The First Language Acquisition of Tonya Walsh Yudi as an Intermarriage Child.

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THE FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF TONYA WALSH

YUDI AS AN INTERMARRIAGE CHILD

ERWITA YASINTA BR GINTING 1201305012

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LETTERS AND CULTURE

UDAYANA UNIVERSITY

DENPASAR

2016


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Almighty God for the blessing, health, and the inspiration given to me in writing this paper.

There are many assistance and guidance from many people contributed in writing this paper. I would like to express my gratitude and appreciaiton to my first advisor, Prof. Dr. I Nengah Sudipa, M.A, and my second advisor, A. A. Sagung Shanti Sari Dewi, S.S., M. Hum for the invaluabe guidance, advice, suggestions and information given to me in order to complete this paper.

I would also to thank Peter John Walsh and Ni Wayan Yudiani as the parents who allowed me to observe Tonya Walsh Yudi for months in order to obtain the data in doing my research. The special thanks is also dedicated for Eva Dewi Payanti, S, pd who gave her time and helped me in observing Tonya for months.

Furhermore, the deepest gratitude to my beloved parents Antonius Ginting and Minda Br Sitepu who always support me and keep praying for the best of my life, my Brothers Ferminto Ignasius Ginting and Nestorius Perdana Ginting, and my sister in-law Juliana Br Siregar who always support and remind me in finishing this paper.

Then special thanks are also dedicated to all of my friends in the English Department 2012 especially class A, KKN-PPM Periode XI Jatiluwih Village, for my best friends Marsingal, Meytivani, as well as Kiki, Theresia, Riris, Gardenia


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Mega, Abdiana Risky, Ari Wiguna, Ribka, Patrio, Krisna, Ikho, and for all people supporting me that I cannot mention one by one. I would thank to all of your support, advice, and suggestion.

Denpasar, March 2016


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v ABSTRACT

This study is entitled The First Language Acquisition of Tonya Walsh Yudi as an Intermarriage Child. Every child obtains their first language in different ways and ages. It depends on the ability and the environment of the children. This study is therefore aimed to see the stages of Tonya Walsh Yudi in acquiring her first language and to identify the factors influencing her language development.

The data of this study were collected by observing Tonya directly for three months. She was observed in doing her activities and find out her favorite activities at home. Besides, the data were also collected by interviewing her parents about the development of Tonya every day. The technique used was by recording and note taking. The collected data was furthermore qualitatively analyzed and explained the analysis descriptively based on the theory of Owens (1994) about the language development.

Based on the discussion and the analysis of this study, it was found that the development of Tonya as an intermarriage child acquire her English vocabulary keep developing every day. The factors influencing her in developing her English vocabulary is from her activities at home and school because she speaks English much more than Indonesia. She also likes singing the English song. Therefore, it is influential for her in acquiring her English vocabulary.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

APPROVAL SHEET …..………...………… ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ……… iii

ABSTRACT …..………. v

TABLE OF CONTENTS……… vi

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ………. 1

1.1 Background of the Study …...……… 1

1.2 Problems of the Study ………. 3

1.3 The Objectives of the Study…..………. 3

1.4 Scope of Discussion ...………. 4

1.5 Research Method ……….. 4

CHAPTER 2 LITERARY REVIEWS, CONCEPTS, AND THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK ……… 10

2.1 Literary Reviews ………. 10

2.2 Concepts...……… 18

2.3 Theoretical Framework ………... 21

CHAPTER III THE LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF TONYA WALSH YUDI AS AN INTERMARRIAGE CHILD ………. 26

3.1. The Development Stages of Tonya Walsh Yudi in Acquiring English Vocabulary in three months ...……….. 26


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CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ………. 43

4.1 Conclusion ………. 43

4.2 Suggestion ………. 44

BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDICES


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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Language is a system of human to communicate by using some kinds of signals, such as sounds, symbols, or body gestures. Language is also part of being human, therefore it is impossible to communicate without language, and most of people in the world know about language, even everyone has their first language or mother tongue. The acquisition of language is divided into two; the First Language Acquisition (L1) and Second Language Acquisition (L2). First language refers to the first language which is heard by infant. In this case, children try to express their mother tongue into ungrammatical rules because they hear from people, furthermore they say and imitate them. According to Astawa (1998:2), the behavioristic claim that the child starts tabularasa and the acquisition process depends entirely on environmental conditioning. Therefore, the development of language is a combination of both genetic and environmental factors. The mechanism of speech perception and production are biologically determined. However, the child would not be able to construct the intricate symbolic system of language without a linguistic environment.

