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INVESTIGATING LEXICAL AND STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY IN THE READER’S FORUM SECTION OF THE JAKARTA POST NEWSPAPER
A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education
By Mutiara Sekar Utami Student Number: 091214114
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2013 PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
INVESTIGATING LEXICAL AND STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY IN THE READER’S FORUM SECTION OF THE JAKARTA POST NEWSPAPER
A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education
By Mutiara Sekar Utami Student Number: 091214114
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2013
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I dedicate this thesis to:
Jesus, for the unpredictable yet incredible plan
Bapak & Mamah, for the love, care, and prayer
Mas Ebi & Mas Ei, for being the best bodyguard in the world
Raihan, Pia, Tata, for giving me happiness, free hugs and kisses
Om Yeri, for the support and the wake-up call
Mas Ape, for being the one
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. - Psalm 23:1
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ABSTRACT
Utami, Mutiara Sekar. (2013). Investigating Lexical and Structural Ambiguity in the Reader’s Forum Section of The Jakarta Post Newspaper. Yogyakarta: English Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University.
Language is one aspect that differentiates human and other creatures. Through language, people communicate. When communicating, people transfer ideas, thoughts, and meanings. However, sometimes what is meant is not the same as what is received. Misunderstanding and misinterpretation could be the reasons why it happens, and ambiguity is one of the many factors of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. The researcher conducted the study to find out ambiguities in mass media. The researcher used The Jakarta Post newspaper as the subject of the study. This study aimed to answer three research questions. The first and second research question aimed to find out words and phrases are lexically and structurally ambiguous in the Reader’s Forum section of The Jakarta Post newspaper, while the third research question was how the tree diagrams enable the researcher to resolve structural ambiguities. The study was a qualitative study. Therefore, the researcher more focused on the words, phrases, and sentence rather than numerical data. Using content analysis as her method, the researcher took the data from one week’s edition of The Jakarta Post newspaper from July 1st, 2013 to July 6th, 2013. To be precise, the researcher took the data from the Reader’s Forum section. From one week data, the researcher found 54 ambiguities, consisting of 47 ambiguous words and 7 ambiguous phrases. From the lexically ambiguous words, the researcher found that 21 words belonged to nouns, 9 of them belonged to verbs, and the rest, 17 words, belonged to adjectives. While in structural ambiguity, all of the structurally ambiguous phrases belong to noun phrases. It was also proved that tree diagrams could be used to resolve the structural ambiguity. Tree diagrams could also reveal the pattern of structurally ambiguous phrases.
Keywords: ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, newspaper, structural ambiguity, tree diagrams.
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ABSTRAK
Utami, Mutiara Sekar. (2013). Investigating Lexical and Structural Ambiguity in the Reader’s Forum Section of The Jakarta Post Newspaper. Yogyakarta: Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Bahasa merupakan salah satu karakter yang membedakan manusia dengan makhluk hidup lainnya. Manusia berkomunikasi menggunakan bahasa untuk menyalurkan ide, pemikiran, dan arti. Namun, terkadang apa yang dimaksud tidak sama dengan apa yang diterima oleh lawan bicara. Kesalahpahaman dan salah interpretasi menjadi salah satu penyebab hal tersebut terjadi, dan ambiguitas menjadi factor penyebab kesalahpahaman dan salah interpretasi tersebut. Penulis melakukan penelitian untuk menemukan ambiguitas di media massa. Dalam penelitian ini, penulis menggunakan artikel yang diambil dari harian The Jakarta Post sebagai subjeknya. Penelitian ini dimaksudkan untuk menjawab 3 (tiga) rumusan masalah. Pertanyaan pertama dan kedua bertujuan untuk menemukan kata dan phrasa yang mana saja yang tergolong ambigu secara leksikal dan struktural. Sedangkan pertanyaan ketiga bertujuan untuk mengetahui bagaimana pohon sintaktis dapat memecahkan permasalahan ambiguitas struktural? Penelitian ini merupakan studi kulitatif. Makadari itu, penulis lebih menaruh perhatian pada kata, phrasa, dan kalimat daripada data numerik. Dengan menggunakan metode analisis isi, peneliti mengambil data dari harian The Jakarta Post selama satu minggu dimulai dari edisi 1 Juli 2013 sampai 6 Juli 2013. Lebih rinci, penulis mengambil data dari kolom Reader’s Forum. Dari data selama satu minggu, penulis menemukan 54 ambiguitas yang terdiri dari 47 kata dan 7 phrasa. Pada kata yang ambigu, penulis menemukan bahwa 21 kata merupakan nomina, 9 kata kerja, dan 17 merupakan adjektiva. Sedangkan untuk semua phrasa yang ambigu merupakan phrasa nomina. Dalam penelitian ini, juga terbukti bahwa pohon sintaksis juga dapat digunakan untuk membantu memahami ambiguitas struktural secara lebih baik. Dengan menggunakan pohon sintaktis, penulis juga dapat melihat pola dari phrasa yang ambigu.
Kata Kunci: ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, newspaper, structural ambiguity, tree diagrams.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I could not give more thanks to Jesus for His plans which work way much better than mine. Without Him, I would not be able to finish this thesis – I would not start, actually. I’m so glad that on that Sunday, I pushed myself to go to church. I’m so grateful that He spoke to me through the priest that day. I’m sure that it was one of His amazing scenarios. Therefore, I believe in every step I took while writing this thesis, He kept His eyes upon me – as He always does. I would like to thank my parents for their love and care. I thank my mother so much for her silent prayer every morning where she mentions my name. I also feel grateful for love and care shown in my father eyes with no need to say it. I love you both, so much. I would not be able to finish my study without my brothers and my uncles. I owe them life. I also want to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to my sponsor, Barli Bram, Ph.D., who has willingly and patiently helped me. I thank him for his care, patience, advice, critical questions, and supports. I would like to thank all my ELESP lecturers especially Caecilia Tutyandari, S.Pd, M.Pd, Christina Kristiyani, S.Pd., M.Pd., and Drs. Y. B. Gunawan, M.A. I also would like to thank Mbak Dhaniek and Mbak Tari for the guidance and assistance they gave to me during my years in Sanata Dharma University ELESP. My gratitude also goes to those who have supported me so much in this bittersweet process. My better half, Rizky Aditya Purnomo Putra, who always reminds me to work on my thesis and keep writing every time we have phone calls. I thank him for the love, care, support, and understanding. I thank God that we found each other. I would like to express my greatest gratitude to the member of Kontrakan Ceria, Engkit, Karnia and Linna for being the best comedian ever. I thank them for keeping me smiling when the world seems so cruel. I also would like to thank my besties, Nana, Wella, Tia, Pita, Ika, Linda for the laughter, discussion, love, jokes, and happy moments we shared. Our memories won’t ever be forgotten. I also thank LAYUNG for the great moments
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and beautiful journey that we had together. I also feel blessed to be in SPACE, the best teaching team ever. I thank them so much for the process that we went through together. I would not able to finish this thesis without the masterpiece of Metallica, Michael Bolton, Bread, Michael Learns to Rock, Guns ‘n Roses, Firehouse, The All American Rejects, and Kings of Leon and also all of the god and goddess of 70’s, 80’s, 90’s rock ballads. Lastly, I also thank all the people who have helped and supported me, especially during the process of pursuing my dreams. I am so glad to have them in my life and I am so blessed to know them all.
Mutiara Sekar Utami
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE...... i
APPROVAL PAGE...... ii
DEDICATION PAGE...... iv
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY...... v
PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ...... vi
ABSTRACT...... vii
ABSTRAK...... viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS...... xi
LIST OF TABLES...... xiv
LIST OF FIGURES...... xv
LIST OF APPENDICES...... xvi
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION
A. Research Background ...... 1 B. Research Problems...... 5 C. Problem Limitation ...... 5 D. Research Objectives ...... 6 E. Research Benefits ...... 7 F. Definition of Terms ...... 8
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CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
A. Theoretical Description ...... 11 1. Related Studies ...... 11 2. Theories of Meaning ...... 13 a. Conceptual Meaning ...... 14 b. Connotative Meaning...... 15 c. Social Meaning ...... 16 d. Affective Meaning ...... 16 e. Reflected Meaning ...... 17 f. Collocative Meaning ...... 17 g. Thematic Meaning ...... 18 3. Theories of Ambiguity ...... 19 a. Vagueness...... 20 b. Types of Ambiguity ...... 22 4. Theories of Parts of Speech...... 29 a. Noun ...... 29 b. Determiner ...... ,...... 30 c. Adjective ...... 30 d. Verb ...... 31 e. Preposition ...... 31 f. Adverb ...... 31 g. Conjunction ...... 32 h. Interjection ...... 32 5. Theories of Tree Diagram...... 32 B. Theoretical Framework ...... 35
CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY
A. Research Method …...... 38 B. Research Setting …...... 40 C. Research Subject ...... 41
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D. Research Instrument and Data Gathering Technique ...... 42 E. Data Analysis Technique ...... 43 F. Research Procedure ...... 46
CHAPTER IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Ambiguous Words and Phrases ...... 49 1. Ambiguous Words...... 50 2. Ambiguous Phrases...... 84 B. Tree Diagram Analysis...... 88
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A. Conclusion...... 100 B. Recommendations ...... 101
REFERENCES ...... 103
APPENDICES ...... 106
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1. Data Organizational Table...... 44 3.2. Lexical Ambiguity Table...... 44 4.2. Structural Ambiguity Table...... 88
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1. Tree Diagram...... 15 2.2. Tree Diagram of a Sentence ...... 34 2.3. Tree Diagram of a Phrase...... 35 3.1. The Jakarta Post Official Website ...... 43 3.2. Tree Form 1.0.3...... 45 4.1. Ambiguity Ratio...... 50 4.2. The Occurrence of Lexical Ambiguity...... 84 4.3. First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 1...... 89 4.4. Second Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 1...... 90 4.5. First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 2...... 90 4.6. Second Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 2...... 91 4.7. First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 3...... 92 4.8. Second Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 3...... 92 4.9. First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 4...... 93 4.10. Second Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 4...... 94 4.11. First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 5...... 94 4.12. Second Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 5...... 95 4.13. First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 6...... 96 4.14. Second Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 6...... 96 4.15. First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 7...... 97 4.16. Second Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 7...... 97
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LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix 1 Data Organizational Table...... 106 Appendix 2 Lexical Ambiguity Table...... 114 Appendix 3 The Jakarta Post Articles on July 1st, 2013...... 116 Appendix 4 The Jakarta Post Articles on July 2nd, 2013...... 120 Appendix 5 The Jakarta Post Articles on July 3rd, 2013...... 125 Appendix 6 The Jakarta Post Articles on July 4th, 2013...... 135 Appendix 7 The Jakarta Post Articles on July 5th, 2013...... 140 Appendix 8 The Jakarta Post Articles on July 6th, 2013...... 147
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This research aims to investigate lexical and grammatical ambiguity found in the Reader’s Forum section in The Jakarta Post newspaper. This chapter discusses the research background, research problems, problem formulation, research objectives, problem limitation, research benefits, and definition of terms.
A. Research Background
Language is one characteristic that differentiates human with any other living creature. It is used by people around the world to express their feeling, thought, ideas, etc. People use language to convey information about entities, and their attributes, actions, and relations. It is not easy to describe what language is since linguists have their own ideas in describing what language is. However,
Fasold and Linton (eds.) (2006) state in their book that language can be defined as
“a finite system of elements and principles that make it possible for speakers to construct sentences to do particular communicative jobs.” (p. 9). So, it can be concluded that the language itself is seen as a finite unit of elements and rules that work together in order to communicate speakers and the interlocutors.
As it is stated, language is used to communicate with each other. However, when communicating with others, some problems may arise because of miscommunication. The miscommunication will occur if there is misinterpretation or misunderstanding. The problem does not only occur in spoken or oral situation
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2 but also in written. While reading, sometimes the readers would find a sentence that makes them think twice. They may find it confusing because it has more than one meaning. That kind of problem is the characteristic of an ambiguous sentence.
Akmajian, Demers, Farmer, and Harnish (2001) state that an expression is said to be ambiguous when more than one interpretation can be assigned to it (p. 154).
The double meanings will force the readers or interpreters to think twice to get the exact meaning while reading or listening to ambiguous sentences or utterances.
Normally, the readers will directly interpret the sentence well, and get the content right after reading it. However, the ambiguous sentence will make the reader think twice or even get the wrong interpretation about the sentence. It is important for the readers to know the intended meaning of a sentence. As stated by Sobur (2006), the problem related to meaning of an utterance or sentence is the core problem in a language study. It can be said so because something could be labelled as a language when it has meaning. Moreover, West and Turner (2010) state that understanding meaning is very crucial in our lives (p. 75). We cannot get too far in our conversations unless we understand others and can make ourselves understood.
In the study of language, semantics is the branch which focuses more on the study of meaning. Other than semantics, there is pragmatics which studies meanings based on its situations of the utterances (Leech, 1983, p. 5). The study of those two cannot be separated. The difference of those two can be seen on the scope of the observer absorb the meaning itself. When it comes to semantics, the meaning can be seen directly from the words or the connection between the PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
3 words. Fasold and Linton (eds.) (2006) state that semantics deals with literal meaning of words, phrases, and sentences (p. 137). For example, the sentence I want to go home now means that the speaker wishes to do a particular action which is going home at the moment of speaking. While if we see it from the pragmatics point of view, there are a lot of possible meanings that can be derived from that sentence since pragmatics focuses more on the utterance and context than the sentence and words literal meaning. The first meaning maybe the speaker is in the middle of the class and he/she feels bored and wish that he/she could go home while in fact he/she could not. The second meaning maybe the speaker does not want to go to somewhere else and decided to go home. And there are a lot of interpretations that can be derived from the situation which is the sentence I want to go home now uttered.
One interesting topic in semantics study is ambiguity. Ambiguity can be found in the written or oral discourses. However, the researcher would only focus on the written discourses. One of the famous written discourses that can be found around us is the printed media. What the researcher meant by media here is newspapers, magazines, and other publication that are aimed to give information to public. Media plays a big role in the society. Galtung (1999), the Norwegian scientist and peace research pioneer, puts the media floating between 3 pillars (p.
4). Those pillars are the State, which representing the government, the Market, which represent the economical phenomena, and the Civil Society, which represent the society which pay attention to the development of the sphere. It means that media may affect and also become the bridge of those three pillars, the PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
4 government, economical phenomena, and also society. McKee (2005) stated in his book that public sphere is the metaphor used to describe about the way that information and ideas circulate in the society (p. 4). In brief, it can be said that media affects people’s lives so much. Media can build people’s perceptions about an issue. Therefore, it is important for us to get the true and clear information and news from the media.
In this study, the researcher is going to investigate the lexical and structural ambiguity in Reader’s Forum section in The Jakarta Post newspaper.
The researcher is conducting the study because the researcher is curious about finding lexical and structural ambiguity in the mass media. The Jakarta Post is chosen because it is known as the leading English language newspaper in
Indonesia. Moreover, it also has its own website that can be easily reached at www.thejakartapost.com. In the website, the content of the printed edition can also be found easily. The Reader’s Forum section is chosen because of the varied of the writer. The writer of the content or comment is not only professional writer but also layman who wants to speak their mind and thought.
In the discussion, the researcher is going to analyze the lexical and structural ambiguity. After analyzing the ambiguity found in the newspaper section, the researcher is going to classify the lexical items which are ambiguous according to their part of speech. Next, the researcher will analyze the structural ambiguity by investigating its possible interpretation. The researcher would also analyze the structural ambiguity using tree diagram. Tree diagram is used in this study because the researcher believe that it can help us to understand the possible PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
5 meaning of ambiguous phrase or sentence. The researcher hopes this study would make the readers aware of the ambiguity. The awareness of ambiguity may trigger the reader to avoid ambiguity itself so that the misunderstanding will not occur.
B. Problem Formulation
This research is conducted to answer three questions.
1. What words are lexically ambiguous in the Reader’s Forum section of The
Jakarta Post newspaper?
2. What phrases are structurally ambiguous in the Reader’s Forum section of
The Jakarta Post newspaper?
3. How do the tree diagrams enable the researcher to resolve structural
ambiguities?
C. Problem Limitation
In this study, the limitation is needed in order to discuss the particular topic thoroughly. This study is limited to the lexical and structural ambiguity found in The Jakarta Post newspaper. The researcher also limits the study only in the Reader’s Forum section. The data are taken from the official The Jakarta Post website, www.thejakartapost.com. The interesting thing about the website is that it provides the printed edition of The Jakarta Post newspaper.
Some words, which are considered lexically ambiguous, would appear more than once. Unless the word has different meaning in the interpretation, the researcher would only discuss one sample. Moreover, the researcher will only focus on lexical and structural ambiguity by using semantics approach. Any PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
6 ambiguities that are caused by different types of ambiguity such as scope and referential ambiguity will not be taken into account in the study. The researcher will not consider any possibilities caused by the utterance as it is seen in pragmatics. However, in order to decide the intended meaning of the writer, the researcher would depend on the passage or topic discussed. The researcher is going to use the tree diagram in order to investigate the possible interpretations of each sentence or phrase.
D. Research Objectives
The researcher conducts this study in order to meet two main objectives.
Firstly, the researcher wants to know if there are any ambiguous words, phrases, or sentences that can be found in the well-known mass media, especially in The
Jakarta Post newspaper. It is so because the researcher is aware of the effects of the misinterpretation that may be derived from a public sphere. Moreover, the researcher will also find out which part of speech is ambiguous based on the data found in The Jakarta Post newspaper. From the data, the researcher could see which part of speech occurs the most and be aware of it. Secondly, the researcher wants to prove whether tree diagram can be used to solve the structurally ambiguous phrases. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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E. Research Benefits
By conducting this research, the researcher hopes that English Language
Education Study Program (ELESP) students, teachers and lecturers, and also readers can take the benefits. The benefits of the research can be stated as follows.
1. English Language Education Study Program (ELESP) students
The researcher hopes that the research can give the students of English
Language Education Study Program (ELESP) some benefits. The first benefits is that it can add information about ambiguity, especially lexical and structural ambiguity. That information may raise their awareness of ambiguity. The researcher also hopes that this research can be the reference for the study of semantics and syntax in teaching and learning activity. It may help them to do their assignments or maybe get the deeper knowledge to complete their task.
2. Teachers and lecturers
This research may also bring benefits for the educator, teachers and lecturers, especially for English language teachers and lectures. Having conducted the research, the researcher hopes that the research can be reference for the teachers and lecturers in conducting teaching and learning process. The researcher also hopes that it can trigger the teachers’ and lecturers’ awareness in using language, especially English language. Later on, this awareness can be spread to their students.
3. Future researchers
The researcher hopes that the paper will be useful for the future researchers because they can conduct deeper and further study about ambiguity PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
8 especially lexical and grammatical ambiguity in the newspaper. If they are interested in conducting the same research, they can refer to this research and conduct the same research to get some confirmation and also to test the theory.
4. Readers
The researcher also hopes that the thesis can also give its significances to the readers. The researcher hopes that the paper can increase people’s awareness in avoiding ambiguity, so that the interlocutor can understand the intended meaning said by the speakers well, and the misinterpretation will not occur.
F. Definition of Terms
Definition of terms is needed in order to give clear definition about the terms used in this paper. In this section, the writer is going to define some terms which are used in this paper.
1. Meaning
The researcher see it is important to describe meaning in order to get the clear understanding about it. However, there is no exact definition of what it really is. Linguists have their own understanding about it. Cruse (2000) describe it by giving figure in which there are 4 elements. Those are speaker, transmitted signal, received signal, and receiver. Having a message to communicate, the sender processes the message and encoding it, and finally produced the transmitted signal. The transmitted signal then travels through channels which may have obstacles and noise before picked up by the receiver. However, the PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
9 receiver only get the received signal which has been modified by the noise and not precisely the same as the speaker’s intended message. The message here is the metaphor of meaning which is transferred and modified from the speaker to the hearer. He also says that there are three aspects of meaning, those are speakers’ meaning, hearers’ meaning and sign meaning.
2. Ambiguity
Since the paper mainly discusses about ambiguity, it is necessary to define the term ambiguity first. Ambiguity can be interpreted to a word, sentence, or expressions that are having multiple meaning (Fasold and Linton, 2006). There will be 2 types of ambiguity that are discussed in the study. The first one is lexical ambiguity. Lexical ambiguity is referred to a word which has more than one meaning (Akmajian, Demers, Farmer, and Harnish, 2001, p. 237). Lexical ambiguity has strong connection with polysemy and homonymy. The second ambiguity is structural ambiguity. Structural ambiguity happens because of the relation of one word to other word or words (Akmajian, Demers, Farmer, and
Harnish, 2001, p. 155). In the structural ambiguity, the phrase or the sentences have more than one interpretation because of its relation to another word. For example the phrase nice man and woman can be interpreted in two ways. The first one explain the man and woman who are nice, and the second one explain the man who is nice and a woman (which might be neutral or not nice).
3. Tree Diagram
Structural ambiguity, however, can be solved and analyzed using tree diagram. Some experts may call it syntax tree or parse tree. However, the PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
10 researcher would name it tree diagram. Radford (2001) describes tree diagram as
“a way of representing the syntactic structure of a phrase or sentence.” (p. 273).
Tree diagram can be used to analyze clause, phrase, or sentence. In the tree diagram, the clause, phrase, or sentence is analyzed based on its categories. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
In this chapter, the researcher divides the chapter into two parts namely theoretical description and theoretical framework. The first part, which is theoretical description, consists of two sections. It talks about the review of related studies and also literature. The other part, which is theoretical framework, explains the correlation of the theories with the study, and how the theories help the researcher to solve the problem formulations.
A. Theoretical Description
This part consist of two sections. Those sections are Review of Related
Studies and Review of Related Literature. From those two sections, the researcher would review other researchers’ works and also linguists’ literature related to the study conducted.
