REFERENCE APPLIED BY STUDENTS IN THEIR ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS

Abstract

This study aimed at analyzing the types of reference applied by students in their argumentative essays written by the fourth semester students of English Teaching Department of IAIN Batusangkar in 2019/2020 academic year. Documentation such as written texts was the main technique of collecting the required data. The data were analyzed by using theories from Halliday and Hassan (1976) about references. The research findings showed that all the types of references were used in the argumentative essays written by the fourth semester students with the total number of 2219 words. The most frequent reference applied by the fourth semester students of the English Teaching Department IAIN Batusangkar was personal reference with the percentage of 50.06% followed by demonstrative reference with the percentage of 35.10% and comparative reference with the percentage 14.82%. It could be concluded that Personal reference was the most frequently used because it may refer not only to a particular person or object, but also to any identifiable person.