THE ACQUISITION OF COMPOUND SENTENCES
OF THREE YEARS OLD IN PRESCHOOL CHILDREN
A Thesis
Submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora By
KHAIRINA RAMADHANI LUBIS Registration Number: 8136112038
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTIC STUDY PROGRAM
POST GRADUATE SCHOOL
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
MEDAN
ABSTRACT
Ramadhani, Khairina Lubis. Number : 8136112038. The Acquisition of Compound Sentences of Three Years Old Preschool Children. A Thesis. English Applied Linguistics Study Program. Postgraduate School. State University of Medan. 2016
ABSTRAK
Ramadhani, Khairina Lubis. NIM: 8136112038. Pemerolehan Kalimat Majemuk Setara oleh Anak Usia 3 Tahun di Pra-Sekolah. Tesis. Program Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris. Pascasarjana. Universitas Negeri Medan. 2016
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all, the writer would like to thank Allah SWT, the most gracious and the most merciful for blessing her to write this thesis. This study is concerned with politeness strategies of five years old children. It is submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program of the Postgraduate School, the State University of Medan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Magister Humaniora. In particular, the writer would like to address her deep thankfulness to the Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd, her first Advise for his time spent in guiding, correcting and supporting her to complete this thesis, Dr. assistance in completing the administrative procedures. She is deeply grateful to all the lecturers who have given the valuable knowledge and experiences during her study in this university. Special thanks are expressed to her examiners: Prof. Dr. Sumarsih, M.Pd, Prof. Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S and Dr. Rahmad Husein, M.Ed for their criticisms and suggestion in improving this thesis.
finishing this thesis and they get Master Degree together. All of the educators of PAUD Khairin Kids, (Nita, Omi, Linda, Novi, Asma, Lita, Ria, Lila, Dwi, And Maya) and especially for Ade Hidayati, S.Pd.I thanks for all the understanding her during finished this study.
Finally, she would like to thank to all friends in English Applied Linguistics Study Program B1 2013, all her friends in Albarkah Entertainment Group (Putri, Yani, Kak Eva, Ria and Azmy), and all her friends who cannot be mentioned here for giving the valuable support in finishing this thesis. May Allah SWT always bless us.
Medan, 10 March 2016
Khairina Ramadhani Lubis
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.1 Psycholinguistics ……...……….... 8
2.2 Psycholinguistics Approaches Language Acquisition………… 9
2.6.1 The Nature of Sentence………. 25
2.6.2 Compound Sentences ……… 26
2.7 The Acquisition of Compound Sentence at the age of Three Years Old……… 32
2.8 The Children’s Interaction Context……… 34
2.9 Pre-School Students ..……… 36
2.9.1 The Nature of Pre-school...……….... 36
2.9.2 School Environment……….. 38
2.9.3 School Facilities………. 39
2.10 Sex and Language Development ………. 41
2.11 Previous Relevant Studies ……… 43
2.12 Conceptual Framework ………. 44
CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHOD 3.1The Research Design ……….. 47
3.2The Subject of the Study ……… 47
3.3The Source of Data ……… 49
3.4The Instrument of Data ……….. 49
3.5The Technique of Data Collection……….. 50
3.6The Procedure of Data Analysis ……… 51
CHAPTER IV: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1 Data Analysis………. 56 4.1.1 The Types of Compound Sentences are produce
by three years old children Boys and Girls………. 58
4.1.2 The Way of Three Year Old Children Boys
and Girls in Producing Compound Sentences………… 77
4.1.3 The Context of Children in Producing
the Compound Sentences……… 83 4.2 Finding ………. 85
4.3 Discussion ……… 87 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions……… 91 5.2 Suggestions………. 92
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. The Subject of the Study ……… 49
Table 2. The Context of Children Three Years Old
LIST OF FIGURE
LIST OF APPENDIXES
Appendix A. Biodata of The Subject and Parents……… 96
Appendix B Data Reduction and Data Display
(Compound Sentences) ……… 102
Appendix C. Data Reduction and Data Display
(Types of Compound Sentences based on
Connector word) ……… 106
Appendix D. Data Reduction and Data Display
(Types of Compound Sentences based on
Connector word) ………. 109
Appendix E. The Context of Children Three Years Old in
Producing Compound Sentences
By Fachri ……….. 114
Appendix F. The Context of Children Three Years Old in
Producing Compound Sentences
By Arsya ……….. 116
Appendix G. The Context of Children Three Years Old in
Producing Compound Sentences
By Dhika……….. 118
Appendix H. The Context of Children Three Years Old in
Producing Compound Sentences
By Alviola ……….. 119
Appendix I. The Context of Children Three Years Old in
Producing Compound Sentences
By Cinta ……….. 122
Appendix J. The Context of Children Three Years Old in
Producing Compound Sentences
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Language is a means of communication between members of the
community in the form of symbols generated sound human vocal organs to deliver
or receive a message, ideas and information. Language also facilitates people to
socialize with the surrounding environment without human language will find it
difficult to do anything. One of the remarkable characteristics of human being is
that every single one acquires language at a very young age. And later on the
acquisition occurs and develops in its social context.
