Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1. Background of the Study

A new born child has been completed with Language Acquisition Device L.A.D. This is a kind of an innate ability for a child to speak a language. However this innate ability does not automatically make herhim able to speak a language. A child must develop this innate ability in a social environment. Parents or people around herhim teach herhim consciously or unconsciously; and shehe tries to imitate what they speak. Shehe gradually has an ability to speak. In other words, shehe acquires the ability to speak through the several steps. According to Taylor and Taylor 1990: 227 the changes of language performance may be treated according to the following six phases. First, a neonate or infant up to 1 year of age uses pre-linguistic means, such as crying, using gestures and vocalization. Second, as a toddler 1- 2 years of age takes an uncertain but inevitable step into the world of walking, he steps into the world of verbal communication by learning how to pronounce speech sounds and use individual words. Third, a child of 2-3 years old can communicate most of his physical and social needs by using language, which includes budding syntax some grammatical morphemes and word combinations. Fourth, a preschooler 3-5 years old, before starting school elaborates on the basis of communication skills and language already acquired. He can produce a variety of utterances to communicate a variety of messages. In interacting with his peers, he hones his conversational skills, which include taking turns rapidly and staying on the topic at hand. Fifth, a schoolchild 6- 12 years of age is skilled in communicating ideas through sentence and discourse of varied structure and complexity. His syntax is secure. He also learns a means of communication other than oral speech, namely reading and writing, which will play important roles in his further intellectual development. Sixth, a high school student has further room for development in language and communication skills if he wishes to become a fully literate member of his society. The pre-school children begin to combine words. Children’s two-word combinations are followed by utterances that are three and more words long, and as children’s utterances get longer, they also become increasingly complex. Children’s first sentences tend to be simple declarative sentences lacking many of grammatical morphemes. By the time, pre-school children can produce complex sentences, and it is said that at this point they essentially mastered the grammar of their language. The structure of language in terms of phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax have been found to play an important role in the understanding of how language is produced and comprehended during activities such as speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Based on the illustration above, the researcher wants to study about The Indonesian Language Used by Pre- school Children: A Study on Syntax.

2. Scope and Problems of the Study