AN ANALYSIS OF IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS USED IN NOVEL CURTAIN BY AGATHA CHRISTIE

BY: SITI SOLECHAH 07420273 6F

I. INTRODUCTION1.1 Background of the Study

People all over the world use language to communicate their idea their thought or even their feeling. They speak in many kinds of language such as English Bahasa Indonesia Spanish Japanesse and so much more. Even though there is lot of languages in Indonesia being used for example Javanese Sundanese bahasa Indonesia itself and so on. Now there are a lot of Indonesian people interested in learning English as foreign language because they know that English is the international language used in many countries.

In learning English as a foreign language we have to master idiomatic expressions because they are frequently used in both oral and written language. For instance in written language we often found some idiomatic expressions in some literary works that we have read. Some authors often include some idiomatic expressions in order to make their work more interesting and communicative. We can also find some idiomatic expressions in novel Curtain by Agatha Christie.

1.2 LIMITATION OF THE STUDYCurtain is one of novel written by Agatha Christie a famous author. She is well known for her literary works in detective novel. The two characters of most of her book are Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. In this novel entitled Curtain the main character is the second one. The author wrote this novel to make the reader amuse. Beside it also educate the reader consequently by some messages in the story. In this research I only focus on idiomatic expressions in the novel. I am going to analyze the idiomatic expressions in novel Curtain by Agatha Christie.

1.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMSSome Indonesian learners get confused in understanding and translating the idiomatic expressions, because the meaning of idiomatic expressions are unpredictable, i.e. the meaning are not the meaning of the part, but they acquired a different meaning, which must be learnt in context. Based on the explanation above the following are the statement of the problems: 1. What are the forms and the meaning of idiomatic expressions found in the novel? 2. What is the percentage of each? 3. What is the most dominant of idiomatic expression found in the novel?

1.4 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDYIdioms are an important part of the colloquial language. Even if people are not aware of it, they are used very frequently in everyday life, whether it is oral or written. They can be used without noticing them. By finding what are the problems I found in my study so here I can state what the objectives of the research are as follows: 1. To describe the forms and the meaning of idiomatic expressions found in the novel. 2. To describe the percentage of each idiomatic expressions. 3. To describe the most dominant of idiomatic expression found in the novel.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCES OF THE STUDYThe result of the study is expected to give some benefits. The benefits of the study are as follows:(1) The result of this study can be used as an additional knowledge to improve the vocabulary of idioms for Indonesian learners who study English. (2) The result of the study would facilitate readers in understanding the novel. (3) For me as the researcher could mention the meaning of idiomatic expressions existing in the text of the novel. (4) The result of the study can be used as stimulant information to conduct further research on idiomatic expressions since this research discusses idiomatic expressions only.

II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE2.1 Semantics

According to Hurford and Heasley (1983:1), semantics is the study of meaning in language. Language is a means of communication, and people use language to communicate with others by making conversations, giving information, and other things to make social relationship. Hurford and Heasley (1983: 14) further explain that the study of semantics is largely a matter of conceptually and exploring the nature of meaning in a careful and thoughtful way, using a wide range of examples, many of which we can draw from our knowledge.

2.2 IDIOMSThere is a little attempt to define idioms here except to assume that an idiom is a phrase which has a meaning different from the meanings of its component parts. This explains why an idiom can not be translated literally from one language to another without some change in its meaning or connotation (Dixson 1983: 1). Another definition is stated by Hornby (1987:6) that idiom is a phrase or sentence whose meaning is not obvious through knowledge of the individual meanings of the constituent words but must be learnt as a whole.

2.3 CHARACTERISTICS OF IDIOMS2.3.1 An Idiom is a Multi-word Expression. 2.3.2 An Idiom Behaves as a Single Semantics Unit 2.3.3 An Idiom Has a Non-Productive Syntactic Structure. 2.3.4 An Idiom is Syntactically Anomalous. 2.3.5 An Idiom Contains Unique, Fossilized Items. 2.3.6 An Idiom is Fixed Expression

2.4 TYPES OF IDIOMS

2.4.1 Substitutes 2.4.2 Proper Names 2.4.3 Abbreviation 2.4.4 English Phrasal Compounds 2.4.5 Figures of Speech 2.4.6 Slang

2.5 NOVELThe novel is a part of literary works. Hornby (1987:496) states that literature is writing valued as work of art (drama, fiction, essay, poetry, and biography) constructed with technical books and journalism.

2.6 Idiomatic Expressions in the NovelThe novel is a book-length story in prose, whose author tries to create the sense, that, while we read, we experience actual life (Kennedy, 1983:180). In understanding the content of the novel, the reader should be able to translate all of the content. In writing a novel, the author often includes some compound words such as preposition, phrasal verb, and idiom.

III.

RESEARCH METHOD3.1Research DesignThe data for this research is not numeric, because this research is a qualitative study. A qualitative study is a study in which the collected data are in the form of sentences. They are arranged, classified, and then analyzed to get a conclusion. Furthermore, they are marked in percentage form. (Surachmad 1985:140) In this research, the method used is the descriptive method, a method in which the researcher needs only to collect and analyze the data, and finally draw a general conclusion.

3.2Object of the ResearchThe object of the study is a novel of Agatha Christie entitled Curtain. The data are taken from the stories contained in the book. The stories are very interesting because give many examples of the use of idiomatic expressions in the sentence.

3.3Types of the DataThe data will be in form of words, phrases, and sentences of the idiomatic expressions in the stories. By analyzing the idiomatic expressions of the novel, the use of idiom can be explored.

3.4 Technique of Data CollectionThe techniques of gathering data applied in this study are by using several steps:(1) Reading the novel carefully (2) Identifying The Data (3) Inventorying (4) Classifying (5) Simplifying

To make this step easier, a table is needed. The table consists of the data that have been identified before. Below is the form of the table:NO IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS MEANING PAGE LINE NO OF TITLE UTTERANCE

3.5Technique of Data AnalysisIn this study, I will describe the use of various kinds of idiomatic expressions which are found in the novel. The utterances are analyzed according to the meaning of the idiomatic expressions. The analysis will be conducted using the following steps: (1) Exposition (2) Explanation (3) Interpretation (4) Elaboration (5) Summary (6) Conclusion (7) Report

REFERENCESChristie Agatha. Curtain: The Ebook Version (Downloaded March 15th 2010). Cooper. 1986. Processing of Idioms in L2 Learners of English: Tesol Quarterly, Vol.33, No.2. Hornby, A. S. 1992. Oxford Advance Learners Dictionary of Current English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leech, G. N. 1983. Principle and Pragmatics. New York: Longman. Lyons, J. 1977. Semantics. London: Cambridge University Press. Mc Callum, G. 1817. Idiom Drills for Students of English as a Second Language Second Edition. New york: HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS. Mc Carthy, M and Felicity, O. D. 1994. English Vocabulary in Use. Cambridge University Press

www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryofLinguisticTerms. Accessed on March 20, 2010.www.online-literature.com. Accessed on April, 2010. www.wordreference/definition/idiom. Accessed on April 25, 2010