Abstract. In the process of communication with
other person, there will be many possibilities of misunderstanding and
misinterpreting of the meaning from the language we use. Therefore,
understanding meaning is very crucial. To get successful interaction we have to
understand both explicit and implicit meaning of the word. Meaning is idea or
concept that can be transferred from the speaker’s mind to the hearer by
embodying them, as it were, in the form of one language or another. Semantics
as one of the linguistic branches is concerns about that. This branch is
important and it includes lexical meaning and contextual meaning as the discussion
of this thesis.
The problems of
this study are: (1) what are the lexical meanings of the economic terms used in
economic columns of the Jakarta Post? and (2) what are the contextual meanings
of the economic terms used in the economics columns of the Jakarta Post, mean
this study aims to investigate semantic study, especially on lexical meaning
and contextual meaning found in the Jakarta Post. The lexical meaning is to be
interpreted as the meaning of lexemes depending on the meaning of sentences in
which they occur. While, contextual meaning is the meaning of words according
to the situations in which they are used. Different situations might give
sentence different meanings.
The data were
obtained from the Jakarta
post published on 6th April 2009 until 22nd April 2009 containing 12 articles and 22 economic terms. To
analyze the data, this study uses a semantic approach of John Lyons. To
comprehend each term analyzed at Economic terms of the Jakarta Post, this study
merely uses two kinds of meanings namely lexical meaning and contextual
meaning. It used descriptive qualitative method to describe each sentence or
each term.
After
conducting the study, this study found: 19 terms belong to one-word terms and 3
terms belong to two-word terms. Moreover, it was found that there are 13
economic terms which have different meaning and 9 economic terms which have the
same meaning. From this study, it can be concluded that most of the contextual
meanings have different Meaning from lexical meanings. Finally, the writer
hopes that this study could give contribution for other researchers who are eager
to know more about semantics.
Conclusions. Based on the result of the study in chapter IV, and
after analyzing all sentences as the examples, the writer concludes that:
1. There are many English
words which are used as economic terms, such as leverage, demanded, auction,
slump, mortgage, and so on.
2. After the writer
analyzed the use of some economic terms in the sentences, she finds out the key
of understanding the economic terms.
The meaning of some
economic terms are quiet different from the lexical meaning. She also concludes
that most of the meanings of economic terms are based on the context of the
sentences.
For example:
Bonds
Lexically, the word “bonds”
means a force or feeling that joins together people or groups.
For example: Indonesia has
good bonds with every countries in the world.
Contextually, based in
economy the word “bonds” means some written promise to pay to bond holder,
debts and are issued for a period of more than one year. A bond is an
interest-bearing security issued by governments, companies and some other
organizations. Bonds are an alternative way for the issuer to raise capital to
selling shares or taking out a bank loan. Like shares in listed companies, once
they have been issued bonds may be traded on the open
market. A bond’s yield is
the interest rate (or coupon) paid on the bond divided by the bond’s market
price. Bonds are regarded as a lower risk investment. Government bonds, in
particular, are highly unlikely to miss their promised payment. Corporate bonds
issued promised payments. Corporate bonds issued by blue-chip “investment grade”
companies are also unlikely to default; this might not be the case with
high-yield “junk” bonds issued by firms with less healthy financials.
For example: Finance Minister
Kaoru Yosano said the government will sell more than 10 trillion yen in bonds
to pay for the spending, adding to a debt burden that is already the largest in
the industrialized world.
Leverage
Lexically, the meaning of
leverage is the relationship between the amount of money that a company owes
and the value of its shares. Contextually, based in economy the word leverage
is the use of debt financing, or property of rising or falling at a
proportionally greater amount than comparable investment. For example an option
is said to have high leverage compared to the underlying stock because a given
price change in the stock may result in a greater increase or decrease in the
value of the option. Also, commonly known as Gearing in Europe.
From the explanation above
the lexical meaning and contextual meaning are different.
Suggestion. Through the study of this thesis, the writer would
like to state that this thesis is not supposed to be the last study on the
economic terms. It should be realized that languages always develop as long as
the society who uses these languages develop them as well.
There are still many more
economic terms that are not discussed in this thesis. It is quite possible that
there will be more new words created to refer to new invented terms. Therefore,
the writer suggests to the linguistic students of Maulana Malik Ibrahim State
Islamic University of Malang to investigate the meanings of those terms from
linguistic points of view. It will be very useful for them to enrich the
vocabulary. By this study, it develops their knowledge not only in linguistics
but also in sciences like medical science which has more than one term.
Finally, the writer’s
suggestion in her thesis is not proposed only for the writer herself but also
for all students and other readers who will conduct their thesis. She suggests
that the other writers can complete this thesis by conducting a similar study
on different topics.
writer and researcher: Nikmatillah, Luluk
years of research: 2009
native title:
A Semantic Analysis on Economic Terms Used in Economic Columns of the Jakarta Post
