A syntactic analysis on the sentences found in ‘Dora The Explorer’

ABSTRACT

‘Dora the Explorer’ is a cartoon film which is created to teach language to children. It indicates that the sentences used are in the form of simple sentences. As one of the media to teach language, this cartoon film has reached high-grade score for the most audiences in the world. Therefore, it is interesting to conduct a research about how the syntactic structure of the sentences used in the film is. Then, in this research I investigated the data based on two problems, they are 1) what kinds of syntactic structures are used in the sentences used in ‘Dora the Explorer’? and 2) How are those syntactic structures applied in Chinese boxes? The objectives of the study are to describe types of syntactic structures used in the sentences used in the film, and to apply those syntactic structures in Chinese boxes.

Qualitative method is used in this research because the data are in the form of words rather than in numbers and statistics. Besides that, this method is used in order to get answers of the problems of the research. The data are taken from the utterances spoken by the main character on ‘Dora the Explorer’. After the data are collected, they are classified and analyzed based on Francis’ theory of syntactic structures.

This study finds the four kinds of syntactic structures; they are structure of modification, structure of predication, structure of complementation, and struc- ture of coordination, with detail explanation:

The first, Structure of modification consists of the head noun (with modifier noun, adjective, adverb, noun determiner, possessive, structure of modification, structure of predication, structure of complementation, and structure of coordination), verb (adjective, adverb, prepositional phrase, and structure of complementation), adjective (qualifier and structure of complementation), posses- sive (noun-phrase), structure of modification (verb-infinitive, adverb, noun deter- miner, and structure of predication), structure of predication (adverb and con- junction), structure of complementation (structure of complementation). The se- cond, Structure of predication consists of subject pronoun (with predicate verb- phrase, structure of modification, and structure of complementation), adverb (structure of complementation), noun-proper name (structure of complementa- tion), structure of modification (structure of modification), structure of com- plementation (verb, structure of modification, and structure of complemen-tation). The third, Structure of complementation consists of verbal element verb (with complement pronoun, noun, structure of modification, and structure of predi-cation), be (structure of modification), structure of modification (structure of modification), structure of predication (structure of modification), structure of complementation (structure of predication), verb-infinitive has two complements (objects), they are noun-proper name as indirect object and verb-infinitive as direct object. The last, Structure of coordination consists of elements structure of complementations with coordinator ‘and’, structure of predications with coor- dinator ‘and’, structure of predication with coordinator ‘now that’, nouns without coordinator, and adjectives which is also without coordinator.

Finally, I expect that this thesis will be useful for others. Especially for the students who are studying on English for Young Learners (EYL), they can use the patterns of syntactic structures which are the results of this research as one of references in making teaching materials which are used for young learners. Besides that, this study should be continued by other researchers with the same data but different point of view in order to get more benefits.

ABSTRAK

‘Dora the Explorer’ merupakan film kartun yang sengaja diciptakan untuk mengajarkan bahasa kepada anak-anak. Indikasinya adalah, kalimat-kalimat yang digunakan dalam film ini berbentuk kalimat-kalimat sederhana. Sebagai salah satu media untuk pembelajaran bahasa, film kartun ini telah meraih skor tinggi sebagai salah satu program yang memiliki penonton terbanyak di dunia. Oleh karena itu, ini merupakan hal yang menarik untuk melakukan penelitian tentang bagaimana struktur sintaksis pada kalimat-kalimat yang digunakan dalam film tersebut. Dalam penelitian ini, saya meneliti data-data berdasar atas dua masalah, yaitu 1) Termasuk dalam struktur sintaksis apakah kalimat-kalimat yang digunakan dalam ‘Dora the Explorer’? dan 2) Bagaimana struktur sintaksis tersebut diterapkan dalam Chinese Boxes? Sedangkan tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mendeskripsikan tipe-tipe struktur sintaksis kalimat-kalimat yang digunakan dalam film ‘Dora the Explorer’, dan menerapkan struktur sintaksis tersebut dalam Chinese boxes.

Metode kualitatif digunakan karena data-data dalam penelitian ini berbentuk kalimat dan bukan angka ataupun data statistik. Di samping itu, metode ini digunakan dengan tujuan mendapatkan jawaban yang detail untuk rumusan masalah dalam penelitian ini. Data diambil dari kalimat-kalimat yang digunakan oleh pemeran utama dalam ‘Dora the Explorer’ pada episode ‘Catch the Star’. Setelah data terkumpul, data-data tersebut diklasifikasikan dan dianalisa berdasarkan teori Francis tentang struktur sintaksis.

Penelitian ini menemukan empat macam strukstur sintaksis, yaitu struktur modification, struktur predication, struktur complementation, dan struktur coordination dengan detail penemuan sebagai berikut:

Pertama, struktur modification terdiri dari head noun (dengan modifier noun, adjective, adverb, noun determiner, possessive, struktur modification, struktur predication, struktur complementation, dan struktur coordination), verb (adjective, adverb, prepositional phrase, dan struktur complementation), adjective (qualifier dan struktur complementation), possessive (noun-phrase), struktur modification (verb-infinitive, adverb, noun determiner, dan struktur predication), struktur predication (adverb dan conjunction), struktur complementation (struktur complementation). Kedua, struktur predication terdiri dari subject pronoun (dengan predicate verb-phrase, struktur modification, dan struktur complementation), adverb (struktur complementation), noun-proper name (struktur complementation), struktur modification (struktur modification), struktur complementation (verb, struktur modification, dan struktur complementation). Ketiga, struktur complementation terdiri dari verbal element verb (dengan complement pronoun, noun, struktur modification, dan struktur predication), be (struktur modification), struktur modification (struktur modification), struktur predication (struktur modification), struktur complementation (struktur predication), verb-infinitive memiliki dua complements (objek), yaitu noun-proper name sebagai indirect object dan verb-infinitive sebagai direct object. Keempat, Struktur coordination terdiri dari element-element struktur complementation dengan coordinator ‘and’, struktur predication dengan coordinator ‘and’, struktur predication dengan coordinator ‘now that’, nouns tanpa coordinator, dan adjectives tanpa coordinator.

Akhirnya, saya berharap skripsi ini dapat bermanfaat untuk orang lain. Khususnya bagi para mahasiswa yang sedang belajar English for Young Learners (EYL), mereka dapat menggunakan bentuk-bentuk struktur sintaksis hasil dari penelitian ini untuk menyusun materi-materi pembelajaran yang digunakan untuk pembelajar pemula. Di samping itu, saya menyarankan agar penelitian ini dilanjutkan oleh para peneliti lain dengan menggunakan data yang sama tetapi dari sisi (teori) yang berbeda dengan tujuan untuk mendapatkan manfaat lainnya.