply indebted with you instead of Im deeply indebted to you. There are some reasons why the students have such difficulties: (1) The students do not know the forms of english expressions of thanks, (2) The students do not know the usage of english of thanks, (3) The students seldom practice using expressions of thanks in communication. To help the students better understand english expressions of thanks, the teachers of english could do A Contrastive Analysis of English and Indonesian Ways of Expressing Thanks before the teacher teach their students. Contrastive Analysis is the comparison of the linguistics system of two languages, for example the grammatical system and the sound system (Richards, et.al, 1984:38): 1) Providing insights into similarities and differences between languages. 2) Explaining and predicting learning problems, and 3) Developing course materials for language teaching

Based on the description above, the writer would like to conduct a research entitled A Contrastive Analysis of English and Indonesian Ways of Expressing Thanks. In this research, the writer would find out the similarities and differences between English and Indonesian Ways of Expressing Thanks and to predict the possible difficulties faced by Indonesian students in Learning English Ways of Expressing Thanks.

1.2. Problem of The Study In The Problem of The Study, (1) Limitation of The Problems, and (2) Formulation of the problem.

1.2.1. Limitation of The Problem In contrasting English and Indonesian Expressing of Thanks, the writer use deductive and inductive approach,

1.2.2. Formulation of The problem