They learned the language, starting immediately from birth. Children’s
language acquisitions grow with the environment or social interaction or mother’s
speech. Child’s language acquisition process has been explored and studied by
some scientists, philosopher, and psychologists, such as: the acquisition of syntax
in children from 5 to 10 (Chomsky: 1969), the connection between biological
foundation and the stages of child language acquisition (Lenneberg : 1967), and
cognitive development and the acquisition of language (Herbert H,Clark : 1973).
During the infants or very clearly childhood period, children learned to
express things by using speech sounds. Whenever they feel hungry, thirsty or hurt,
they produced speech sound such as crying, which is also a part of the process of
communication, where the infants started to used their articulation to
communicate with other people because they are still not able to say perfectly
For many people, assumed that the acquisition of children’s language is
nothing special, but in fact study about children’s language acquisition is quite
important. One of the beneficial for the language teaching technique was
especially pre-school children. With such a study, the question of how to deal
with and face the children who have come with various language backgrounds can
be attained. Obviously, this study is expected to answer the problems of children’s
language development in the preschool children in which the researcher conduct
the research. The problems are in terms of various languages produced by children
when they make interaction with teachers and with another.
When the children have started to make a sentence with the correct
sequence, children can also combine one sentence to another sentence to make
compound sentences. Compound sentences consist of two or more main clauses
(independent clause) joined together in any one of three ways. A compound
sentence (Oshima : 1981, 123) is made up two or more independent clauses
connected by a coordinating conjunction, such as and, or, nor, but, for, so, yet.
Each clause in compound sentences must have a subject and a verb, is of equal
importance, and can stand alone. Punctuate the sentence by putting a comma (,)
before the coordinating conjunction. In the early period of syntactic development,
children are working on the structure of simple sentences and do not yet have
knowledge of these operations (Brown, et al, 1969).
Ramlan (2010) state that based on the meaning of sentences and the use of
connector words, compound sentences had seven types, namely In Line, Contrary,
The onset of ability with compound sentences greatly increases the child’s
generative capacity and thus is an important step forward in language acquisition.
The first compound sentences appear after simple sentences about four words long
become common. The first to appear in children’s production is and.
For example: He picked up the stick and threw it, he shouted and cried.
The sheep and the cows were grazing; they chased the rabbit and
the hen.
Duncan ate the peas and Hellen the broccoli.
Indeed, the phenomenon above is available in Western Culture. However,
it could be that the same happening also occurs in Indonesian setting. The setting
itself refers to a situation where the happening happens. Bloom (1980) said serves
a variety of functions for two-and three-year-olds. Clauses linked by and may be
use in additive, temporal, causal meaning.
Example :
Additive (In Line) : My young brother takes the broom and cat running.
Temporal (Sequential) : Mom’s going to market and buy my favorite milk
Causal (Causal) : She is study hard and she got the first rank
Thus, at first time the children used a form for the whole meaning, and
then narrows to more specialized form. For the examples above, the children then
replace and in temporal sentence become then, while and in causal sentence
replace become so. Finally, the conjunctions like, but, because, when, etc is occur
(Bloom;1980).
Peterson and McCabe (1988) found that on average 75% sentences use
and as a conjunction in their compound sentences. As stated by Bloom (1980) and
de Villiers said coordinate and is generally the first conjunction children produce.
In this phenomenon, the children in three year old were not produced the
such as for, but, so, that, or when they produced the compound sentences. In
Indonesia child, they skip the common conjunction and use the specific
conjunction directly. It also happens to children aged 3 years to be studied by
researchers. At the age of 3 years they've been able to use specific conjunctive in
combining two independent sentences. The researcher would give the example of
this phenomenon in children three years old;
AV (girl)
1. Mi, semalam Ai ke pante, mobilnya lambat, capek Ai
2. Dia manjat gunung, ketakutan Dia.
3. Ai mau tarok tas sama mau ambil minum, Mi.
The children’s effort in combining two simple sentences into one coherent
sentence is very diverse. Conjunctive use in compound sentences is coordinate
conjunction. Based on some of the examples above, it can be seen that Alviola
had been able to define and use specific words in combining the two sentences
and using more than and word in coordinate conjunction (the connector word was
varieties and explicitly), while Fachry, cannot produce the connector words well.