Language development involves acquisition and learning, which begins at the time that baby, is conscious of its surroundings. It is natural that different environments would produce different kinds of language developments. The children start trying to communicate in one, two, three word sentences. It develops past in childhood start in the age of the two years old until puberty. This


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period is known as the critical age or critical period. Critical age or critical period means the period of child that he/she becomes more critical to the surrounding, especially critical to a language. Children learn to speak by copying noise patterns heard around them and imitate their parents’ behavior. (Jersild, 1960: 24)

Meanwhile, according to Ellis (1987:5), the Second Language Acquisition (L2) is the study of how the learners learn an additional language after they have acquired their first language. Second language acquisition is the language obtained when the children are in the school covering the development of phonology lexis, grammar, and pragmatics knowledge. Second language acquisition is unlike first language acquisition which is obtained when they are infants trying to express their mother tongue into ungrammatical rules.

Every people acquires their first language in early childhood and the language they have got always be developed. The children usually develop their language by saying and imitating all of sounds and people behavior in their surroundings. In acquiring their language, the role of their parents is the most important, since their parents are always with them in their early childhood and knowing their children. If in case their parents are intermarriage couple, the parents must help their children and teach them how to express their feeling by saying something. It would be more difficult for children of intermarriage couple than the normal one because their parents have different language and cultures. Therefore the children of intermarriage couple would receive more than one language in acquiring the first language.


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In order to see the language development and the factors that influence the language development of intermarriage child in acquiring the first language, therefore there is an intermarriage child as the subject of this study to see the differences of language development and to know the factors influencing the language development of intermarriage children and normal children.

1.2 Problems of Study

There are two following problems to be analyzed through this study:

1. What are the development stages of Tonya Walsh Yudi in acquiring her first language especially her English vocabularies?

2. What are the factors influencing the language development of Tonya Walsh Yudi?

1.3 The Objectives of the Study 1.3.1 General Objective

The General objective of this study is to fulfill the undergraduate degree from Faculty of Arts in Udayana University.

1.3.2 Specific Objectives

There are two specific objectives of this study:

1. To identify the development stages of Tonya Walsh Yudi in acquiring her first language.


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2. To identify the factors influencing the language development of Tonya Walsh Yudi.

1.4 Scope of Discussion

In this study, the discussion would focus on the language acquisition of Tonya Walsh Yudi as an intermarriage child especially in her English vocabulary. There are some points to be discussed in this study; the development stages of Tonya Walsh Yudi in acquiring her first language and the factors influencing the language development of Tonya Walsh Yudi.

1.5 Research Method

Based on Iswari (2010:3), in producing a piece of scientific writing, a study must use methodology to get the structural scientific writing. Research is a process of finding something systemically which requires time, uses scientific methods and valid values. Methodology is systematical steps in doing research, used to examine certain problems in accordance to the research. This research used qualitative method because it is not using statistical data. It was explained descriptively with some related explanation. The research method in writing this research is classified into four points, those are; choosing the relevant data sources, how the data was collected, how the data was analyzed, and how the data was presented.


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There are two types of data obtained to support the discussion of this study. They are primary data and secondary data. The primary data to support this study was obtained by observing Tonya directly for three months in using language to communicate with her parents and from the interview results of Tonya’s parents named Peter John Walsh and Ni WayanYudiani on October 27, 2015. This is the personal data of Tonya as the subject of this study.

Name : Tonya Walsh Yudi Gender : Female

Address : Jimbaran Cliffs Hotel Nusa Dua, Gedong Sari Street xxx, Mumbul

Date of Birth : August 25, 2009 Age : 6 years old

School : Taman Rama School br. Cengkiling Puri Gading, Jimbaran

Grade : 1

Tonya was chosen as the subject of this study because she is an intermarriage child. Her father is Australian and her mother is Balinese. Tonya uses three languages to communicate at home. Tonya speaks English with her father, she speaks in Indonesian and English with her mother and she speaks Balinese with her grandmother. It would influence Tonya in acquiring her first language because the language differences of their parents. Beside, in August 2015, she was six years old. Therefore, this study would focus more on English Vocabulary of Tonya than her first language. It is because Tonya has been able to


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produce vocabularies especially in English. Her age is known as the critical age or critical period. Critical age or critical period means the period of child that he/she becomes more critical to the surrounding, especially critical to a language. Therefore, her parents also gave many efforts to her in acquiring her first language acquisition. The efforts of the parents could be seen by the results of the interview.

