RECOGNIZING THE EFFECT OF PRIOR KNOWLEDGE IN ECONOMICS AND COHESION DEVICES ON COMPREHENDING BUSINESS ENGLISH TEXTS

Comprehending a text successfully is influenced by many factors. Texts will be easier to comprehend if learners are able to identify these essential factors. This study was aimed at recognizing the effect of using prior knowledge in economics and cohesion devices in comprehending business English texts. The research was conducted in Faculty of Economics and Business, Perbanas Institute – Jakarta. 75 students as respondents were selected using two stage cluster random sampling. Then three tests for all variables were given to the respondents. The data was used for analysis using SPSS multiple regression analysis. The result revealed that (1) prior knowledge in economics significantly influenced reading comprehension in business English text (2) the mastery of cohesion devices significantly influenced reading comprehension in business English texts (3) simultaneously both prior knowledge in economics and cohesion device mastery significantly influenced reading comprehension in business English texts.


Introduction
Consequently, understanding the cohesion devices in a text is very important for students.
Reading comprehension is a complex task, which involve different cognitive skills and abilities.Indeed, when students are reading, they are not in passive condition.In fact they simultaneously do complex activities such as guessing, checking, making questions to themselves in order to understand a text.Many students still fail to understand text because they still consider that reading is a passive skill.For this reason, activating learners' prior knowledge and cohesion devices will help them comprehending the texts.

Research Questions
From the above identification of problems, research questions are as follow.
1. Does prior knowledge in economics help students comprehend business English texts succesfully?
2. Does cohesion device mastery help students comprehend business English texts successfully?
3. Simultaneously, will both prior knowledge in economics and cohesion devices mastery help students in comprehending business texts?

Purpose of the Study
This research is aimed at recognizing how prior knowledge in economics and cohesion devices affect students in comprehending business English texts, either partially or simultaneously.

Scope of the Study
The research will focus on prior knowledge in economics as external factor and cohesion devices as an internal factor in the text.Both are as independent variables.As the dependent variable is reading comprehension in Business English text.

Significance of the Study
This study has some beneficial outcomes: 1.It provides ways for students to comprehend the English business texts successfully.

Schema Theory
Prior knowledge in reading comprehension is closely related to schema theory.According to Bartlett, a psychologist who firstly introduced this term in 1930s, a schema is an active organization as a reaction to the past experience or past event.
Schemata refer to background or prior knowledge that leads us to expect or predict features in our understanding of a discourse (Brown and George, 1983:248).Carrel and Eisterhold (1983)  Furthermore, Cook (1990:14) defined cohesion devices as a formal tie between sentences and paragraphs.
In more details, Nunan categorized cohesion into grammatical cohesion which covers references, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction.
Then, the second is lexical cohesion which consists of reiteration and collocation.
References occurs when a word can not be semantically

Reading Comprehension
The teaching of reading comprehension is developing.
Educators said that the failure in involving the linguistic meaning of a text to culture-specific knowledge in term of prior knowledge will not maximize the reading comprehension mastery.Concept of background knowledge has argued that reading is a passive activity.In fact, in reading a text, students must actively involve the guessing, predicting, checking, and evaluating activities (Grellet, 1990:8).
Carrel supported this argument.
Reading is not passive but active, even interactive activities (1992:1).Here, readers not only see written language

Findings and Discussion
Based on the results of the tests given to the students, then the data were analysed by using SPSS-linear multiple regression.The data was reported in the tables below.

Ordinary Least Squares regression (OLS)
To finds out the effect of prior knowledge in economics (X1)and cohesion devices (X2) as independent variables on students' comprehension in understanding English business text (Y), multiple regression test was used to analyse the data.

Discussion
The results indicate that both predictor variables give real contribution for criterion variable.4. The reading text that is being used is limited, which is only one.
Using more texts and give variation will be better since the inter-textuallity will give deeper analysis for the research.

Conclusion
Based on statistical analysis above, some conclusion may be concluded.
First exercised.On the other hand, cohesion device mastery will be more effective when top-down processing approach is used.Furthermore, bottom up processing approach is better if this is used in a lower language level but topdown approach will be promising if this is used for higher level.However, interactive approach which combines these two approaches is considered better because using this approach will enable lecturer to develop students' mastery in prior knowledge in economics and cohesion devices.

