MINI RESEARCH

Thinking Process about Propositional Content of Some Sentences By

College Student

Complied By:

Harnita Ritonga
(2141121016)

English Education 2014 Regular A

Psycholinguistics

ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM

ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
LANGUAGE AND ART FACULTY
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
2016/2017

CHAPTER I
 INTRODUCTION
1. Research Background
Communication is an important thing in human’s life. Every time and
everywhere people do it to get their needs. They use language as the main tool in this
process of communication. Although there are a lot of languages in the world, they have
the same main use that is to express ideas in the main of human being so that they can
reach their wants.
Language itself consists of some parts, such as morphemes, words, sentences,
etc. Each part has its own function and rule. In this research, the writer limits on the
word analysis as a part of language. Word as a part of language has important rule in
forming a language. People always use it to build a sentence, but they do not know
where do actually those millions words come from. People as the users of language
sometimes do not think about how a language is formed. There are millions of words
now used by people. Every time people get more and more new words unless they know
the way it happens. In language, function goes hand in hand with structure, for the
structure of each sentence specifies the uses to which it can be put. Furthermore, the
signaling system must be one that speakers and listener are both able to use.
As this description shows, the function of language is intimately bound up with
the speakers’ intention, the ideas speakers want to convey, and the listeners’ current
knowledge. First, speakers intend to have some effect on their listener, and must get
them to recognize these intentions. The sentences used must therefore reflect these
intentions. Second, speakers want to convey certain ideas, and to do this sentence must
also reflect the listeners’ ways of thinking about objects, states, events, and facts. And
third, speakers must have some conception of what is on their listeners’ minds at the
moment and of where they want the communication to lead. The sentences used must
reflect these conceptions as well. These three aspects of language function have been
studied under the labels of speech acts, propositional content, and thematic structure.
In this research, the writer tries to find the mechanisms or processes of
propositional content and finally can be used in human’s life. Sentence can be used to
inform people of something, ask them about something, warn them about something, or
request them to do something. Each of these something – each of these empty nouns –
must have content to convey the ideas the listeners are to be informed of, asked about,
warned about, or requested to fulfill. So a very important function of sentence is to
specify the ideas around which a speech act is built. These ideas are conveyed by the
propositional content, sometimes called the ideational content, of a sentence. Of course,
if listeners are ever to grasp these ideas, this content must fit people’s requirements for
what is a “proper idea”. Thus, the study of propositional content is important because of
its potential for revealing the fundamental nature of human ideas – at least those ideas
that can be communicated.
Finally, it is an evidence that the differences between one generation and another
reflects the simple fact that languages are always in the process of changing, that
language do not stand still (Finegan, 1997:258) Taking view on the change,
propositional process is interesting to investigate. Therefore, this research examines the
process of inversion done directly by those students in Language and Art Faculty at
State University of Medan as its function to make their communication easier to
understand.

1.2 Research Question

1.2.1 How are the process of propositional content done by the students in Language
and Art Faculty of State University of Medan of some sentences?
1.2.2 What are the reasons why those students divide it into propositional content of
some sentences?

1.3 Significance
This research attempts to document the thinking process of human mind which
produced from propositional content process. For that reason, the researcher is generally
interested in finding out the part of sentences. In this research, researcher figures out
that the significance of this research is this research is expected to be able to contribute
in linguistics research especially in psycholinguistics analysis. Through this research, it
can be used for thinking building, English mastering and keeping-up-to-date the
information about what is going on in their mind in that frequently used by society in
general. This study is also expected as an additional reference for those, either student,
lecturer, researcher, or whoever, interested in the same subject of psycholinguistics
analysis especially in propositional content.
1.4 Research Scope
In this study, the writer analyzes some sentences which asked to some students
who have high, medium, and low score by the students in Language and Art Faculty at
State University of Medan in their daily conversation. The writer focuses on the analysis
of the process of Conversion as a part of word-formation in morphological event.
 CHAPTER II

Review of Related Literature

Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication

(Wardhaugh: 1977:3). Sciffman (1996) stated that language reconstituted and
reconstructed by every speaker anew in every generation. Therefore languages change
in the course of time (Bloomfield, 1933:13) and of course, it happen on all living
languages (Fromkin and Rodman, 1974: 499).
We find a comprehension that English has been developed continually since
hundreds years ago. That is exact with the theory, languages change in the course of
time (Bloomfield, 1933: 13), the process of change is dramatically over a long period of
time. None of these processes of change happened overnight, languages change
dramatically over a long period. To see how one language has undergone substantial
changes through time, we can take a brief look at the history of English (Yule,
2005:186).
This study concerns more about Propositional Content. Propositions, as whole,
have one three basic function: they denote states, or events: they denote facts about
states or events: or they qualify parts of other propositions (Vendler, 1967). Take the
proposition expressed by the troops defeated the army. It can be used to denote an
event, as when it is the complement replacing the empty noun in something took a long
time:
Therefore, given those explanations above, this study investigates the formation
of new conversion words. To analyze the product of change, in this study is new
thinking, the theory of proposition formation is able to be used (Yule, 2006: 52-53).
 CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHOD
3.1 Research Design
This qualitative research of critical thinking about proposition in English will be
reached on the matter of interview. The focus investigation of approach is what is going
on in human mind, in a certain period of time; language analysis based on the present.
According to Soeparno (2002: 117) the advantage of this approach is objective, and he
also states, it is because the motto is“ describe the facts, all the facts, and nothing but
the facts”. The result of synchronic approach is linguistic descriptive. So, for instance,
this research uses descriptive approach.