1. Related Studies
Ambiguity is one phenomenon in English and other languages that might attract linguists to study more about it. Studies on ambiguity had been conducted by Bucaria (2004), Grenat and Taher (2008), and Tambunan (2009). Studies on disambiguation, corpora, and semantic interpreter programs have also conducted by Hirst (1983, 1988) and Hansen and Sargen (2012). Bucaria (2004) conducted interesting study about lexical and syntactic ambiguity that causes humor on the newspaper headlines. The data of the study were taken from the online newspaper
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12 headlines. In the study, she found that the lexical ambiguity owned more spaces than syntactical and phonological ambiguity. 52.9% of the data belonged to lexical ambiguity, 46.66% of the data belonged to syntactical ambiguity, while only one sample (0.74%) was in form of phonological ambiguity. From the study, she also found the new configurations for the order of the phrases in the newspaper headlines.
Grenat and Taher (2008) conducted a study related to translation and ambiguity. In the study, they examined structural ambiguity and how the interpreter or translator handled ambiguous structures. Translator and interpreter are responsible to render the same structural meaning in source language into the target language. However, not all ambiguous structures in the source language have the equivalent ambiguous structures in the target language. Most of the ambiguous structures presented in the paper could be rendered into equivalent target language used in the research, which was Arabic. However, there were some sentences which could not be rendered due to the differences of morphological and syntactic factors that English and Arabic have.
Previous study had also been conducted by Tambunan (2009). She conducted the study to complete her bachelor degree in English Letter Department in North Sumatera University. She wrote The Analysis of Lexical and Structural
Ambiguity in Your Letters of The Jakarta Post. That study pointed out that there were 50 ambiguous words and phrases found during the study, 51.1% of them was structural ambiguity and the rest was lexical ambiguity. That study also pointed PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
13 out that most of the ambiguous words were verbs, while all of the structural ambiguity caused by noun phrases.
In this study, the researcher is going to conduct the study on ambiguity in the newspaper. The purpose of the study is to confirm the previous study that has been done by Tambunan (2009). The researcher is going to analyze the ambiguity in The Jakarta Post newspaper. However, the researcher is going to conduct the research wider than the previous study. The previous study took the data from the section Your Letters, while in this study the data are taken from the section
Reader’s Forum. In the forum, there are a lot of sub-sections. There are Your
Letters, Comment, Text Your Say, and Issues of the Day. The researcher decides to widen the scope because the researcher is curious about the way people communicate through written discourse in the mass media. The researcher also finds it interesting in the way people state their ideas through short message service (SMS) which is used in the Test Your Say section.
The researcher would also apply tree diagram in the research which was not applied in the previous research. The researcher uses tree diagram because the researcher believes that tree diagram can be used to enable the reader to interpret the meaning of the ambiguous phrase or sentence.
2. Theories of Meaning
Linguists describe the term meaning in their own words and opinions.
O’Grady, Archibald, Aronoff, Rees-Miller (eds.) (2010) mention that meaning is the message or content from what the speaker utters or says. When people do the PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
14 communication, they transfer the message to their interlocutors. This message contains meaning that is speakers intended meaning. Finegan (2004) suggests three types of meaning; linguistics meaning, social meaning, and affective meaning (p. 182). However, Leech (1981) divides types of meaning in wider sense into seven categories (p. 9). a. Conceptual Meaning
This meaning sometimes known as denotative meaning or cognitive meaning. There are two structural principles that underlie the linguistics patterning. Those are the principle of contractiveness and the principle of structure. In conceptual meaning, those two principles also play their role in revealing the conceptual, denotative, or cognitive meaning of a sentence or expression.
Phonology also uses the contractiveness principle to describe the classification of sounds. Symbol (+) and (-) are used to represent the presence of the attribute. According to the contractiveness principle, componential analysis can determine meaning. Based on the certain attribute, meaning can be derived by giving label positive (+) or negative (-) which refer to the presence of the attribute. The examples are as follows.
i. man : [+human] [+male] [+adult]
ii. girl : [+human] [-male] [-adult]
By seeing the example i and ii, people can conclude that the meaning of man is an adult male human, while girl is a young female human. To describe the meaning of the words, people only need to see the attributes which are possessed by the PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
15 certain word. People can also infer the antonym of the unpossessed attribute as seen on the example.
Another principle used in the approach to conceptual meaning is the structure principle. It is the belief that larger linguistics units such as sentences and phrases are formed from the smaller units such as words, or vice versa. This principle can be easily understood by seeing the tree diagram in Figure 2.1.
Figure 2.1 Tree diagram
From Figure 2.1, people can see the smaller unit of the sentence which build a sentence and also vice versa. Besides the tree diagram, bracketing can also be used to analyze the linguistics units:
iii. {(The)(boy)}{[(is)][(a)(student)]}.
The bracket shows the connection of words, and also the order of the connection.
The different types of brackets {[()]} shows the order of the connection. However, some might find difficulties in reading bracket and prefer reading tree diagram
(Napoli, 1997, p. 307) b. Connotative Meaning
Different with conceptual meaning, connotative meaning focuses more on the value of an expression has by virtue of what it refers to (p. 12). In order to PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
16 understand the meaning, people need to understand the history, culture, and individuals experiences. The example of connotative meaning is idioms. Idioms carry connotative meaning, since it has meanings that can be seen as in conceptual meaning. The idiom break a leg means to wish someone a good luck. To understand the idiom, people need to understand the background of the idiom.
Long time ago, it is believed that the Sprites would do something bad to people.
Therefore, whenever a person was facing unfortunate events, people would blame the Sprites. The Sprites were known for their mischievousness. If a person pray a good thing they would do the opposite. Therefore, the idiom break a leg was believed to deceive the Sprites to do the opposite. c. Social Meaning
Social meaning related to the situation in which an utterance takes place. It considers the social circumstances in use. From some words and pronunciation, people can see the social origin of the speaker. People often recognize the relation between the speaker and the hearer through conversation; the status and social relation between the speaker and the hearer can be seen through the style of language. d. Affective Meaning
As it is named, affective meaning has something to do with feeling and attitudes. To interpret an affective meaning of a sentence, people should consider the personal feelings of the speaker, speaker’s attitudes towards the hearer, and his attitudes and feeling about the topic he is talking about. The example of polite PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
17 requests that is provided by Leech (1981, p. 15) might help to understand the explanation better:
iv. I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if you would be so kind
as to lower your voices a little’
v. Will you belt up?
By using different scale of politeness, people can see the speaker’s feeling toward the hearer or the situation she/he is facing. In this case, the tone of the speaker will also affect the meaning. e. Reflected Meaning
Reflected meaning deals with multiple conceptual meaning. The example of sentences or words that use this type of meaning can be easily found in the poetry. In order to say death, a poet prefers to use ring of the bells of quittance, journey to the immortal¸ and sleep in eternal peace. Albeit conveying the same meaning, those three poetic synonym of death have different senses. f. Collocative Meaning
Collocative meaning considers the connection of a word acquires on account of the meanings of words which occurs in its environment. The word pretty and handsome have the same meaning of the term good-looking. However, they share different interpretation if some nouns are attached:
girl boy boy man woman car flower vessel vi. pretty garden vii. handsome overcoat color airliner village typewriter etc. etc. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
18
g. Thematic Meaning
In thematic meaning, the writer or the speaker organizes the message by ordering, focusing and emphasizing so that it can fulfil the writer or speaker’s intention. In doing so, the writer often use active or passive sentence to emphasizing the focus. Here are the examples:
viii. My brother owns the largest retail shop in Solo.
ix. The largest retail shop in Solo is owned by my brother.
Although the two sentence have the same meaning, they attract different attention.
The first example vii emphasizes the subject or the doer my brother. On the other hand, the second example viii emphasizes the object the largest retail shop.
On the other hand, Frawley (1992) also divides meaning into several parts or categories. First, he compares between two types of meaning. They are literal and implicational meaning. He says that literal meaning has something to do with the state of affairs the expression represents. Therefore, he also calls literal meaning as representational meaning. He continues that literal meaning can be inferred without knowing the context of the statement, sentence, or utterance. On the contrary, implicational meaning concerns the background, history, circumstances, and so forth (p. 2). Another way, it can be said that in contrast with the literal meaning, implicational meaning is contextualized. By seeing that explanation from Frawley (1992), what is studied by semantics is the literal meaning. While implication meaning which pay more attention to the context of the utterance is the major study in pragmatics. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
19
Frawley (1992) continues with categorizing meaning into two categories; encoding and grammatical meaning. Encoding and grammatical meaning are placed below the term decontextualized meaning. Analyzing the example ix is necessary in order to understand encoding and grammatical meaning easier:
x. Tom bought some rice.
The example x gives meaning to certain event buying and participants Tom and rice by putting them together grammatically. The description of the event and its participants can be seen because they have grammatical relevance. The example gives the information about Tom carried out the event and acted on rice. It can be inferred so because the sentence is in English which usually correlates the doer of the action, which generally continues with the verb, which usually precedes with object, which frequently but not always act as receiver. The other languages may have difference order and forms.
However, the example x does not encode the knowledge of the social status of speaker and participants. Other languages such as Javanese and Japanese have honorifics markers of the social position of the speakers, hearers, and participants.
3. Theories of Ambiguity
In the study of semantics, the ambiguity is described as the condition of having more than one linguistics meanings (Akmajian et.al, 2001, p. 572). It means that when a word, sentence, or utterance is having more than one PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
20 linguistics meaning or interpretation that can be categorized as an ambiguous word or sentence. a. Vagueness
Some experts relate ambiguity with vagueness. Frawley (1992) mentions that when an expression has two meanings, it can be either ambiguous or vague
(p.58). The difference between two, as Frawley (1992) has mentioned, is clearly identifiable (p.59). It is ambiguous if there are at least two distinct semantic specifications underlying a single overt form. An expression is vague if it is unspecified for particular meanings and takes them from context. It also can be said that vague sentence lacks of precise meaning, while ambiguous sentence has two or more precise meanings. The example given by Frawley (1992) is as follows.
xi. I punched the paper.
The example x can be interpreted in two meanings, either like (1) I hit the paper with my fist or (2) I pierced a hole in the paper using hole-punching machine.
When it is said to be ambiguous, there are two different sets of properties. If it is vague, then it is only one unspecified word which inherits the rest of definitions.
Cruse (2000) also defines the test of discreteness which the researcher believe can be used to test vagueness suggested by Frawley (1992). In order to understand discreteness, Cruse (2000) considers four criteria in which three of them were previously known as ambiguity tests (p.106). From the test, an expression can be judged whether it is ambiguous or vague. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
21
1) The Identity Test
The first test is named identity test. Consider the example:
xii. Mary is wearing a light dress; so is Jane.
Literally, the word light has two different meanings; light in color or light in weight, not heavy. Knowing those two meanings, there are four interpretations which can be assigned to the situation in example xii: (1) they are both lightweight, (2) they are light colored, (3) Mary’s dress is lightweight, and Jane’s dress is light colored, (4) Mary’s dress is light colored, and Jane’s dress is lightweight. However, there are only two conditions which are acceptable, they are (1) and (2). It is because once one has decided the meaning of light, one has to stick with it (Cruse, 2000, p. 106). This is called identity constraint. The identity constraint discussed in xii should be contrasted with the absence in xiii:
xiii. Mary has adopted a child; so has Jane.
This child must be a girl or a boy. However, there are no constraints on the possible readings: Mary’s adopted child should be of the same sex with Jane’s.
2) Independent Truth Condition
Yes/No questions can help the reader to check the second criterion for the discreteness. The second criterion is that they have independent truth conditional properties. Consider the example xii, when someone asks Mary Were you wearing light dress?, Mary can answer it with negative or the negative Yes, I was wearing my green pale dress/ No, I was wearing my heavy wool dress. On the other hand, considering the example xiii, if Mary was asked Is it true that you have adopted a PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
22 child?, there are no conceivable situations which she could answer either Yes or
No.
3) Independent Sense Relation
When two readings have the independent sets of sense relation, it can be said that those two readings are distinct. For example, the two readings of light have their own opposites, dark and heavy. Moreover, those two opposites do not have relation in meaning.
4) Autonomy
The last indicator of discreteness is autonomy. Autonomy is the use of the word in one of the senses when the other is explicitly denied by the reason of anomaly of some such. The word dog can refer to both senses canine species and male canine species. When a person says I prefer dogs to bitches, the sentence is acceptable and fully normal. However, when a person says I prefer children to girls, the sex specific interpretation of child is not autonomous. b. Types of Ambiguity
Experts divides ambiguity in several types. However, they have their own opinion about it. Akmajian et.al (2001) only mention two kinds of ambiguity.
They are lexical and structural ambiguity. On the other hand, Grenat and Taher
(2008) argue that there are four types of ambiguity. Those are lexical, structural, scope, and referential ambiguity.
1) Lexical Ambiguity
Akmajian et.al (2001) state that lexical ambiguity is referred to a word which has more than one meaning (p. 237). When a sentence is considered PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
23 lexically ambiguous, the sentence contains either homonyms or polysemes. Some researchers point out that only homonyms causes ambiguity. On the other hand, some others argue that both polysemes and homonyms will cause ambiguity
(Teodorescu, 2012, p. 3). Akmajian et.al (2001) mention that polysemy causes ambiguity for it has more than one related meaning (p. 237). The polysemous words, which have more than one meaning, will cause more than one interpretation. The example of polysemy is the word position:
xiv. Her sleep position might be the cause of her backache.
xv. She has to take her position on that case.
In the example xiv and xv, the word position does exist. However, they have their own meaning. The first position meaning is a way which someone is placed or arrange: a posture. On the other hand, the second meaning is a view or opinion.
Although they have different meaning, they are placed under the same entries in the dictionary. Moreover, they have connection between the senses.
Besides polysemy, homonym can also trigger ambiguity. Homonym is divined as two or more different words which have the same phonological or spelling properties (Cruse, 2000, p. 109). To be precise, Akmajian et.al (2001) also describe homophonous. Homophonous are words that have the same pronunciation but different spelling (p. 239). Mary, merry, and marry are the example of homophonous words. The often-cited word bank is an example of homonym. The word bank can represent two entities. The first one is a part of riverside, and the second one is a place to save money. In order to differentiate the polysemy and homonymy, can be seen by looking it up in the dictionary. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
24
Polysemy is known having single lexeme, while homonymy has two different lexeme. When a word has polysemy meanings, it is usually grouped together under one dictionary entry. On the other hand, homonyms will have different entries. In the example, the word position, which is polysemous, has only one entry in the dictionary. On the other hand, the word bank is given two main entries, bank1 and bank2. The example of lexical ambiguity can be found in the example xvi and xvii:
xvi. She couldn’t bear children.
The word bear is homonymy; it has more than one meaning. In Oxford Advanced
Learners Dictionary, it has 7 verb meanings and 2 noun meanings. However, in the context, there are only 2 meanings which are the most suitable meaning which can be interpreted from the sentence. The first one is to give birth and the second is to put up with. Therefore, the sentence is either about a woman who is not able to give birth to children or a woman who is not able to put up with children.
xvii. He went to the bank yesterday.
As stated previously, the word bank is homonymous. In the dictionary, it has different entries with different meaning. Considering the sentence, the meaning of the word bank is either a part of riverside or a place to save money.
2) Structural Ambiguity
Structural ambiguity is closely related to syntax. Syntax is “the way words are arranged together” (Jurafsky and Martin, 2008, p. 385). Talking about structural ambiguity will always lead the discussion into syntax because as it has been stated in advance, structural ambiguity refers to ambiguity caused by word PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
25 order and syntax is the study of the word order. Hurford and Heasley (1983) states
“structural ambiguity happens because its words relate to each other, even though none of the individual words are ambiguous.” (p. 128). In brief, it can be said that word order and word combination are the cause of the structural ambiguity. The examples of the structural ambiguity are the sentences below:
xviii. Josh saw the man with the telescope.
The sentence is ambiguous. It can be said so because the sentence has more than one meaning. The first meaning is Josh saw a person (the man) using a telescope as his tool, he might be looking at the man from a distance and needed telescope to see the man clearly, while the second meaning is Josh saw the man who was bringing a telescope. From this example we can see that the problem caused because of the relation of words which construct the noun phrase the man with telescope.
xix. Jenny likes the book on the table that she bought yesterday.
The sentence looks fine. However, with deeper analysis, it will bring confusion to the reader. This example also has the same problem with noun phrase. The modifier that she bought yesterday makes the sentence become ambiguous. The clause that she bought yesterday can be attached to both nouns book and table. So, if we see the meaning of the first interpretation is Jenny likes the book that she bought yesterday, and the book is now on the table. The second interpretation is Jenny likes the book which is now on the new table that she bought yesterday.
xx. The mother of the boy and the girl will arrive soon. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
26
As it is seen, the sentence is ambiguous because there is more than one meaning which can be assigned to it. The ambiguity is related to the order of the words in the subject. The noun phrase the mother of the boy and the girl can refers to the boy’s and the girl’s mother. On the other hand, the noun phrase the mother of the boy and the girl can indicate two or plural subject. For better understanding, please take a look at the example:
xxi. The mother of the boy and the girl is a happy.
xxii. The mother of the boy and the girl are happy.
Comparing to the two examples xvi and xvii, the ambiguous sentence presented in xvi can be understood easily. In xvi and xvii, the subject the mother of the boy and the girl can be easily differentiated, since we can easily refer to the verb is or are.
However, in xv, when modal will is used, the grouping of the words the mother of the boy and the girl becomes ambiguous.
Mihalicek and Wilson (2011) discuss three types of structural ambiguity in sentence processing. They are temporary ambiguity, the garden path effect and global ambiguity. a) Temporary Ambiguity
The word recognition process start after people hear the first word and so does the syntactic structure building process (Mihalicek & Wilson, 2011, p. 387).
The example of the temporary ambiguity can be seen in xxiii:
xxiii. The rich woman went away.
As soon as we saw or hear the word the which is a determiner, people directly expect noun. But as soon as the word rich, people would encounter the PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
27 ambiguity since the word rich has two meaning. Moreover, the compound noun the rich has its own meaning as a noun, while the word rich could also be noun.
Therefore, people would expect two possibilities whether the word rich will be followed with noun or verb. The ambiguity is resolved when people hear the word woman. It means that the word rich acts as an adjective. Therefore, it can be concluded that the sentence The rich woman went away is ambiguous temporarily; until people hear the word woman. b) Garden Path Effect
In sentence processing, when people are facing temporary ambiguity sentences, they at the beginning get a meaning that was not intended by the speaker. Those kind of mistakes in syntactic parsing are known as garden path effect. It is called garden path because the syntax of the sentence makes the reader or listener “down the garden path” (p. 388.) The example is given in xxiv:
xxiv. While Mary was mending the sock fell off her lap.
When people read the sock in xxiv, people would consider it as the direct object of the verb mending. However, after finding out the word fell, people would need to reanalyze the sentence again. Then people would conclude that the sock is not the direct object of the verb mending, but the subject of the sentence the sock fell off her lap. c) Global Ambiguity
Some structural ambiguous sentences are not temporary, they are not resolved at the end of the utterance. In that case, the sentences are globally ambiguous. Without the additional information about the situation, intonation, and PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
28 preceding or following sentences, it is impossible to understand the intended meaning of the speaker or the writer. The examples of global ambiguity are provided in xviii, xix, and xx.
3) Scope Ambiguity
When there are two or more constituent in a sentence, and one of them is determined by the others, it can be said that the constituent is in the scope of the others that affect its reference (Grenat & Taher, 2008, p. 10). Poesio (1995) mentions scope ambiguity as scopal ambiguity. He explains that scopal ambiguity happens when a sentence has more than one meaning because of the relation between operators. Radford, Atkinson, Britain, Clahsen, and Spencer (1999) also mention scope ambiguity in their work. The example of scope ambiguity can be seen in example xxv:
xxv. Some students voted for every candidate.
The sentence in the example xxv has two interpretations. The first one is there is some particular student that voted for all candidate, while the second is for each candidate, it is possible to find a student who voted for that candidate.
4) Referential Ambiguity
This kind of ambiguity arise because of the different reference of a referring expression that the speaker and addressee have in mind. The easiest example is the sentence Callista is a good girl. The addressee might have the reference of someone named Callista who is not the speaker intended to mention.
Teodorescu (2012) mentions that unclear reference of anaphoric and cataphoric pronouns is the trigger of referential ambiguity. The example is: PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
29
xxvi. John told Jack that Mary was waiting for him.
In the example xxvi, the pronoun him might refer to John or Jack. Therefore, the sentence becomes referential ambiguous.
4. Theories of Parts of Speech
The term parts of speech is also known as word classes. They refer to a system of word classification (Aarts, 1997, p. 24). Finch (2000) states that in the language acquisition, parts of speech are important since they enable the language user to construct sentences with maximum economy (p. 133). For example, people who learn English would understand that the incomplete sentence I _____ dogs can only be completed by a verb. Aarts (1997) suggests the classification of words as follows. a. Noun
Traditional grammar defines nouns as words that represent people, animals, things, or places. Based on the traditional grammar definition, the word baby, chair, dog, hospital, and soon are nouns. However, in modern linguistics, such definition is regarded as too weak since there are a lot of unaccounted words.
Such words as death and advices that show the abstract idea, love and happiness that denote feelings, and others are not taken into account. Therefore, in order to label a word based on its parts of speech, people need to understand the word behaviour (Finch, 2000, p. 109). Crystal (1988, p. 92) lists three criteria to recognize a noun. The first criteria is that the words meaning and use are decided by the existence of determiners. The second one is that the word is functioning as PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
30 the head of the noun phrase. The last factor is that the word changes form to express singular and plural, or the genitive case. b. Determiner
Previously, it is stated that determiner could be an indication of nouns.
