A study of formal links used in English reading texts of national examination of senior high school 2007 edition

National Examination is a test that is given for students of Senior High School before they pass from the school which is held once a year. The test that held in Indonesia here is known as UN (Ujian Nasional), formerly UAN (Ujian Akhir Nasinonal). The English reading texts of National Examination of senior High School 2007 edition analyzed with formal links proposed by Cook. He classifies the formal links theory into seven aspects, verb form, parallelism, referring expression, repetition, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction.

This study is focused on analyzing formal links in English reading section of National Examination 2007 edition. Formal links is a facts inside language or features that operate within sentence.

The writer used the descriptive qualitative research. The data are the English reading texts of National Examination of Senior High School 2007 edition accessed from the internet, with browsed in www.ziddu.com and www.banksoal.sbarin.com. In the data analysis, the writer used some process of analysis, they are: (1) identifying the data of reading texts content of formal links inside. (2) categorizing the sentence that found into any aspects of formal links. (3) analyzing the data and explain the function, and (4) for the last process is making conclusion from the analysis.

From the result and discussion of her analysis, the writer concluded that all types of formal links were found in the reading texts of National Examination. The formal links found included verb form, parallelism, referring expression, repetition, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction. For the function of formal links, which were found, are: for verb form, in one sentence can limit the verb in the next sentence and fit with the form in other sentences and that makes the sentences in the reading texts are logically connected, parallelism that was found is to simplify the language that used in reading text. For referring expression is to indicate reference pronoun, for repetition can be to stress the ideas in a passage, for substitution and ellipsis are to make the utterance accurate, and for conjunction is to indicate cause and effect relationship, to indicate comparison and contrast.

The general conclusion is that in written discourse, the text of passage in final examination of Senior High School can maintain the flow of the ideas by using formal links, that is used many repetitions that was often occur in every passage. For the last, as an English learner, we should be sensitive to know a fact inside language that we can use the formal links to know it. To have a wider and deeper knowledge about English, it is very important to learn formal links, not only for English learner, but also for English teacher, and further researcher.