Meanwhile, secondary data of this study was obtained from the books, thesis and articles in Journal International related to the discussion of this study. The secondary data must be relating to the theory used in this study. The purpose of obtaining the secondary data from the books, thesis, and journal are to support the primary data taken from Tonya as the subject of this study and to see the strength, the weakness and the relevance between the previous study and this study.

1.5.2 Method and Technique of Collecting Data

The data sources in this study have been taken from “Tonya” as the primary data. The primary data relating to this study was collected by observing Tonya directly and giving an interview to Tonya’s parents. The method used in collecting the data is in accordance with the need of the study.

In this study, the data of Tonya as the primary data was obtained by using the participatory observation, because Tonya as the subject was observed directly once a week on the weekend for three months. Tonya was observed for three until five hours directly. Meanwhile, the data from Tonya’s parents was obtained by interviewing Tonya’s parents for thirty minutes. There are nine questions given to


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be answered. Therefore, based on the information given by her parents, the data relating to the discussion of this study are obtained. Meanwhile, the books, articles, and thesis relating to this study as the secondary data was obtained by library research method.

The technique used in obtaining the data from Tonya and her parents is by note taking and recording. The information obtained from the results of interviewing Tonya’s parents was noted on a piece of paper randomly. Meanwhile, the information obtained from observing Tonya directly was recorded. The data obtained by interviewing her parents and by observing Tonya directly would be supported by the secondary data. The secondary data was collected from the books, articles and thesis relating to Tonya’s case to support the primary data taken from Tonya as the main subject of this study.

Therefore, the technique used in collecting the data is firstly, make and arrange a list of the questions. Secondly, make an appointment with Tonya’s parents and do an interview with Tonya’s parents based on the question. Thirdly, make small note about the information given by Tonya’s parents. Fourthly, observe Tonya directly in using the language. Finally, the primary data obtained from the result of interviewing Tonya’s parents, observing Tonya directly and the secondary data obtained from library research have been collected. All of the collected data was analyzed by some theories related to the language development.


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1.5.3 Method and Technique of Analyzing Data

There are two kinds of data analysis. There are statistic and non statistic analysis. The non statistic analysis is suitable for the qualitative data and it is done without doing statistic calculation. Meanwhile, statistics is suitable for the quantitative data and it is done by doing statistic calculation. In this thesis, the qualitative method and the descriptive technique was used in analyzing the data because there are no statistics calculations in the data. In this study, the collected data was analyzed by qualitative method. The collected data were further analyzed based on the theory of language development proposed by Owens (1992) and innateness theory by Chomsky (1968). The analysis was correlated to the formulated problems.

Since the data in this study was analyzed by descriptive technique, therefore there are several steps in analyzing the data source. Firstly, the data of Tonya as an intermarriage child was arranged one by one. Secondly, the data of Tonya as the main data of this study obtained from the interview results of her parents and the result of observing Tonya for three months was compared with the language development with the normal children based on the theory. Therefore, in this step, the differences between Tonya as an intermarriage child and the other normal children in acquiring the first language could be seen. Thirdly, the language development of Tonya using more than one language could be compared with the language development of the children that use only one language. Fourthly, the data obtained from the parents related to their effort in helping their child and the factors influencing in acquiring the language could be seen. This


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analysis would identify the effort that Tonya’s parent did for their child in using the first language and other factors influencing the language development of Tonya. Finally, the formulated problems could be answered clearly.

1.5.4 Method and Technique of Presenting the Data

This study uses the descriptive method in presenting the data related to the subject of this study. There are two problems discussed in this study. In order to answer the first problem, the data were classified into some categories of language development of children generally based on Owens. The analysis of the language development categories were explained descriptively with the example for each category. Then, the data was compared with Tonya as the subject of this study. Meanwhile, in order to answer the second problem, the factors that influence Tonya in acquiring her language are also classified with the deep explanation of each factor.


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10 2.1 Literary Reviews

The literary review is the description about the strength and the weakness from previous studies and how the relevancy between the previous study with this study. In supporting this study, there are three reviews of previous thesis and two international articles collected as the references of this study.