Determiners such as the, a, that, those, and soon precedes nouns. Its function is to specify more precisely the meaning of the noun they precede.
xxvii. I saw a dog on my way home. I felt pity so I brought that dog
home.
From the example xxvii, the changes of determiner that precedes the noun dog can be seen. In the first sentence, the speaker uses determiner a to show that there was one dog. In the second sentence, the speaker uses determiner that in order to specify more precisely the particular dog the speaker refers to. c. Adjective
Adjectives are used to specify the attributes of nouns, such as a beautiful dress, some naughty kids, and soon. The words beautiful and naughty are the examples of adjectives. Some adjectives can be identified by the occurrence of adjectival affixes such as –full, -less, -ive, and un-. Most of adjectives are gradable, and can be preceded by very, more, extremely, and soon. However, the adjectives that denote material and nationality are the exceptions. Some adjectives can also have comparative and superlative endings, such as long-longer-longest.
Adjectives occupy two positions in English: the attributive and the predicative position. The example given previously is the example of attributive position, PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
31 which means that adjective precedes nouns. The example of adjectives in predicative position can be seen in a sentence which uses linking verb or copula. d. Verb
Verb is a grammatical classification of words to show an action, process, or state of being. Inflection such as –ed and –s are sometimes attached to verbs to show the grammatical properties. The – ed ending shows that the action or process happened in past event, hence the – ed ending is known as past tense inflection.
On the other hand, the –s ending encode the present action or process, hence it is known as present tense inflection. The –s ending can also indicate the subject of a sentence. It is also called the third person singular ending of the present tense. It means that the –s ending occurs when the subject of the sentence is the third person and the situation in the sentence happens in the present time. e. Preposition
Preposition is used to relate two parts of a sentence together and shows the relationship of the parts. The relationship meant is about time, place, or logic. The example of preposition is the word on. In the sentence The book is on the table, preposition on denote the relationship between the book and its location.
Preposition can be simple and consist of one word such as on, in, by or it can be complex and consists of more than one word such as by means of, in front of, and so on. f. Adverb
Adverbs used to modify verb by giving information about time, place, and manner in which the action, event, or process takes place. However, adverbs can PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
32 also modify adjectives and other adverbs (Aarts, 1997, p. 42). The example of an adverb that is used to modify adjectives is extremely. The sentence I am extremely happy today is acceptable. In the example, the word extremely modifies the adjectives happy. The word very is the example of an adverb that can modify other adverbs. Considering the example She works very hard, the word very modifies the other adverb hard. g. Conjunction
Conjunction is class of words that is functioning to link two sentences, phrases, or words. There are two types of conjunctions, they are subordinating conjunction and coordinating conjunctions. The examples of conjunctions are and, or, that, if, for, etc. h. Interjection
Interjections refers to words that express emotion, physical state, agreement, disagreement and so on. The example of interjections are the expressions such as oh, erh, hmm, ah, nah, yuck, euw, etc.
5. Theories of Tree Diagram
Napoli (1996) states that every part of grammar, morphology and syntax, makes use of tree diagram (p. 307). In morphology, the use of tree diagram can show the building of some words. For example the construction of the word reconstruction. Tree diagram is also known as phrase makers. It shows the visual representation of hierarchical linguistics system or structure (Aarts, 1997, p. 60).
In line with Aarts (1997), Poole (2002) mentions that tree diagrams “are used to PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
33 graphically illustrate the structure of a sentence.” (p. 23). Other than tree diagram, people can also use bracketing. However, the same information that people get from bracketing is often more easily seen using tree diagram (Napoli, 1997, p.
307). Aarts (1997) also mentions that the system of labelled bracketing is almost impossible to read due to the wealth of details. For example, the sentence The people in the room will move the desk into the hall would have the sentence bracketed as follows.
[S [NP [art The] [n people] [PP [prep in [NP [art the] [n room]]]]
[aux will] [VP[v move][NP[art the][n desk] [PP [prep into [NP
[art the] [n hall]]]]]]]
The confusing pattern of bracketing makes the experts (Napoli (1997) and Aarts
(1997)) recommend tree diagrams to see the sentence structure. Moreover, tree diagram will show the three important aspects of sentence (Akmajian et.al, 2001, p. 207). The three important aspects of a sentence are:
a) The linear order of words in the sentence
b) The categorization of words into parts of speech
c) The grouping of words into structural constituents of the sentence
Figure 2.2 will show the linear order, categorization, and grouping of words which are the important aspects of a sentence. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Figure 2.2. Tree Diagram of a Sentence
Symbol used in the diagram: S – sentence Art – article NP – noun phrase N – noun Aux – auxiliary verb V – verb VP – verb phrase Prep – preposition PP – prepositional phrase
Studying Figure 2.2, every part of the sentence The people in the room will move the desk into the hall is connected to particular symbol according to its lexical categories. Therefore, the word the is connected to symbol Art which means article. It indicates that the word the belongs to article. The words and also lexical categories are all served in linear order. Figure 2.2 also shows the grouping of words into structural constituents of the sentence. The subject phrase, the people in the room, is the combination of several lexical categories. Figure 2.2 shows the connection of word by word in the making of single constituent. Figure 2.3 would visualize the subject phrase the people in the room. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
35
Figure 2.3 Tree Diagram of a Phrase
From Figure 2.3, it can be seen that Art and N are connected to the same symbol
NP which makes them to form a single constituent. As well as, NP and Prep are connected to the same symbol PP. The last example is that Art, N, and PP are connected to the same symbol NP and make a single constituent.
To be precise, constructing tree diagram as seen in Figure 2.2 needs evidence whether it is true and represented the way it should or not. Akmajian et.al (2001) mentioned that the tree diagrams shows the theories of syntax and also has empirical evidence (p. 188).
B. Theoretical Framework
This part is aimed to provide the theories used in order to answer the research questions. Three research questions arise regarding the study of lexical and grammatical ambiguity in Reader’s Forum section in The Jakarta Post newspaper. The research questions are:
1. What words are lexically ambiguous in the Reader’s Forum section of The
Jakarta Post newspaper? PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
36
2. What phrases are structurally ambiguous in the Reader’s Forum section of
The Jakarta Post newspaper?
3. How do the tree diagrams enable the researcher to resolve structural
ambiguities?
In order to answer those three research questions, the researcher reviews theories related to ambiguity and also tree diagrams. However, there are only some particular theories used as the main theories, while others will support the major theories.
The first research question is about finding the possible ambiguous word or sentence. Of course, the researcher only focuses on the lexical and structural ambiguity. Therefore, the researcher uses the theories of types of ambiguity especially lexical and structural ambiguity. In analysing the data, the researcher would like to apply Grenat and Taher’s (2008) theories on lexical and structural ambiguity. However, before applying Grenat and Taher’s (2008) theories, the researcher would first apply Leech’s (1981) theory of meaning. In the study, the researcher would like to understand the conceptual meaning which is also known as denotative meaning. After knowing the denotative meaning of the sentences, the researcher continues with applying Grenat and Taher’s (2008) theories. They state that lexical ambiguity deals with homonym and also polysemy which make a sentence or expression has more than one meaning. In structural ambiguity case, the one that triggers the ambiguity is the connection or the relation of the words.
After answering the first research question, the researcher will focus on the lexical ambiguity more. The lexical ambiguity data would consist of words which are PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
37 ambiguous. The researcher would like to categorize the lexically ambiguous words based on their part of speech. In doing so, the researcher would use table to help the researcher to categorize the data. The data categorization is based on
Aarts (1997) theory on parts of speeches or word classes. Aarts (1997) mentions that there are 7 parts of speech. Those classification are nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions, and interjections. The answer of the first research question is aimed to show the frequency of the lexical ambiguous part of speech. Then, the researcher would also analyze the structurally ambiguous phrases in order to complete the answer of the second research question. In doing so, the researcher would categorize the structurally ambiguous phrases based on their types of phrases.
The third research question is aimed to show the function of tree diagram in solving the confusion of structural ambiguous phrases. In answering the research question the researcher would refer to the theories of tree diagram and also structural ambiguity proposed by the linguists (Akmajian et.al (2001), Grenat and Taher (2008), and Mihalicek and Wilson (2011)). PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
In this section, the researcher presents the method used in the study. The methodology used aims to answer the three research questions as stated in Chapter
I: what words are lexically ambiguous in Reader’s Forum section of The Jakarta
Post newspaper? What phrases are structurally ambiguous in Reader’s Forum section of The Jakarta Post newspaper? How do the tree diagrams enable the researcher to visualize the possible interpretations of each structural ambiguous sentence/phrase? The researcher formulated those research questions because the researcher would like to find and analyze the ambiguity found in the newspaper.
In this research, the researcher uses The Jakarta Post newspaper as the source of data. In doing the study, the researcher uses particular methodology to make the research systematic. Therefore, in this chapter, the researcher provides research method, research setting, research participant/subject, instruments and data gathering technique, data analysis technique, and research procedure.
A. Research Method
In this study, the researcher conducted qualitative research. Ary, Jacobs, and Sorensen (2010) explain qualitative research as a research that studies social phenomena (p.22). Meanwhile, Fraenkel and Walen (2009) state that qualitative research focuses more on the understanding of situations and phenomena (p.15).
38 PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
39
Since this research focuses on linguistics phenomena, which is ambiguity, qualitative research is hence the basic of this study.
The characteristic of qualitative research is that it cares more about quality rather than numerical data or quantity. Therefore, most of qualitative data is in the form of words or pictures (Fraenkel & Walen, 2009, p.423). In this research, the researcher collected the data in form of passages, letters, and comments. The other characteristic qualitative study that appears in this research is that the researcher analyzed the data inductively. It means that the researcher gathered the data not to test hypothesis but to build concepts and theories. As mentioned by Bogdan and
Biklen which is cited by Fraenkel and Walen (2009), in the qualitative research, the researchers are not putting together puzzle pieces in order to get the picture but constructing a holistic picture that takes shape as they collect the data and examine it (p.423).
In this research, the researcher gathered the data in form of words, phrases, and sentences. That is also one of qualitative research characteristics (Ary, Jacobs,
& Razavieh, 2002, p.425). In qualitative study, the researcher would come to the final product which is richly descriptive (Merriam, 2009, p.16). Moreover, the data were taken in natural setting. It means that the data were taken as they are and the researcher does not have any control to manipulate the data (Ary, Jacobs,
& Razavieh, 2002, p.424). Fraenkel and Wallen (2009) also mention that qualitative researcher would go directly observing and collecting the data to the particular setting of interest (p.422). PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
40
Dealing with ambiguity in the newspaper, the researcher applied content analysis method in the study. Content analysis is also known as document analysis. Ary, Jacobs, and Sorensen (2010) describes content analysis as a method which is aimed to identify specified characteristics in a written or visual materials
(p.457). Fraenkel and Walen (2008) describe content analysis as a technique that allows researchers to study human behavior indirectly (p.472). It means that the researcher would likely to study human behavior through their communications.
Gall, Gall, and Borg (2007) mention the difference between documents and records (p. 291). Documents are personal written communication such as personal letters, diary, etc. On the other hand, records are official written communication such as articles in the newspaper, legal contracts, etc. In this research, the researcher analyzed newspaper articles which are considered as records.
Newspaper is also a means to communicate within society. It transfers information and message to a lot people. Therefore, by conducting this study using the content analysis method, the researcher wants to study human behavior, in this case the way people communicate via mass media.
B. Research Setting
In this study, the researcher analyses ambiguity, particularly lexical and structural ambiguity, found in Reader’s Forum section in The Jakarta Post newspaper. The data used in the research were obtained from the official The
Jakarta Post website, www.thejakartapost.com. The data were gathered on July 1-
July 15, 2013. In the website, the printed edition of the newspaper can also be PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
41 found. Therefore, it helps the researcher a lot since the researcher could obtain the data easily from the internet. Moreover, the researcher could also look up the older printed edition of The Jakarta Post newspaper by using the features provided in the website.
C. Research Subject
Since the study focuses on ambiguity in the newspaper, the researcher is using newspapers as the subject of the study. In Indonesia, there are some newspapers that use English. They are The Jakarta Post, The Jakarta Globe, and
Business News. In addition, some local and national newspapers also use English in special rubric or edition. Solopos, a local newspaper coming from Solo, uses
English in their special rubric in Sunday edition.
However, in this study the researcher used The Jakarta Post newspaper as the subject. The Jakarta Post is a daily English newspaper in Indonesia. The first edition of the newspaper was published in 25 April 1983. It has received many awards and recognitions. Moreover, it is the most famous English newspaper in
Indonesia nowadays.
One week edition from July 1 until July 6, 2013 became the data source of this study. The data can be easily retrieved from The Jakarta Post website, www.thejakartapost.com. At the beginning of the study, the researcher planned on having two weeks edition of the newspaper as the data source. However, after the researcher analyzed one week edition, the researcher has found enough data. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
42
Therefore, the researcher decided to focus on the one-week-data and gain rich description from it.
D. Research Instrument and Data Gathering Technique
Using content analysis as the research method, the researcher became the human instrument of this research. What is meant by human instrument is the researcher herself. This is one of the characteristics of qualitative research. Ary,
Jacobs, and Razavieh (2002) state that in qualitative research, the researcher always needs human instrument who can read all the data, talk with people, and observe the social phenomenon (p.424). Moreover, Merriam (2002) states that human instruments plays important roles in qualitative research (p.15). Human instrument, which is the researcher, is the ideal instrument for collecting and analyzing the data in qualitative research.
In gathering the data, the researcher collected The Jakarta Post newspaper on July 1st, 2013 until July 15th, 2013. The researcher retrieved the data from the official The Jakarta Post website, www.thejakartapost.com. This site also provides the printed edition of the newspaper. From the website, the researcher takes the article from the Reader’s Forum section. There are 4 sub-sections in
Reader’s Forum. They are Your Letter, Text your Say, Issue of the Day, and
Comment.
There were several steps in collecting the data. The first thing is accessing the official website of The Jakarta Post newspaper. After that, the researcher went directly to the printed edition of The Jakarta Post newspaper that is available in PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
43 the website by clicking the printed edition sign. Since the data were retrieved in the same date as the newspaper edition, the researcher did not need to look for the older edition. Next, the researcher went to the Reader’s Forum section. There, the researcher could find the sub-sections of the Reader’s Forum section and also the articles.
Figure 3.1. The Jakarta Post Official Website
E. Data Analysis Technique
This study is dealt with the meaning and interpretation. Therefore, the researcher will begin the data analysis by perusing the data. By doing so, the writer can find the exact interpretation of each sentence. Since the study is about ambiguity, if the researcher found some words or sentences that have more than one interpretation, they would directly become the focus of the study. The ambiguous word or sentence will be put in the table to make it easier for the researcher in managing the data. The researcher would also underline the word or PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
44 phrase that trigger the ambiguity to happen. The table used in the study is presented in Table 3.1.
Table 3.1 Data Organizational Table
Date of Types of Ambiguity No Article title Sentence publication Lexical Struct. 1. 2.
When the data has been arranged in the table, the researcher will focus on the lexical ambiguity first. After that, the researcher would like to describe the interpretations of ambiguous words and phrases based on the data in Table 3.1.
The next step is analyzing lexical ambiguity. The researcher will again put the data in the table. While in the first step the researcher will type the complete sentence, in doing this second step, the researcher would only list the lexically ambiguous word in the table. However, the table is based on the part of speech.
By categorizing the words based on their part of speech, the researcher hopes that it might be helpful to find the most ambiguous part of speech.
Table 3.2. Lexical Ambiguity Table
Parts of Speech No Words N V Adj Adv Prep Con Int 1. 2.
Note: N : Noun Adv : Adverb V : Verb Con : Conjunction Adj : Adjective Int : Interjection
After that, the researcher would continue the study by analyzing the structural ambiguity using tree diagram. This step will answer the second research PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
46 problem. In doing so, the researcher used free software that can be downloaded in the internet called Tree Form version 1.0.3. The researcher found it easier to use than drawing the tree diagram. The preview of Tree Form version 1.0.3 can be seen in Figure 3.2.
Figure 3.2. Tree Form 1.0.3
The last step is summarizing and concluding the data. When the lexical data has been analyzed according to its category and the phrase or sentence has been analyzed using the tree diagram, the researcher will draw conclusion as the result of the study.
F. Research Procedure
Ary, Jacobs, and Razavieh (2002) mention several steps in doing research
(p.29). The researcher followed the stages proposed by the experts so that the research could run well. The procedures of this research are as follows. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
47
1. Formulating the problem
The phenomenon studied in the research was ambiguity. In particular, the researcher investigated the lexical and grammatical ambiguity only. Other types of ambiguity would not be considered in the research.
2. Reviewing the literature
In order to gain more insight and understanding related to the topic, the researcher needed to review the relevant literature. In this research, the researcher then looked for literature related to ambiguity. Other than ambiguity, the researcher also found theories about meaning, parts of speech, and also tree diagram.
3. Designing the research
Having three research questions to be solved, the researcher needed to conduct the research. However, the researcher should decide which research method is the most suitable one to help the researcher in solving the problem.
Since the researcher study human communication in the newspaper, content analysis is the most suitable method.
4. Collecting the data
The media used in the research is newspaper. Newspaper is one kind of written communication media. To be precise, the researcher chose The Jakarta
Post as the source of data. The data was taken from the Reader’s Forum section from The Jakarta Post newspaper. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
48
5. Analyzing the data
After collecting the data, the researcher would directly start perusing the data. The researcher analyzed the data by finding the possible interpretation, categorizing the lexical ambiguity based on the parts of speech, and solving structural ambiguity using tree diagram.
6. Interpreting the finding and stating conclusion
Since the study is qualitative study, the researcher would interpret the findings in form of narrative form. The findings and discussion would be about the interpretations of ambiguous sentences, the frequency of lexical ambiguity and tree diagram role in interpreting structural ambiguity.
7. Reporting the result
The last step in the research is reporting the result. The researcher would welcome the future researchers who are interested in the same field to review this research. Therefore, the researcher would like to report the research in a form intelligible to others. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
CHAPTER IV
RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter will present the research results and also discussion. The researcher would like to answer three research questions that have been mentioned in Chapter I. Those research questions are: what words are lexically ambiguous in
Reader’s Forum section in The Jakarta Post newspaper? What phrases are structurally ambiguous in Reader’s Forum section in The Jakarta Post newspaper? How do the tree diagrams enable the researcher to resolve the structural ambiguities? In answering the questions, the researcher would use theories discussed in Chapter II.
The data were taken from one-week-edition in The Jakarta Post newspaper from July 1 to July 6, 2013. The researcher focused on the articles under the Reader’s Forum section which were obtained from the official website of The Jakarta Post, www.thejakartapost.com. From that website, the researcher could easily access the data which came from various sub-section of the Reader’s
Forum such as Comments, Issue of the day, Text your say, and Your Letter. From one-week-edition, the researcher found 7 phrases and 47 words which are considered ambiguous.
A. Ambiguous Words and Phrases
In order to answer the first and second question, the researcher needed to find out the ambiguous words and phrases. By reading the passage carefully, the
49 PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
50 researcher could find several ambiguous words and phrases. There were 7 phrases and 47 words which were considered ambiguous. In this section, the researcher would like to analyze the possible ambiguous words or phrases.
Ambiguity Ratio
Structural 12%
Lexical Lexical Structural 88%
Figure 4.1 Ambiguity Ratio
Figure 4.1 explains the ratio of the findings. The majority of the ambiguities found were lexical ambiguity which was 88%. While structural ambiguity was only 12% of the data. In doing the analysis, the researcher applied
Grenat and Taher (2008) theories on ambiguity about lexical and structural ambiguity. The researcher would also provide the interpretations of each ambiguous word and phrase as follows.
1. Ambiguous Words
First, the researcher would like to discuss the lexical ambiguity. Lexical ambiguity deals with words. The problem might arise because the word itself has multiple meanings. The researcher used two dictionaries to help her in the studies, PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
51
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and Cambridge Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary. In the case of lexical ambiguity, the word might be polysemous or homonymous. In analyzing the lexical ambiguity, the researcher found some words that occur more than once. Therefore, the researcher would only discuss it once. However, the researcher provided table in Appendix 1 which contains all ambiguities found in the studies. The analysis of lexical ambiguity words are as follows.
1. Can the KPK explain, based on its analogy, why the jersey is not a gratuity
because it was given by Christiano Ronaldo? (Comments: Ronaldo’s jersey
for SBY not a gratuity: KPK on July 1, 2013)
The sentence was taken from a comment on KPK policy. The writer of the comment was comparing the case of Ronaldo’s jersey with Trujillo’s guitar. The researcher found that the word jersey is ambiguous. The researcher found two meanings of the word jersey that could be attached to the sentence. Based on
Cambridge Advance Learner’s Dictionary, jersey can be; a. a piece of a piece of clothing made from wool or cotton, which has sleeves
and is worn on the upper part of the body and does not open at the front b. a shirt which is worn by a sport member or team.
Based on those two meanings, the interpretations of the sentence would be
(1) Can the KPK explain, based on its analogy, why the wool or cotton shirt is not a gratuity because it was given by Christiano Ronaldo? and (2) Can the KPK explain, based on its analogy, why the sport team shirt is not a gratuity because it was given by Christiano Ronaldo? Those two sentences made sense and PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
52 semantically correct. Without knowing that Christiano Ronaldo is a football player, the reader could not be sure of the meaning of the sentence.
2. Indonesian is by far the most significant member of ASEAN with the largest
population and strongest economy of all member states, and it is politically
neutral. (Comments: Vietnam, RI to upgrade relationship on July 1,
2013)
The writer comments on the Vietnamese President’s coming to Indonesia at Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s invitation. In the comment, the writer said that
Indonesian was the most significant member of ASEAN. The word significant caused ambiguity since it could be described as: a. important b. special
If both meanings were assigned to the sentence, both could make reasonable sentences. The interpretations are: (1) Indonesian is by far the most important member of ASEAN with the largest population and strongest economy of all member states, and it is politically neutral, and (2) Indonesian is by far the most special member of ASEAN with the largest population and strongest economy of all member states, and it is politically neutral. Both sentences made sense. Yet, the reader did not really know what the writer intended to say.
