textual analysis of an article: "homeschooling growing seven times faster than public...

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UAS READING TEXTS OF VARIOUS MODES

TEXT REFERENCE

HOMESCHOOLING: GROWING SEVEN TIMES

FASTER THAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS ENROLLMENT

from Breitbart.com

As dissatisfaction with the U.S. public school system grows, apparently so

has the appeal of homeschooling. Educational researchers, in fact, are expecting a

surge in the number of students educated at home by their parents over the next

ten years, as more parents reject public schools.

A recent report in Education News states that, since 1999, the number of

children who are homeschooled has increased by 75%. Though homeschooled

children represent only 4% of all school-age children nationwide, the number of

children whose parents choose to educate them at home rather than a traditional

academic setting is growing seven times faster than that of children enrolling in

grades K-12 every year.

As homeschooling has become increasingly popular, common myths that

have long been associated with the practice of homeschooling have been

debunked. Data demonstrates that those who are independently educated generally

score between the 65th and 89th percentile on these measures, while those in

traditional academic settings average at around the 50th percentile. In addition,

http://www.educationnews.org/parenting/number-of-homeschoolers-growing-nationwide/

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achievement gaps between sexes, income levels, or ethnicity—all of which have

plagued public schools around the country—do not exist in homeschooling

environments.

The high achievement level of homeschoolers is readily recognized by

recruiters from some of the best colleges in the nation. Home-educated children

matriculate in colleges and attain a four-year degree at much higher rates than

their counterparts from both public and private schools. Schools such as

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, Stanford, and Duke Universities

all actively recruit homeschoolers.

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ANALYSIS

This article was published on 12 June, 2013 by a socialist and counselor in

the United States. Departing from a well-constructed concept of the American

citizens that homeschools are no better than public schools, the doctor opposes the

idea of such ideology that, in fact, apart from whatever the status of the school,

both public and homeschools, the government’s attempts to enact academic

generations through adequate facilities, like homeschools, are less important than

other pedagogic accommodities. She also involves a number of researchers in the

field of academic sphere, who agree that, recently, many parents would rather

choose their children to get homeschooled.

This analysis involves intertextuality, social actors, subject-object relation,

voicing, and framing used within the referred text. Moreover, in-depth analysis

involving linguistic instruments in words or phrases chosen by the writer, will

also come to be analyzed. I picked this text from an online website in the United

States focusing on the subject of sociology and children’s psychology. Thus, I will

be focusing on how the writer injects a myriad of implicit participants into the

corpus of the text, how those “actors” work upon each other, and how it may

affect to the ideology from which the writer greatly derives.

As dissatisfaction with the U.S. public school system grows, apparently so has the

appeal of homeschooling.

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In her first sentence, Dr. Susan chooses the word as as its initial. The use

of such word, which is categorized as an adverb, arouses a straightforward

conclusion that this is a dependent clause. As we all may have probably known

before that dependent clauses, unlike the one above, typically occur at the end of a

sentence. The very first sign indeed shows that it is more important than the

independent clause. Readers will likely to think of assumptions on the reason of

the writer’s using the word (why not while or whereas). Likewise, conjunctions,

or signs, as implies a scene that the writer is constructing. Here, we can see that

whatever word following right after the word as, is part of a assembling technique

of other soon-to-be bounded signs. The question now is, what seems to be the

main reason of the writer’s using the clause initially?

Let us move on to the other sign, before we discover our beforehand

problem, the next word is dissatisfaction, which is categorized as a noun, and is

constructed as of the subject. The literal meaning of “dissatisfaction” itself which

can also include disappointment as explicated in John M. Echols’ English-

Indonesian Dictionary, approves of the emergence of another sign to which it is

attributed, that is the U.S. public school. Meanwhile, according to Kamus Besar

Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI), one of the three definitions of disappointment is “the

failure of one’s attempt or effort.” Here, we are thus prone to problematize who is

the antecedent referred to the word. Such case is relevant to a theory from Theo

van Leeuwen, stating that such happenstance “occurs when social actors are

represented by mean of a quality assigned to them by and in the representation”

(46). Moreover, the quality attribution in the word disappointment can greatly

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affect the social context within, realizing that the word may represent, besides

“disappointment” itself, any other predicaments, such as the lack of good teachers

or the facilities, or even the environment not suitable with its prior fundamental

expectations.

Another sign arising is grows, which is the connector for further analysis.