2.1.1 Thesis Reviews

The first undergraduate thesis is from Risnawati (2008) entitled “First

Language Acquisition of Second Year Old Children in Terms of English

Vocabularies and The Structure of Sentences”. In this paper, she explained the background of her study from the general to the specific. In her study, there are three problems, those are; first, how is development of the language acquisition of second year old children acquiring English vocabularies and second is how the structure of the sentences of second year old children and the third is what are the factors influencing language development in acquiring English vocabularies and the structure of their sentences. In solving the formulated problems, she gave three theories, those are behavioristic, nativist, and functional. She explained it clearly based on the theory. That is the strength of her study. However, there is several weakness of her study, first, in the


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background; she did not tell the differences between the first language acquisition and the second language acquisition.

Second, she does not tell the reason why she chose the topic as her study. Third, in the data source, she does not mention the reason why she chose second year old children as her object in her study. Fourth, the method and technique of collecting and analyzing the data need more elaboration. The last, in the literary review, she explained four literary reviews but she did not tell the relevance between her study and the previous study. Her study used the same theories with this study; therefore the review of her study is needed. The purpose is to compare her study and this study.

The second undergraduate thesis is from Iswari (2010) entitled “The

Parents Influences to Children in acquiring English Vocabulary through

Reading Story Books”. She wrote about the acquiring vocabularies of children through reading book. In the background she explained the background from the general to specific one. In this study she gave two formulated problems, those are how is the language development of the children by using the story book in children’s language learning process and what is the factor influencing the acquisition of new English vocabulary children. She also explained the aim and the scope of her study. She used participatory observation method in collecting the data because the observer could be as a part of the related situation and was able to involve in the conversation and see directly the children’s process of acquiring English Vocabulary. She also has object in her study; those are Kirana Maheswari and Davina Dewanta, the daughter of Mr. Dharma yoga and Mrs.


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Handayani. In the data sources, she explained the reason in choosing those children as her object in her study. In literary review, she also gave clear explanation about the strength, the weakness, and the relevance between her study and the previous study. She gave theory from Lee (1979) and Berry Eisenson (1973) in solving the formulated problems. Meanwhile, there are two weaknesses of her study; first, the writer did not explain the statistical of vocabularies of the children generally. Second, in the method and technique of analyzing the data, it needs more elaboration. This study is more focused to the parent’s influencesin acquiring the language of their children. Based on Iswari’s work, the parent’s influences of Tonya could be compared with the other parents’ influences to help their children to communicate.

The third undergraduate thesis is from Triningsih (2013) entitled “The

Language Development by the Children in Acquiring English Vocabulary

through the English Children Music Video”. Triningsih discussed about the development of children language, especially in acquiring English vocabulary using English Children Music Video. She explained the background from general to specific. First, she explained what the language is. Second, she explained what the meaning of the language acquisition and she explained it more specific. She also explained the reason in choosing the title and using English children music video. Based on her opinion, children are the good imitators and they have own way to learn English, they usually repeat what they see and hear. Therefore, videos of English children songs are used to acquire English vocabulary through any activities such as, watching, singing, and


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repeating English words. In this thesis, Triningsih discussed about the effectiveness of Music Video to support young children in learning English and the responses given by the children after watching the music video to acquire English vocabulary. The discussion of the study is focused on the behaviorist theory which describes the imitation, the reinforcement, and rewarding to mentalist, empiricist, and rationalist theory.

The study is limited to the preschool, age 3-5 years old which focuses on the effectiveness of English children music video in acquiring English vocabulary. The videos are obtained from you tube and the objects are the children with the stage of age between 3-6 years old in TK Negeri Negara. In method and technique of collecting data, she made direct observation to the children. The data was analyzed qualitatively and presented descriptively. In this study, there are also three review of previous study and one international article related to her study. However, Triningsih did not explain the reason in choosing the children in TK Negeri Negara as her objects in her study. In the research method, it needs more elaboration especially for the data source, method and technique of analyzing the data. The theories in her study are also used in this study, therefore the review of Triningsih’ work is needed to compare her study and this study because it is related to each other.

2.1.2 International Articles Review

The first international article is from Dominic and Bill Rowe entitled “Comprehension outscores production in language acquisition: Implications for


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many more words than they are able to produce. Without exception, a child appears to understand various words that they do not use in their own speech. The results of their analysis are used to test three different theories of speech perception. Those are motor theory, common representation theory, and pattern recognition theory.

Motor theory assumes that motor processes are necessarily recruited for speech perception. Speech provides a natural domain for a motor-theory account because speech perception and speech production appear to be so tightly linked. A motor theory of speech perception contains different assumptions for different theorists but they all tightly link speech perception with speech production. A common representation theory claims that the same representation exists for both comprehension and production. Comprehension could be viewed as a recognition task whereas production could be considered a recall task, and recall is necessarily more difficult than recognition. Meanwhile, the third theory assumes that speech perception and speech production and their acquisition could not be based on the same underlying representation. Speech perception follows prototypical pattern recognition processes whereas speech production involves intricate motor processes that attempt to match a speech target.

