301 EEJ 12 (3) (2022) 301-309 English Education Journal http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej Morphological Process of Morphemes Through Word-Formation Process in Students’ Writing Moh. Shofi Zuhri , Suwandi Suwandi, Sri Wuli Fitriati Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia Article Info ________________ Article History: Accepted 01 May 2022 Approved 03 July 2022 Published 15 September 2022 ________________ Keywords: Word, morpheme, word formation, writing ____________________ Abstract ___________________________________________________________________ In learning a language, students must learn about linguistics and its branches to know the context of language, the origin of words and how they are formed. This study aimed to investigate word-formation by exposing Yule’s (2010) theory in students’ writing. This research focused on how many word- formations existed and how the word-formation process was applied in students’ writing. A descriptive qualitative approach was adopted to analyze the gathered data to fulfill the research objectives. The data were collected through observation. The participants in this research were 18 students of Universitas Negeri Semarang attending Academic Writing class. The findings show that the students applied 599 processes which fall under five types of word-formations. They could be categorized into blending, compounding, clipping, derivation, and inflection. The students applied less blending and clipping word-formation processes. In addition, there were some problems in applying the word- formation process. Some students were confused about how to form blending and clipping. Hopefully, this research will give significant contribution as reference in understanding word formation. The present study is expected to contribute to teaching and learning of word-based lexical studies in general and word-formations in particular. Correspondence Address : Pacasarjana UNNES Jl kelud Utara 3 Sampangan Semarang, Indonesia, E-mail : zhofizuhri2121@gmail.com p-ISSN 2087-0108 e-ISSN 2502-4566 Benedikta Andriela Yuni Seran, et al./ English Education Journal 12 (3) (2022) 301-309 302 INTRODUCTION In learning English as a foreign language, not only students learn about the four basic skills like speaking, listening, writing, and reading, but they also learn the sub- skills of them such as pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. This is because all of them are related each other. However, in learning a language, the students must also learn about linguistics and its branches to know the context of language, the origin of words and how they are formed. One of the linguistic studies is morphology. Morphology is a basic study form of language and the study of word formation (Yule, 2010), including the ways new words were created in the languages of the world. The variation of forming of words depends on how they are used in sentences. That is why morphology has relationship with the four basic English skills especially in writing, because in writing the students are required to be able to make words and its forms, and arrange them into the sentences. With morphology, students can learn how the words are formed. Word formation occurs when the word processes into a new word. It can happen in several ways. They are acronym, clipping, blending, compounding, inflection and derivation. These word formations are always used in writing since they are considered as the parts of grammar. However, many students still make errors in using them, for instance, students placing infinitives when they should use a past verb, or when they should put plural but they place singular and having error to put some parts of derivation affixes. There are some assumptions to think. First, it may come from students who get problems in understanding the material and lack knowledge. Second, they actually can do that, but they make mistakes when practicing to create a sentence. The last, teachers might lack of knowledge which causes teaching and learning process to be less effective. By this research, it hopefully helps the students to improve their skill in writing and become good writers. Considering its importance, the study served to take word formation by exposing Yule’s (2010) theory in students’ writing. The English word formation included are acronym, blending, clipping, compounding, inflection, and derivation. A number of studies have been exposing word- formation process (Engliana, 2012; Fatmawaty & Anggraini, 2019; Hidayat & Mu’man, 2020; Luthfiyati & Kholiq, 2017; Azkiyah, 2013; Fitria, 2021; Florencia, 2016; Uzer, 2019; Enesi, 2017; Varatharajoo et al., 2015; Astuti, 2014). The research of word formation is easily found in the research world. It shows that word formation is still interesting to research, and it has many big scales. Some research explored types of word formation processes, such as Luthfiyati and Kholiq (2017). They discussed how word-formation processes in the Jakarta Post website. This study aims to identify the most common type of derivation words used in the headline of ten education articles in “Jakarta Post Website”. The result shows that the most common derivation words used are noun derivations. In addition, some researchers conducted the study in writing skills (Anggrayani et al., 2015; Fitriati & Fadhila, 2017; Fitriati et al., 2018; Saleh, 2014; Suraya & Shofwan, 2013; Wachyu & Rukmini, 2015). Fitriati et al. (2018) investigated attitude, one of subsystem appraisal, in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university students’ narrative writings. The prominent finding of the research implies that most students used expressions of attitudes that belong to basic English words and repetition of the same words. After reviewing previous research, it can be seen that most of the research on word-formation is mostly