Warrant in the Argumentative essays in Columnist column of www.theaustralian.com.au

ABSTRACT

Argumentative essay employs important role in academic writing to convince the readers concerning our opinion. It is used as a tool to extend ideas and opinions in the form of essay which consists of refutation. This study focuses on the warrant as a part of argumentative essays which connects between the claim and the support. The purposes of this study are to identify the types of warrant used in claims of fact, value, and policy in columnist column of www.theaustralian.com.au.

The analysis of the types of warrant is limited in columnist column from March to April 2012. Meanwhile, the research design of this study is descriptive qualitative since the writer describes the types of warrant in the claim of fact, value, and policy. The writer becomes the main instrument to get the convenient and systematic data by finding the resource of data, collecting, checking, classifying and analyzing the data. In the analysis, the data of this study are investigated by using Rottenberg’s theory of the types of warrant.

The findings show that most of the articles in this newspaper use motivational warrant. Every claim such as claim of fact, value, and policy are stated explicitly. In the claim of fact, the types of warrant are dominated by authoritative and substantive warrant. The writers of those articles provide the credible and trustworthiness source. They often use factual evidence to support the claim. In the claim of value, the writers mostly use motivational warrant. They use their values to convince the readers. In the claim of policy, motivational has been used the most than other types of warrants.

The findings of this study can be used a s an empirical basis for understanding Rottenberg’s theory of warrant. The lecturers of English writing should use these findings as a model in analyzing warrant and take the example of warrant from The Australian. The next researchers who want to study the same focus, they are recommended to analyze other newspapers for various the results.