13 Individual differences in vocabulary size at every age are due to
differences in intelligence, environmental influences, learning opportunities, and motivation to learn. According to Miller in the book Language and
Communication, although there are large individual differences, in the average child the vocabulary appears to increase rather slowly at first, then rapidly
between the ages of two and eight years, and then more slowly until maturity.
13
Girls on the average, it has been reported, have larger vocabularies and also have the speech was better than boys‘.
3. The Acquisition of Concept
The concept, according to Vygotsky, is an active part of the intellectual process, constantly engaged in serving communication,
understanding, and problem-solving.
14
It also can be explained as one thing that has the correlation with another thing. There is no understood concept
without understanding its relationship with another concept. For example; if the one is asked to explain the word ‗tomato‘, he will explain that tomato is a
fruit that has red color, fresh, and can be eaten. To understand these explanations, we had to have the understanding for the concept ‗fruit‘, ‗red‘,
‗eat‘, ‗fresh‘, etc. Generally, the children‘s concepts are formed by his everyday
experience, while the adult‘s concepts are referred to principles and definition.
13
George A. Miller, Language and Communication, USA: McGraw-Hill Book Company, INC, 1951, p. 148
14
L. S. Vygotsky, Thought and Language, Massachusetts: The M.I.T Press , 1962, p. 53
14 It
can be said that the child‘s concepts have the idiosyncratic meaning and the focus is the special event which correlates with the word.
15
In this case, we can take the example of ‗fish‘ concept acquisition. At the first time, may be the children assumed that fish is the animal in the water
that can be eaten as like as chicken. This concept is based on their everyday experience. After their age became increasingly, they would begin to
understand the general concept of ‗fish‘ word. Let‘s discuss two definition of ‗fish‘ word below that was given by two 7-year-old students in
communicative competence measure test of Kumon Vila Nusa Indah students:
Fathur: I like chicken, have tail, have eyes, I can find it in the water, it is animal, I can eat this animal
Tyas: the color is blue, it’s animal, it’s in the water, I can eat this animal
16
In his description, Fathur described that fish is the animal like chicken and he can eat it. And as we know, fish is very different with chicken.
Whereas Tyas described that fish is the animal that has blue color. These two definitions cannot be conducted generally because it has the idiosyncratic
meaning; not social meaning that is common knowledge. Concept can change according to the development of science or
everyday experience. According to Vygotsky, concepts change from overall
15
Ibid, p. 84
16
The children’s description word at Communicative Competence Test of Kumon Villa Nusa Indah
.
15 similarity categories to especial characteristic categories. It can be occurred to
the children in the holophrastic stage. As in the explanation above, the children at 12-18
–month-old are inclined to exhibit overextension, applying words too broadly. Consider a
child who refers to her cat as kitty. If she also refers to dogs, cows, horses, and other four- legged animals as kitty, she would be exhibiting
overextension. These animals have overall similarity. The example, all of these animal have four- legged. With the increasing of their age, they will able
to distinguish every animal based on its characteristics.
4. The Others Influent Factors in Children Language Development
