First Language Acquisition Related Theories

5 CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

2.1. Related Theories

This study works in psycholinguistic field for it attempts to explain the language structure and how it is acquired, used in utterances, and understand the sentences in the utterances Chaer, 2009. In this chapter, consequently, three theories that relate to how a child acquires the language and how a mother delivers the language to her child are discussed. They are first language acquisition, child language development and child-directed speech.

2.1.1. First Language Acquisition

Language is actually needed for communicating not only by adult, but also by children. That is what led children to acquire language. They need to share what they feel or to tell what they want through language as a communication tool. Hamann 2000 states that children acquire language without explicit teaching but on the basis of what they hear in a limited amount of time and under varying circumstances and identical ways across different languages. In acquiring language; Clark 2003 explains that children need sounds and words, meanings and constructions. It is because they could 5 6 build on preexisting notions of what to represent with language as well as prior notions of communication, start from nothing and discover what is represented in language. Basically, children ability is completed with an abstract mechanism system to acquire language namely Language Acquisition Device LAD in their mind. This system affords children in absorbing the core of sentences from the environs and developing them into a good language that they understand. Language learning, according to Chomsky 1999, in Dardjowidjojo, 2000 is not really something that the child does, but something that happens to the child placed in the appropriate environmental stimulation from surrounding. Thus, how a language acquisition occurs, when, and the other details are mostly influenced by the environment, but then, the process of acquisition itself depends on the inner directed of LAD. The goal of acquisition which is given by Clark 2003 is to become a member of a community of speakers that allows people to express innumerable ideas, describe events, tell stories, coordinates what we do with others, relays information and so on. Children also have to gain that goal because they are members of a society too. They need to learn to use language effectively, whatever the genre, whoever the addressee, and whatever the goal. In order to reach them, children need to acquire language in all aspects, i.e. in morphological, phonological, syntax, and semantics case until their language develops well and ready to be a member of a speech community. 7

2.1.2. Children Language Development