About Art

Tentang siluet, sunset dan undar from Flickr

Art is one of my passion. I use it as a medium to express my thoughts and messages. Photography and drawing are my favorites. You can visit My photostream on Flickr or my Instagram feed to see some of my artworks.

NEWS ITEM: Basic Comprehension

Grade                         : 10th grader of Senior High School

Subject                       : English

Competence               : Reading

Hi guys, do you like reading news on a newspaper or internet? What can you get from them? Now, I'm going to explain about news item text briefly. Have a read!

1. Know-It-First

A. The Purpose

The purpose of news item is to inform the readers, listeners, or viewers about events of the day which are considered newsworthy or important.

B. The Generic Structure:

• Newsworthy (s) : recount the event in summary form.

• Background event (s) : elaborate what happened, to whom, in what circumstances.

• Sources : comments by participants in, witness to and authorities expert on the events.

C. Significant Lexicogrammatical Features:

• Short, telegraphic information about story capture headline:  A news item text should deliver and focus in core information related to the headline.

• Use of material processes to retell the event: It consists of action verbs such as do, watch, sink, etc.

• Use of projecting verbal processes in sources stage: A news item text should have authentic sources. It uses projecting verbal processes. For example: Allan said the robbery happened in the early morning.

• Focus on circumstances. It focuses on the circumstances of the events.

Here it is an example of news item text:

Brave Boy Found Alive After Two Days at Sea

Newsworthy (s) :

Feeling no fear, a five-year-old boy spent two days floating at sea on a mattress in a bid to survive from the effects of the tsunami that killed thousands of people from his town and was reunited with his family on Thursday.

He cried as he rushed to his parents, older brother and younger sister at a refugee camp in Meulaboh, his hometown of 40,000 people in Aceh that was one of the hardest hit in Sunday’s disaster.

Background event (s)

Wira later calmly recounted to reporters the amazing events that brought him back to his family, a rare tale of happiness in the devastated province on the island of Sumatra that has seen nearly 80,000 people killed by the flooding.

Nursing only a gash to his left leg, Wira said he was playing with his brother and sister near his home when the waters rushed through.

According to Antara news agency, Wira said he held on to various floating pieces of wood while being swept away.

“I was not afraid because I am used to the sea.” Wira said while massaging his wounded leg.

“As I was still holding to a door, the mattress came by so I decided to climb on it. I was not afraid, but I was cold.”

Wira said he spent two days out at sea until he was found by fisherman on the look out for bodies off coast of Meulaboh. –AFP

2. Let's practice!

Read the text carefully in order to be able to answer the question related to the text:

Tornado Wreaks Havoc in Semarang

(Residents assess the damage after a tornado damages 150 houses in the district of Tembalag in Semarang, Central Java late on Saturday afternoon.

Three people were injured and at least five of the houses in the Sendangguwo and Tandang neighborhoods were destroyed, while many others were seriously damaged as the tornado ripped off their roofs. Thoirin aka Jayeng, 40, a resident whose house was leveled at the Sendang Asri housing complex, said the winds hit about 4 p.m.

“I saw this black wind coming and becoming pointed into a funnel. It suddenly approached and hit my house,” he said.

Tohirin’s wife, two children and mother-in law were in the kitchen at the time when the tornado known locally as “Ulur-ulur” passed over their home, destroying the guest and bedrooms.

“It was as if the wind had lifted my home up,” Thoirin said.

The disaster also destroyed the walls of four neighboring houses.

Many other homes in the area lost their roofs and residents and neighbors had started rebuilding on Sunday.

Tembalang district head Dayat said the tornado also damaged a small mosque and felled power lines and about 50 trees. His office was still collecting data on the damage, he said.

Villagers said the tornado was the worst to hit the district in living memory.

Semarang Mayor Sukawi Sutarip and his wife, Sinto Sukawi, visited the scene on Sunday, accompanied by senior officials.

“We will provide the victims with assistance immediately,” the mayoral spokesman Achyani said.

Taken from The Jakarta Post, December 20, 2004)

Now, after reading the text above, finish the short quiz below.