3. Indonesian is by far the most significant member of ASEAN with the largest
population and strongest economy of all member states, and it is politically
neutral. (Comments: Vietnam, RI to upgrade relationship on July 1,
2013) PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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In point 2, the researcher discussed the word significant. However, in the same sentence, the researcher also found that the word neutral could also trigger ambiguity. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the meanings of the word neutral could be: a. not helping or supporting either side in a dispute, contest, or war b. having no distinct or positive qualities.
The sentence consisted of two clauses. If first meaning was assigned to the second clause, where the ambiguous word was attached, the meaning would be (1)
Indonesia does not support either side in the affair within the ASEAN members.
On the other hand, if the second meaning was assigned, the interpretation would be (2) Indonesia does not have distinct or positive qualities in politics. Both meanings could also be assigned to the word neutral. However, the second meaning was not reasonable, since it would contradict the previous clause
Indonesian is by far the most significant member of ASEAN with the largest population and strongest economy of all member states. Therefore, the second meaning best conveyed the whole idea of the sentence.
4. Indonesian is well-respected and always helps to lead regional direction.
(Comments: Vietnam, RI to upgrade relationship on July 1, 2013)
From the same comment on the Vietnamese President’s coming to
Indonesia at Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s invitation, the researcher found another ambiguous word. Direction was the word that was possibly ambiguous. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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This word has several meanings. However two meanings that suited the sentence the most were: a. instruction of what or how to do something b. management or guidance
In the first meaning, the sentence was interpreted as (1) Indonesian is well- respected and always helps to lead regional instruction. On the other hand, in the second meaning, the sentence was interpreted as (2) Indonesian is well respected and always helps to lead regional management.
5. It naturally attracts international interest due to the fact that more than a half
of the world’s maritime traffic traverses those waters. (Comments: Vietnam,
RI to upgrade relationship on July 1, 2013)
The word interest has multiple meanings. It has eight meanings in Oxford
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. However, there were only three entries suitable for the sentence: a. the feeling of wanting to give your attention to something or discover more
about something b. an involvement of legal right c. advantages, benefits
If we analyze the sentence based on the possible meanings suggested, the meanings of the sentence would be (1) It naturally attracts international attention due to the fact that more than a half of the world’s maritime traffic traverses those waters, (2) It naturally attracts the international legal rights due to the fact that more than a half of the world’s maritime traffic traverses those waters, and (3) It PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
55 naturally attracts international benefits due to the fact that more than a half of the world’s maritime traffic traverses those waters.
6. It naturally attracts international interest due to the fact that more than a half
of the world’s maritime traffic traverses those waters. (Comments: Vietnam,
RI to upgrade relationship on July 1, 2013)
The researcher also found another ambiguous word from the same sentence as presented in point 5. Traffic has three meanings in Cambridge
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Those meanings are: a. the amount of vehicles moving along roads b. people or goods transported through water, air, or roads c. illegal trade
From those three meanings, the sentence could be interpreted as (1) It naturally attracts international interest due to the fact that more than a half of the world’s maritime vehicles (such as ship) traverse those waters, (2) It naturally attracts international interest due to the fact that more than a half of the world’s maritime transportation of people and goods traverses those waters, and (3) It naturally attracts international interest due to the fact that more than a half of the world’s maritime illegal trade traverses those waters. Having read the passage, the first and second interpretation could meet the message of the passage.
7. The fact that even those people who are known to be corrupt, who have
knowingly and deliberately trampled the human rights of fellow souls. (Text
your say: Haj pilgrimage postponement on July 1, 2013) PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
56
The passage discussed the readers’ comments and opinions on Haj pilgrimage quota. The comments which the sentence was taken talked about the corruptor who could go Haj pilgrimage as they liked for several times. However, the researcher found that the word trample was ambiguous. According to Oxford
Advanced Learners Dictionary, the meanings of the word trample were: a. step heavily on something b. act without respect
Those two meanings could meet the idea of the sentence. The first meaning was (1) The fact that even those people who are known to be corrupt, who have knowingly and deliberately stepped the human rights of fellow souls.
The second meaning was (2) The fact that even those people who are known to be corrupt, who have knowingly and deliberately disregarded the human rights of fellow souls. If we see the first meaning, the sentence had connotative meaning on stepped the human rights. While in the second sentence, the meaning of the sentence was as it was written.
8. The fact that even those people who are known to be corrupt, who have
knowingly and deliberately trampled the human rights of fellow souls. (Text
your say: Haj pilgrimage postponement on July 1, 2013)
From the same sentence as presented in point 8, the researcher found another ambiguous word. The word fellow has multiple meanings that could fit the idea of the sentence. Those meanings were: a. man b. organizational member PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
57
When those meanings are assigned to the sentence, the meaning could be either wider or narrower. If we applied the first meaning, the sentence would be
(1) The fact that even those people who are known to be corrupt, who have knowingly and deliberately trampled the human rights of man souls. The second meaning would modify the sentence as follows (2) The fact that even those people who are known to be corrupt, who have knowingly and deliberately trampled the human rights of the organization’s member souls. The first interpretation would make the sentence became wider since it might refer to everyone. On the other hand, the second interpretation was narrower since it only referred to particular people.
9. Cannot the most holy places for Muslims be made to be located not in any
country, maybe somewhat like the Vatican and managed not by any national
government, but by an international council of Muslims? (Text your say:
Haj pilgrimage postponement on July 1, 2013)
The researcher found that the word country in the sentence is ambiguous.
The word country can be used to describe two things. Those meanings are: a. a nation b. area outside the town or cities typically with village
Using those two meanings, the interpretations of the sentence would be:
(1) Cannot the most holy places for Muslims be made to be located not in any nation, maybe somewhat like the Vatican and managed not by any national government, but by an international council of Muslims? and (2) Cannot the most holy places for Muslims be made to be located not in any village, maybe PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
58 somewhat like the Vatican and managed not by any national government, but by an international council of Muslims? From those two interpretations, the first meaning was the most suitable.
10. So, in order to make Indonesia better in the future, all candidates need to
prepare to be great leaders, not merely making promises, but giving more
proof of work done. (Your Letter: Old and new Turkey on July 2, 2013)
The letter mostly talked about the difference between the old and new
Turkey under Edorgan power. The writer of the letter also suggested Indonesia to look and learn from Turkey. From the letter, the researcher found the word need to which triggers ambiguity. It has 2 meanings, those meanings are: a. must (as modal) b. require
In the first meaning the sentence is interpreted as (1) So in order to make
Indonesia better in the future, all candidates must prepare to be great leaders, not merely making promises, but giving more proof of work done. On the other hand, in the second meaning, the sentence interpreted as (2) So in order to make
Indonesia better in the future, all candidates are required to prepare to be great leaders, not merely making promises, but giving more proof of work done. Both meanings are acceptable and made sense. This might cause confusion to the reader.
11. So, in order to make Indonesia better in the future, all candidates need to
prepare to be great leaders, not merely making promises, but giving more
proof of work done. (Your Letter: Old and new Turkey on July 2, 2013) PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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From the same passage and sentence as presented in point 10, the researcher found that the word great was ambiguous. The word great has multiple meanings. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the possible meanings of the word great used in the sentence were: a. excellent and outstanding b. high rank c. clever or skillful
Based on those meanings, the sentence could be interpreted as (1) So, in order to make Indonesia better in the future, all candidates need to prepare to be excellent and outstanding leaders, not merely making promises, but giving more proof of work done, (2) So, in order to make Indonesia better in the future, all candidates need to prepare to be a high rank leaders, not merely making promises, but giving more proof of work done, and (3) So, in order to make
Indonesia better in the future, all candidates need to prepare to be clever and skillful leaders, not merely making promises, but giving more proof of work done.
Those three interpretations were reasonable. Therefore, it might make the reader could not choose the one that was actually intended by the writer.
12. Now, if we think of the food products we consume every day, the realization
that sugar consumed is much higher than we required is apparent. (Your
Letter: Be smart eater on July 2, 2013)
The passage titled Be smart eater talked about the danger of foods nowadays which many of them did not place the nutrition information in the food wrap. It also talked about the amount of salt and sugar served in fast food PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
60 restaurants and food manufactures. In the sentence presented in point 11, it uses the word apparent which was ambiguous. Apparent meanings were: a. clearly seen or understood b. seeming real or true
Knowing those two meanings, the sentence could be interpreted as (1)
Now, if we think of the food products we consume every day, the realization that sugar consumed is much higher than we required is obvious. (2) Now, if we think of the food products we consume every day, the realization that sugar consumed is much higher than we required is seemingly real. Those two meaning made sense when they were applied to the sentence. However, the first meaning conveyed the idea of the sentence better since the passage talked about the great amount of sugar and salt that people consume.
13. Because of the high content of sugar in fast food, diabetes has become
common concern, even for people in their 20s. (Your Letter: Be smart eater
on July 2, 2013)
The word common also caused ambiguity in the sentence presented in point 13. It has several meanings, but there were only two meanings which could fit the sentence. Those meanings are: a. usual or familiar b. shared by or belonging to two or more people
If the first meaning was applied to the sentence, the meaning would be (1)
Because of the high content of sugar in fast food, diabetes has become usual and familiar concern, even for people in their 20s, while the second meaning would PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
61 modify the sentence as (2) Because of the high content of sugar in fast food, diabetes has become concern of a lot of people, even for people in their 20s.
14. Because of the high content of sugar in fast food, diabetes has become
common concern, even for people in their 20s. (Your Letter: Be smart
eater on July 2, 2013)
The word concern also triggered another ambiguity, since it might refer to more than one meaning. Those meanings are: a. worries or anxiety b. important or interesting thing for somebody
Based on those two meanings, the sentence could be interpreted as (1)
Because of the high content of sugar in fast food, diabetes has become common worries, even for people in their 20s, and (2) Because of the high content of sugar in fast food, diabetes has become important thing for people, even for people in their 20s. Having read the passage, the researcher still could not decide the intended meaning of the writer since both interpretations suggested by the researcher could meet the idea of the passage.
15. If he continues to always bear in mind the well-being of the common man,
you are truly fortunate to have such a political leader. (Comments: Jokowi
allows residents in to watch ‘Ariah’ on July 2, 2013)
The comment was about Jokowi’s act in allowing people to watch ‘Ariah’ event for free. Many people gave positive comments such as presented in point
14. In the comment, the researcher found that the sentence was ambiguous. It was because the word common has multiple meaning. In point 13, the meaning that PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
62 suited the sentence is usual and shared. However, in this sentence, the possible meanings were: a. ordinary, without special rank b. low class
Using those two meanings, the interpretation of the sentence would be (1)
If he continues to always bear in mind the well-being of the ordinary man, you are truly fortunate to have such a political leader, (2) If he continues to always bear in mind the well-being of the low class man, you are truly fortunate to have such a political leader. From those two interpretations it can be seen that the first interpretation could carry the message better than the second one.
16. If he continues to always bear in mind the well-being of the common man,
you are truly fortunate to have such a political leader. (Comments: Jokowi
allows residents in to watch ‘Ariah’ on July 2, 2013)
What followed the word common was also ambiguous. The word man has two meanings. Those two meanings could modify the sentence since it would become wider or narrower. Those meanings were: a. people, human race b. adult male human being
The first meaning would make a wider interpretation since adult male human being was smaller and part of the human race. Therefore, the interpretations would be; (1) If he continues to always bear in mind the well-being of the common people, you are truly fortunate to have such a political leader, and PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
63
(2) If he continues to always bear in mind the well-being of the common adult male, you are truly fortunate to have such a political leader.
17. The obvious explanation is that the knowledge production in Indonesia is
very weak. (Comments: Bogus journal publication on July 3, 2013)
This sentence was also taken from the same journal as presented in point
23. The word weak could also be ambiguous. It was usually used to represent the physical condition. However there were some suitable meanings that can be used to describe this word: a. not strong enough to persuade, work, etc. b. low standard and lack in skill
Based on those two meanings, the sentence can be interpreted as (1) The obvious explanation is that the knowledge production in Indonesia is not strong, and (2) The obvious explanation is that the knowledge production in Indonesia is having very low standard. Those two sentences were reasonable and acceptable.
However, having read the passage, the second sentence was the most suitable one.
The passage mostly talks about Indonesian scientists and researchers who were not skillful and capable enough to produce good journals to be published internationally.
18. The people in power seem to be conveniently leaving out education reform,
which in my opinions the best way to give RI a future. (Comments:
Polygamy and graft: A most convenient marriage on July 3, 2013)
This was a comment on the news about Fathanah who was caught because of corruption. He also did the polygamous practices at home. The researcher PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
64 found that the words the people were ambiguous. While the word people itself can refer to several meanings, the compound noun the people could refer to two meanings. Those meanings are: a. citizen b. ordinary persons who do not have special rank
Those two meanings were slightly different. The first meaning was broader than the second one which only refers to the special group op persons.
Therefore, the word may trigger ambiguity since they would make different interpretation as follows (1) The citizen in power seem to be conveniently leaving out education reform, which in my opinions the best way to give RI a future, and
(2) Ordinary persons in power seem to be conveniently leaving out education reform, which in my opinions the best way to give RI a future. However, the researcher also considered the possibility if the use of article the was to refer a particular people which means that the ambiguity belongs to referential ambiguity.
19. The people in power seem to be conveniently leaving out education reform,
which in my opinions the best way to give RI a future. (Comments:
Polygamy and graft: A most convenient marriage on July 3, 2013)
The researcher also found another ambiguity was found from the same sentence as in point 25. In the sentence, the researcher found that the word power was ambiguous. Power could be described as: a. political control b. right possessed PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
65
Based on those two meanings, the sentence interpretations would be (1)
The people who have political control seem to be conveniently leaving out education reform, which in my opinions the best way to give RI a future, and (2)
The people who have the right to do so seem to be conveniently leaving out education reform, which in my opinions the best way to give RI a future.
20. Aside from a few yachts that are normally in Indonesia, and the odd boat out
of Darwin, Singapore or Malaysia, the “rally” can capture at most only 100-
120 boats that depart from Darwin with the Southeast trade winds in June-
July and must reach Singapore-Thailand before the Northwest monsoon sets
in. (Issue of the day: ‘Unprepared’ for sail komodo on July 3, 2013)
One of the sections in the Reader’s Forum is Issue of the Day. In the section, the readers of Jakarta Post newspaper give their comment on particular issue. This sentence was taken from a comment on RI preparation of Sail Komodo event. The researcher found that the word odd was ambiguous, since it might refer to two meanings. Those meanings were: a. strange b. not often
Based on those meanings, the noun phrase the odd boat could be described as (1) the strange boat and (2) the boat which is rarely seen/sailed. Those two meanings were very different, and cause double interpretations.
21. In past years the local tour guide associations have been ignored, which may
not mean much more than poor public relations. (Issue of the day:
‘Unprepared’ for sail komodo on July 3, 2013) PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
66
Taken from the same passage as in the previous point, the researcher found that the word poor was ambiguous. Poor, which is usually described as the condition of not having much money, in this case, can be described as: a. bad b. deserving sympathy
If the first meaning was applied to the sentence, the sentence could be interpreted as (1) In past years the local tour guide associations have been ignored, which may not mean much more than bad public relations. On the other hand, if the second meaning was applied, the sentence could be interpreted as (2)
In past years the local tour guide associations have been ignored, which may not mean much more than public relations which deserve sympathy.
22. Hopefully, there is still a chance for preparations. (Issue of the day:
‘Unprepared’ for sail komodo on July 3, 2013)
The word chance in this sentence could refer to several meanings.
Therefore, it was considered ambiguous. Those meanings were: a. possibility of something happening b. an opportunity c. luck
From those three possible meanings, the sentence could be interpreted as
(1) Hopefully, there is still a possibility for preparations, (2) Hopefully, there is still an opportunity for preparations, and (3) Hopefully, there is still a luck for preparations. Seeing those three interpretations, all of them are acceptable and make sense. Therefore, the word chance is ambiguous. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
67
23. SBY’s brother-in-law would likely enjoy smooth sailing in the primary,
giving the general public the opportunity to welcome more ‘Jokowis’ to the
fore. (Text your say: Yet, another General joins Dems on July 3, 2013)
The sentence was taken from a comment on SBY’s brother-in-law act joining the Dems party. The word smooth was usually used to describe a surface without lumps or rough patches. However, in the sentence in point 30, the word smooth referred to other meanings. Those meanings were: a. without any difficulties b. polite but not sincere
Using those two meanings, the sentence could be interpreted as (1) SBY’s brother-in-law would likely enjoy sailing without problems and difficulties in the primary, giving the general public the opportunity to welcome more ‘Jokowis’ to the fore, and (2) SBY’s brother-in-law would likely enjoy sailing which is insincere in the primary, giving the general public the opportunity to welcome more ‘Jokowis’ to the fore. Seeing those two interpretations and reading the passage, the first one seemed better than the second one because the meaning of the sentence carried the message of the passage better.
24. He is joining his sister and brother in law’s party. (Text your say: Yet,
another General joins Dems on July 3, 2013)
This sentence contains two kinds of ambiguity, both lexical and structural ambiguity. However, the researcher would only focus on lexical ambiguity and refer to one structure of the sentence. Without reading the passage, the word party would be ambiguous since it might be interpreted as: PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
68 a. social event b. political group
Applying those two meanings, the interpretations of the sentence would be
(1) He is joining his sister and brother in law’s celebration and (2) He is joining his sister and brother in law’s political group. The passage is about Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono’s brother in law who joins Dems where his sister was also its member. Therefore, the second meaning is the most suitable.
25. Most importantly, it personifies the country’s integrity for accountability and
respect for the rule of law, which is commendable. (Your letter: SBY’s
apology should be applauded on July 3, 2013)
The writer of the letter tried to appreciate SBY’s apology on the smoke hazard to Singapore and Malaysia. In the letter, the researcher found sentences that were ambiguous. This one is caused because of lexical ambiguity. The ambiguous word was integrity. It has two meanings, those meanings were: a. the quality of being whole and complete b. the quality of being honest
Based on those two meanings, the sentence could be interpreted as (1)
Most importantly, it personifies the country’s unity for accountability and respect for the rule of law, which is commendable, and (2) Most importantly, it personifies the country’s honesty and sincerity for accountability and respect for the rule of law, which is commendable. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
69
26. Most importantly, it personifies the country’s integrity for accountability and
respect for the rule of law, which is commendable. (Your letter: SBY’s
apology should be applauded on July 3, 2013)
Besides the word integrity presented in point 31, the researcher also found that the word respect was also ambiguous. It could refer to two meanings, those meanings were: a. admiration b. consideration
If those two meanings were applied to the sentence, those meanings would modify the sentence as (1) Most importantly, it personifies the country’s integrity for accountability and admiration for the rule of law, which is commendable, and
(2) Most importantly, it personifies the country’s integrity for accountability and consideration for the rule of law, which is commendable. Both meanings could suit the sentence well. However, the second sentence was way better than the second one.
27. Although capital inflows have traditionally focused on natural resources,
recent investment has included businesses seeking to exploit middle-class
consumers. (Your letter: SBY’s apology should be applauded on July 3,
2013)
Taken from the same passage as on point 31 and 32, this sentence was also considered ambiguous. The one that trigger the ambiguity was the word exploit.
This word has negative and positive meanings as follows. a. use, explore, and develop something fully and well PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
70 b. use unfairly
From those meanings, we can see that if those meanings are applied to the sentence, it will make a great difference as the first will cause the positive meaning and the second one will surely not. The interpretations are as follows. (1)
Although capital inflows have traditionally focused on natural resources, recent investment has included businesses seeking to explore middle-class consumers, and (2) Although capital inflows have traditionally focused on natural resources, recent investment has included businesses seeking to use unfairly middle-class consumers.
28. This noble act will quash the perception of sheer disregard for the rule of law,
convention and accountability in Indonesia. (Your letter: SBY’s apology
should be applauded on July 3, 2013)
The word noble triggered ambiguity in this sentence, since it could be interpreted in two ways. The two meanings were: a. impressive and causing admiration b. moral in honest and honor
Based on those two meanings, the sentence could be interpreted as (1) This admiring act will quash the perception of sheer disregard for the rule of law, convention and accountability in Indonesia, and (2) This honorable act will quash the perception of sheer disregard for the rule of law, convention and accountability in Indonesia. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
71
29. This noble act will quash the perception of sheer disregard for the rule of
law, convention and accountability in Indonesia. (Your letter: SBY’s
apology should be applauded on July 3, 2013)
The word quash also caused another problem to the sentence. This word was polysemous. It means that it has several meanings. The word quash has two different meanings. Those meanings were: a. to reject something and declare that it is no longer valid b. to stop
Using those two meanings, the sentence would be interpreted as (1) This noble act will reject the perception of sheer disregard for the rule of law, convention and accountability in Indonesia, and (2) This noble act will stop the perception of sheer disregard for the rule of law, convention and accountability in
Indonesia.
30. Indonesia is making strides to improve in these important areas. (Your letter:
SBY’s apology should be applauded on July 3, 2013)
Another lexical ambiguity found from the same passage as in point 31 up to 39. In this case, the word stride brought two effects on the sentence as it could be: a. step b. development
When the sentence used the first meaning as the reference, the sentence would be (1) Indonesia is making step to improve in these important areas. Using this meaning, the sentence seemed to be conveying connotative meaning. On the PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
72 other hand, the second meaning would make the sentence have denotative meaning since the sentence would be interpreted as (2) Indonesia is making development to improve in these important areas.