He had known the common conjunction and by word sama, but for other
compound sentences he made pause to combine two single sentences (implicitly).
The selection of words has not varied. This is suitable with Clark (2003) stated
that by age two-and-a half to three, children begin to produce and, because, when,
and if to link one clause to another. The primary markers of relations between
They said that the girls speak earlier than boys, and contradictorily the boys
develop their psychometric skills faster (girls used to talk more than boys). In
other words, girls are more active to talk than boys. The girls speak earlier than
boys, and contradictorily the boys develop their psychometric skills faster. Many
investigators have found that girls surpass boys in nearly all aspects of language
behavior, including the length of utterances comprehension of speech,
articulation, the number of word spoken, the number of different words spoken,
and amount of speech and sentence complexity.
Maccoby (2002) said that sex is based on a combination of anatomical,
endocrinal and chromosomal features, and the selection among these criteria for
sex assignment is based very much on cultural beliefs about what actually makes
someone male or female. Girl seems to be superior to boys in overall language
development girl’s speech is comprehensible earlier. Girls use sentences earlier
than boys and they use longer sentences. Then vocabularies are consistently large.
This phenomenon had led the researcher conducted the children
acquisition of compound sentences of three year old in playgroup class at PAUD
KHAIRIN KIDS MEDAN. The researcher want to investigate whether the
children of three years old in playgroup class use the seven types of compound
sentences sequence based on the meaning of sentence and connector word by boys
1.2 The Problems of Study
Based on the background of the study the problem of the study was
formulated as follows:
1. What types of compound sentences sequence that produced by three years
old in Pre-school children?
2. How do the boys and girls produce the compound sentences by three years
old in Pre-school children?
3. In what context they produce compound sentences?
1.3 The Objectives of the Study
In relation to the problem of the study, the main objectives of this study
were:
1. to find out the types of compound sentences sequence were used by boys
and girls of three years old in Pre-school children
2. to describe the boys and girls producing the compound sentences by three
years old in Pre-school children
3. to discover the context of three years old in Pre-school children producing
the compound sentences.
1.4The Scope of the Study
In this study, the researcher focused on the acquisition of compound
sentences producing by children at the age of three years old boys and girls in
conjunction. The subjects of this study were chosen six students consists of three
boys and three girls in one Play Group Class.
1.5The Significance of the Study
The findings of this research were expected to investigate the development
of the three years old children on using compound sentences in terms of
coordinating conjunction. The study would be used from theoretically and
practically.
Theoretically, the research findings could provide a basis for a further
research on different stages of the children’s language acquisition.
Practically, on the other hand, this research can be made as guidelines for
adults, teachers, especially parents who interested in the process of introducing
new word to young children as related to the theory of language acquisition. It
would be also very useful for a reference in assisting or facilitating their children
in the process of language acquisition.
Findings of this research would be expected to give some contributions to
the English learning as a foreign language in Indonesia especially for
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions
Based on the findings in the previous chapter, it could be concluded that:
1. The three years old children boys and girls had been able produce the types
of compound sentences based on sentence meaning and the connector word
which they used. The general type was produced by three years old children
boys and girls were Contrary Compound Sentences not In Line Compound
Sentences. The sequence types of compound sentences which they produced
were Contrary (30%), Causal (28%), Sequential (17%), In Line (16%),
Rapatan (7%), Selection (2%), and the types of compound sentence which never their produced were Amplifier Compound Sentences (0%).
2. A view of boy three years old is able to use the coordinate conjunction to
combines two independent sentences. They made a pause (stop) between the
sentences (implicitly conjunction). Otherwise, the girl of three years old had
been able to used and put the coordinate conjunction between the sentences to
which they used more varied. The girls seem to be superior to boys in overall
language development girl’s speech is comprehensible earlier. Girls are more
talk active and speak earlier than boys.
3. The children three years old had been able used the compound sentence in
everywhere, in the class, or playground. They used the coordinate conjunction
when they talked with everyone and every situation, with teacher in the class
when learning process or when they talked to their friends when they were
played in outclass. Girls express their feelings more than boys.
5.2 Suggestions
The relation to the conclusions is stages as follows:
1. It is suggested to the parents to be creative and use the good sentence
structure to helping the children in the process of acquiring their sentence.
2. It is recommended to the researcher who is interested in doing research on
language acquisition to read more research in this order to conclude more
comprehensive and trustable result.
3. To adults, it was better to make good sentences when making conversation to
the children because the children tend to imitate all the sentences which were