Reading Comprehension

The definition of applied linguistics and its scope

Definitions

Applied linguistics is not easy to define because people would think of many things when it comes to applied linguistics. In fact, those who practice applied linguistics do not agree upon a certain definition. Therefore, there is a gap that needs to be filled in terms of defining applied linguistics. The definition problem is due to the lack of agreement on what is that to be applied?" A mediation between theory and practice "as Kaplan and Widdowson, " a synthesis from a variety of disciplines including linguistics" as Hudson said, "presupposition of linguistics because a person cannot apply what he does not know" as Corder implied.

In addition, an extreme area of applied linguistics that is called critical applied linguistics highlights the following concerns and issues like identity, ethics, disparity, desire and the reproduction of otherness that have not been up to now considered to be connected to applied linguistics. What have been mentioned is an attempt to use applied linguistics concerns and activities to explain and analyze what applied linguistics methods and purposes are. This is called the ostensive definition approach.

These ostensive views have a problem because they really do not help in creating syllabuses in applied linguistics and they do not help in determining what things that are needed to be included in the profession. Those who argue for a dictionary definition believed that applied linguistics has a core do not accept ostensive definitions. For example, Widdowson claims that applied linguistics has got a core and he rejects the claim that says that applied linguistics is a mixture of many disciplines.

Widdowson and Cook believed that "the task of applied linguistics is to mediate between linguistics and language use". Another definition of applied linguistics by Guy Cook is "the academic discipline concerned with the relation of knowledge about language to decision making in that real world". However, the scope of applied linguistics is still not clear. He tried to create boarder lines to the areas of concern in applied linguistics as consisting of language and education, language, work and law and language, information and effect. The most important thing is that applied linguistics must be protected from the claim that says that language is everywhere, then applied linguistics is the science of everything.

These are other definitions of applied linguistics :

a) ‘understood as an open field, in which those inhabiting or passing through simply show a common commitment to the potential value of dialogue with people who are different’ (Rampton 1997: 14)

b) Guy Cook defines applied linguistics as ‘the academic discipline concerned with the relation of knowledge about language to decision making in the real world’ (Cook 2003: 20).

c) ‟AL is using what we know about, (a) language, (b) how it is learned, and (c) how it is used in order to achieve some purpose or to solve some problem in the real world”. Schmitt and Celce-Murcia (2002, p.1)

d) the focus of AL is on trying to resolve languagebased problems that people encounter in the real world, whether they be learners, teachers, supervisors, academics, lawyers, service providers… policy developers, dictionary makers, translators, or a whole range of business clients. (Grabe, 2002, p.9)

e) Applied linguistics is any attempt to work with language in a critical and

reflective way, with some ultimate practical goal in mind. This includes

(amongst other things): deliberately trying to learn (or teach) a foreign

language or to develop your ability in your native language; overcoming a

language impairment; translating from one language to another; editing a piece of writing in a linguistically thoughtful way. It also includes doing

any research or developing any ideas or tools which aim to help people

do these sorts of things.

Phil Durrant
Visiting Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Education, Bilkent University

f) ‘Applied linguistics’ (AL) is one of several academic disciplines focusing

on how language is acquired and used in the modern world. It is a

somewhat eclectic field that accommodates diverse theoretical

approaches, and its interdisciplinary scope includes linguistic, psych

ological and educational topics. 

Zoltán Dörnyei
Professor of Psycholinguistics, University of Nottingham

The scope of applied linguistics

During the 1960s and 1970, it was taken for granted that applied linguistics was about language teaching. This was important because there was a need for language teaching especially English after the Second World War. This showed that a number of teachers, trainers and supervisors lacked language knowledge. It is accepted that applied linguistics is trying to solve language problems that people encounter in the real world. Then, the scope of applied linguistics should not be restricted to language teaching only. In fact, the scope should be broadening to cover language acquisition either the mother tongue or a target language, psych/neuro linguistics, sociolinguistics and so on.

Summing up
In my opinion based on my own perspective, applied linguistics is such a media to connect or mediate between linguistics and real life language. Thus, it can be assumed as a connector or mediator between them.

References : www.preservearticles.com/2012051932687/applied-linguistics-history-and-definition.html
Accessing time: Monday, March 25, 2013