31. Coming to the core issue, as long as there is a strong demand for crude palm
oil (CPO) worldwide, these plantation owners will continue to cultivate their
land with cheap, unethical methods. (Comments: Yudhoyono tries to put
out the fire from critics on July 4, 2013)
This sentence was taken from comments on President of Indonesia’s act related to the critics from people on his apologizing to Singapore and Malaysia for the smoke. In the sentence, the word core triggered ambiguity. It could refer to two meanings. Those meanings are: a. central b. most important
If the first meaning was applied, the sentence would be (1) Coming to the central issue, as long as there is a strong demand for crude palm oil (CPO) worldwide, these plantation owners will continue to cultivate their land with cheap, unethical methods, while, if the second meaning was applied, the sentence would be (2) Coming to the most important issue, as long as there is a strong demand for crude palm oil (CPO) worldwide, these plantation owners will continue to cultivate their land with cheap, unethical methods. Both meanings were accepted and reasonable. However, based on Cambridge Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary, the word core which is usually interpreted as central is used PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
73 to represent the hard central part of fruit Therefore the second meaning suited the sentence the most.
32. Coming to the core issue, as long as there is a strong demand for crude palm
oil (CPO) worldwide, these plantation owners will continue to cultivate their
land with cheap, unethical methods. (Comments: Yudhoyono tries to put
out the fire from critics on July 4, 2013)
The researcher also found that the word demand was ambiguous. It has two meanings. Those meanings are: a. strong request b. need
Based on those meanings which were both reasonable, the sentence could be interpreted as (1) Coming to the core issue, as long as there is a strong and determined request for crude palm oil (CPO) worldwide, these plantation owners will continue to cultivate their land with cheap, unethical methods, and (2)
Coming to the core issue, as long as there is a strong need for crude palm oil
(CPO) worldwide, these plantation owners will continue to cultivate their land with cheap, unethical methods. Those two sentences seemed reasonable and made sense.
33. Coming to the core issue, as long as there is a strong and determined request
for crude palm oil (CPO) worldwide, these plantation owners will continue to
cultivate their land with cheap, unethical methods. (Comments: Yudhoyono
tries to put out the fire from critics on July 4, 2013) PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
74
In the same sentence as presented in point 33 and 34, the researcher found other ambiguous word. The word cultivate was ambiguous since there were more than one meaning that can be referred to it. Those meanings are: a. use and prepare b. develop and improve something
Both meanings could be applied in the sentence as follows (1) Coming to the core issue, as long as there is a strong and determined request for crude palm oil (CPO) worldwide, these plantation owners will continue to use and prepare their land with cheap, unethical methods, and (2) Coming to the core issue, as long as there is a strong and determined request for crude palm oil (CPO) worldwide, these plantation owners will continue to develop and improve their land with cheap, unethical methods. Both meanings were reasonable. However the first sentence was the most suitable interpretation since the meaning use and prepare usually refers to land.
34. Coming to the core issue, as long as there is a strong and determined request
for crude palm oil (CPO) worldwide, these plantation owners will continue to
cultivate their land with cheap, unethical methods. (Comments: Yudhoyono
tries to put out the fire from critics on July 4, 2013)
Another ambiguous word found in the same sentence as presented in point
33, 34 and 35. The word cheap may also trigger ambiguity, since it can refer to two meanings. Those meanings are: a. low in price, costing little money b. low in quality PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
75
Using those two meanings, the sentence could be interpreted as (1)
Coming to the core issue, as long as there is a strong and determined request for crude palm oil (CPO) worldwide, these plantation owners will continue to cultivate their land with low cost, unethical methods, and (2) Coming to the core issue, as long as there is a strong and determined request for crude palm oil
(CPO) worldwide, these plantation owners will continue to cultivate their land with low quality, unethical methods. The interpretations of those meanings were acceptable and reasonable. This might cause the reader confused in deciding which one was intended by the writer.
35. This must be stopped through strict legal enforcement otherwise it will revert
to the status quo. (Comments: Yudhoyono tries to put out the fire from
critics on July 4, 2013)
This sentence was taken from a comment on President of Indonesia’s act related to the critics from people on his apologizing to Singapore and Malaysia for the smoke. The word stopped can refer to two meanings, those meanings are: a. to put an end to the movement, progress, or an action b. to prevent
Using those two meanings, the sentence could be interpreted as (1) This must be put to an end through strict legal enforcement otherwise it will revert to the status quo and (2) This must be prevented through strict legal enforcement otherwise it will revert to the status quo. The difference between them could be clearly seen from the meaning put an end and prevent. In put an end, it is clearly PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
76 that the action, progress or movement is ongoing, while in prevent, the movement, progress and action haven’t started yet.
36. This must be stopped through strict legal enforcement otherwise it will revert
to the status quo. (Comments: Yudhoyono tries to put out the fire from
critics on July 4, 2013)
Another ambiguous word from the sentence presented in point 20 and 21 was strict. The word strict could refer to two entries. Those entries are: a. obeyed and observed b. clearly and exactly defined
Those two meanings were clearly different. Therefore those would make different interpretation too. The first meaning would modify the sentence as (1)
This must be stopped through legal enforcement which should be obeyed otherwise it will revert to the status quo, while the second meaning would modify the sentence as (2) This must be stopped through legal enforcement which is clearly and exactly defined otherwise it will revert to the status quo. Those sentence were both acceptable and reasonable, therefore it might cause confusion.
37. Needless to say, one must not compromise over public health. (Comments:
Yudhoyono tries to put out the fire from critics on July 4, 2013)
This sentence was also taken from the same passage as on point 16 to 21.
The word compromise is polysemous. There were three meanings that could fit the sentence. Those meanings were: a. to settle a dispute b. to bring someone or something on danger situation because foolish behavior PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
77 c. to weaken a belief, standard, etc.
Based on those three meanings, the sentence could be interpreted as (1)
Needless to say, one must not settle a dispute over public health, (2) Needless to say, one must not bring public health in a danger situation, and (3) Needless to say, one must not lowering public health standard. Those three meanings could carry different interpretations, which were all acceptable.
38. Zoos in Indonesia are managed by incompetent and corrupt people. (Issue of
the day: Visitors feel pity for zoo occupants on July 4, 2013)
This sentence was taken from the comment on zoos’ condition which was very poor. This sentence was ambiguous. The word corrupt was considered ambiguous. There were three meanings that could be the references: a. willing to act dishonestly or illegally in return for money b. morally bad c. not following standard or behavior
Based on those three meanings, the noun phrase corrupt people could be interpreted as (1) people who are willing to act illegally for money, (2) people who are morally bad, and (3) people who are not following the standard. Those three interpretations made sense. Moreover, those three interpretations could carry the message of the whole passage which criticizes the condition of zoos in
Indonesia.
39. They “feed” the organization and preserve them in order to manage “the
political balance” so they can gain a dominant bargaining position with the
government. (Your letter: Violent in Papua on July 4, 2013) PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
78
A sentence taken from a letter commenting on violence in Papua was considered to be ambiguous. The ambiguity was raised because of the ambiguous found in the word gain. It could refer to these meanings: a. get b. increase
Those two meanings caused different interpretation to the sentence. The first meaning would affect the verb phrase gain a dominant bargaining position as
(1) get a dominant bargaining position, which means that previously ‘they’ (the subject) have not got the dominant bargaining position before, while the second meaning would modify the phrase as (2) increase a dominant bargaining position, which means that ‘they’ have got the dominant bargaining position but want to increase and improve it.
40. I, too, support the respect for individual privacy and basic liberties for all.
(Comments: Snowden and evidence on July 5, 2013)
The word respect has also been discussed in point 33. Previously, the researcher had suggested two meanings. Those meaning were: a. admiration b. consideration
Those two meanings could also be applied to this sentence, and would modify the sentence as (1) I, too, support the admiration for individual privacy and basic liberties for all, and (2) I, too, support the consideration for individual privacy and basic liberties for all. Therefore, the readers might find it difficult to get the intended meaning. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
79
41. So the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) has done it again — a display of brutal
behavior and extremely bad manners by its spokesman Munarman, which
saw him throw water over sociologist Thamrin Amal Tamagola during a
television talk show. (Your Letter: Television talk show incident on July
5, 2013)
This sentence is taken from a letter which talks about FPI spokesperson who threw water over a sociologist on morning television talk show. In the passage, the researcher found that the word brutal is ambiguous. Brutal can be interpreted as: a. cruel and violent b. not considering someone’s feeling
Both interpretations make sense, since what was done by Munarman could be interpreted as violent behavior or behavior which is not considering others’ feeling. Therefore, it might cause confusion for the readers.
42. Clearly, Thamrin is the well-mannered gentleman here, and he is absolutely
right to let us, the public, make a judgment call about the incident. (Your
Letter: Television talk show incident on July 5, 2013)
This sentence is taken from the same letter as in point 42. The writer of the letter mentions Thamrin as a gentleman. The word gentleman is ambiguous since it might be interpreted in two different meanings: a. a man who is polite and considers for the feeling of other people b. wealthy man PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
80
Referring to the passage, the first meaning best conveyed the message. If the first meaning applied, it would complete the idea of the comparison between
Munarwan and Thamrin. Munarwan was said to perform brutal behavior which contradict Thamrin action which showed him as a gentleman.
43. None of these processes are sustainable in the long run. (Your Letter:
Carbon credit farming unsustainable on July 5, 2013)
This sentence is lexically ambiguous. It is because it contains ambiguous word. In this case, the word sustainable is ambiguous. It is ambiguous since it can be interpreted in two ways: a. able to continue b. do not harm the environment
Using those two meanings, the interpretation of the sentence would be (1)
None of these processes can be maintained in the long run, and (2) None of these processes will not harm the environment in the long run. Therefore, the sentence is lexically ambiguous.
44. Instead, we are in denial and deride their false information out of pride.
(Issue of the day: RI: A reluctant good neighbor to Australia on July 5,
2013)
Taken from Issue of the Day section, this sentence was kind of ambiguous.
The word pride was kind of polysemous because it has several meanings which still under the same entry in the dictionary. Those meanings triggered the lexical ambiguity happened in the sentence. Those meanings were: a. satisfaction PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
81 b. respect of one self
From those two meanings, the sentence could be interpreted as (1) Instead, we are in denial and deride their false information out of satisfaction, and (2)
Instead, we are in denial and deride their false information out of sense of dignity.
Therefore, the sentence is lexically ambiguous.
45. However, beyond this perception, the indifferent attitude of the media toward
some important diplomatic events taking place in a geographical area with an
estimated population of 650 million, covered and represented by a prestigious
regional organization like ASEAN, has to be seriously questioned for a major
practical reason. (Your Letter: Increasing ASEAN’s visibility on July 6,
2013)
This sentence is considered ambiguous since it can be interpreted in two ways. The trigger of the ambiguity is the word indifferent. This word has more than one meaning. The meanings of the word which are suitable for the sentence are: a. not interested b. not good
Based on those two meanings, the sentence could be interpreted in two ways. However, the first meaning best suited the sentence. It is because the passage talks about media’s attitude which does not care about the important events. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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46. Perhaps freedom is like democracy, another much-used word that in practice
is a myth and doesn’t really exist. (Your Letter: Freedom – What is it? on
July 6, 2013)
This sentence is taken from a letter talking about freedom. The writer of the letter seems to question the existence of freedom. In the letter, he also mentions that freedom is like myth. The word myth is ambiguous since it has more than one meaning. Those meanings are: a. ancient story b. a thing or person which is imaginary
Those two meanings are suitable for the sentence. If the first meaning is applied, it would assume the writer wants to refer freedom to ancient story which no one whether it is true or not. On the other hand, if the second meaning is applied, the writer of the letter seems to say that freedom is imaginary.
47. Authority never likes to be challenged; those in power more than appreciate
that freedom for the people would signal the end of their reign. (Your Letter:
Freedom – What is it? on July 6, 2013)
From the same letter as in point 47, the researcher found another ambiguous word. The word challenged is ambiguous. It is polysemous. The word challenge has four meanings. However, in the sentence, there are two meanings that can be attached. Those meanings are: a. to question whether something is true or not b. to test someone’s ability PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Using those two meanings, the sentence can be interpreted as follows (1)
Authority never likes to be questioned; those in power more than appreciate that freedom for the people would signal the end of their reign, and (2) Authority never likes to be tested; those in power more than appreciate that freedom for the people would signal the end of their reign.
48. Any sensible person will agree that development of this park along with
several similar ones like the establishment of a knowledge city in Rakhdera
Chal, the establishment of seven universities, the technology university in
Sialkot and the women’s university campus in Kala Shah Kaku are
praiseworthy plans by the government to educate and enlighten people.
(Your Letter: Pakistani embassy responds on July 6, 2013)
The last ambiguous word found in the research was sensible. The word sensible can be interpreted in two ways: a. having the ability to make a good judgment b. aware
Using those two meanings, the noun phrase sensible person can be interpreted as (1) a person who is able to make good judgment, and (2) a person who is aware of the related issue. Both meaning could be assigned to the sentence. Therefore, it became ambiguous.
In order to analyze the lexical ambiguity data deeper, the researcher wanted to see which class of word occurs most frequently in the research. The table of the ambiguous words is presented in Appendix 2. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Based on the data, there were 47 ambiguous words. The ambiguous words that belonged to noun class were 21 words, while 9 of them belonged to verb class, and the rest, 17 words, belonged to adjective. The researcher did not find any lexical ambiguity that belonged to pronoun, adverbs, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. The diagram showing the occurrence of lexical ambiguity could be seen in Figure 4.2.
Pronoun Noun Verb Adjective Adverbs Preposition Conjuction Interjection Participle
21
17
9
0 0 0 0 0
Ambiguity Found
Figure 4.2. The Occurrence of Lexical Ambiguity
The occurrence of the ambiguity was not necessary to judge which part of speech was the most ambiguous. It was only to see the phenomenon that happened in mass media that people must be aware in their diction.
2. Ambiguous Phrases
Beside the lexical ambiguity, the researcher also found structural ambiguity which dealt with phrases. However, it was not as many as the lexical ambiguity PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
85 found in the passages. There were only 7 structural ambiguities that could be found from the passages.
1. The corrupt practices of several current leaders and government officials
have already cost Indonesia much more. (Text your say: Haj pilgrimage
postponement on July 1, 2013)
The phrase typed in bold and italicized is the one which is considered to be ambiguous. The researcher finds it ambiguous because the attribute ‘several current’ can be attached to the noun ‘government officials’ or not.
2. He is joining his sister and brother in law’s party (Text your say: Yet,
another General joins Dems on July 3, 2013)
This sentence is ambiguous since it has a phrase that conveys more than one meaning. The problem lies on the expression his sister and brother in law party. It carries two interpretations. In the first interpretation, we would see the phrase his sister and brother in law party separately. It can be inferred that the party belongs to his brother in law. On the other hand, the second interpretation would refer his sister and his brother in law’s party. It means that his sister and his brother in law are in the same party.
3. The visible cost of haze at least includes increased healthcare and living
expenditure, working productivity losses, commercial losses from certain
industries especially tourism. (Your letter: Compensation for the haze? On
July 3, 2013)
Most of the structural ambiguities found in the research are in noun phrases. This sentence is also ambiguous because of its noun phrase. The noun PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
86 phrase increased healthcare and living expenditure is ambiguous. The placement of adjective increase triggers the ambiguity since it can be attached or not to the noun living expenditure.
4. But at the same time made “safe house arrangements” for Osama bin Laden
right next to the PMA in Abbottabad. (Your letter: Indian problem with
Pakistan on July 5, 2013)
Lexical ambiguity is found in the letter commenting the problem between
Indian and Pakistan. The noun phrase safe house arrangements is ambiguous since it can be interpreted in two meanings. The word safe can be attached to noun house and make a noun phrase safe house. However, it can also be attached to the noun phrase that is made from the combination of house and arrangements.
5. Having numerous island and seas makes Indonesia very rich. (Issue of the
day: Geothermal dream may never be a reality on July 6, 2013)
This sentence, which is taken from Issue of the day section, is also having noun phrase which triggers the structural ambiguity. The noun phrase numerous island and seas is structurally ambiguous. Like what happens in the previous cases, the adjective numerous not only can be attached to only word island but also to the noun phrase island and seas. The deeper explanation about the structure of the noun phrase will be discussed in the next section.
6. At a time when there was a possibility of a meeting between PM Nawaz
Sharif and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in September and while
unveiling Pakistan’s foreign policy roadmap, Prime Minister Nawas Sharif
has vowed to “progressively pursue” normalcy in ties with India while PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
87
actively seeking solutions to outstanding issues, including Kashmir, such
propaganda could blemish the efforts being made in good faith by both sides.
(Your letter: Pakistani embassy respond on July, 6 2013)
Such a long sentence which comes from a letter from the reader of Jakarta
Post newspaper. However, in this long sentence, there is an ambiguous noun phrase. It is foreign policy roadmap. This structural ambiguity has the same pattern with what has been discussed in point 47.
7. We must give our governments a chance and the confidence to bury the
acrimonious past and endeavor to live in peace and amity and encourage
relations based on mutual respect and understanding. (Your letter:
Pakistani embassy respond on July, 6 2013)
From the same letter as what we have in point 47, the researcher found another structurally ambiguous sentence. The letter is written by spokesperson
Embassy of Pakistan who comments on the letter about Pakistan and Indian problem on July 5, 2013. The noun phrase is considered ambiguous since there are two meanings that can be interpreted from it. The adjective mutual can be attached to the noun respect and not connected to the noun understanding as well as it can be attached to modify the noun phrase respect and understanding. To understand the explanation better, the researcher will discuss it using tree diagram in the next section.
While the lexical ambiguity consisted of varied parts of speech, in structural ambiguity, all of the data found were in form of noun phrase. In Table
4.2, the researcher provided the data of the structural ambiguity. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Table 4.2. Structural Ambiguity Table
Parts of Speech No Word NP VP AdjP AdvP PP several current leaders and government 1. v officials 2. his sister and brother’s in law’s party v increased healthcare and living 3. v expenditure 4. safe house arrangements v 5. numerous seas and islands v 6. foreign policy roadmap v 7. mutual respect and understanding v
From data served in Table 4.2, it could be seen that 100% of the structural ambiguity phrases are in form of noun phrase. Seen from the two categories, lexical and structural ambiguity, noun possessed great proportions of the data.
While 100% of the data in structural ambiguity is in noun phrase, in lexical ambiguity it also dominated the data (86%).
B. Tree Diagram Analysis
This point would answer the third question of the research. There were seven ambiguous phrases found in the research. The researcher analyzed the structural ambiguity using tree diagram to help the researcher in visualizing the interpretation in structural ambiguity. All of the ambiguities found in the research were in the form of noun phrase. Therefore, the researcher would only analyze the ambiguous noun phrase using the tree diagram instead of the full sentence. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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By using the tree diagram, the researcher found it easier to understand and also to show the differences of the interpretations of the ambiguous noun phrases.
1. The corrupt practices of several current leaders and government officials
have already cost Indonesia much more. (Text your say: Haj pilgrimage
postponement on July 1, 2013)
As it is explained previously, the sentence which is taken from Text your say section is ambiguous. The noun phrase several current leaders and government officials causes the sentence to be ambiguous since it can be interpreted in two ways. For better understanding, the researcher uses the tree diagram. Both interpretations are presented in Figure 4.3 and Figure 4.4.
Figure 4.3 First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 1
From the Figure 4.3, it can be seen that the adjective phrase ‘several current’ is attached to the noun phrase leaders and government officials which means that the noun phrase several current leaders and government officials can be interpreted as several current leaders and several current government officials. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Figure 4.4 Second Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 1
Different from Figure 4.3, in Figure 4.4, we can see that the adjective several current attached to the noun leaders and construct the noun phrase which is connected to the noun phrase government officials by conjunction and.
2. He is joining his sister and brother in law’s party (Text your say: Yet,
another General joins Dems on July 3, 2013)
This sentence is kind of structural ambiguous because of the noun phrase his sister and brother in law. That noun phrase has two different meanings that can be seen in Figure 4.5 and Figure 4.6.
Figure 4.5 First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 2
Figure 4.5 shows the first interpretation of the noun phrase his sister and brother in law’s party. This tree diagram shows that the possessive noun party is PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
91 attached to the noun brother in law and makes a unity of noun phrase brother in law’s party. In this case, it could be inferred that the noun phrase his sister and brother in law’s party means his sister and a party owned by his brother in law.
Figure 4.6 Second Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 2
The second explanation of the noun phrase his sister and brother in law’s party is presented in Figure 4.6. Different from the Figure 4.5, the noun his sister and his brother in law are joined together by conjunction and then attached to possessive noun party. This condition will make difference in terms of meaning, as the noun phrase will be interpreted as the party the subject joined is owned by his sister and his brother in law.
3. The visible cost of haze at least includes increased healthcare and living
expenditure, working productivity losses, commercial losses from certain
industries especially tourism. (Your letter: Compensation for the haze? on
July 3, 2013)
This sentence is structurally ambiguous. The ambiguity rose because of the noun phrase increased healthcare and living expenditure. There are two PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
92 interpretations that can be derived from the noun phrase. Both will be explained clearly with tree diagram as seen in Figure 4.7 and Figure 4.8.
Figure 4.7 First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 3
Figure 4.7 shows the first interpretation of noun phrase increased healthcare and living expenditure. It can be seen that adjective increased modifies the noun healthcare and not connected to the noun phrase living expenditure. The two noun phrase increased healthcare and living expenditure are joined by conjunction and. From seeing the tree diagram in Figure 4.7 and reading the explanation, it can be concluded that the first interpretation of the noun phrase increased healthcare and living expenditure is healthcare which is increased and living expenditure which is not increased.
Figure 4.8 Second Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 3
The second interpretation of the noun phrase increased healthcare and living expenditure is presented in Figure 4.8. Different from Figure 4.7, the PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
93 adjective increased modifies the unity of noun phrase healthcare and living expenditure. Therefore, it can be concluded that the adjective increased does not only modify the noun healthcare but also living expenditure.
