THE FORMS AND FUNCTIONS OF DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES USED IN 'THE ISLAND' NEWSPAPER EDITORIALS

Abstract

Media discourse uses a specific language that differs from the ordinary because it is closely related to the particular genre, e.g., newspaper. The newspaper aims to inform, affect and attract readers. Therefore, linguistic analysis of the newspaper reveals interesting information. This research paper illustrates a morphological analysis of derivational affixes found in the editorials of the newspaper 'The Island', which was randomly selected, 'The fine balance' (29th March.2020); 'Locked-down Blues' (30th March 2020); 'Small is useful' (31st March 2020). This study describes the types of derivational affixes and the functions of those derivational affixes in the editorials. The descriptive qualitative and quantitative method was used. The analysis was based on the 'Affix Stripping Model' concept by Taft & Forster. The results show that various derivational affixes are found in the editorials. The prefix data appear in a different prefix form, such as re-, a-, un-, en-, in- and -dis-. While in the suffix, data appear in certain form such as, -ly, - ive, -ment, -ism, -sion, -able, -less, -ness, -al, -tion, -est, -ful, -ance, -er and–cy. Further, the prefix data appear few compared to the suffix data. The total data of the prefixes in all three editorials are 22, and the number of derivational prefixes is 10. The total number of derivational suffixes is 84. The number of the suffixes is 25. The study finds that the editorials use four kinds of functions in using the affixes: nominal, verbal, adjectival, and adverbial. Many editorials consist of very complicated words to the readers' eyes, but actually, they are formed by adding prefix and suffix—one of the strategies used by the media writers to produce formal writing.