They analyze data from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) to determine 1) if difficulty of articulation and parental input frequency influence perception and production equivalently and 2) assess whether equivalent representations can account for perception and production.


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This article shows the six partitions of the individual results of 1089 children based on the number of words produced, giving the range and average of the number of words produced, the range and average number of words understood, and the number of cases contributing to each partition of the analysis. The author make two analysis, they are individual analysis and group analysis. The author also gives an example of the results for an individual child, the words understood and produced for a child who understood 121 words and produced only 17. They also give the number of times speech segments occurred in initial position for understood and said words for this child. The author also shows the table to show that the child was able to understand words with all of the 22 possible initial phonemes but could produce words that begin with only 7 different phonemes.

Meanwhile, for each unique word in database, they pooled the results across the 1089 children. The total number of children that were scored as saying the word and understanding the word was treated as dependent measures, as was the difference between understood and said words. Their goal was to determine what variables might influence saying or understanding a word and whether there might be dissociations between perceiving and saying a word. On the other hand, correlations between perception and production might appear to be a more direct method to assess the relationship between understood and said words.

The article also explains about the correlations with difficulty of articulation, correlation with parental input frequency, correlations with imagery


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and concreteness, and correlations with word length, segment probability, and neighbors. Therefore, the conclusion of the analysis is that the correlation analyses with all words overall and the lexical classes nouns and action words show a somewhat more robust correlation of difficulty of articulation with words said than with words understood. This result is particularly impressive because the range of understood words was larger than that of said words so that ceteris paribus a larger correlation with understood words would be expected. This result points to different processes involved in speech perception and production and their acquisition. Future work should be extended to new and more elaborate databases.

This article could be as the reference in observing Tonya in acquiring her language especially her vocabularies because in her age the vocabulary would be more developed. This article also gives three theories in learning vocabulary. Therefore, this article is suitable to this study in order to compare Tonya with the object of this article in learning vocabularies based on the theories, Meanwhile this article is quiet difficult to understand because in the methodology, the explanation is not clear. The explanation would be better if it is identified clearly.

The second international article is from Stephen D Krashen entitled

“Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning”. Krashen

concerns with the Monitor Theory, which hypothesizes that someone has two independent systems for developing the ability in second language acquisition. Those are subconscious language acquisition and conscious language learning. These systems are interrelated in a definite way and the subconscious acquisition


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is more important. In this article he devotes a brief statement of the theory and its implications for different aspect of second language acquisition theory and practice. He also defines acquisition and learning, and presents the monitor model for second language performance.

According to Khrasen, subconscious language acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language-natural communication in which speakers are not concerned with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding. Meanwhile, conscious language learning is thought to be helped a great deal by error correction and the presentation of explicit rules. Error corrections are maintained helps the learner come to the correct mental representation of the linguistic generalization. The fundamental claim of monitor theory is that conscious learning is available to the performer only as a monitor. In utterances are initiated by the acquired system, the fluency in production is based on active communication. The formal knowledge of the second language, the conscious learning, used to alter the output of the acquired system.

In this article, Krashen also shows the influential factors in learning the language. The factors are the formal and informal Linguistic environments. The formal learning environments are the best for attaining second language proficiency, while other studies also show that the informal environments are superior. It is argued that informal environments promote real language use (communication) are conducive to acquisition, while the formal environment have the potential for encouraging the acquisition and learning.


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Based on the article from Krashen, it would be helpful in comparing Tonya with this study because this study would emphasize the second language acquisition of Tonya in acquiring English vocabulary because Tonya is already six years old. It means that Tonya already gets the second language acquisition from her environments. Unfortunately, in other hand, this article is difficult to be understood because there is no example in each explanation. E, g; in the formal and informal linguistic environments, Khrasen does not give the example of formal linguistic environments and the informal linguistic environments.

2.2 Concepts

The concepts of this study are based on the applied linguistics. The concept, which would be presented here, are:

2.2.1 The concepts of Language

According to Chomsky (1968:47), knowing a language means being able to produce an infinite number of sentences never spoken before and to understand sentences never heard before. Chomsky refers to this ability as the ‘creative aspect” of language.