4. But at the same time made “safe house arrangements” for Osama bin Laden
right next to the PMA in Abbottabad. (Your letter: Indian problem with
Pakistan on July 5, 2013)
The sentence is taken from a letter commenting on problems between
Indian and Pakistan. In the sentence, the researcher finds that the noun phrase safe house arrangements is ambiguous. The researcher thinks so, because the noun phrase has double meanings. There are two meanings that can be interpreted from the sentence. The two meanings can be seen in Figure 4.8 and Figure 4.9. The researcher is using tree diagram, because the researcher believes that the structural ambiguity can be easily understood and the difference can be easily noticed, too.
Figure 4.9 First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 4
In the first interpretation, which is shown in Figure 4.9, the researcher sees that the adjective safe is connected to the noun house resulting the noun phrase safe house which means house which is safe. Combining with the noun arrangements, the meaning of the noun phrase would be arrangements of house which is safe. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Figure 4.10 Second Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 4
Different tree diagram makes different meaning or interpretation. If in the first interpretation the noun phrase is interpreted as arrangements of house which is safe, the second interpretation would be house arrangements which are safe.
This can be so, because as it is seen in the Figure 4.10, the adjective safe modifies the noun phrase house arrangements.
5. Having numerous island and seas makes Indonesia very rich. (Issue of the
day: Geothermal dream may never be a reality on July 6, 2013)
Taken from Issue of the Day section, this sentence is also kind of structurally ambiguous. The noun phrase numerous island and seas makes the sentence ambiguous. The researcher would like to analyses the phrase using tree diagram as seen in Figure 4.11 and Figure 4.12.
Figure 4.11 First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 5 PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
95
Figure 4.11 shows the first tree diagram of the noun phrase ‘numerous island and seas’. From the tree, it can be seen that adjective numerous modifies the noun phrase island and seas. Therefore the interpretation would be numerous island and seas.
Figure 4.12 Second Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 5
On the other hand, Figure 4.12 shows different interpretation. From the tree diagram, we can see that the adjective numerous only modifies the noun island, then the noun phrase numerous island is connected with noun seas using the conjunction and. Therefore it can be seen the meaning of the noun phrase would be numerous islands and seas.
6. At a time when there was a possibility of a meeting between PM Nawaz
Sharif and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in September and while
unveiling Pakistan’s foreign policy roadmap, Prime Minister Nawas Sharif
has vowed to “progressively pursue” normalcy in ties with India while
actively seeking solutions to outstanding issues, including Kashmir, such
propaganda could blemish the efforts being made in good faith by both sides.
(Your letter: Pakistani embassy respond on July, 6 2013) PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
96
This long sentence becomes ambiguous because of the ambiguous noun phrase foreign policy roadmap. The structurally ambiguous noun phrase will be analyzed using tree diagram in Figure 4.13 and Figure 4.14.
Figure 4.13 First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 6
This noun phrase has the same pattern as what have been discussed in point 4. The adjective foreign modifies the noun policy. It produces the noun phrase foreign policy which is combined with noun roadmap. As the result, the noun phrase is interpreted as roadmap of foreign policy. Another interpretation of the noun phrase foreign policy roadmap is presented in Figure 4.14
Figure 4.14 Second Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 6
Figure 4.14 shows another meaning that can be interpreted from the noun phrase foreign policy roadmap. The adjective foreign in this tree diagram modifies the noun phrase policy roadmap. Therefore the noun phrase can be interpreted as policy roadmap which is foreign. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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7. We must give our governments a chance and the confidence to bury the
acrimonious past and endeavor to live in peace and amity and encourage
relations based on mutual respect and understanding. (Your letter:
Pakistani embassy respond on July, 6 2013)
The last structural ambiguity found in the research still deals with the noun phrase. Both interpretation of the noun phrase mutual respect and understanding are presented in Figure 4.15 and Figure 4.16.
Figure 4.15 First Tree Diagram of Structural Ambiguity Point 7
This type of structural ambiguity has been discussed previously in point 4 and lots previously. In this case, the placement of the adjective mutual causes ambiguity. It is so, because the adjective mutual can be attached to more than one entry. In Figure 4.15, the adjective mutual is attached to the noun respect which makes the sentence means like it is written mutual respect and understanding.
Figure 4.16 Second Diagram Tree of Structural Ambiguity Point 7 PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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On the other hand, in Figure 4.16, another interpretation is presented. The adjective mutual modifies the noun phrase respect and understanding. The result of the modification would affect the meaning. Therefore the meaning would be mutual meaning and mutual interpretation.
Having solved the three research questions that became the reason for conducting this study, the researcher found that from one week’s edition of The
Jakarta Post newspaper especially from Reader’s Forum section taken from its official website, there were 7 phrases that were considered structurally ambiguous and 47 words that were considered lexically ambiguous. By seeing the frequency of the ambiguity, it could be said that 21 ambiguous words were nouns, 17 ambiguous words were adjective, and the rest, 9 ambiguous words, were verbs.
On the other hand, all of structurally ambiguous phrases were in form noun phrases.
In this research, tree diagrams were used to solve structural ambiguities. It was proved that tree diagrams enable people to visualize the structurally ambiguous phrase. By doing so, the reader could understand the interpretations of the ambiguous phrases or sentences and make judgment. The researcher could also reveal the structural ambiguities pattern by using tree diagrams. In the research, there were two patterns of structurally ambiguous noun phrases that occur more than once. The first patern was the combination of adjectives and two nouns which was joined by the conjunction and. The example of the noun phrase was numerous seas and islands. The second pattern was the combination of PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
99 adjectives and compund noun. The example of the noun phrase was safe house arrangements.
Despite the numerous ambiguities found in the research, some ambiguities in the research only caused slightly different interpretation. That fact might cause the reader unaware. However, the researcher felt that some unsolved ambiguities are not neccessary to be confirmed. On the other hand, some others which have far different interpretations needed confirmation in order to have the writers’ intended meaning. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This chapter aims to conclude the research and give recommendations for future researcher. This chapter consists of two sections, namely Conclusions and
Recommendations.
A. Conclusions
Based on the results and discussion which were presented in Chapter IV, the researcher draws the following conclusions that would answer the research questions formulated in Chapter I.
In order to answer the first and second research question: What words are lexically ambiguous in Reader’s Forum section of The Jakarta Post newspaper?
What phrases are structurally ambiguous in Reader’s Forum section of The
Jakarta Post newspaper? The researcher found out that the data consist of ambiguous words and phrases. There were 47 words and 7 phrases that were considered to be ambiguous. The researcher concluded that based on the data analysis, in lexical ambiguities cases, the most ambiguous part of speech occurred was noun. The ambiguous words that belonged to noun class were 21 words, while 9 of them belonged to verb class, and the rest, 17 words, belonged to adjective. The researcher found 54 ambiguities consisted of structural and lexical ambiguity. The researcher did not find any lexical ambiguity that belonged to pronoun, adverbs, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. The lexical
100 PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
101 ambiguity was caused by polysemy as well as homonymy. While in the structural ambiguity case, all of the ambiguous phrases were in form of noun phrase. The researcher did not find any structural ambiguous phrases in the form of verb, adjective, and prepositional phrases.
The third research question is how tree diagrams enable the researcher to resolve structural ambiguities. The researcher concludes that tree diagram could be used to visualize structural ambiguity well. Tree diagrams can unpack the possible meaning of ambiguous phrases. By using tree diagrams also, the pattern of the structurally ambiguous phrases can be revealed. Therefore, tree diagrams enable the researcher to understand the interpretations of the structural ambiguities and make the researcher decide the writers’ intended meaning.
B. Recommendations
Having done this study, the researcher hopes that it brings benefits for the readers, especially those who are interested in journalism and linguistics. The researcher also hopes that this study would help the readers who find any problem in translating ambiguous words or phrases from English to their target language.
However, the researcher realizes that there are things that could be improved in this study. Therefore, it is advisable for the future researchers to gather more data in order to make the study preciser.
The researcher also encourages the future researchers to conduct broader researches involving the other types of ambiguity, which are referential, and scopal ambiguity. Since this study is limited to written discourse, the researcher PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
102 hopes that the future study about phonetics ambiguity will be helpful for the readers. Moreover, some ambiguities in the research remained unsolved since the researcher could not find the intended meaning of the writers of the articles.
Therefore, the researcher encourages the future researchers to conduct studies which could overcome the ambiguity problems. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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APPENDIX 1 DATA ORGANIZATIONAL TABLE
Types of Date of No Article title Ambiguity Sentence publication L S Comment: Can the KPK explain, based on its analogy, July 1, Ronaldo’s jersey for 1. v why the jersey is not a gratuity because it 2013 SBY not a gratuity: was given by Cristiano Ronaldo? KPK Indonesia is by far the most significant Your Comment on July 1, member of ASEAN with the largest 2. Vietnam, RI to v 2013 population and strongest economy of all upgrade Relationship member states, and it is politically neutral. Indonesia is by far the most significant Your Comment on July 1, member of ASEAN with the largest 3. Vietnam, RI to v 2013 population and strongest economy of all upgrade Relationship member states, and it is politically neutral. Your Comment on July 1, Indonesia is well-respected and always 4. Vietnam, RI to v 2013 helps to lead regional direction. upgrade Relationship It naturally attracts international interest Your Comment on July 1, due to the fact that more than a half of the 5. Vietnam, RI to v 2013 world’s maritime traffic traverses those upgrade Relationship waters. It naturally attracts international interest Your Comment on July 1, due to the fact that more than a half of the 6. Vietnam, RI to v 2013 world’s maritime traffic traverses those upgrade Relationship waters. The world, the region, victimized claimant Your Comment on members and Indonesia itself would all be July 1, 7. Vietnam, RI to v better served if Indonesia took a more 2013 upgrade Relationship assertive stance in challenging China’s misguided direction. The fact is that even those people who are Text Your Say: Haj July 1, known to be corrupt, who have knowingly 8. Pilgrimage v 2013 and deliberately trampled the human rights Postponement of fellow souls. Text Your Say: Haj The fact is that even those people who are July 1, 9. Pilgrimage v known to be corrupt, who have knowingly 2013 Postponement and deliberately trampled the human rights
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of fellow souls. Types of Date of No Article title Ambiguity Sentence publication L S The fact is that even those people who are Text Your Say: Haj July 1, known to be corrupt, who have knowingly 10. Pilgrimage v 2013 and deliberately trampled the human rights Postponement of fellow souls. Cannot the most holy places for Muslims Text Your Say: Haj be made to be located not in any country, July 1, 11. Pilgrimage v maybe somewhat like the Vatican and 2013 Postponement managed not by any national government, but by an international council of Muslims? Text Your Say: Haj The corrupt practices of several current July 1, 12. Pilgrimage v leaders and government officials have 2013 Postponement already cost Indonesia much more! Text Your Say: Haj The corrupt practices of several current July 1, 13. Pilgrimage v leaders and government officials have 2013 Postponement already cost Indonesia much more! Comments on: If he continues to always bear in mind the July 2, Jokowi allows well-being of the common man, you are 14. v 2013 residents in to watch truly fortunate to have such a political ‘Ariah’ leader. Comments on: If he continues to always bear in mind the July 2, Jokowi allows well-being of the common man, you are 15. v 2013 residents in to watch truly fortunate to have such a political ‘Ariah’ leader. The pledge by SBY to protect religious July 2, Comments: The last minorities is hollow, because the 16. v 2013 synagogue Indonesian authorities have either no power or no will to do so. July 2, Comments: The last SBY is a former general with no power 17. v 2013 synagogue over his troops. To be a successful country in the future, July 2, Your Letter: Old and 18. v Indonesia needs two things; a great leader 2013 new Turkey and a good administration. So, in order to make Indonesia better in the July 2, Your Letter: Old and future, all candidates need to prepare to be 20. v 2013 new Turkey great leaders, not merely making promises, but by giving more proof of work done. So, in order to make Indonesia better in the July 2, Your Letter: Old and 21. v future, all candidates need to prepare to be 2013 new Turkey great leaders, not merely making promises, PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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but by giving more proof of work done. Types of Date of No Article title Ambiguity Sentence publication L S Now, if we think of the food products we July 2, Your Letter: Be smart consume every day, the realization that the 22. v 2013 eater sugar consumed is much higher than what we required is apparent. Because of the high content of sugar in fast July 2, Your Letter: Be smart 23. v food, diabetes has become a common 2013 eater concern, even for people in their 20s. Because of the high content of sugar in fast July 2, Your Letter: Be smart 24. v food, diabetes has become a common 2013 eater concern, even for people in their 20s. July 3, Comments on: Bogus The obvious explanation is that knowledge 25. v 2013 journal publication production in Indonesia is very weak. Comments on: The people in power seem to be July 3, Polygamy and graft: conveniently leaving out education reform, 26. v 2013 A most convenient which in my opinions the best way to give marriage RI a future. Comments on: The people in power seem to be July 3, Polygamy and graft: conveniently leaving out education reform, 27. v 2013 A most convenient which in my opinions the best way to give marriage RI a future. Comments on: Corrupt, greedy, selfish and hugely July 3, Polygamy and graft: contributing to exploding the population, 28. v 2013 A most convenient for which the next generations will suffer. marriage Comments on: It is just lacking political direction. July 3, Polygamy and graft: 29. v 2013 A most convenient marriage Aside from a few yachts that are normally in Indonesia, and the odd boat out of Darwin, Singapore or Malaysia, the “rally” Issue of the Day: July 3, can capture at most only 100-120 boats that 30. Unprepared for sail v 2013 depart from Darwin with the Southeast komodo event trade winds in June-July and must reach Singapore-Thailand before the Northwest monsoon sets in. Issue of the Day: Hopefully, there is still a chance for July 3, 31. Unprepared for sail v preparations. 2013 komodo event PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Types of Date of No Article title Ambiguity Sentence publication L S In past years the local tour guide Issue of the Day: July 3, associations have been ignored, which may 32. Unprepared for sail v 2013 not mean much more than poor public komodo event relations SBY’s brother-in-law would likely enjoy Text your say: Yet, July 3, smooth sailing in the primary, giving the 33. another General joins v 2013 general public the opportunity to welcome Dems more “Jokowis” to the fore Text your say: Yet, He is joining his sister and brother in law’s July 3, 34. another General joins v party 2013 Dems Text your say: Yet, He is joining his sister and brother in law’s July 3, 35. another General joins v party 2013 Dems The cost from haze is huge. The visible cost Your Letter: of haze at least includes increased July 3, 35. Compensation for the v healthcare and living expenditure, working 2013 haze? productivity losses, commercial losses from certain industries especially tourism. Most importantly, it personifies the Your Letter: July 3, country’s integrity for accountability and 36. SBY’s apology v 2013 respect for the rule of law, which is should be applauded commendable. Most importantly, it personifies the Your Letter: July 3, country’s integrity for accountability and 37. SBY’s apology v 2013 respect for the rule of law, which is should be applauded commendable. Although capital inflows have traditionally Your Letter: July 3, focused on natural resources, recent 38. SBY’s apology v 2013 investment has included businesses seeking should be applauded to exploit middle-class consumers. This noble act will quash the perception of Your Letter: July 3, sheer disregard for the rule of law, 39. SBY’s apology v 2013 convention and accountability in Indonesia. should be applauded
This noble act will quash the perception of Your Letter: July 3, sheer disregard for the rule of law, 40. SBY’s apology v 2013 convention and accountability in Indonesia. should be applauded PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Types of Date of No Article title Ambiguity Sentence publication L S Indonesia is making strides to improve in Your Letter: these important areas. The more Indonesia July 3, 41. SBY’s apology v demonstrates to the world its respect for the 2013 should be applauded rule of law, convention and accountability, the more the world will respect it back. Issue of the day: Zoos in Indonesia are managed by July 4, 42. Visitors feel pity for v incompetent and corrupt people 2013 zoo occupants Comments: It takes a great man to make an apology to July 4, Yudhoyono tries to neighboring haze-affected countries. 43. 2013 put out fire from critics Comments: It takes a great man to make an apology to July 4, Yudhoyono tries to neighboring haze-affected countries. 44. 2013 put out fire from critics Coming to the core issue, as long as there is Comments on: a strong demand for crude palm oil (CPO) July 4, Yudhoyono tries to 45. v worldwide, these plantation owners will 2013 put out the fire from continue to cultivate their land with cheap, critics unethical methods. Coming to the core issue, as long as there is Comments on: a strong demand for crude palm oil (CPO) July 4, Yudhoyono tries to 46. v worldwide, these plantation owners will 2013 put out the fire from continue to cultivate their land with cheap, critics unethical methods. Coming to the core issue, as long as there is Comments on: a strong demand for palm oil worldwide, July 4, Yudhoyono tries to these plantation owners will continue to 47. v 2013 put out the fire from cultivate their land using unethical critics methods.
Comments on: This must be stopped through strict legal July 4, Yudhoyono tries to 48. v enforcement otherwise it will revert to the 2013 put out the fire from status quo. critics Comments on: July 4, Yudhoyono tries to Needless to say, one must not compromise 49. v 2013 put out the fire from over public health. critics PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Types of Date of No Article title Ambiguity Sentence publication L S Comments: Snowden I, too, support the respect for individual 50. v and evidence privacy and basic liberties for all. They “feed” the organization and preserve July 4, Your Letter: Violence them in order to manage “the political 51. v 2013 in Papua balance” so they can gain a dominant bargaining position with the government. Issue of the Day: RI: Instead, we are in denial and deride their July 5, A reluctant good false information out of pride. 52. v 2013 neighbour to Australia Text your say: Everything has to be done in a polite, legal July 5, Freedom of manner and according to common accepted 53. v 2013 expression under rules. threat? Text your say: They say “for the people” during their July 5, Freedom of campaigns but once elected it are more like 54. v 2013 expression under “for the wallet”. threat? When threatened by the US government with “bombing Pakistan into the Stone Age”, he ditched his friendship with the Your Letter: July 5, Taliban to join the US-led “War against 55. Indian Problem with v 2013 Terror”, but at the same time made “safe Pakistan house arrangements” for Osama bin Laden right next to the PMA in Abbottabad
So the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) has done it again — a display of brutal Your Letter: July 5, behavior and extremely bad manners by its 56 Television talk show v 2013 spokesman Munarman, which saw him incident throw water over sociologist Thamrin Amal Tamagola during a television talk show. Clearly, Thamrin is the well-mannered Your Letter: July 5, gentleman here, and he is absolutely right 57. Television talk show v 2013 to let us, the public, make a judgment call incident about the incident. Your Letter: None of these processes are sustainable in July 5, 58. Carbon credit farming v the long run. 2013 unsustainable PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Types of Date of No Article title Ambiguity Sentence publication L S Issue of the day: July 6, Geothermal dream Having numerous islands and seas makes 59. v 2013 may never be a reality Indonesia very rich.
However, beyond this perception, the indifferent attitude of the media toward some important diplomatic events taking place in a geographical area with an July 6, Your Letter: estimated population of 650 60. v 2013 Increasing ASEAN’s million, covered and represented by a visibility prestigious regional organization like ASEAN, has to be seriously questioned for a major practical reason.
All significant ASEAN activities, including those involving powers like the US, China, Your Letter: July 6, Russia, Japan, India, the European Union 61. Increasing ASEAN’s v 2013 and Australia deserve exposure by the visibility media.
Perhaps freedom is like democracy, another July 6, Your Letter: Freedom much-used word that in practice is a myth 62. v 2013 – What is it? and doesn’t really exist.
Authority never likes to be challenged; those in power more than appreciate that July 6, Your Letter: Freedom 63. v freedom for the people would signal the 2013 – What is it? end of their reign
Any sensible person will agree that development of this park along with several similar ones like the establishment of a knowledge city in Rakhdera Chal, the establishment of seven universities, the July 6, Your Letter: Pakistani 64. v technology university in Sialkot and the 2013 embassy responds women’s university campus in Kala Shah Kaku are praiseworthy plans by the government to educate and enlighten people. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Types of Date of No Article title Ambiguity Sentence publication L S At a time when there was a possibility of a meeting between PM Nawaz Sharif and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in September and while unveiling Pakistan’s foreign policy roadmap, Prime Minister July 6, Your Letter: Pakistani 65. v Nawas Sharif has vowed to “progressively 2013 embassy responds pursue” normalcy in ties with India while actively seeking solutions to outstanding issues, including Kashmir, such propaganda could blemish the efforts being made in good faith by both sides Such incidents have always contributed to July 6, Your Letter: Pakistani pulling both countries apart at times when 66. v 2013 embassy responds they neared some significant breakthrough for peace. We must give our governments a chance and the confidence to bury the acrimonious July 6, Your Letter: Pakistani 67. v past and endeavor to live in peace and 2013 embassy responds amity and encourage relations based on mutual respect and understanding PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
APPENDIX 2 LEXICAL AMBIGUITY TABLE
Parts of Speech No Word N V Adj Adv. Prep Con. Int. 1. jersey v ------2. significant - - v - - - - 3. neutral - - v - - - - 4. direction v ------5. interest v ------6. traffic v ------7. trample - v - - - - - 8. fellow v ------9. country v ------10. need to - v - - - - - 11. great - - v - - - - 12 apparent - - v - - - - 13. common - - v - - - - 14. concern v ------15. man v ------16. weak - - v - - - - 17. the people v ------18. power v ------19. odd - - v - - - - 20. poor - - v - - - - 21. chance v ------22. smooth - - v - - - - 23. party v ------24. integrity v ------25. respect v ------26. exploit - v - - - - - 27. noble - - v - - - -
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Parts of Speech No Word N V Adj Adv. Prep Con. Int. 29. stride v ------30. core v ------31. demand v ------32. cultivate - v - - - - - 33. cheap - - v - - - - 34. stopped - v - - - - - 35. strict - - v - - - - 36. compromise - v - - - - - 37. corrupt - - v - - - - 38. gain - v - - - - - 39. respect v ------40. brutal - - v - - - - 41. gentleman v ------42. sustainable - - v - - - - 43. pride v ------44. indifferent - - v - - - - 45. myth v ------46. challenge - v - - - - - 47. sensible - - v - - - - TOTAL 21 9 17 0 0 0 0 PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
APPENDIX 3 THE JAKARTA POST ARTICLES ON JULY 1ST, 2013
Comment: Ronaldo’s jersey for SBY not a gratuity: KPK
The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) asserted that the jerseys received by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and First Lady Ani Yudhoyono from soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo should not be reported to the commission.