3.2 Research Subject

The instrument of this research is I myself as this research uses qualitative
approach. In this research, I am the only one instrument who is busy in obtaining,
collecting, and analyzing the data to get the objective of this research.
3.3 Instrument and Data Collection
The data which will be collected for this research is taken from three students
which get the high, medium, and low score of KRS which is done by the students Art
and Language Faculty at State University of Medan. The data, specifically, will be taken
from the speakers around the researcher.
3.4 Data Analysis
The technique of observation is particularly important in this research.
According to Creswell (1994: 149), data collection procedures in qualitative research
involve four basic types: observations, interviews, visual images, and documents. On
analyzing the data, new words in English, researcher will apply several steps. Troot and
Bloomer (1998: 7-13) (1) Identification. In this step, researcher will sorting the
sentence, select the sentences which have probability have proposition. It means that in
this step there are a kind of election. Then, (2) Classification. The selected sentences
will be classified into several classification (3) Interpreting (or Describing). This step is
the last-one step, the data will be described or analyzed. (4) Conclusion. After all,
researcher will find out the conclusion as the simple answer.
 CHAPTER IV
FINDING AND DISCUSSION
Proposition, as has been described above, is that part of the meaning of a clause
or sentence that is constant, despite changes in such things as the voice or illocutionary
force of the clause. A proposition may be related to other units of its kind through
interpropositional relations, such as temporal relation and logical relations. This study
examines the process of what is going on in human mind which are frequently using
sentence for their communication especially by the students In Language and Art
Faculty at State University of Medan. As those three students interviewed by myself,
three students have difference answer perfectly.
Here are the results of interview about proposition in three sentences with 3 student
differently.
1. A high score’s student
In the first sentence, “The young actor that borrowed Jhon’s car popular”
This student said there are 3 propositions, there are:
- The actor was young
- The actor borrowed Jhon’s car
- The actor was popular
In the second sentence, “The old man smokes an awful cigarette”
This student said there are 3 propositions, there are:
- The man was old
- The man smokes
- Cigarette is an awful
In the third sentence, “The student who promised to submit his work on time
did not”
This student also said there are 3 propositions, there are:
- The student was promised
- The student will submit his work
- The student on time did not
2. A medium score’s student
In the first sentence, “The young actor that borrowed Jhon’s car popular”
 This student said there are 4 propositions, there are:
- The actor was young
- The actor borrowed Jhon’s car
- The car is belong to Jhon
- The actor was popular
In the second sentence, “The old man smokes an awful cigarette”
This student said there are 3 propositions, there are:
- The man was old
- The man smokes
- The cigarette is an awful
In the third sentence, “The student who promised to submit his work on time
did not”
This student also said there are 3 propositions, there are:
- The student was promised
- The student will submit his work
- The student on time did not
3. A low score’s student
In the first sentence, “The young actor that borrowed Jhon’s car popular”
This student said there are 3 propositions, there are:
- The actor was young
- The actor borrowed Jhon’s car
- The actor is popular
In the second sentence, “The old man smokes an awful cigarette”
This student said there are 3 propositions, there are:
- The man was old
- The man smokes
- Cigarette is an awful
In the third sentence, “The student who promised to submit his work on time
did not”
This student also said there are 3 propositions, there are:
- The student was promised
- The student will submit his work
 - His work on time did not

We can see on the data that actually those sentences have difference proposition
and every students also have another opinion about the smallest meaning (proposition).
The students tend to directly use those sentences in communication for daily life. Those
students prefer to use the sentence but they didn’t know what going on in their mind
about the sentence. That is actually the main reason why every single people neeed to
learn about proposition and they will understand about everyone said without repeat it
more and more. Therefore, the mini research about proposition in psycholinguistics
subject done by the students of Language and Art Faculty at State University of Medan
is everyone has the differences of thinking process and it doesn’t effect of their score in
classroom.

CONCLUSION
The Nature of language is used as a communication tool. People always use
language to fill their needs. In line with this case, everyone wants to make their
communication become easier and effective through making proposition (the smallest
meaning) to refer to something that difficult to be said. They do proposition of some
sentences as it results nobody is perfect about critical thinking of sentence.