The use of present tense shows that the status of “dissatisfaction with the U.S.

public schools” is universal and continuous. Therefore, the writer somehow

interjects the grammatical aspect with the recent temporal condition to imply

another sign—or a new implicit participant—which, to him, it is no important to

be shown in the corpus of the text, which is the people in general. This is made

clear by M.A.K. Halliday’s transitivity theory of behavioral process, saying that

the process is “a borderline between material process and mental process; a

process working outside human’s consciousness.” This is relevant with the word

so, showing continuity, without which the stranding between the dependent and

the independent clause will not be significantly perceived. Not only does the

dependent clause work as a setting, but also as a vital complement.

This is elaborated by the phrase the appeal, which is another sign that is

impersonated as well as objectivated. Impersonated because the word is as if

familiarized by being put the word grows beforehand, implying that, combined

with the phrase of homeschooling, it stimulates a new participant to emerge. By

objectivation, homeschooling can be “appealing” because of, indeed, the

involvement of many parties within, like the facilities, the working people, and

many other things.

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From the sentence above, I can temporarily infer that the status of both

clauses paratactically necessitate each other; in fact, nothing is more or less

important than the other. The use of as and so which arouse respectively make us

assume that the context the writer is going to carry, is about both topics in a

certain balanced point of view. However, according to the echoic theory, stating

“the word at the end of a sentence will echo inside the human’s mind for 0.3

seconds right after she reads it,” the homeschooling position at the end indicates a

great significance of the text as a whole. Now, the question “why does the writer

put the dependent clause initially?” has revealed.

Educational researchers, in fact, are expecting a surge in the number of

students educated at home by their parents over the next ten years, as more

parents reject public schools.

The next sentence introduces a genericized Educational researchers. The

writer has no intention to discover who the researchers are; instead, she lets

readers guess what kind of researchers they are, how come those “educated”

people may get authority to be involved in such crisis, and so on. What has come

to my further analysis is that to maintain her ideology, that homeschools are just

as good as public schools, she keeps saying words using temporal elements and

lets the ambiguity keep hanging. This is elaborated by her choice of phrase, in

fact, to convince her well-constructed belief. Moreover, the verbal phase, are

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expecting, also shows that of ambiguity. Its mental process in the involvement of

transitivity, explicates that “expecting” here means that she would not give a

much deeper thought when things happen on the way round. That is, again,

homeschools are of her greatest concern.

Another sign implying temporal element is the phrase the next ten years,

preceded by over. We will surprisingly be seeing a number of temporal signs

indicating the writer’s standpoint on the presently sentences. The word more is

aggregated, and parents individualized, which is followed by the verb reject. The

writer’s using the mental process in the word vehemently affects the relation

between the subject and the object. In this case, the “rejecting” done by more

parents constructs a negative appraisement for the public schools, which is both

individualized and objectivated, for schools can include more than just “schools”.

Other entities like the teachers, students, and the “school” itself are thus

represented under objectivation.

A recent report in Education News states that, since 1999, the number of

children who are homeschooled has increased by 75%.

We move on to the second paragraph. This complex sentence opens the

paragraph with the phrase A recent report, using indefinite article. The “report” is

somehow indeterminated. In a short-minded point of view, we can infer that the

“report” is not very important in accordance with the notion of the sentence; it has

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no referential essence. The mentioning of Education News, however, depicts the

inconsistency of the writer’s using the nominalization of the participants involved.

Here, she uses the entity as a semi-formalized one, which derives from the fact

that full name (with surname) is given to the entity being attributed to (Leuuwen).

Also, the verb states, which is associated with the act of saying or doing in

association with the process of delivering messages from one entity to another,

gives us a hint of the implicit actors involved. By the use of present tense, it

indicates another participant that the writer attributes the entity of the media into a

bigger context of society.

Furthermore, the writer attributes Education News as being genericized,

which, although semi-formalized, oversimplifies a number of entities from

different backgrounds into a group of people with same ideologies. This shows

somehow an involvement of some people working for the entity or even public in

general. She continues with since 1999. As I have said before that we will be

seeing a number of temporal elements in the presently passages, one of which is

this. The use of word since fundamentally indicates how much time has passed, as

in since 1999; she greatly intends to put the readers on the suspense of belief that

the facts she is showing are long-lasting and significantly relevant to other signs

in the text.

Not only that, the number in the number of children is aggregated, from

which we can somewhat infer that the writer nominalizes the status of the

children, followed by the verb phrase has increased, into a broader, better sphere

of appraisal. She exaggerates the point of the children’s learning at home by

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giving it a postive value. Indeed, at the end of the sentence, the writer chooses an

adverbial phrase using numeral aspect, by 75%, which puts the writer’s tendency

to say her opinions based on trusted references. In effect, the fact that she puts a

lot of referential facts based on a survey—or any other data-collecting researches

she has done—from the beginning to simply convince the readers of what she, or

her ideology, may have dominated the context in the first place, becomes very

revealing.

