The Use of Infinitive in Educational News of BBC Online (INTRODUCTION)

The Use of Infinitive in Educational News of BBC Online (INTRODUCTION)

                                   Written by Ari Julianto

  

      A. The Background of the Study

Language is inseparable from almost every human activity. It is a means of communication and the basic fundamental function of language in daily communication. Besides that every language has a different characteristics and difficulties. Language also has connection with four aspects; they are listening, speaking, writing and reading. Language is very important for our life and we cannot ignore language and we have to study it.

Language, especially English is very essential to be learned by Indonesian people because English is an International language that is taught in Indonesia schools. It is asserted that comprehension is enabled when readers construct mental situation models that incorporate elaborated text-based information with readers’ available prior knowledge. Situation models are flexible mental representations that are constantly updated to reflect the most recent conceptualizations of read text information.

In Indonesia, English is regarded as the language of  sentence. Text books are mostly written in English, not only books in learning English but also the other disciplines since all Moslems are obliged to search for knowledge then we should consider. Students and teachers are interested in the development of education occurs in this country or world.  The educational news is necessary in this case. It can be found in any kinds of media, such as newspaper, books, magazines, letters, tabloids etc.

English is the dominant language of the Internet. The Internet will in turn become the dominant place to learn English. The way languages are learned is changing, and these changes are accelerating. We can access English language content on any subject and learn from it. We can connect with English speaking people who share our interests. We can do this via e-mail, through blogs, podcasts and forums. The World Wide Web is the ultimate dynamic classroom and learning community.

The Internet is constantly evolving. It has created a dynamic environment for the communication and the management of information. The Internet has brought with it new forms of social interaction without boundaries. Technologies are making an immense variety of communication, information, literature, news and other language content available anywhere and anytime. One of the famous online news is BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). This news online is very popular since the first launched in November 1997.

BBC News Online can be browsed in http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ in which the website contains international news coverage, as well as British, Business, Technology, Entertainment/Arts, Science/Environment, Health, Sport that all presented for educational news. Many reports are accompanied by audio and video from the BBC's television and radio news services, while the latest TV and radio bulletins are also available to view or listen to on the site together with other current affairs programmes. In May 2012 the BBC News website won the People's Voice award for newswebsite at the 16th annual Webby Awards. Internet users with IP addresses originating from the UK are served the UK edition, all others receive the World edition.

In reporting the educational news, the author or the writer uses some essential parts of speech and one of them is infinitive. Downing (2006: 13) stated that tense is carried not only by lexical verbs but also by the finite operators. If the verb-form does not signal either tense or modality, the verb and the clause are classified as non-finite. In non-finite there are some categories like the infinitive (inf.) be, eat, lock, go sometimes called the ‘bare’ infinitive; the to-infinitive (to-inf); the participial -ing form (-ing) being, eating, locking, going; and the past participial form, symbolised in this book as -en been, eaten, locked, gone. These forms are said to be non-tensed.

There are three types of infinitive i.e. bare infinitive (simple infinitive), full infinitive (to infinitive), and infinitive of phrases. The infinitive is the base form of a verb with to. Usually it also functions as a noun, although it can be an adjective or adverb for examples
- to jump is fun (noun, subject of is),
- I like to ski (noun, object of like),
- she had a suggestion to offer (adjective modifying suggestion),
- He called to warn her (adverb modifying called)

Furthermore, the infinitive has a form of phrase that is called the infinitive phrase. This consists of an infinitive together with its modifier and complements. The entire phrase may be used as a noun, adjective and adverbs as well for examples
- to stay in shape requires dedication and discipline (noun),
- the thing to do first is an activity you enjoy (adjective)
- I came to Austin to see the art exhibit (adverb)

There is no educational news without an infinitive since the information for the readers is very important by using infinitive. Based on the previous explanation, the researcher would like to analyze the use of infinitive in education news of BBC online. Hopefully, this analysis will be useful and benefit for those who are interested in English grammar and news.   

B. The Identification of the Problems
The problems of this study are identified as follows
1. the use of infinitive in educational news of BBC online,
2.the most dominant type of infinitive used in educational news of BBC online.

C. The Scope and Limitation
This research is focused on the use of infinitives in the form of bare infinitives or to infinitive and infinitive phrases. Besides, this research also focused on the functions of infinitive that is as a noun, adjective and adverb. BBC news online in this case http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ is used as the source of this research which is limited only in educational news.

D.The Formulation of the Study
The problems of this study are formulated as the following
1.what types of infinitive found in educational news of BBC online?
2. what is the most dominant type of infinitive found in educational news of BBC online?
E. The Objectives of the Study
The objectives of the study are as follows
1. to describe the types of infinitive in educational news of BBC online
2. to find out the most dominant type of infinitive found in educational news of BBC online

F. The Significance of the Study
It is expected that the results of this study will be useful for1.  the university students who would like to know the use of infinitive in online news especially in BBC,
2. contribution of the teachers/lecturers who would like to learn and understand the educational news in online media,
3.  other researchers who are interested in analyzing English infinitive in a text,
4. the internet users or readers that hopefully the findings of this research will be useful for them in understanding the content of the news.