Introduction
Blog usage rapidly increased its popularity and spread
during 1999 and the years following. According to William (2004), blogging
activity in teaching and learning processes has developed in line with other
forms of human communication tools and medium in conveying knowledge. Since
Functional Grammar is one of the subjects that is relevant to this topic,
therefore this study will discover regarding the six processes of Experiential
Metafunction and their tendencies to be used by the blogger in blogging action.
Experiential grammar is essential in
responding critically to the texts we encounter in our everyday lives. The
words and structures chosen by producers of texts reveal how they experience
what is going on in the world. An exploration of experiential grammar may
reveal a great deal about the worldview expressed in a text. By examining
transitivity in text, we can explain how the field of the situation is being
constructed. We can certainly identify the content of a text, but a
transitivity analysis can help us explain how the field both develops and
shifts to a number of experiential phases.
Objective of Study
There are quite a number of aims
that encourage the conduction of this study. Among them are;
- To discover
the frequency of processes of Experiential Metafunction usage in blogging
activity and also to determine the reason of the usage
- To enable
students to meet many outcomes in writing, viewing and also responding to
entries that they published
Methodologies
Firstly, five
pages entry from a blog belongs to Amir Mu are analyzed from sentence to
sentence. Then, each word is examined and categorized into material, mental,
relational, verbal, existential and behavioral processes. Next, the data is
gathered and transferred into Experiential Metafunction schedule. Finally, the
frequency of each process is calculated and the result will reveal the usage
amount of this process in the particular entry.
Literature Review
We are doing some
research on the article titled Anonymity and Self-disclosure on Weblogs written
by Hua Qian and Craig R. Scott (2007) in order to relate it to the Experiential
Metafunctions. In this article, writers are focusing on the anonymity and
self-disclosure of someone who involves in weblogs and discuss the relationship
of these two. The methodology used in
this research involved some procedures and participants. In order to get participation, researcher
posted online advertisements to the blogs and forums. Announcements also sent to the university and
classes around to get the participation from students as well. For the first
stage, there are about 242 participants and after some observations through the
questions and answers, 35 responses are discarded. For the result, researcher divides it to
several types in order to analyze it. There are some of the bloggers who use
their full name to be recognized, some of them use pseudo names and some of
them tend to keep it private. In a
discussion, there are connection on anonymity and self-disclosure in which a
person who apply anonymity in his or her weblogs is tending to be more
self-disclose.
Second
article that we choose to review in our research is titled “Exploring the use
of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector” written by Jeremy B
Williams and Joanne Jacobs, (2004). This
article basically is about to discuss the use of blogging in educational system
especially in higher education. Writers see blogging as a medium of
interactivity. Blogging somehow create
some activity of interaction when the bloggers use it as a medium to paste
their news while other blogger will come and leave comments. This kind of communication will create link
between each other. John Hiler in his
review mentioned that blog can be a medium to engage people in collaborative
activity, shared knowledge, reflections, and debate and so on (2003). In
relating blogging activity with academic purpose, blogging in this article had
been described in a cynical way by several critics. Writers used the method of
qualitative and quantitative in collecting data about blogging in educational
system.
Third
article that we choose is titled “Blogging in teacher professional development:
Its role in building computer-assisted language teaching skills” written by
Puvaneswari T. Murugaiah, Hazita Azman, Azizah Yaacob and Siew Ming Thang,
(2010). This article is discussing about teacher’s involvement in practicing
the usage of multimedia and technology in their learning and teaching process.
This article includes teachers from Smart
School Klang Valley
Findings
From the
research, it is discovered that the most used verbs by the blogger fall under
the Relational Process with 31% in number followed by Mental Process’s verbs
with 24%. As for Behavioral and Material Processes, the frequency of verb usage
for both are 17%, whereas Verbal Process with 9% and Existential Processes with
2%.