“The jerseys are not gifts that should be reported to the commission as stipulated under Law No. 31/1999 on corruption eradication and Law No. 30/2002 on the Corruption Eradication Commission,” said KPK spokesperson Johan Budi on Wednesday as quoted by Kompas.com.
Your comments:
The Jersey (guitar) was given by Cristiano Ronaldo (Robert Trujillo) who came on invitation by Mr. Tomy Winata (the production house).
If the production house (Mr. Tomy Winata) asks Robert Trujillo (Cristiano Ronaldo) to hand over the guitar to Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (Pak SBY) it is not gratuity.
When Robert Trujillo (Cristiano Ronaldo) asks the production house (Mr. Tomy Winata) to give the guitar (Jersey) to Jokowi (Pak SBY) it is gratuity.
Can the KPK explain, based on its analogy, why the jersey is not a gratuity because it was given by Cristiano Ronaldo (we don’t know if it was from Cristian himself or Mr. Tomy Winata?)
H Cahyadi
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Comment: Vietnam, RI to upgrade relationship
Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang is currently visiting Indonesia at the invitation of his Indonesian counterpart, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to strengthen bilateral relations and deepen cooperation in key sectors. This is his first state visit to Indonesia. Sang gave a written interview to The Jakarta Post’s Veeramalla Anjaiah prior to his visit.
Your comments:
Indonesia is by far the most significant member of ASEAN with the largest population and strongest economy of all member states, and it is politically neutral.
Indonesia is well-respected and always helps to lead regional direction. The South China Sea dispute is not just between China and claimants who are also members of ASEAN; it naturally attracts international interest due to the fact that more than a half of the world’s maritime traffic traverses those waters.
However, China wants to demonstrate internationally its birth as a modern superpower and, regionally, it is testing its limits of aggressive/expansionist policies.
The world, the region, victimized claimant members and Indonesia itself would all be better served if Indonesia took a more assertive stance in challenging China’s misguided direction. It needs to unite ASEAN membership into one voice so as to deliver a single rejection of strong-arm diplomacy, a single refusal of arrogant logic and, more importantly, a single willingness to confront injustice.
China derives its energy from the perceived success due to muted responses but it will fold if it is faced with determined, joint opposition.
Marie Foie PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Text your say: Haj pilgrimage postponement
Your comments on the postponement for some 40,000 Indonesians of their religious to Mecca this year after Saudi Arabia announced that renovations to haj facilities had yet to be completed:
In my view, being the nation with the largest Muslim population in the world, Indonesia deserves to be specially treated by Saudi Arabia especially regarding the yearly haj quota. Every year, as many know, the interest in haj pilgrimage in Indonesia always rises.
Juli Mardi
Bengkulu
The US has its capital, Washington, not in one of its states. Likewise, our Jakarta is in its own province.
Cannot the most holy places for Muslims be made to be located not in any country, maybe somewhat like the Vatican and managed not by any national government, but by an international council of Muslims?
Hadi Surabaya
So, Indonesia must suffer some Rp 800 billion (US$80.6 million) in losses as many Muslims can’t go on the haj?
The corrupt practices of several current leaders and government officials have already cost Indonesia much more!
Prophet Muhammad declared that a Muslim had to fulfill the pilgrimage to Mecca only if he or she had adequate means do so, especially financially.
Moreover, in his day, travel to Mecca was relatively easy and did not cover a distance of thousands of kilometers; neither did the cost of making a pilgrimage to PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Mecca run into hundreds of thousands of US dollars. Nowadays, the situation is very different.
Unfortunately, a great many Muslims, especially Indonesian Muslims, still firmly — and wrongfully — believe that performing a haj practically guarantees a ticket to Heaven. For that reason, many of them perform the haj several times during their lifetime.
The fact is that even those people who are known to be corrupt, who have knowingly and deliberately trampled the human rights of fellow souls underfoot, who have intentionally and repeatedly broken human and God’s laws, are still going on the haj or doing umrah (minor haj), no doubt in the hope that they will be absolved of their numerous sins.
To think in that way is actually a grave insult to the Creator.
Tami Koestomo PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
APPENDIX 4 THE JAKARTA POST ARTICLES ON JULY 2ND, 2013
Comment: Jokowi allows residents in to watch ‘Ariah’
Spectacular spectacle: Dancers rehearse the musical drama Ariah by Atilah Soeryadjaya at the National Monument Park on Thursday. The performance that involved 200 dancers and 120 musicians ran from June 28 to 30 as part of the Jakarta anniversary events. Antara/Fanny Octavianus
Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo granted free admission to the Ariah musical performance to people outside the gates. Jokowi, who had a seat in the VVIP row, went to the gates and allowed those outside to come in. “Come in, come in,” he yelled before the performance that took to the stage at the National Monument (Monas) Park in Central Jakarta on Friday evening.
Your comments:
Wherever Jokowi goes, he always has a kind attitude: my hero, never too tired to show dedication.
Winda Fadhila
The action of Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo to pay for the tickets of the people standing outside before the Ariah musical performance speaks volumes of his generosity.
If he continues to always bear in mind the well-being of the common man, you are truly fortunate to have such a political leader.
Tant KT
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He is great governor.
Cicuk Hening
Comment: Last synagogue torn down
With utter dismay I read the report that the last synagogue in Indonesia was torn down by radicals in Surabaya. As reported by the Singapore Straits Times on June 1, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono promised to protect places of worship in Indonesia. (By Lynna van der Zee-Oehmke, Haiphong, Vietnam)
Your comments:
Worldwide there are communities, religious or not, who gather for worship, raising awareness and sharing common thoughts, values and culture.
What some Muslim radicals are doing here is to deny these basic rights to communities. The pledge by SBY to protect religious minorities is hollow, because the Indonesian authorities have either no power or no will to do so.
SBY is a former general with no power over his troops. Moreover, he likes talking — but, sadly, only talking.
Sabar
Your letters: Old and new Turkey
I have been in love with Turkey since its Ottoman Empire era. How the Ottoman era was able to lead the world for 600 years has inspired the whole of humanity. And now we are watching Turkey in a neo-Ottoman era playing as one of the most important global players. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Within 10 years the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has governed the country powerfully and well to make it an influential country in the world.
The country which is being led by Recep Tayip Erdogan, the most influential leader in the world in 2011, amazingly has changed Turkey into a powerful country.
Prime Minister Erdogan has changed the face of Turkey in only 10 years. This success has been proven in many ways.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita was US$3,500 in 2002, now it is $10,000. Exports have risen to $114 billion this year from $36 billion in 2002. New dams have been built and every city has its university. And now Turkey has even become a top-10 tourist destination.
This successful work has been acknowledged by the world’s leaders. David Cameron the UK prime minister admires Erdogan.
“We often talk with each other [Erdogan], we see the development in Turkey, I am fond of him”, he said.
Now, one of the most predicted new global players-to-be is Indonesia. Indonesia will hold its presidential election in 2014. This election is likely to be a turning point for Indonesia.
Let us learn from Turkey. To be a successful country in the future, Indonesia needs two things; a great leader and a good administration. Erdogan before he became prime minister had proven himself as a great leader by turning Istanbul into a peaceful city where he reduced crime and limited the sale of alcohol.
What about the administration? Prime Minister Erdogan with the ruling AKP have brought together an agenda in order to develop Turkey. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Making the country greener, increasing public infrastructure, improving modern transportation, creating comfortable living-complexes, a productive society that produces its own products and most importantly a non-corrupt government has made Turkey a powerful country.
So, in order to make Indonesia better in the future, all candidates need to prepare to be great leaders, not merely making promises, but by giving more proof of work done.
To government leaders and the whole of society; don’t forget to love Indonesia deeply by caring about the future of the country.
Ahmad Nursalim
Istanbul
Your letters: Be a smart eater
Gone are the days when feasts were served on the tables. Now “beasts” are served on the tables — namely fat, sugar and salt. To support my view, I will share some facts from the article, “Govt. to watch sugar, salt and fat in food” published in The Jakarta Post June 21.
Food is supposed to build our body but the kind of food served these days is destroying and weakening the human body. Hence, the Health Ministry intervention in the “inside story” of fast food restaurants and processed food manufacturers. The ministry asked food manufacturers to place health information labels regarding salt, sugar and fat on their products because they are the main contributory factors in the rise of non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, cancer, etc. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Iip Syaefulah, the head of clinical nutrition at the Health Ministry, said that according to a new regulation, people were advised to consume 50 grams of sugar, which is four tablespoons. Now, if we think of the food products we consume every day, the realization that the sugar consumed is much higher than what we required is apparent.
Studies have proven that calcium is mostly used to neutralize the effects of sugar, resulting in teeth and bones becoming brittle. Because of the high content of sugar in fast food, diabetes has become a common concern, even for people in their 20s.
Water is life and studies have proved that salt pulls out water from our blood. Salt is very harmful because it dehydrates the system and increases blood pressure. This is why lower-salt diets are becoming ever more popular.
This move by the Health Ministry should be an eye-opener. Be a smart- eater because fast food destroys our health at a speedy pace. Be a part of this mission initiated by the government and we will witness healthy minds and healthy bodies.
“Think before you speak” is an old adage. The latest is, “Think before you eat.”
Indu Nandal, Purwakarta, West Java PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
APPENDIX 5 THE JAKARTA POST ARTICLES ON JULY 3RD, 2013
Comment: Bogus journal publications
In the aftermath of the Indonesian Directorate General of Higher Education’s (DIKTI) move to award a large monthly allowance to those holding a professorial degree, the popularity of attaining the highest academic rank now is rather unprecedented. Lured mainly by the allowance, many intellectuals are now striving to achieve professorships.
There are those who painstakingly achieve this academic title by professionally researching and publishing, but there are many others who take a shortcut by doing intellectual affronts. (By Setiono Sugiharto, Jakarta)
Your comments:
This article presents international journals as biased because their rules of acceptance of manuscripts are established by Western people, putting so-called alternative approaches to knowledge production at a disadvantage. However, this article does not explain what the “local conventions of knowledge production” are.
It seems as if the author had problems publishing in international journals, like many Indonesian scientists.
Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Korean scientists annually produce hundreds of thousands of articles in international journals.
This simply demonstrates that international journals are perfectly open to non- Westerners. Indonesian researchers only produce a few hundred papers in
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126 international journals annually. The obvious explanation is that knowledge production in Indonesia is very weak.
Sabar Paijo
Comments: Polygamy and graft, a most convenient marriage
It appears that for some suspects in high-profile graft cases, allegedly abusing their power in office runs alongside their polygamous practices at home.
Over the past few months, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has brought the sleazy details of some high-profile graft suspects to light.
The investigation into a bribery case involving former Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) chairman Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq not only revealed details from the private life of his aide Ahmad Fathanah, who was found naked in a hotel room with an escort, but later found that Luthfi was married to three women, the youngest being a 19-year-old high school student.
Luthfi married his first wife Sutiana Astika in 1984 and his second wife Lusi Tiaraini Agustine in 2000. He has 12 children from his first marriage and three children from his second marriage.
Your comments:
Are you sure that this news is real? I don’t think so.
Ilham
The people in power seem to be conveniently leaving out education reform, which in my opinions the best way to give RI a future. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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RI will be stuck in middle income trap such as Malaysia if there is no reform.
Ketonjo
Corrupt, greedy, selfish and hugely contributing to exploding the population, for which the next generations will suffer.
I just honestly don’t understand why Indonesians vote for people like these. You might as well push the self-destruct button.
Sudarsha Chakra
It is just lacking political direction. We need parties with a clear vision of the future and a practical and realistic plan to get there.
This needs to be presented to the people during the campaign, so they can make their choice.
What we see now are parties trying to seduce the people with the empty concept of “popularity” and recruiting celebrities in order to get elected. This just shows how out of touch they are.
Deedee S
Issue of the day: ‘Unprepared’ for sail komodo event
The West Manggarai regency administration in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) has been criticized for not involving tour operators in the Sail Komodo event.
The event, which will see hundreds of cruise ships from across the globe set sail off the waters of Labuan Bajo, was launched on May 8 by NTT Governor Frans Lebu Raya. Its grand finale is slated for Sept. 14. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Notable tour operators not involved in the event include the West Manggarai chapters of the Indonesia Tour Guides Association and the Indonesian Tour and Travel Agency Association (ASITA).
Your comments:
I googled “Sail Komodo” and got very little. The “Sail Indonesia” website says that Sail Komodo is a part of Sail Indonesia.
Aside from a few yachts that are normally in Indonesia, and the odd boat out of Darwin, Singapore or Malaysia, the “rally” can capture at most only 100-120 boats that depart from Darwin with the Southeast trade winds in June-July and must reach Singapore-Thailand before the Northwest monsoon sets in. Not all boats join Sail Indonesia, and many deliberately leave after the first few gala events.
Presently only 85 boats are listed as entries on Sail Indonesia’s website, most bound from Darwin to Kupang, which many will pass through Labuanbajo.
When the fleet, however much depleted, arrives in Labuan, it will be quite a show, if organization is up to scratch. In past years the local tour guide associations have been ignored, which may not mean much more than poor public relations.
But the fact is that any tourist who happens to be in town at the time will see many foreign yachts in an already crowded harbor for just a few days. The dragons snoring under the park ranger mess huts on Komodo and Rinca are unlikely to be aroused.
Henry Stewart
This is unfortunate. Since it is an international level event, the government should have cooperated with various sectors linked to the event, especially the private sector in my opinion. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Hopefully, there is still a chance for preparations. Last but not least, the local people of West Manggarai should be enthusiastic and proud of this upcoming event.
Angeline Hoseani
Text your say: Yet another general joins Dems
Your comments on the move by former Army chief Gen. (ret) Pramono Edhie Wibowo, brother of First Lady Ani Yudhoyono, to join the Democratic Party, which could lead to the formation of another political dynasty:
A good general isn’t necessarily a good party member!
Eddy Arjuna Zainy
According to party deputy chairman Max Sopacua, Pramono will likely compete against Lt. Gen. (ret) Prabowo Subianto of the Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party and chairman of the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) Gen. (ret) Wiranto.
SBY’s brother-in-law would likely enjoy smooth sailing in the primary, giving the general public the opportunity to welcome more “Jokowis” to the fore. Thus, the three giant parties will weaken themselves and open the way for the people to choose among Joko Widodo, Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Surya Paloh.
Moeljono Adikoesoemo Jakarta
His move is not against the law.
E Nurdin PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Jakarta
This must surely be the surprise of the year. He is joining his sister and brother in law’s party. Who would have guessed that?
Rojak
Your letters: SBY’s apology should be applauded
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s courage in going against popular domestic sentiment to formally apologize to Malaysia and Singapore signifies the President’s statesmanship, leadership and humility. Most importantly, it personifies the country’s integrity for accountability and respect for the rule of law, which is commendable.
The economy has grown at a rate of more than 6 percent in the past three years. Both Fitch and Moody’s upgraded our credit rating to investment grade. Indonesia joined the G20 major world economies in 2009.
While usually overshadowed by other rapidly growing emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India and China, Indonesia has the potential to attract more foreign direct investment given its large and young population.
Although Indonesia presents great potential, the challenges for foreign investors trying to do business in Indonesia are daunting.
These challenges include bureaucratic red tape, unclear rule of law or regulatory frameworks, hugely inadequate infrastructures and a culture of corruption, all of which pose great risks.
The World Bank’s 2013 Ease of Doing Business Index ranks Indonesia 128th out of 185. The index evaluates factors affecting the lifecycle of a business PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
131 such as permits and registrations, electricity, credit, investor protection, contract enforcement, taxes and insolvency.
Despite these concerns, foreign investment has flowed in. Although capital inflows have traditionally focused on natural resources, recent investment has included businesses seeking to exploit middle-class consumers.
In the first quarter of 2013, foreign direct investment rose more than 25 percent to approximately US$7 billion. While large, this number is still relatively small compared to the country’s potential.
As a comparison, despite slower growth of approximately 1.5 percent, China’s foreign direct investment rose to almost US$30 billion in the same first quarter. Indonesia is not living up to its potential.
Regardless of which companies from which countries — Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore or others — are causing the fires, they originated in Indonesia and adversely affected people in parts of Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia.
More than 50 percent of the fires were in Riau and primarily within the boundaries of timber plantation and oil palm concessions.
While assertation of the exact causes and responsible parties are important, Yudhoyono has demonstrated accountability and commitment to doing the right thing.
This noble act will quash the perception of sheer disregard for the rule of law, convention and accountability in Indonesia.
Indonesia is making strides to improve in these important areas. The more Indonesia demonstrates to the world its respect for the rule of law, convention and accountability, the more the world will respect it back. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Let us applaud President Yudhoyono for taking the first step to earning this respect.
Sonita Lontoh California
Your letters: Compensation for the haze?
For 20 years transboundary haze has hit Singapore, but this time the situation is much worse.
Along with the haze, the blame game is in high gear again. Some slammed the Singapore government and ruling party for a lack of effective action, while Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam refuted such irrational “political attacks” which ignored Singapore’s vulnerability as a result of its natural “size and geography”.
The blame game never works. A Japanese environmentalist said, “Blaming China can’t solve the air pollution problem.” All stakeholders must cooperate to solve the crisis together. Let’s stop blaming and think about solutions for both the short and long term.
The most pressing matter is to put out the fires. It is good news that Indonesia has agreed to try its best to control the fires and will begin cloud- seeding “based on needs on the ground”, but Singapore should also be ready to provide possible assistance or even dispatch water-dropping aircraft if necessary later.
In the long run, the solution may be derived from the cause. Externalities are one of the typical reasons which may cause market failures and environment pollution is a typical negative externality. Once such a market failure occurs, possible government interventions should be considered to force polluters to internalize the cost of pollution so as to make the remedy. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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It is clear that Indonesia should bear the all the responsibility to solve the problem. No matter whether the polluters are local farmers or foreign companies, foreign governments have limited influence to stop them.
Indonesia has laws which ban illegal forest burning, however, illegal land clearing by oil palm developers is common due to weak enforcement. The “slash- and-burn” technique has been used till today, simply because it is still the cheapest method. The basic problem is about cost, so only a “stick” may not be enough and those farmers likely prefer a “carrot”.
Furthermore, Indonesia should welcome neighbors’ aid to tackle environmental challenges together. And to become a responsible emerging power and to gain a good international reputation, Indonesia should consider ratifying the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution adopted in 2002 in the future.
Second, there is no doubt that Singapore is a victim and theoretically should be compensated. However, to be realistic, Singapore may have to choose to either suffer the cost from haze pollution or bear certain cost of the pollution abatement.
The cost from haze is huge. The visible cost of haze at least includes increased healthcare and living expenditure, working productivity losses, commercial losses from certain industries especially tourism. Then the invisible cost of losing fresh air, disrupted normal life and reputational losses as a ‘garden city’ is also considerable. The great Southeast Asian haze of 1997 was estimated to result in US$9 billion losses in total.
As long as Singpaore’s overall willingness-to-pay for a haze-free nation is higher than the cost from haze pollution, it is cost-benefit worthy to bear certain cost of the haze pollution abatement. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Third, global customers should ultimately share the cost of a haze-free Singapore and Southeast Asia. Those consumers of palm oil products sourced from Southeast Asia should pay the extra cost caused by non-“slash-and-burn” techniques, and those foreign visitors should pay a higher premium for traveling.
Sun Xi Jakarta PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
APPENDIX 6 THE JAKARTA POST ARTICLES ON JULY 4TH, 2013
Comments: Yudhoyono tries to put out the fire from critics
Apparently annoyed by the ongoing debate on the haze that has blanketed Singapore and Kuala Lumpur over the past few days, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono held another press conference on Wednesday to prevent further misunderstanding.
Your comments:
It takes a great man to make an apology to neighboring haze-affected countries.
He correctly assumed responsibility as the haze crisis originated from his homeland. Being the president of a huge nation, he actually has displayed humility and moral integrity by saying sorry and following up with effective fire fighting deployment of men and aircraft.
All clear-minded Indonesians should be proud of his words and actions. Hooray! By the way tears from heaven fell. The rain was helpful. Understanding people all along know farmers traditionally clear land by burning.
Tant KT
An apology is the basic action when somebody causes pain or a problem. An apology should be understood also as a promise not repeat the same wrongdoing again. Otherwise it is not worth anything.
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The President offered an apology for causing health hazards to his neighboring countries. Well, accepted, just show that you mean it seriously, and do not let it happen again and again.
Sularia
I don’t agree. SBY is a capable leader and has no qualms about protecting what is good for his country. Unfortunately, there are some simpletons in his Cabinet who could not see the big picture and misunderstood his action.
Coming to the core issue, as long as there is a strong demand for palm oil worldwide, these plantation owners will continue to cultivate their land using unethical methods. This must be stopped through strict legal enforcement otherwise it will revert to the status quo.
Needless to say, one must not compromise over public health.
Jhon Xia
Issue of the day: Visitors feel pity for Zoo occupants
A group of mothers left the sun bear enclosure after losing interest in watching a child feed peanuts to the animals. “Why are the bears so skinny and where is the guide? There’s supposed to be a guide here, isn’t there?” said one of the mothers, in Ragunan Zoo in South Jakarta one afternoon.
Meanwhile, another visitor, Harpendi, complained about the enclosures. “Some of the enclosures are not clean. I pity the animals,” said the 26-year-old visitor from Bekasi, West Java, about the monkey section.
