An Analysis of the Students Linguistic Competence in Writing Introduction of Academic Article at Bung Hatta University Graduated in February 2016

This study was designed to describe the students linguistic competence in writing introduction for academic article. In fact, many students are not capable in using a language to organize the idea as an introduction theory. To find out the students linguistic competence in writing introduction of academic article, the analysis of lexico- grammar and discourse semantics was done. This research used descriptive method. The subject of this research was the English department students at Bung Hatta University who graduated in February 2016. From the students article, 14 articles out of 53 articles were taken as a sample by using stratified random sampling technique. The instrument was coding sheet. From the analysis of lexico grammar and discourse semantics, it is found that the students predominantly used declarative sentence, it means that the students have given the information although there were some imperative sentences which give a direct command to the reader. The analysis of transitivity shows that the information conveyed by the students is in the correct order of academic journal introduction writing. The analysis of theme in the students writing shows that the idea is not focused; one paragraph has some topics. So the topic being discussed is difficult to understand. Moreover, the use of many conjunction and inappropriate rules make the meanings ambiguous. Therefore, the students linguistic competence in writing introduction for academic article do not fulfill all criteria. It means that their competence is inadequate.