Background of the Study

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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 period is known as the critical age or critical period. Critical age or critical period means the period of child that heshe 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. 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