According to Rice-Johnston (2008), language is the process or set of processes used to ensure there is the agreement between the sender and receiver for meanings assigned to the symbols and the schema for combining them used for each communication.

According to Sapir (1921), language is the material or medium of literature. Literature may move on the generalized linguistic plane or may be inseparable from specific linguistics conditions. Language is a collective art.


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Style as conditioned by inherent features of the language. Prosody as conditioned by the phonetic dynamics of a language.

Based on those three concepts, the most relevant of the language concept is from Noam Chomsky because he said that by knowing a language means being able to produce an infinite number of sentences that never spoken before and to understand sentences that never heard before.

2.2.2 The concept of First Language Acquisition

According to Bowerman (2007), the first language acquisition is the determining how children learn to talk and understand, while the goal of linguistic typology is to discover deep regularities in patterns if variation across languages.

According to Crain & Lillo-Martin (1999), the language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. It involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary. However, learning a first language is something that every normal child does successfully without much need for formal lessons. Language development is also a complex and unique human quality but yet children seem to acquire language at a very rapid rate with most children’s speech being relatively grammatical by age three. Based on those two concepts of the first language acquisition, the most relevant with this study is the concept of Crain and Lillo-Martin. It is because the concepts said that the first language acquisition is not obtained from formal


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lessons but also it could be obtained from their environment. It relevant with this study, since Tonya as the intermarriage child could obtain her first language by her environment.

1.2.3 The Concept of The Language Development

The term language development could be used in both an individual and a societal sense. It is commonly used among psychologist and educators with reference to individuals to refer to phenomenon of child language acquisition (how infants acquire language).

Ferguson (1968) defined language development at the societal level as primarily dealing with three areas of concern, those are:

- Graphization : It means the development of a system of writing

-Standardization : It means the development of a norm that overrides regional and social dialects, and

-Modernization: It means the development of the ability to translate and carry on discourse about the broad range of topics in ways characteristic of industrialized, secularized, structurally differentiated, ‘modernized’ societies.

These development activities are now generally known as language planning activities, subsumed specifically within what is called “corpus planning (Cooper 1989).

Ethnologue defines language development is the result of the series of on-going planned actions that language communities take to ensure that they can


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effectively use their languages to achieve their social, cultural, political, economic, and spiritual goals.

According to raisingchildren.net.au one of the Australian parenting website said that language development supports your child’s ability to communicate, and express and understand feelings. It also supports thinking and problem-solving, developing, and maintaining relationships. Learning to understand, use and enjoy language is the critical first step in literacy, and the basis for learning to read and write.

Based on three definitions of language development above, the most related to this study is the definition of Australian parenting website which stated that the language development is the development of children to communicate, express and understand the feelings.

2.3 Theoretical Framework

The research in this study is based on applied linguistics subject. The analysis was analyzed based on behaviorist, innateness and language development theory. The central idea of behaviorist theory is children imitate adults. Their correct utterances are reinforced when they get what they want or are praised. Meanwhile the central idea of innateness is a child's brain contains special language-learning mechanisms at birth. Those theories are used in analyzing this study because those theories related to Tonya’s case. Therefore in acquiring her first language, she imitates her parents’ behavior and it is also supported by her ability to learn by herself because she also has learning mechanisms.


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Based on Ibrahim (2010), the behaviorist psychologists developed their theories while carrying out a series of experiments on animals. For example rats or birds, they could be taught to perform various tasks by encouraging habit-forming. It also would happen to the children or infant, if they do some activities continuosly and they get motivation to do that, it could form their habit. Moreover, by looking at the adults behavior the children could imitate adults behavior, because they have ability to remember and imitate what they looking at.

Then the behaviorist, Skinner proposed this theory as an explanation for language acquisition in humans. In Verbal Behavior (1957), he stated:

"The basic processes and relations which give verbal behavior its special characteristics are now fairly well understood. Much of the experimental work responsible for this advance has been carried out on other species, but the results have proved to be surprisingly free of species restrictions. Recent work has shown that the methods could be extended to human behavior without serious modifications." (Cited in Lowe and Graham, 1998, p68)

Skinner suggested that a child imitates the language of its parents or carers. Successful attempts are rewarded because an adult who recognizes a word spoken by a child would praise the child and/or give it what it is asking for. Successful utterances are therefore reinforced while unsuccessful ones are forgotten.