In the comment section, the total of Mental Process is 6, which was the highest total for the list of verbs. Then, it was followed by 4 of Behavioral Process, 3 from Relational Process and 1 each for Material, Verbal and Existential Process. (Refer to Appendix II)
Discussion
As for the discussion, according
to the findings of this research based on the entry of the blog of Amir
Muhammad, Relational Process got the highest numbers of verb because the entry
is a short story. Therefore the relational process is needed to describe and
explain the story clearly to the readers for them to understand the story and
the message.
Mental
Process falls in the second place because it shows the cognitive process
involved as the characters think, feel, realize and so on. On the third place
comes Material Process and Behavioral Process as it involved the action of the
characters in the story and they are interrelated as both require physiological
and psychological behavior. On the Verbal Process, it can be identified mostly
by the interaction and communication of the characters in the story.
Existential Process comes to the least number because of the few usage of the
existency element.
As for the comment section, the most used
process of identifying verbs fall under Mental Process because the readers
expressed their perception and opinion about the story. Then comes the
Behavioral Process because of the suggestion from the reader on the feedback of
the story, followed by Relational Process because of the use of relational
verb. For Material, Verbal and Existential, they share the same level of usage
because of this process seems to be less important in commentary.
Conclusion
All of these
processes are important in identifying verbs especially in written works.
Besides, the processes available in Experiential Metafunctions that is studied
in Grammatical Analysis assist in the analysis of verbs usage its frequency in
blog entries. The result of this research enables us in identifying the process
that is used the most and least in blogging activity.
References
Murugaiah,
P., Azman, H., Ya'acob, A., & Thang, S. M. (2010). Blogging in teacher
professional development: Its role in building computer-assisted
language teaching skills. International Journal of Education and Development using
Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT), 6(3), 73-87.
Qian,
H., & Scott, C. R. (2007). Anonymity and Self-Disclosure on Weblogs. Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4). Retrieved
February 10, 2011, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue
Williams,
J. B., & Jacobs, J. (2004). Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces
in the
higher education sector.Australasian Journal of
Educational Technology, 20(2), 232-247.
Retrieved February 11, 2011, from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/13066/1/13066.pdf?BXCTX=AD:BLACK_AND_WHITE;DDO:DC-PREVIEW;RSV:E0
The Corpus Analysis
Then, we put them in the table and count the percentage of each process.
|
Processes
|
List of Verbs
|
Total
|
Percentage
|
|
Material
|
rapped
made
doing
caught
change
accept
planted
lead
coddled
mix around
influence
called
left
held, hold (4)
smoke
took
rub
passed
follow, followed (2)
beat
spitting
consulted
get
running
help
|
29
|
17.16
|
|
Mental
|
know, knew (5), knows
hurt (2)
heard
hated (2)
feel (2)
suspected (2)
wonder, wondered (4)
sad
shocked
pretended
ignored
tried
think
thought
find out
rehearsed
to change
saw
shocked
nervous
excited
obeyed
doubted
sick
wanted
curious
apprehensive
appreciate
|
41
|
24.26
|
|
Relational
|
was (16)
Iis (4)
are (6)
won’t
were (4)
that’s
does
connected
continue
looked, look
use
do
be (2)
have been
let
feels
had
ended
lie
started
have
clad
|
50
|
29.58
|
|
Verbal
|
said, say (9)
replied (2)
told
demanded
murmured
responded
recited
|
16
|
9.47
|
|
Existential
|
was
happened (2)
were
|
4
|
2.37
|
|
Behavioral
|
saw (2)
forced (2)
drew, draw
walked
coloring
go
wept
spread
laugh
make
smoking
singed
waiting
came
signaled
took
glowing
stayed
playing
look
see
hear
looked
offered
put out
|
29
|
17.16
|
|
169
|
|||
2 comments:
A very good functonal analysis of the BLOG. Well supported with examples from the BLOG. Improve the format of the paper.
Post a Comment