Abstract:
This study deals with lexical density of short stories written by O. Henry. The
objectives of the study are to find out the lexical density in short stories and to
find out the lowest lexical density in O. Henry’s short stories. This study was
conducted by descriptive qualitative method with qualitative approach. The source
of data was conducted of four short stories written by O. Henry. The titles are The
Little Match Girl, Hearts and Hands, The Gift of the Magi, and What you Want.
The researcher identified kinds of lexical density. The result of analysis showed
that: (1) Lexical density of four short stories written by O. Henry have high
lexical density, it is because each of short stories have more than forty per cent
lexical density. The Little Match Girl has 44.9 %, Hearts and Hands has 50.2 %,
The Gift of the Magi has 46.3 %, and What you Want has 49.7 %. (2) The lowest
lexical density of short stories written by O. Henry is The Little Match Girl. It has
44.9 %.The low lexical density in short story is caused more grammatical items
than lexical items in the text. Grammatical items (function words) is the word that
does not contain information. Because of less of information, the story is hard to
understand.