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Besides there some truth in Skinner's explanation, however there are many objections to it, such as:

1. Language is based on a set of structures or rules.

2. The vast majority of children go through the same stages of language acquisition.

3. Children are often unable to repeat what an adult says 4. Few children receive much explicit grammatical correction.

Based on behaviorism theory which is stated that, if the children do some activities continuosly and they get motivation to do that, it could form their habit. They could get their first language acquisition by imitating the behavior of the people around them. Every people acquires their first language in early childhood and the language they have got always be developed. The children usually develop their language by saying and imitating all of sounds and people behavior in their surroundings.

In the behaviorists’ theory, there are several limitations; therefore Chomsky published a criticism of the behaviourist theory in 1957. In addition to some of the arguments listed above, he focused particularly on the impoverished language input children receive. Adults do not typically speak in grammatically complete sentences. In addition, what the child hears is only a small sample of language.

Chomsky (1968) concluded that children must have an inborn faculty for language acquisition. According to this theory, the process is biologically determined - the human species has evolved a brain whose neural circuits contain


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linguistic information at birth. The child's natural predisposition to learn language is triggered by hearing speech and the child's brain is able to interpret what she/he hears according to the underlying principles or structures it already contains. This natural faculty has become known as the Language Acquisition Device (LAD). This ability enable the human to learn any language in this world. For example, the LAD already contains the concept of verb tense. By listening to such forms as "worked", "played" and "patted", the child will form the hypothesis that the past tense of verbs is formed by adding the sound /d/, /t/ or /id/ to the base form.

Based on those two theories, the language development of Tonya as an intermarriage child could be shown. The data of Tonya used more than one language would be compared to the children used only one language. Meanwhile, based on the innateness theory, the children have an ability to manage the language process. A child's brain contains special language-learning mechanisms at birth. The theory is also related to Tonya because based on this theory she has had her ability learning by herself in acquiring her first language. There are four theories of first language acquisition, however in this study, the behaviorist and innateness theories were used to analyze the first formulated problem because those theories are related to Tonya as the object of this study.

Meanwhile, the language development theory proposed by Owens (1994:72-73) is the general child development chronology, with emphasized on four related but separate developmental areas. Those are physical, cognitive, socio emotional, and communicative growth. He identified the development of a child into four type, they are physical, cognitive, socio emotional, and communicative.


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Physical development refers to physical growth and motor control. Cognitive development is intellectual growth. Cognitive development also involves the methods a child uses to organize, store, and retrieve information for problem solving and generalization. Socio emotional development is closely related to the other three areas. Physical size, intellectual growth, and communication abilities all contribute to a child’s perceptions of themselves and others. As the children mature, they become less egocentric and more social. Finally, communicative development is also related to the other developmental areas. The development and use of linguistic symbols depends upon attaining certain cognitive, social and motor skills. Speech requires the physical growth of certain neuromuscular structures and motor control of their functions. Based on this theory, the development of Tonya in acquiring her language would be compared with the development language chronology of children generally based on four developmental areas proposed by Owens.


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lessons but also it could be obtained from their environment. It relevant with this study, since Tonya as the intermarriage child could obtain her first language by her environment.

1.2.3 The Concept of The Language Development

The term language development could be used in both an individual and a societal sense. It is commonly used among psychologist and educators with reference to individuals to refer to phenomenon of child language acquisition (how infants acquire language).

Ferguson (1968) defined language development at the societal level as primarily dealing with three areas of concern, those are:

- Graphization : It means the development of a system of writing

-Standardization : It means the development of a norm that overrides regional and social dialects, and

-Modernization: It means the development of the ability to translate and carry on discourse about the broad range of topics in ways characteristic of industrialized, secularized, structurally differentiated, ‘modernized’ societies.

These development activities are now generally known as language planning activities, subsumed specifically within what is called “corpus planning (Cooper 1989).

Ethnologue defines language development is the result of the series of on-going planned actions that language communities take to ensure that they can


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effectively use their languages to achieve their social, cultural, political, economic, and spiritual goals.

According to raisingchildren.net.au one of the Australian parenting website said that language development supports your child’s ability to communicate, and express and understand feelings. It also supports thinking and problem-solving, developing, and maintaining relationships. Learning to understand, use and enjoy language is the critical first step in literacy, and the basis for learning to read and write.

Based on three definitions of language development above, the most related to this study is the definition of Australian parenting website which stated that the language development is the development of children to communicate, express and understand the feelings.

