Lexical Density Of Short Stories Written By O.

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.