Background of the Analysis

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Analysis

Language is always and everywhere with us. It is very important for human beings and it plays a great part in our life. Every person as a member of society uses language, in getting and giving information, expressing ideas and doing all activities, as a tool of communication and interaction. As a set of tool, it is not an inheritance, but it is acquired through a long process of learning involving some stages i.e., crying, babbling, cooing, one word utterance, two word utterance, and more than two word utterance as Fromklin and Rodman 1974 : 2 Language is…a system by which sounds and meanings are related. The acquisition process of a language, begins from children period. Children acquire language by hearing in the surrounding areas of their society. Then they utter and imitate what they have heard. Children do not wake up one morning with fully grammar in their heads or with all rules of social and communicative intercourse Dardjowijoyo. 2000. The stages of language acquisition based on Fromklin. et. al 1990 : 351 can be divided into prelinguistic and linguistic stages. Most scholars agree that the earliest cries, whimpers, and cooing noises of the newborn, or neonate, cannot be considered early language. As Chomsky’s theory 1969 : 6 that introduces Language Acquisition Device theory LAD and it is said that LAD is a tool, which exists in a child since he is born so that he can acquire his mother tongue easily. Universitas Sumatera Utara Dardjowidjoyo 2000 also gives opinion that language acquisition cannot be happened only by innate properties. Language acquisition is impossible to happen only with society and environment factors. At the early stage, children are abstracting information from the speech that they hear. By hearing adult speech in their environment, children imitate the way adults talk and get progressed with their own speech. However, the outcome of children speech is different from adults speech. Speech is the verbal means of communicating. Speech consists of the following components : • Articulation : How speech sounds are made e.g., children must learn how to produce the “r” sound in order to say “rabbit” instead of “wabbit”. • Voice : The use of the vocal cords and breathing to produce sound e.g., the voice can be abused from overuse, or misuse and can lead to hoarseness, or loss of voice. • Fluency : The rhythm of speech e.g., hesitations or stuttering can affect fluency. According to Snow and Newport in Arnold 1987 : 9, there is plenty evidence that children speech differs from adults speech. Sometimes, when children say such sentences in their speech, it might be surprising to us about the words they use and the way they talk. Many things that influence children speech. Kind of speeches that they hear from their parents, brothers and sisters, teachers, friends, and also what they hear through the media, such as television and radio, give them many influences in acquiring language. Universitas Sumatera Utara Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that children acquire a language with the help of their parents, environment, and interaction with people. In this study, the writer collected data on a five year old Indonesian child regarding their native language speech. The child being observed is the writer’s younger brother, M. Ryanda Huzein, born on December 23 rd 2002 5;9;0. He is already in the first class of primary school. He often talks, asks questions, demands, etc, with other people in his environment. This five year old child has acquired many words in his lexicon. He also can combine words, phrases, and sentences. He can make a dialogue and interact with someone, or even talk to himself, and creates his own dialogue while playing with his toys. Based on this, the writer is interested in observing his speech which sometimes sounds like adult speech although he is still five years old.

1.2 Problems of the Analysis