2.3 Theoretical Framework

The research in this study is based on applied linguistics subject. The analysis was analyzed based on behaviorist, innateness and language development theory. The central idea of behaviorist theory is children imitate adults. Their correct utterances are reinforced when they get what they want or are praised. Meanwhile the central idea of innateness is a child's brain contains special language-learning mechanisms at birth. Those theories are used in analyzing this study because those theories related to Tonya’s case. Therefore in acquiring her first language, she imitates her parents’ behavior and it is also supported by her ability to learn by herself because she also has learning mechanisms.


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Based on Ibrahim (2010), the behaviorist psychologists developed their theories while carrying out a series of experiments on animals. For example rats or birds, they could be taught to perform various tasks by encouraging habit-forming. It also would happen to the children or infant, if they do some activities continuosly and they get motivation to do that, it could form their habit. Moreover, by looking at the adults behavior the children could imitate adults behavior, because they have ability to remember and imitate what they looking at.

Then the behaviorist, Skinner proposed this theory as an explanation for language acquisition in humans. In Verbal Behavior (1957), he stated:

"The basic processes and relations which give verbal behavior its special characteristics are now fairly well understood. Much of the experimental work responsible for this advance has been carried out on other species, but the results have proved to be surprisingly free of species restrictions. Recent work has shown that the methods could be extended to human behavior without serious modifications." (Cited in Lowe and Graham, 1998, p68)

Skinner suggested that a child imitates the language of its parents or carers. Successful attempts are rewarded because an adult who recognizes a word spoken by a child would praise the child and/or give it what it is asking for. Successful utterances are therefore reinforced while unsuccessful ones are forgotten.


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Besides there some truth in Skinner's explanation, however there are many objections to it, such as:

1. Language is based on a set of structures or rules.

2. The vast majority of children go through the same stages of language acquisition.

3. Children are often unable to repeat what an adult says 4. Few children receive much explicit grammatical correction.

Based on behaviorism theory which is stated that, if the children do some activities continuosly and they get motivation to do that, it could form their habit. They could get their first language acquisition by imitating the behavior of the people around them. Every people acquires their first language in early childhood and the language they have got always be developed. The children usually develop their language by saying and imitating all of sounds and people behavior in their surroundings.

In the behaviorists’ theory, there are several limitations; therefore Chomsky published a criticism of the behaviourist theory in 1957. In addition to some of the arguments listed above, he focused particularly on the impoverished language input children receive. Adults do not typically speak in grammatically complete sentences. In addition, what the child hears is only a small sample of language.

Chomsky (1968) concluded that children must have an inborn faculty for language acquisition. According to this theory, the process is biologically determined - the human species has evolved a brain whose neural circuits contain


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linguistic information at birth. The child's natural predisposition to learn language is triggered by hearing speech and the child's brain is able to interpret what she/he hears according to the underlying principles or structures it already contains. This natural faculty has become known as the Language Acquisition Device (LAD). This ability enable the human to learn any language in this world. For example, the LAD already contains the concept of verb tense. By listening to such forms as "worked", "played" and "patted", the child will form the hypothesis that the past tense of verbs is formed by adding the sound /d/, /t/ or /id/ to the base form.

Based on those two theories, the language development of Tonya as an intermarriage child could be shown. The data of Tonya used more than one language would be compared to the children used only one language. Meanwhile, based on the innateness theory, the children have an ability to manage the language process. A child's brain contains special language-learning mechanisms at birth. The theory is also related to Tonya because based on this theory she has had her ability learning by herself in acquiring her first language. There are four theories of first language acquisition, however in this study, the behaviorist and innateness theories were used to analyze the first formulated problem because those theories are related to Tonya as the object of this study.

Meanwhile, the language development theory proposed by Owens (1994:72-73) is the general child development chronology, with emphasized on four related but separate developmental areas. Those are physical, cognitive, socio emotional, and communicative growth. He identified the development of a child into four type, they are physical, cognitive, socio emotional, and communicative.


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Physical development refers to physical growth and motor control. Cognitive development is intellectual growth. Cognitive development also involves the methods a child uses to organize, store, and retrieve information for problem solving and generalization. Socio emotional development is closely related to the other three areas. Physical size, intellectual growth, and communication abilities all contribute to a child’s perceptions of themselves and others. As the children mature, they become less egocentric and more social. Finally, communicative development is also related to the other developmental areas. The development and use of linguistic symbols depends upon attaining certain cognitive, social and motor skills. Speech requires the physical growth of certain neuromuscular structures and motor control of their functions. Based on this theory, the development of Tonya in acquiring her language would be compared with the development language chronology of children generally based on four developmental areas proposed by Owens.