Though homeschooled children represent only 4% of all school-age

children nationwide, the number of children whose parents choose to educate

them at home rather than a traditional academic setting is growing seven times

faster than that of children enrolling in grades K-12 every year.

The writer opens the fourth sentence with though being an expansial

adverb and/or concession, which enhances the hypotactic aspect in framing the

context. She continues with the genericized phrase homeschooled children,

followed by the verb represent. In this sentence, I find some classifications that

may have led the context to a gradual, yet specific climax: (1) the juxtaposition of

genericization between homeschooled children and all school-age children

nationwide, (2) the different use of homeschooled children in the independent

clause, replacing it with children whose parents choose to educate them at home,

(3) the pinpointing numbers that lead to a greater level of contextualization in the

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text corpus, and (4) the relevance among the relational processes to the linguistic

elements in these sentences.

First of all, the writer juxtaposes homeschooled children and school-age

children in one sentence. Not only does it involve a contextual aspect, but also

that of geographical. Here, we see that the writer is trying to leave out the minute

details of her so-called cross-ideology rival (that public schools are better than

homeschools), represented by the children in U.S. only and those nationwide,

which is not only the United States.

The rise of climax is also perceived by the writer’s taste of dictions in the

dependent clause, juxtaposed to that in the independent clause. In the dependent

clause, she uses homeschooled children as the participant but generates it by

children whose parents choose to educate them at home in the independent. What

would this indicate if not to convince readers upon her ideology? The use of

stylistic aspect here is realized by adding a new participant attributed to entities

related to homeschooling, which, in this case, is parents.

Much of the writer’s ambitious intention greatly lies upon the use of

scientific facts and numbers. Initially, she mentions 4% to limit the percentage of

the number of homeschooled children, continued by her stating that parents’

intention to let their children homeschooled is growing 7 times faster, and her

mentioning the number, athough not contextually related, 12 at the end of the

sentence. This somehow comes to my mind that how these aspects greatly affect

the writer’s ideology. The increase of the amount by 3 (from 4 to 7) and by 4

47 12

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(from 7 to 12) indicates that the writer is in an attempt of convincing the readers

that what she is trying to offer is worth believing.

The last, but not least, is the relevance of the relational process used in this

sentence and the previous sentences. I found that the significance of transitivity,

as in represent, plays a vital role to construct a deeper perspective in the text.

Halliday asserts this process as one of the main types of process in English, which

defines that it is in accordance with the literal meaning of a word being referred

to. Furthermore, the process is under the “world of abstract relations” extended to

a “being,” which is pretty much germane to an identity or a self, to which the

writer is attributing. Also, the essence in the verbal phrase is growing, followed by

faster as an ephitet, corroborates the culmination. Therefore, I can infer that

relational processes used by the writer indicates a technique of constructing the

context as of her ideology, or identity, through the choice of words and the

dominance of transitivity.

In addition, the indeterminated traditional academic setting arises as the

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ambiguity intervenes the “growing” of the writer’s ideology, in such a way. Here,

she anonymizes the latter parallel object of preposition in traditional and setting.

Precedented by the comparative indicator than, the phrase a traditional academic

setting is depicted to have been deconstructed as something unwanted or

unnecessarily important. Likewise, by the end of the sentence, it is not surprising

that we find the word year as the repetition of temporal aspect in the corpus,

which we will also find in a few presently sentences.

As homeschooling has become increasingly popular, common myths

that have long been associated with the practice of homeschooling

have been debunked.

The next sentence opens with the conjunction as. The question now would

be, is the as in the first sentence similar to that in this one? I will discover the

question by the end of this sentence’s analysis. Now, let us move to another sign:

the verbal phrase has become. Again, the use of relational process here indicates

how she constantly persists in identifying, say, who she really is and what kind of

perspective she has to offer. Indeed, she puts common myths in the first position

of the independent clause. The genericized phrase shows somehow a hovering

classification of something that, in a mere word, is “taboo” or “publicly

disbelieved,” which is followed by the verbal phrase have long been associated.

Here, “associated” means to be related or in relation with, which is closely bound

U.S.