concerned with non-academic contexts, such as Aprianti and Parwati (2020), studying about song lyrics. However, word-formation is also important for an academic context. It can influence the students to have many new words. Thus, the research focused on academic scope. The difference between previous research and this research is in the material being analysed. The previous research used non-academic data such as morphemes in Newspaper, billboard, and others. Meanwhile this research focuses on morphemes in academic scope (students’ writing). The uniqueness of this research lies on the choice of the study object. Based on the observations, there are no researchers who have studied about morphemes and the formations in academic writing context. To reach a comprehensive analysis, the study intended to obatin answers of the six questions: (1) how are morphemes formed through the use of acronym in students’ writing?; (2) how are morphemes formed through the use of clipping in students’ writing?; (3) how are morphemes formed through the use of blending in students’ writing?; (4) how are morphemes formed through the use of compounding in students’ Benedikta Andriela Yuni Seran, et al./ English Education Journal 12 (3) (2022) 301-309 303 writing?; (5) how are morphemes formed through the use of derivation in students’ writing? (6) how are morphemes formed through the use of inflection in students’ writing? METHODS This research used qualitative case study research design. It requires observation and interview to answer all the questions. The result of the research was interpreted in detail to give a description and explanation to the readers. According to experts dealing with qualitative research, some views usually try to understand how things occur by going to the natural setting without implementing any intervention use an observation. The subjects of this research were eighteen academic writing students of Universitas Negeri Semarang. The subjects were considered significant because the students have obtained enough knowledge on how to form the words even sentences. The observation was used as the instrument for gathering the data. The students’ writings were collected to know the natural condition of word formations used in their writing without intervention from the researcher, then the word-formation process was identified. Finally, they were categorized based on the word-formation process. The study used data triangulation to help the study having valid data. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The study focused on how morphemes are used by the students through word formations processes in their writing. After analyzing the data, the writer found that word formations were very available to use in writing but not all word formations were commonly used in writing. The common word formations used by the students were derivation, inflection, and acronyms. Besides, clipping and compounding were rarely used by the students in their writing. Moreover, blending was seldom used by them. It can be seen from the number of word-formation processes that occurred in their writing. From the total of word- formation processes found, derivation and inflection were frequently used by the students with 102 and 300 words and the third was acronym with 52 words, the fourth was compounding with 49 words, and the fifth was clipping with 42 words, and the last was blending with 11 words. Morphemes Formed through Acronym Process In the acronym process, it is usually formed from the first letter (or first few letters) of each word in a phrase or title. Sometimes, the newly combined letters create a new word that becomes a part of everyday language. As supported by Yule (2010), Acronyms are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words. After the analysis of the data, the writer found 52 words that were formed through acronym process from students writing such as “BEM” which stands for Badan Eksekutif Mahasiswa. The students shortened those words by taking the initiative of the word. As can be seen from Table 1. This is suitable with what is mentioned by Yule (2010). Other examples of forming morphems through acronym process is illustrated in Table 1. Benedikta Andriela Yuni Seran, et al./ English Education Journal 12 (3) (2022) 301-309 304 Table 1. Morphemes Formed Through Acronym Process Words Word Formation Process ATM ATM = Automatic Teller Machine BTW BTW = By The Way KM KM (n) stands for Kilo Meter COT COT (n) stands for Cut Off Time HIMA HIMA (n) stands for Himpunan Mahasiswa BEM BEM (n) stands for Badan Eksekutif Mahasiswa BRT BRT (n) stands for Bus Rapit Transit GWK GWK (n) stands for Garuda Wisnu Kencana DJ DJ (n) stands for Disk Jockey Motel Motel (n) stands for Motorists’ Hotel As can be seen in Table 1, the students did the acronym process by taking the initiative of the words. We can see from the word “ATM” in their writing. The word “ATM” itself is taken by shortening from Automatic Teller Machine. The initial “A” represents Automatic which means it can work itself then the initial “T” represents Teller which mean it can serve the customers, and the initial “M” represents Machine which means the tool made for supporting the human works so “ATM” stands for Automatic Teller Machine that functions as a tool for withdrawing money. After the writers found and analyzed the acronym process in students writing, the acronym process sometimes takes the initiative of the words like ATM for Automatic Teller Machine and sometimes take two first letter of the word like the word UNNES for Universitas Negeri Semarang. The words ATM itself occurs in the dictionary thus the readers generally know the meaning of “ATM”. Meanwhile, UNNES does not exist in the dictionary but they are used in everyday communication so the writer must explain UNNES to make the reader understand the meaning of UNNES. This