Harpendi, who has been visiting the zoo since childhood, said the condition of the zoo was better than the last time he visited but he hoped for more. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Your comments:
If you think this is bad, have a look at the animals in the Surabaya Zoo. An absolute disgrace and it makes you sick to watch.
Unbelievable that this is caused by humans.
Rojak
Zoos in Indonesia are managed by incompetent and corrupt people. It seems that Ragunan Zoo, Surabaya Zoo and probably other zoos in Indonesia are engaged in the illegal trade of endangered wildlife.
When these undernourished and stressed animals die, their jaws, claws and gall bladder will fetch tens of millions of rupiah on the illegal market.
Sabar
It would be far better to use Ragunan for graft convicts. Then we can all watch them suffer and starve to death.
No more running empires from behind bars. Surabaya Zoo also a perfect habitat for them.
Jeremy
The zoo should be closed! We should not cage animals just for our leisure. There are enough films made about animals in wild, watch them instead!
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Perhaps they should reverse the roles at the zoo. Let the animals roam free and put the visitors in the cages.
Jorith
Your letters: Violence in Papua
This is comment on a news report titled “Officer, civilian killed in Puncak Jaya ambush, The Jakarta Post, p5, June 27. Indeed, “violence” is the middle name of the Free Papua Organization’s (OPM) Papua Liberation Army (TPN).
The possession of fire arms has been part of the organization since the beginning of the struggle, despite strict regulations on the possession of arms. Weapons can still be found throughout the archipelago believed to have been smuggled in by non-government actors with an interest in the region, for the purpose of “managing the conflict” to ensure its own interest economically and politically.
In Papua’s case, it could be any foreign company. They “feed” the organization and preserve them in order to manage “the political balance” so they can gain a dominant bargaining position with the government. Otherwise, how could the organization and its military groups still exist? Where have they found the money to buy weapons when their own countrymen do not support them? Who funded them? Fed them? Why would they still exist while there’s nothing to fight for? Not even freedom, since the Papuan people has its own “term” of freedom?
On the other hand, while the authorities seem tied up on the issue of human rights and tend to avoid any assertive actions on them, the supporters of OPM, like the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) continue their political PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
139 maneuvers, locally and internationally — issues like human rights and abuse of power — which I believe are used for international attention.
However, unfortunately they are blind to reality; murders of not only soldiers and police but also civilians. So, the question is: what is the purpose? Who are they fighting for — the Papuan people or “the hand that feeds them”?
Rafli Hasan
Medan PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
APPENDIX 7 THE JAKARTA POST ARTICLES ON JULY 5TH, 2013
Comment: Snowden and evidence
First there was Daniel Ellsberg, a former United States military analyst who in 1971 precipitated national political controversy when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top secret Pentagon study on the US government’s political- military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967, to The New York Times and other newspapers.
Your comments:
I, too, support the respect for individual privacy and basic liberties for all. However, do you support the freedom to yell “fire” in a crowded theater? What we do now is balance the threat of Communism (our old nemesis) and the terrorism of Islamism within our free and independent global community.
This new threat by a “Nazi” style dictatorship is far more dangerous to our “individual privacy and liberties that are universally guaranteed” than the over- the-top security protection by the governments.
This editorial was not well thought out considering the greater good of the free world.
Brien
Issue of the day: RI: A reluctant good neighbor to Australia
Many Indonesians find it hard to control their tempers if they hear “provocative” remarks from the Australian media, military, politicians or
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141 celebrities. The country is perceived as an arrogant neighbor that has a strong sense of superiority over us, which has no more important agenda than to destroy the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI).
To us, Australia is a nation with little respect for Indonesia, while we do not believe that we deserve such treatment as a great nation. We would like Australians to learn more about Indonesia because of its pivotal role in the global community. While at the same time we often ignore the principle “know thy neighbor”. We are apparently reluctant to learn more about our neighbors and instead focus on forcing them to deepen their knowledge about us. (By Kornelius Purba, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta)
Your comments:
You suggest that it is right that Indonesia holds an honorable position among the international community since it is a major state.
Does this imply that minor states, like Timor Leste and the Solomon Islands, should hold a less honorable position among the international community?
John Hargreaves
I believe “white” Australians took the continent from the indigenous Aborigines peacefully and they are now content as part of the nation called Australia.
Try to Google aborigine independence. Everyone has the right to self determination, right?
Rio Riva
The only reason why we “hate” Australians is because we are in denial of the problems we face internally. Australians publish information about our country and we fail to see the truth. Instead, we are in denial and deride their false information out of “pride”. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Australians acknowledge problems and then publicly discuss a solution. Parliamentary sessions are always broadcasted nationwide, so everyone can see their government is actually working to find solutions.
The Indonesian government only does that when there’s money or power involved, especially if it can be mined toward their party funding or for their own gain.
I mean really, when have we ever seen anything at the House of Representatives broadcasted? When we do, it shows a half-empty hall with sleepy participants playing on their iPads or highly emotional blow-out arguments.
There were as many as 38 parties in the 2009 general elections, I mean, really what makes 38 parties so different in their ideology? They say “for the people” during their campaigns but once elected it are more like “for the wallet”.
Why can’t we just have a two or three-party system that has a completely defined ideology for each of them. The Soeharto era was better, albeit autocratic, but yes better than the madness today. There is nothing to be proud of Indonesia today. Not to me, at least.
Rameyuk
As an Australian, living long term in Indonesia with my Indonesian wife and family, I do take exception to much of what Mr. Purba writes. Let me assure him that most Australians do not hate Indonesia. Sure, the politicians occasionally garble on negatively about Indonesia, but this is a function of a true democracy, just as Indonesians are entitled to have their say.
Mr. Purba admits that there is a corrupt mentality in the Indonesian system regarding illegal immigrants. If this were to be tackled honestly by the Indonesian government and the flow of illegal immigrants through Indonesia reduced to a manageable level, there would not be an ongoing issue between the two countries. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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I would also ask Mr. Purba: Where do the illegal boats come from? Are they Indonesian registered vessels with Indonesian crew, knowingly transporting illegal immigrants from Indonesia? Does Australia have a right to refuse them entry to our waters? Reverse the situation, if Indonesia had the same problem, would Indonesia try to stop the boats?
Also, Mr. Purba fails to mention the annual flow of Australian aid to Indonesia, through NGOs and directly to the government in the form of new schools and infrastructure projects. Could he also cast his mind back to the Aceh tsunami and the efforts of Australia’s military and people to assist?
Prime Minister Rudd’s visit will bring more dollars to the Indonesian economy, as he attempts to get more positive action from the President on boat people.
As for the statement, “there are 1,000 reasons to hate Australia”, let me make it clear, in my opinion an average Australian would not find 1,000 reasons to hate Indonesia. To be honest, the only one I can think of at the moment would be the issue of boat people and Indonesia’s response.
I love this country and my family. When they visit they express their fondness for the people and the beautiful country.
Mr. Purba, there are many thousands of Australians visiting Indonesian annually and thoroughly enjoy the experience. Don’t judge all by the statements of one Prime Minister.
Colroe R
Your letters: Indian problems with Pakistan
There are many Indians like me who wish for peace between India and Pakistan to become a reality in the next 10 years. I was elated when, prior to the general elections, Nawaz Sharif declared that he would not allow terrorist attacks PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
144 on neighboring countries from Pakistani soil. He said he would set up an inquiry to establish the role of ISI in the Mumbai Massacre of Nov, 26, 2012 and also to establish “who did what” in Kargil.
Earlier, he appealed to his countrymen to stop looking at India as Pakistan’s biggest enemy. Pleased and inspired by his remarks, I had written letters to The Jakarta Post as well as Indian newspapers lauding his efforts.
I was very happy when the Pakistani electorate approved of his views to bring him back to power for a record third time. However, my hopes got somewhat dashed when Shahbaz Sharif, his brother and Punjab CM (also of the PML-N) showered more than 400 million Pakistani rupees into the waiting hands of Hafeez Saeed who had been the head of LeT, which has resurfaced as JuD (after LeT was banned)! India considers Saeed to be the mastermind behind the Mumbai Massacre and wants him to be tried in Pakistani courts.
Why do Pakistani politicians indulge in “double-talk”? Musharraf was the most skilled! When threatened by the US government with “bombing Pakistan into the Stone Age”, he ditched his friendship with the Taliban to join the US-led “War against Terror”, but at the same time made “safe house arrangements” for Osama bin Laden right next to the PMA in Abbottabad.
He had no qualms in continuing to claim (with his usual straight face) that “he didn’t know” of it even after Osama was located, killed and his body taken out! I am happy that he is being tried for treason in the Pakistani court system.
I know that with the past history of distrust of more than 60 years with three wars and creation of Bangladesh, it will take some time to normalize the relations between the two countries, but such double-talk (which, on the one hand, includes buying electrical power from India, increased mutual trade and peace with India and on the other hand pours money into the coffers of the very organization that is exporting terrorism to India) is not going to help. How can PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
145 people like me who long for peaceful coexistence with Pakistan accept such double-talk?
I pray to God that Pakistani civilian governments, at least, refrain from such double talk and proceed toward friendlier relations! With so many similarities between us, one hopes that Pakistan would soon realize that India is its best friend.
K B Kale Jakarta
Your letters: Television talk show incident
So the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) has done it again — a display of brutal behavior and extremely bad manners by its spokesman Munarman, which saw him throw water over sociologist Thamrin Amal Tamagola during a television talk show.
Clearly, Thamrin is the well-mannered gentleman here, and he is absolutely right to let us, the public, make a judgment call about the incident. What is more, Mr. Tamagola, in his wisdom, also allowed God to judge. Strong suspicions might rise among us as to whether Munarman is sufficiently endowed with intelligence that enables him to engage in a debate in a civilized way.
I am beginning to seriously wonder whether the members of the FPI are actually real Muslims who have ever taken the trouble to look at — much less thoroughly study — the contents of the Koran. If they have ever studied the contents of that Holy Book, they should know that the Creator warned against crimes toward fellow humans. “Don’t ever diminish and lessen the rights of fellow humans, and do not create disaster on the face of the earth” according to Verse As-Syuara 183. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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From all their actions, we can rightfully conclude that the FPI is just hiding behind that name while committing malevolent and criminal acts against fellow Indonesian citizens. That is among the worst cases of hypocrisy and cowardice I have ever seen and a very serious insult to the Islam as well.
Tami Koestomo Bogor, West Java
Your letters: Carbon credit farming unsustainable
The carbon farming caper is supported by all political parties. Under it, landowners can sell “carbon credits” if they can prove that they have reduced carbon dioxide by capturing it as humus in soil, or by planting forests, or by allowing re-growth of woody weeds, or by reducing feral animal emissions (shooting camels) or even by promising solemnly to not clear specified parcels of forest. None of these processes are sustainable in the long run. There is a limit to the amount of humus or trees that can be based on one hectare of top-soil.
And once all feral animals have been shot there are no more carbon credits to be earned (unless landowners also breed them secretly). And even in the corrupt carbon market for hot air, only one payment can be legally claimed for promising to not clear a parcel of land (and one bushfire will reverse all that in one afternoon). The whole concept is unsustainable, it encourages corruption, and most of the benefits will go to the big B’s — bureaucracies, bankers and brokers.
African farmers are saying “No” to land-grabbing carbon credit speculators. Australia should do the same.
Viv Forbes Queensland, Australia PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
APPENDIX 8 THE JAKARTA POST ARTICLES ON JULY 6TH, 2013
Comments: Singapore’s former pm praises SBY’s response
Singapore’s former prime minister Goh Chok Tong praised the Indonesian government for its ability to tackle the haze crisis caused by land and forest fires in Riau.
In a statement posted on his Facebook account, on Sunday morning, Goh expressed his gratitude to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. He said the President had shown strong leadership in dealing with the transnational problem.
“As the saying goes, when there is a will, there is a way. Thank you, President SBY, for showing this graciousness and dignified statesmanship,” Goh wrote, as quoted by Kompas.com.
Your comments:
Just wonder if Mr. Goh Chock Tong knows what he is saying. Singapore citizens were overcome by smoke and Mr. Goh gives praise?
Rojak
He gave praise to President SBY for his efforts to tackle the haze, not for creating the haze. Talk smart please, you are showing your stupidity.
S. Malam
What a contrast! SBY is considered a weak leader by the former vice president in his handling of the haze in our neighboring countries.
Suri Adnyana
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“Big dogs” don’t bite each other!
Jotith
Comment: Morning Star Flag raised in Puncak Jaya
A group of civilians raised the banned Morning Star (Bintang Kejora) flag in Kampung Wandenggobak, Mulia, Puncak Jaya regency, Papua, on Monday, while officers from Puncak Jaya Police were celebrating the National Police’s 67th anniversary, which fell on July 1. Intermittent gunfire was also heard in the lead- up to the raising of the flag.
Your comments:
When Gus Dur was president, the Bintang Kejora flag used to fly over West Papua alongside the Indonesian flag and there was no trouble. The Indonesian authorities should revoke the ban. This ould be a great step toward peace and mutual understanding between West Papuans and Indonesians.
Sabar Paijo
Comment: Oil falls toward US$96 as China factories slow
The price of oil neared US$96 a barrel on Monday as weak Chinese manufacturing raised the prospect of subdued demand. Benchmark crude for August delivery was down 12 cents at $96.44 a barrel at midday Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 49 cents to end Friday at $96.56. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Your comments:
The liquidity tightening in China goes all the way from not giving out credit to limiting cash withdrawals. When things get worse, truth will prevail, particularly who deserves to advance and what economy parasites need to be got rid of. Yet, the stakes are high. When China’s economy is damaged, it is chaos the world over.
H Cahyadi
Comment: City wants wage rise to reach Rp 4 million
A married worker in the city should be paid Rp 4 million (US$400) per month to enable him/her to take part in social security programs, send their children to school and purchase affordable housing, says Deputy Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama.
Your comments:
I agree the minimum wage should be lifted but there are prerequisites. You cannot expect employers to dish out extra money without an increase in efficiency.
Not to mention the higher cost of business in Indonesia due to (a lack of) infrastructure, the bureaucratic mess and an inept government.
There are just too many things to be done, if we don’t, the wage increase would be useless, especially with massive inflation in goods and services in Jakarta.
Ketonjo PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Issue of the day: Geothermal dream may never be a reality
Currently, Indonesia can only utilize 1,226 megawatts (MW), or 5 percent of its total geothermal reserves, despite being surrounded by a number of tectonic plates.
With that geographical position, the largest Southeast Asian economy holds 40 percent of the world’s geothermal reserves with a total potential of 29,000 MW scattered across 276 locations to feed energy to its 230 million citizens.
But land acquisition and permit issues that linger on are allegedly the reasons for the stalling of 30 geothermal projects that were launched before and after the introduction of the 2003 Geothermal Law.
“I think this is the point where the government should take an all or nothing approach [to help potential investors]. Otherwise, just shut down all of the geothermal projects in the country,” said Indonesian Geothermal Association chairman Abadi Purnomo in a recent interview with The Jakarta Post.
Your comments:
Indonesia is the most populous Islamic country and there are several thousand islands, stretching from Aceh to Papua — the length and width of the US but with no desert in between.
The seas are rich and oil resources and rainfall is abundant.
Kim Chuan Tee PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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The geothermal industry should be commended for at least trying to go through the due process, however, fruitless that may be. Another problem will occur after the geothermal concessions are exploited: roads will be cut through pristine corners of the forests and then these will be used by illegal loggers to cut the entire mountain.
Dunder
This country has everything the world needs but we do not know how to manage it.
Ajaib
Indonesia mixes religion with social and political aspects. The result is a backward country with no way of moving forward. Having numerous islands and seas makes Indonesia very rich. But the downside is the extremely difficult logistics. What is the use of having so many riches, but no way of transporting them efficiently?
We need to start to be honest and true to ourselves and each other.
Rameyuk
Meanwhile, entire forests are razed to the ground to make way for coal mines and oil palm plantations. The geothermal industry should be commended for at least trying to go through the due process, however, fruitless.
Another problem altogether comes after the geothermal concessions are exploited, roads will have to be cut through remote corners of pristine forests and these will then be used by illegal loggers to clear the entire mountain.
Jorith PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Your letters: Pakistani embassy responds
The letter “Indian Problems with Pakistan” by KB Kale (The Jakarta Post, June 5) although conveying many positive thoughts, which would be appreciated by us all whether Pakistani, Indian or any other national do carry some unfair criticisms.
The news about showering money on Hafiz Saeed is nothing but mere propaganda carried by the Indian media. Budgetary allocation in a small city should not be misinterpreted as “showering of money to an extremist”. In fact, for your readers, the misleading letter does merit a response.
The factual situation is that a piece of land measuring 800 acres will be available on the Sheikhupura-Muridke-Narowal road for a project for the establishment of a knowledge park. This park will be established to provide a center of excellence in the field of education and research. As Hafiz Saeed has some influence in the area, the news has been twisted to portray it as government aid to the controversial figure. It is totally incorrect to suggest that the Punjab Government led by Mian Shahbaz Sharif has extended money to Hafiz Saeed or his organization. In fact, Hafiz Saeed’s organization continues to be banned in Pakistan.
Any sensible person will agree that development of this park along with several similar ones like the establishment of a knowledge city in Rakhdera Chal, the establishment of seven universities, the technology university in Sialkot and the women’s university campus in Kala Shah Kaku are praiseworthy plans by the government to educate and enlighten people. In this manner a way is being prepared for countering extremism, which is one of the top three priorities of the government. It should not be unfairly criticized.
At a time when there was a possibility of a meeting between PM Nawaz Sharif and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in September and while unveiling Pakistan’s foreign policy roadmap, Prime Minister Nawas Sharif has PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
153 vowed to “progressively pursue” normalcy in ties with India while actively seeking solutions to outstanding issues, including Kashmir, such propaganda could blemish the efforts being made in good faith by both sides.
New Dehli and Islamabad have decided to resume their high-level composite dialogue, as was expected once Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif assumed his office. Whenever Islamabad and New Delhi try to come closer, violent incidents and border aggression become reasons to halt the peace process, pushing both sides miles apart. The composite dialogue has time and again fallen victim to various incidents, like the Mumbai attacks, cross-border aggressions from both sides and firing incidents along the Line of Control (LOC).Such incidents have always contributed to pulling both countries apart at times when they neared some significant breakthrough for peace.
After a long time, the Pakistani government is again trying to improve ties with India, to which the Indian government has responded positively, re-initiating top level contacts between the two neighbors.
We must give our governments a chance and the confidence to bury the acrimonious past and endeavor to live in peace and amity and encourage relations based on mutual respect and understanding.
Ayesha Tassaduq Spokesperson Embassy of Pakistan Jakarta
Your letters: Increasing ASEAN’s visibility
I refer to the editorial titled “Who cares about ASEAN?”(The Jakarta Post, July 3). Indeed, it can be assumed that the very recent ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam, was not sufficiently covered PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
154 by the media in the ten ASEAN’s member states because people do not see ARF’s impact on their lives.
However, beyond this perception, the indifferent attitude of the media toward some important diplomatic events taking place in a geographical area with an estimated population of 650 million, covered and represented by a prestigious regional organization like ASEAN, has to be seriously questioned for a major practical reason. ASEAN’s decisions and recommendations have undeniable connections with people’s daily lives and their genuine relevance for all ASEAN countries: They cannot be ignored or underestimated.
All significant ASEAN activities, including those involving powers like the US, China, Russia, Japan, India, the European Union and Australia deserve exposure by the media.
It can be asserted that visibility is crucial for giving tangibility to ASEAN’s vision as reflected in its Charter and many programmatic documents. Without appropriate awareness of ASEAN action, its actual performance remains unknown and this might have a negative impact on its capacity to put its own decisions into effect. ASEAN’s vision cannot fully materialized without the initiatives promoted and results obtained at the fore.
From a practical perspective, having better visibility into ASEAN’s multilateral diplomacy can make a big difference, irrespective of the venue or duration of its meetings. The outcomes of these meetings can facilitate the task of being able to proactively rather than reactively deal with the recommendations. Providing reliable and rich information about current ASEAN activities in all leading dailies should be a paramount objective of all concerned. In multilateral diplomacy, there is no true credibility without proper visibility. Opacity is a dangerous enemy of success.
Ioan Voicu Bangkok PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Your letters: Freedom — What is it?
I often hear the word freedom expressed and, each time, I wonder what people actually mean by it. My interpretation or perception of freedom is likely different to many others who use the word and, in all honesty, I doubt whether freedom is achievable.
If we assume that freedom means to be free to do as you like, then that would result in world chaos, as within no time we would be clubbing one another like people did during the Stone Age.
We are all governed by rules, regulations, restrictions, circumstances, bylaws, obligations, occupations, traffic lights and, of course, let’s not forget our wives. Freedom of speech is steadily being eroded by people who want everyone to be polite, tolerant, reasonable and, thus, by and large ineffective. Perhaps freedom is like democracy, another much-used word that in practice is a myth and doesn’t really exist.
It is like claiming to be “normal” when all of us are clearly different, and no one that I know can define the meaning of the word. Perhaps Eskimos are relatively free as there is no mortgage commitment on an igloo, a great lack of churches and mosques near the North Pole and hardly anyone who can speak Yupik to check on their tax returns.
But, of course, freedom of the individual is very important, but unfortunately in this day and age, everyone is herded down various avenues that stifle freedom through propaganda and brainwashing. Authority never likes to be challenged; those in power more than appreciate that freedom for the people would signal the end of their reign. The only true answer to obtaining freedom and, in turn, justice is for all Indonesians to thoroughly vet all the would-be candidates for the 2014 elections and reject those that fall short of requirements. PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
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Obviously that won’t happen, as the vast majority of people simply can’t be bothered; but if that is the case, you can kiss freedom goodbye.
David Wallis Medan