Nationwide

Homeschool children

All school-age children

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to relational process. The fact that by the word with, followed by the phrase the

practice of homeschooling, the object is negativated as, the writer assumes, many

people would do too, becomes revealing. In addition, the word long as an adverb

as in the verbal phrase have been associated with, also shows another indicator of

temporal aspect to endorse her standpoints.

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Data demonstrates that those who are independently educated

generally score between the 65th and 89th percentile on these

measures while those in traditional academic settings average at

around the 50th percentile.

Now, in the next sentence, the writer introduces the generiziced data,

which could only be obtained by carrying out an observation by researchers. Also,

we know that ‘data’ are meant for public consumption, which is the people in

general. This somehow shows the writer’s tendency to lead the readers to a

concept that “everything is for everybody,” which is simply echoed in the

following verb demonstrates, using present tense. I also have mentioned earlier

about the different style that the writer is injecting to use as many terms of

“homeschoolers” as she can. It, thus, becomes relevant, for the writer impinges

her power to, again, cover any negative presumptions, or stereotypes, from

readers.

Another indication of negative appraisement occurs in the dependent

clause, while those in traditional academic settings average at around the 50th

percentile. Here, her using of words while and around shows something more like

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vagueness and uncertainty. This is, indeed, contrary to the dictions in the

independent clause, having data and numbers to elaborate the facts and positive

framing upon homeschools. Moreover, the data in the “traditional academic

settings” become unnecessarily relevant and eventually overridden.

In addition, achievement gaps between sexes, income levels, or

ethnicity—all of which have plagued public schools around the

country—do not exist in home-schooling environments.

An expansion adverb, in addition, depicts an incessant flow of her thought.

She continues with the abstracted gaps, which hides the problems or predicaments

on the achievement-gaining process, like the intimacy between boys and girls

(sexes), the amount of the children’s parents income (income level), and the status

of their being colored or not (ethnicity), followed by the verbal phrase have

plagued. This is a palpable negative appraisement for “public schools”,

interspersed with a dash, which emphasizes that of negativity. Moreover, the

writer narrows the geographical scope from the previous passage, using the word

nationwide, and now the country. Here, she specifies the concern of her cross-

ideology commotion, showing another form of negativity.

WORLD(Nationwide)

COUNTRY

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The main verb of this sentence, exist, works under the relational process,

which somehow depicts the self-centered personality of the writer’s to maintain

her belief through the text corpus. By doing it, she keeps up the tendency to

generalize everything she thinks people unnecessarily know, like environments.

The word is objectivated in such a way, representing a myriad of elements inside

and beyond the inside. Undeniably, what has come to our mind when we hear the

word environment is something vast with its linkages and relationships to each

other, how those links associate with another, how they thoroughly work to build

a bionetwork, and so on. In this case, the environment being referred to probably

engages things more than just schools, children, and teachers. This is, of course, a

camouflage of the writer’s technique of constructing the participants beyond the

word. Not only does it involve the “environment”, but also the “people”; both are

deemed to be not afraid of gaining any kind of achievements in the pedagogic

scope, apart from the “gaps” aforementioned.

The high achievement level of homeschoolers is readily recognized by

recruiters from some of the best colleges in the nation.

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From this point of view, the writer seems to have a huge tendency to use

facts and accurate data as her secret weapons. The other weapon that is too

important to neglect is her repetition technique. We can see this in the first phrase

using the same word with the previous, achievement, both as a modifier. The

repetition of the word in the sentence is shown to “address social power” (Tannen,

15), which also echoes in nation at the end. Likewise, the different use for

“homeschooled children” through homeschoolers also shows that of power, but in

this sense, more addressing “political ideology” (Tannen, 15).

Moreover, the use of the genericized recruiters is balanced by the

aggregated some of the best colleges in the nation. The aggregation in the phrase

supports the core concept of the writer to involve as many “people” as possible.

Indeed, her using statistics to “manufacture consensus opinion” (Tannen, 37)

reveals the method into which she is injecting, that is to, again, convince readers.

In fact, the use of ephitet best before colleges somehow impinges her core

ideology to positivize the entity. As a final point, her positioning readily before

the auxiliary verb is also indicates that of power, peaking to its climax.

Home-educated children matriculate in colleges and attain a four-

year degree at much higher rates than their counterparts from both

public and private schools.