process also commonly happens in daily communication and it automatically creates a new word by shortening the words. Thus, we can assume that the acronym process is available to use in writing whether in free writing or academic writing because it can help the students to shorten words and support them to have more dictions to write. It is in accordance with a study conducted by Astuti (2014), which revealed the factors of using acronym are because they want to simplify the words by violating the basic rule and by using acronym they feel cooler and up to date. Morphemes Formed through Clipping Process Clipping is the process of forming a new word by dropping one or more syllables from a polysyllabic word, such as a cell phone from a cellular phone. In other words, clipping refers to the part of a word that serves for the whole, such as “ad” and “phone” from advertisement and telephone, respectively. In this case, the students were not familiar with using the clipping process in their writing. They prefer using complete words than dropping one or more syllables. Some were still confused using clipping because not all words can be processed to clipping. Benedikta Andriela Yuni Seran, et al./ English Education Journal 12 (3) (2022) 301-309 305 Table 2. Clipping Process in Students’ Writing Words Word Formation Process Ad Ad = Advertisement Phone Phone = Telephone Mom Mom (n) = Mommy (n) Meme Meme (n) = Imeme (n) K-pop K-pop (n) = Korean Pop (n) Bro Bro (n) = Brother (n) Grandma Grandma (n) = Grandmother (n) In this process, the words are usually reduced when it has more than one syllable. It is supported by Yule (2010) clipping occurs when a word of more than one syllable (facsimile) is reduced to a shorter form (fax), usually beginning in casual speech. The writers also found the clipping process in students writing about 42 words such as the words “Ad”, “Mom”, “Phone”, and “Bro”. Those words can be reduced because they have more than one syllable. The students formed the word “Ad” from the word “Advertisement”. This can happen when the word has more than one syllable, thus it can be reduced by “Ad”. This can be called Back-clipping because they reduce the back syllable of the word. Besides, there is also fore- clipping where the students reduced the front syllable of the word. The word telephone was reduced through clipping form. But this time the students reduced the front syllable “Tele”. Thus, this is called fore-clipping. Morphemes Formed through Blending Process Creating a new word is not only through acronym and clipping processes but it has blending process where the process is blending the two words become a word and meaning such as the word “brunch “, “motel”, and “modem”. Those words occurred in students writing. But, this process was not frequently used in writing. The process of forming the word “brunch” is when the two morphemes are joined together to become a word. It is also supported by Yule (2010) mentioned that blending is the combination of two separate forms to produce a single new term that is also present in the process. It can be inferred that the process of blending occurring in the students writing is suitable. The same process happens also in the word “motel”. The word was occurred as well in students writing. It is formed from two morphemes joining together by taking the beginning of the words. The process of forming a “motel” is already discussed and it is also supported by Yule (2010) argued that blending is typically accomplished by taking only the beginning of one word and joining it to the end other words. Morphemes Formed through Compounding Process There is the process which consists of two words joining together becomes a word with meaning called compounding. Compound is also divided into several types. Compound verb, compound adjective, and compound word. Compounding words are formed when two or more lexemes combine into a single new word. Compound words may be written as one word or as two words joined with a hyphen. For example: work + room → workroom. The compunding process in students’ writing is illustrated in the Table 4. Benedikta Andriela Yuni Seran, et al./ English Education Journal 12 (3) (2022) 301-309 306 Table 4. Compounding Process in Students’ Writing Words Word Formation Process Homework Home + Work → Homework Homeless Home + Less → Homeless Airplane Airplane (n) = Air (n) + Plane (n) Wallpaper Wallpaper (n) = Wall (n) + Paper (n) Sunflower Sunflower (n) = Sun (n) + Flower (n) Birthday Birthday (n) = Birth (n) + Day (n) Boyfriend Boyfriend (v) = Boy (n) + Friend (n) Bedroom Bedroom (n) = Bed (n) + Room (n) Hand phone Hand phone (n) = Hand (n) + Phone (n) Seawater Seawater (n) = Sea (n) + Water (n) After analyzing the data, the writers found 49 compounding processes in the students’ writing. As you can see several compounding processes are found as the example in Table 4. The first word is “homework”. “Homework” is considered to have more than one morpheme. It is obvious because they consist of two morphemes. They are “Home” and “Work”. They are the parts that can stand alone by themselves as an independent word. Moreover, they cannot be divided into smaller pieces that have a meaning. Thus, both “Home” and “Work” can be stated as morphemes of the word. It can be concluded that the word “Homework” consists of two morphemes. As we can see from the word “airplane”, it is formed from two words. The two words are independent words “air” and “plane that can stand themselves.” This is called as compounding. It can be concluded that compounding is the group of the two words joining together creating a new word. Those two words “boyfriend” and “airplane” are included as compound noun which consist of two nouns joining together. Morphemes Formed through Derivation Process Commonly, the words have their own classifications such as noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. Sometimes, they can be changed because of some factors. One of them is the addition of affixes. Affixes are divided into several components such as prefix, infix, suffix, and etc. The addition of affixes can influence the words to change their classification for example, noun to verb or verb to noun and many others. It is known as derivation. This process commonly happens in writing. Yule (2010) also stated that by far the most common word formation process to be found in the production of new English words. The derivation is the formation of a new word or stems from another word or stem. It typically occurs by the addition of an affix. The derived word is often of a different word class from the original. It may thus take the inflectional affixes of the new word class. Benedikta Andriela Yuni Seran, et al./ English Education Journal 12 (3) (2022) 301-309 307 Table 5. Derivation Process in Students’ Writing Words Word Formation Process Agreement Agree (v) + ment (Sufix) → Agreement (n) Teacher Teach (v) + er (sufix) → Teacher (n) Firstly Firstly (adv.) = First (adj.) + ly (sufix) Sadness Sadness (n) = Sad (root) + Ness (suffix) Treatment Treatment (n) = Treat (root) + ment (suffix) Happiness Happiness (n) = Happy (root) + ness (suffix) Unforgettable Unforgettable (adj) = Un (affix) + Forget (root) + able (suffix) Beautiful Beautiful (adj) = Beauty (root) + ful (suffix) Memorable Memorable (adj) = Memory (root) + able (suffix) Payment Payment (n) = Pay (root) + -ment (suffix) Agreement Agreement (n) = Agree (root) + -ment (suffix) In students’ writing, the writers found that the derivation process is the second common process used by the students. It can be proved that the writers found 102 derivational processes from the total 599-word formations in students’ writing. For example, the word “Agreement”, occurs from a derivational process where the stem “Agree” is added by the suffix “-ment”. Here, the stem “Agree” can stand by itself and has its meaning, meanwhile, the suffix “-ment” cannot stand by itself. Thus, the combination of the stem “Agree” and suffix “-ment” creates “Agreement” as a new word. It can be proved that the word “Agreement” has a different meaning from the stem “Agree”. This process also changes the word class. It can be seen from the “Agree”. It is originally a verb, but when it is combined by the suffix “-ment” it becomes a noun (Agreement). The most common type of derivation used are noun. Likewise, Luthfiyati and Kholiq (2017) resulted the same finding that the most frequent derivation used in the headline of ‟Jakarta Post Website‟ was also noun derivations. Morphemes Formed Through Inflection Process Inflection refers to a process of word formation in which items are added to the base form of a word to express grammatical meanings. The word "inflection" comes from the Latin inflectere, meaning "to bend." Table 6. Inflection Process in Students’ Writing Words Word Formation Process Wants Want (v) + s (Sufix) → Wants (v) Teachers Teacher (n) + s (sufix) → Teachers (n) Went Went (V.) = Go (v) + irregular past verb Helped Helped (V.) = Help (root) + Ed (sufix) Past form Using Using (v) = Use (v) + ing (sufix) Pets Pets (n) = Pet (root) + s (suffix) Plural Noun Mice Mice (n) = Mouse (root) + s (suffix) Irregular Plural Noun Had Had (v) = Have (root) + irregular past verb Maintains Maintains (v) = Maintain (root) + s (suffix) Hours Hours (n) = Hour (root) + s (suffix) Plural Noun Benedikta Andriela Yuni Seran, et al./ English Education Journal 12 (3) (2022) 301-309 308 This part is inflection process which changes the words without changing the word class based on grammatical functions. Here, the writers found 599 word-formations in students’ writing, but the most process which occur in writing is inflectional process with 300 words. It indicates that inflection is always used in writing. For example, the word “Wants”, it is inflectional process where the stem “Want” is added by suffix “-s”. It happens because of grammatical function (tenses). The word “Want” has to be added by suffix “-s” when the subject is the third person like she, he, or it. It also does not change the word class even though the word is added by suffix. Seen from the number of word formation used, inflectional process has greater number that derivational process. It is determined that the students are aware of grammatical functions such as tenses, or plural noun. It supports the study done by Varatharajoo, et al. (2015). They mentioned that inflectional morpheme awareness could help ESL with low proficiency develop their vocabulary effectively. CONCLUSIONS This study examines how morphemes are used by the students through word- formation processess, including acronym, blending, clipping, compounding, derivation, and inflection in students’ writing. Given the findings of the data analysis from the previous chapter, it can be summarized as follows: All forms of word-formation processes were found in the study. However, few processes were rarely used in each form, such as clipping and blending. A few of them existed in their writing. In the acronym process, it is usually used in informal context like but it is also suitably used in academic writing. Creating a new word is not only through acronym, but clipping and blending processes were also found in students’ writing. However, just a few of them existed in academic writing. It can be inferred that the process of blending and clipping occurring in the students writing is still suitable and possible to apply in academic context. Compounding, inflection, and derivation are the processes which are commonly used in every writing. It can be proved that the processes are dominant in students’ writing. It is to summarize, the word-formation processes were applied in writing. 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