An Analysis of Idiomatic Expression in Great Gatsbys Novel by

F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Proposal

Submitted to the English Department of Adab faculty

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for Scholar Degree

By:

Marina

1155030137

ENGLISH DEPARTEMENT

ADAB AND HUMANITIES FACULTY

STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY SUNAN GUNUNG DJATI

BANDUNG
 2016

1.1 Background of Research

Everything has a meaning, in our ideas, daily activity and

every part of our life. Moreover in language, every word, every

phrase and every sentence contain meaning. They make our life

so close with meaning, because it is very important to

understand about something. Sometimes people misunderstand

about something because did not understand the meaning about

it.

Especially when talk about language oral or textual, it is

always contains with meaning. Language has a study about

meaning, it is Semantic. It is prove that meaning is very

important, especially in language. Griffiths said

(2006:1)Semantics is the study of the toolkit for meaning:

knowledge encoded in the vocabulary of the language and in its

patterns for building more elaborate meanings, up to the level of

sentence meanings.

The meaning can express though language as a semiotic

media. When in the dialogue or book contains with meaningful

sentence or phrase, automatically it contains with message

which want to understand by the readers or someone. Then, in

English usually sentence contains with phrase or words as idiom,

because the meaning of world level is idiom.

English is rich with idiom expressions. They are used in

daily dialogue, poetry, novel, and song. Idioms are the most

interesting parts of the English vocabulary. In one hand, idioms

are formed by particular words become one meaning but in other

hand it is unpredictable to find the meaning. Then, the idiom also

did not bind with grammatical. It makes idiom hard to

understand about the meaning.

McMordiew in Straksiene (13:2009) said that We can say

that idiom is a number of words which, taken together, mean

something different from the individual words of the idiom when

they stand alone. Every word that forms the idiom has different

meaning when they alone and when together become the idiom.
People realize that can find idiom expression in dialogue or

in literary work. One of literary work is novel which contains with

dialogue from the characters. In Oxford Dictionary, novel is long

written story. Indeed, it tells about story. Hence, the writer can

find idiom easily from it.

When read novel, the readers not only get entertain but

also knowledge in it such as culture, history, etc. Especially

when read Great Gatsbys novel, which become a literary classic

and in 1998, the Modern Library editorial board voted it the 20 th

 centurys best American Novel and second best English-language

novel of the same period.

Therefore, the researcher decided to find idiomatic

expressions and then get the meaning of it. In doing this

analysis, the researcher refer to material from some previous

analysis, they are:

Shintya Dewi (2003) in Understanding of Idiomatic

Expression in Steinbecks Novel of Mice and Men. In Shintyas

research, she found from Mice and Mens Novel is that many

idioms appear and it influences the comprehension of sentence.

Dzul Fahmi (2015) in Idiomatic Expression Translation in

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Movie. In Dzuls research, he

found the type of idiomatic expression and idiomatic translation

strategies in his object research.

Ahmad Kadirah (2006) in The Usage of Idiomatic

Expressions in Eminems Songs. In Ahmads research, he found

various forms and various meaning of idiom expressions in his

object research.

1.2 Problem of Research

Based on the background above, there are two research

problems, they are:

1. What are the forms of idiomatic expressions in Great

Gatsbys novel?
2. What are the meanings of idiomatic expression in Great

Gatsbys novel?
1.3 Objective of Research
The objective of the analysis concern with the problem of

that analysis, they are:

1. To find out the forms of idiomatic expression in Great

Gatsbys novel.
2. To find out the meanings of idiomatic expression in

Great Gatsbys novel.

1.4 Significances of Research
This research is expected to give academicals and practical

contribution. The significances of this are:

1. Academically, this research is expected to increase

knowledge about idiom and enriching the findings of previous

research.
2. Practically, the research has a function as a practical

guidance for students to increase knowledge in linguistic field

especially in semantic and process to understand meaning of

the idiom.
1.5 Conceptual Framework
Language is something important in human life. One of

the language functions are for communicating from one

person to another. Maybe, it is hard to imagine if there are no

languages in this word. It makes the difficulties in

communicating. So thankful to Allah SWT which has been

created many languages for making easy our life.

When we talk about language, directly we talk about

human too. Both of them cannot be separated. It is seems

like when language contains with art, and every person also

contain with different art too. One of the fact that every

person has different own art is in literary work, such as novel,

poetry etc.
In this research, the researcher chooses novel becomes

object. Especially in an analysis idiom expression, because

there are many idiom expressions in Great Gatsbys novel and

it is good to become research object.

For the first the writer wills classification into three kinds of idiom.

According to Fernando in Straksiene (2009: 14) distinguishes three sub-

classes of idiom:
1. Pure idioms. Fernando defines pure idiom as a type of

conventionalized, non literal multiword expressions. Pure

idiom are always non literal, however they may be either

invariable or may have little variation. In addition, idioms are

said to be opaque.
For example, pure idiom to spill the beans has nothing

to do with the beans.