On the next paragraph, the writer chooses another term for homeschooled

STUDENTS EDUCATED AT HOME

HOME-EDUCATED CHILDREN

THOSE [WHO ARE] INDEPENDENTLY EDUCATED

HOMESCHOOLERSHOMESCHOOLED CHILDREN

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children, which is the genericized Home-educated children. The use of word home

modifying children is indeed an equalizer of the presently word colleges. Here,

the writer somehow wants to override the fact that only home-educated children

that enroll to colleges, not anybody else. Her choice of words in the aspect of

scope here contravenes a big deal to the context. Thus, we can see how the writer

limits her thoughts to only focus on the “home”, of course, to give the first

impression to readers that the word is important. In short, the illustration of such

limitation can be previewed in the diagram below.

I have also inferred—although temporarily—from the previous passages that the

writer uses different terms of the subject to cover any kind of “negative

presumptions” or “stereotypes” that are most probably conveyed by readers. Now,

I found another signal of this kind of “covering” of those negativities, one of

which is the writer’s technique on playing the scale and the scope of the attributes

the entity is being referred to. For example, in the fourth sentence (as drawn in the

first picture), she juxtaposes homeschooled children “in the U.S.” by giving 4% as

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the measure of the amount with all school-age children with the attribute

nationwide. This is simply an indication of how the writer seems to strongly

abandon facts or other entities leading to her cross-ideology rival as to oppose her

notion.

Another technique of the writer’s playing the scale is on the fourth

sentence, stating numbers with a respective increase to its peak: from 4 to 7 to 12,

as in 4%, 7 times faster, and K-12. Now, the seventh sentence elaborates my

analysis by giving some sense of specification. There, the writer’s comparing

nationwide which synchronizes with “the world,” and country with local area.

Likewise, the same technique is used in sentence 8, spontaneously comparing,

according to the geographical aspect to which the writer is attributing, worlwide,

country, and nation, correspondingly. However, the “playing of the scope” also

occurs in this sentence, which consumes verbs like matriculate and attain in a

parallel position, interspersed by the conjunction and.

MATRICULATE

ATTAIN

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As all of us have probably known that when someone matriculates to a

particular institution or school, she will, of course, obtain a myriad of experiences

relating to her new life, be it new friends, new environments, new subjects, new

classes, and/or new families. It is barely often to say, in a narrative, that somebody

“attain[s] a four-year degree” while the previous word still talks about her

entering the new school. This, in such a way, indicates that the writer has a

tendency to overlap (or, even, show off?) to the greater scope of something that is

still way too far to afford. Indeed, the playing of the scope here could be inferred

something as a positive effect in constructing the participants within.

The increase within this aspect predominantly progresses as the

adverb much works to endorse its particularity. This is, although we may have

already discovered the writer’s conceited personality, an opponent to its next

participant, their counterparts. Counterparts could mean, in my own perspective,

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a friendly rival, or an enemy that doesn’t attack, which simply becomes an

equilibrium for her arrogance within the text. The voice that may have arisen and

been depicted as, for the writer, a someone who would never want to lose, is

nonetheless contradicted. This is a form of a positive appraisal into which the

writer injects. Here, I can infer that she intends to demonstrate to readers that the

people from “both public and private schools” are not that burdening to

achievement-gaining process. We can see that notwithstanding her I-have-to-win

personality, she still thinks about her opponent considerately.

Schools such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard,

Stanford, and Duke Universities all actively recruit homeschoolers.

The limitation also occurs in this last sentence. Here, the writer

restricts the genericized schools by the preposition such as, followed by a number

of famous universities. Furthermore, those universities work under the process of

formalization and genericization. Formalization because they are nominalized by

the ending noun universities, which gives some extra credit for the entities

thereof; in fact, without the entity universities, readers may have reconsidered and

presumed what kind of schools in Harvard or Stanford would be, apart from their

names as a college or institution, is the writer referring to. Besides, they are also

genericized. The action of “recruiting homeschoolers” may not be accomplished

by only the names of an institution, there must be people or any other participant

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working or contributing to the entity. Thus, the writer puts her dictions through a

great level of scope and aspect based on her well-constructed ideology.

Moreover, the adverb all may also come to be analyzable. It seems

that without it, the entities being referred to could work or stand on their own.

However, the writer implements something more than just “work on their own.” It

is about emphasizing how her ideology could vehemently convince the reader

without discrediting another participant. This makes a clear conclusion that the

writer gives a positive appraisement for homeschoolers, which also works for the

previous sentences she is trying to say.

Bibliography

Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination. Texas: The University of Texas Press.

Berry, D. S. (2013). Homeschooling: Growing Seven Times than Public School

Enrollment. Breitbart, 1-2.

Halliday, M. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. New York: Oxford

University Press.

Tannen, D. (2007). Talking Voice Repetition. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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