Analisis penanda wacana dan strategi komunikasi dalam surat-surat koleksi peribadi Za’ba
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Date
2014
Authors
Yaakub, Yusniza
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Abstract
This is a study of the contents of ZA 'BA’s personal letters which have never been
disclosed to the public, especially to the young generation. Specifically, the study
addresses the questions with regard to the communication strategies ZA’BA employed
in his personal letters. The issues are whether the communication strategies he used in
his personal letters are similar to that of an official communication and whether he used
other types of strategies in his written communication. In addition to these questions, the
study also focuses on the elements of discourse markers i.e. the types and the functions
of discourse markers employed by those who communicated with ZA’BA through
letters. Accordingly, this study was carried out to identify the position of discourse
markers in the context of ZA’BA’s informal correspondence. Data consisting of forty
five ZA’BA’s personal collection of letters were analyzed. The letters were selected
because ZA’BA was the first grammarian to have discussed this aspect and for his
extensive contribution in the field of linguistics and national development. Hence, the
researcher chose ZA’BA’s personal collection of letters because so far the public have
only learned about ZA’BA ‘true’ self through his academic writings without knowing
the language he used when communicating via informal channel i.e. his personal letters.
The researcher adopted the approach introduced by Halliday(1970) which explicitly
explained the functional semantic components which included ideational, interpersonal
and textual meanings as the main framework of the study. The aspect of discourse
markers was analyzed using the approaches of Halliday (1976), Nik Safiah et al. (2008)
and Sanat (1997) while the communication strategies were analyzed using the
approach of Asmah (2010 and 1988). In addition, the researcher used the framework
introduced by Hymes (1972) to analyze language events in ZA’BA’s personal letters.
The study found that in the ZA’BA’s personal correspondence, he utilized the following
discourse markers; ‘dan’, ‘dan lagi’, ‘maka’, and ‘tetapi’ extensively. This shows that
ZA’BA’s personal correspondence was still influenced by the traditional Malay
language. Nevertheless he was a step ahead of his time as he had long been using aspect
of communication strategy and politeness in his written correspondence. The findings
also reveal that the component of functional semantic component can be used to explain
the internal and external aspects of the text. These components also complement each
other.