A study on context clues in reading section used in 2010-2011 National Final Examination (UAN) of Junior High School

ABSTRACT

In the reading process sometimes the readers find unfamiliar words. Using context clues is the easiest way to be familiar with unfamiliar words in the reading process. In this case, this research analyzes about context clues depending on Robinson’s and Spears’s theories. According to Robinson (1976:60), there are two kinds of context clues. They are syntactic clues and semantic clues. While Spears (2000: 98) states that there are four kinds of context clues. They are synonym, antonym, example, and situation clues. This research used both of those theories. It is used to complete each other.

Related to the phenomena above, there are two main problems that are investigated by the researcher in this research, they are: (1) what kinds of context clues are founded in reading section used in 2010-2011 National Final Examination (UAN) of Junior High School, and (2) how the context clues are used in reading section in 2010-2011 National Final Examination (UAN) of Junior High School.

In analyzing the data, the researcher used a descriptive qualitative research as design because the data are in the form of words. The data source of this research is reading texts of 2010-2011 national final examination (UAN) of junior high school because there are many problems that are faced by the students of junior high school in the reading process during answering the questions of examination process. There are eleven texts which are analyzed. The researcher collects the data by doing textual observation. In here, the researcher uses several steps: First, the researcher tries to read the text deeply to identify the question which reference to context clues. Then, the researcher identifies context clues which can answer the question by reading the related text based on theory. And finally, the researcher gives code by giving highlight in finding data in order to easily to find when analyze data.

The result of this research shows that there are ten data found in Syntactic Clues and eleven data found in the form Semantic Clues. The use of this context clue brings an impact to the readers’ comprehension on the text. It means that, it can help the readers to be familiar with an unknown word.

Finally, after conducting this research, the researcher hopes this research can give a beneficial contribution to the students, especially the students who are interested in the use of Context Clues. The researcher also hopes this research would give some advantage for further researcher who concern in studying the same field.