2. Semi-idioms. Semi-idioms are said to have one or more literal

constituents and one with non literal sub sense. Therefore, this

type of idioms is considered partially opaque.

For example, foot the bill which means pay is semi-

idiom.
3. Literal idioms. This sub-class of idioms are either invariable or

allow little variation. In addition, literal idioms are considered

 to be transparent as they can be interpreted on the basis of their

parts.
For example, of course, in any case, for certain.

After classification idiom, the author finds the meaning

of the idiom with Semantic field as what Riemer Nick said that

(2010:39):

The distinction between word meaning and sentence meaning,

then, defines a basic contrast between lexical and phrasal
semantics. Another important contrast is the one between
sentence meaning as just described and utterance meaning.
We can define sentence meaning as the compositional meaning of
the sentence as constructed out of the meanings of its individual
component lexemes. But the meaning of a sentence as built up out
of its component parts is often quite different from the meaning it
actually has in a particular context.

And also as what Shier, ORourke, and Campbel argue

that (2002:5-6):

The overall meaning of the sentence as uttered on this occasion is

influenced by each of these relationships. Attending to them aids
us in making a few preliminary distinctions among aspects of
linguistic meaning. First, there is what we can call sentential
meaning, or the conventional linguistic meaning that is associated
with the sentence type and so follows it from utterance to
utterance. This includes conventional meanings of nonindexical
terms and phrases, referential features (or characters) for
indexical elements of the sentence, both articulated and
suppressed, and the syntactical relationships among these. We
might think of it as something like a rule or a function that
determines which proposition is expressed by any token of the
sentence in a context. In this case, the sentential meaning could be
given by something like, <The speaker of this sentence> is cold at
<the time of the utterance>, where we use descriptive phrases to
specify the referential features for ease of exposition. Second, there
is what we can call utterance meaning, or the meaning typically
associated with the utterance type, individuated by the sentence
produced and the circumstances of its production. Utterance
meaning will comprise at least the sentential meaning plus
elements drawn from the context in accordance with the referential
features of the indexical constituents, but it may also comprise
 meanings that are not anchored in any explicit part of the
sentence.

1.6 Procedure of Research

1. Method of research
This analysis using descriptive method, based on Dornyei (2011: 213)

argued that Descriptive statistics help us summarize findings by describing

general tendencies in the data and the overall spread of the scores. It will

describe when the author shares the result of analysis easily.

Then, generally, characteristic of this analysis disposed based on

qualitative data. Dornyei (2011:24) believed that Qualitative research

involves data collection procedures that result primarily in open-ended, non-

numerical data which data which is then analyzed primarily by non-statistical

methods. So the design of analysis which will be grown always become

hypothesis that open minded to some of alteration which be needed and have

dynamic characteristic for every situation in analysis court.

Using this method is appropriate with this analysis. So the writer will

arrange the data which collecting by qualitative method and then make

analysis that data.

2. Sample of Data
In The Great Gatsbys Novel:
In consequence Im inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit
that has opened up many curious natures to me and also
made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. (2001:3)

Analysis:
Opened up
Analysis Lexical meaning:
Open v to unlock the key
Up adv to raise something

Analysis utterance meaning:

 Opened up from the context of sentence, opened up many
curious, it means that the meaning is open
something.

Analysis Idiom:
This is categorized into literal idiom because it is considered to be
transparent as they can be interpreted on the basis of their parts.
The meaning

3. Source of data

Data for this research are taken from a novel entitled The Great

Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald in 2001 and published by

Hertfordshire. The data is only sentences which contain with

idiom.

4. Technique of Collecting Data

The process of collecting data in this research can be described as follows:
1. Get the origin novel.
2. Read the novel.
3. Mark the idiom expression in the novel.
4. Collect the data as tabulation data.
5. Classify the data into Fernando theories about idiom.
6. Find the meaning of the idiom into lexical or grammatical meaning.
5. Steps of data Analysis

In analyzing the data, the researcher employs as follows:

1. Read the original novel The Great Gatsby.

2. Display all the data idioms with tabulated in the table.
3. Classify the data to the Ferdinands theories about idiom.
4. Find the meaning between lexical and grammatical meaning.
REFERENCE

Bull, Victoria. 2011. Oxford Learners Pocket Dictionary.

Oxford: Oxford Dictionary Press

Dornyei, Zoltan. 2011. Research Methods in Applied

Linguistics. Spain: Unigraf S.L

Evans, Vyvyan.2008. Language Learning. United Kingdom:

v.evans@brighton.ac.uk
Fitzgerald, F.Scott. The Great Gatsby. 2001. Wordsworth

Editions Limited; Heartfordshire.

Griffiths,Patrick. 2006. An Introduction to English Semantics

and Pragmatics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

Ltd
Riemer Nick. 2010. Introducing Semantic. New York:

Cambridge University Press

Shier, ORourke, and Campbel. 2002. Meaning and Truth. New

York: Seven Bridges Press, LLC

Straksiene, Margarita. 2009. Analysis of Idiom Translation

Strategies from English into Lithuanian.No.14.