Suggestion
In the light of the results of the research, some suggestions will be offered in the following.Therefore it is better if a lecturer uses interactive approach in which all elements will cooperate to comprehend business English text.
The fourth, in Perbanas Institute case, English for specific purpose will be better if it is offered after students take the subjects related to economic background knowledge.
The fifth, instructors' prior knowledge in economics may have an effect on student performance.Hence, the economic knowledge of lecturers who are mostly from language disciplines should be continously enhanced.
Prior knowledge has been widely discussed as an important factor in studying.It it is an essential element in gaining new knowledge.Encouraging learners to activate what they have already known about a topic will help them understand the text.Prior knowledge is also closely related to the disciplines the learners are studying.English for Business subject in Faculty of Business and Economics, Perbanas Institute-Jakarta is a part of English for specific purpose whose topics in Business English textbook are much related to economics and business..Numerous studies have been conducted to identify the role of prior knowledge in reading.However, only a few studies on students' prior knowledge in economics are reported, especially in Indonesia.English subject will focus on comprehending texts which are seen as a semantic unit.The meaning is tied by the relationship of elements in cohesion devices.Text cohesion occurs when text is interpreted as interrelated elements and one of the elements presuppose the other element.Students who are unable to identify these elements called cohesion devices will find the text more difficult to comprehend.
interpreted without relating it to another word in the text.Substitution takes place when a word is replaced by another word referring to similar meaning in order to avoid repetition.The difference between substitution and reference is that substitution lies in the relation between words, whereas reference between meanings.There are three types of substitution: nominal, verbal, and clausal.Ellipsis is the process of deleting an unimportant item that has been stated before in the text and it is changed by 'zero' or no item.Ellipsis has three types: nominal, verbal, and clausal.Conjunction is a word connecting sentences or clauses in the text.versions: a highcohesion version and a low-cohesion version derived from the high version with the use of several devices--two anaphoric markers, changes in the temporal connective and word order, omission of the thematic sentence-without modification of the text content.The subjects read and immediately recalled a high-cohesion text and a low-cohesion text.The results showed that lowering cohesion produced an insignificant increase (8%) in reading time, but a highly significant decrease (25%) in recall performance.It appears that the subjects did not execute the processing required by the cohesion devices.results showed that cohesive devices helped students in a better understanding of English language texts.And He, Qinghsun (2014) in his study reported that the lexical cohesion theory can help improve students' reading speed and accuracy and thus provide them with a new problem-solving method in reading comprehension.
and receive series of visual perception image, but they also should actively use their language knowledge, experience, conceptual ability to interpret written information.In other words, reading should be seen as the effort to reconstruct the writer's messages through the interaction between reader's background knowledge and text.The more the readers can guess or predict the text correctly, the less the confirmation is needed from the text.This comprehension process is called topdown process or represents conceptdriven process because the process is based on conceptual information.In top-down process, the activities include using background knowledge, scanning title and sub-titles, understanding pictures and graphs, skimming, guessing, making questions about the texts, separating important and unimportant information.Rosenblatt (1978), in Moreillon (2007), developed a theory of reading as a transaction among the reader, the text, and the intention of the author.She posited that each reader brings his own feelings, personality, and experiences to the text and that each reader is different each time he revisits a particular text.Background knowledge is what the reader brings to the reading event.Each reader's interpretation and each reading of the text are potentially unique.This theory helps explain our individual responses to literature, art, and music and can be applied more broadly to our generalized responses in all areas of learning, including economics and business. .In addition, a text is called cohesive and coherent when it provides some cohesion devices to help readers understand the text.Therefore, if students can actively use their prior knowledge in economics and understand and realize the presence of cohesion devices in the texts, surely these will ease them in understanding business English texts.was done by providing the test whose materials were in line with the syllabus used in Perbanas Institute.The reliability test was held by measuring internal consistency of the test, using split-half test.Correlation Coefficient between odd items and even items in the tests was calculated.
However, mastery of cohesion gives bigger contribution.The fact which shows the positive relation between basic knowledge and reading skill is matched with schema theory.The theory states that there is an interaction between mind concept and the information from text.Tan Soon Hock research also shows majority will use their prior knowledge when they reconstruct any information from reading text.Similar result is also given by the research from Bransford and Johnson.The result which shows that mastery of cohesion has positive relation with reading skill is matched with Chapman research.He also adds that the age and experience will increase the ability to fill any missing cohesion in close text.

First
usage of diagram or schema which sketch out the content of the text in pre-reading activity will accelerate the process of reading comprehension.Last but not least, the teaching of ore more specific prior knowledge (content schemata).In this case, the concepts or terminologies in economics should be connected to students' environment.The second, in order to understand cohesion devices and be able to use them correctly without being burdened by linguistic terms, the best strategy is bottom up approach.For example, references can be introduced by identifying the referent prior to underlined word.Next, substitution elements can be taught by replacing the underlined word to another word which has similar meaning.Then ellipsis element in a paragraph can be taught by summarizing the paragraph through ellipsis process.Finally, conjunction is taught by asking the students to insert some conjunctions in cloze tests.The third, the strategy in teaching reading comprehension on business English texts often uses bottom up approach by which the smallest elements are introduced first, then gradually move to a wider element.In this case, language is seen as a formal language system which consists of separated or disconnected words or sentences without considering text as a meaningful unit.

Table 1 .
Frequency Distribution of Prior Knowledge in Economics, Cohesion Devices, and Reading Comprehension Test Scores diagram, it can be seen that the scores was scattered almost near the diagonal lines on the diagram.So it can be concluded that data has normal distribution.

Table 2 .
Table of ANAVA