COMPLEX SENTENCES ACQUISITION OF
FIVE YEARS OLD KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS
AT RAUDHATUL ATHFAL TARBIYAH AL-ISLAMIYAH MEDAN
A THESIS
Submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for the Degree of Magister Humaniora
By:
MUHAMMAD MAHFUZ Registration Number: 8126111022
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
MEDAN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In the Name of Allah, most Gracious, most merciful
I am willing to present my thanks for everyone who has helped me,
especially in finishing this Thesis.
Alhamdulillah, all of honors are just for Allah ‘Azza Wajalla, the almighty. And Sholawat and Salam to the Prophet Muhammad SAW.
Then I want to express my sincere thanks to:
1. My Beloved Parents, H. Syahlul and Dra. Hj. Dahriah Az, M.A. Thank you so
much for your affection, advices, guidance, instruction and help in all my life,
your love is beyond any words. My beloved brothers M. Hidayatullah S.H.,
and H. Muhammad Rahmatullah Lc, M.A., and also my sister Sa’adah S.Pd.I, M.A, and my nephews Mhd. Habiburrahman, Mhd. Khalilurrahman, and Mhd.
Faydhurrahman may Allah SWT does ever safeguard.
2. My First Advisor, Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, M.Pd for her valuable guidance,
encouragement, patient, correlation, advice, and suggestion which are very
helpful in finishing this Thesis. Then, you very much for your time to share
your great knowledge and great experiences to me.
3. My Second Advisor Dr. Didik Santoso, M.Pd who has guided me with his
worthy, correction and suggestion to improve the quality of this Thesis.
4. The Dean of English Applied Linguistic Study Program Prof. Dr. Busmin
Gurning M.Pd for his contribution and attention.
5. All lecturers of English Applied Linguistic Program, who have transferred
much knowledge to me. For guidance, instruction and help during study at the
university.
7. My Gratitude to Headmaster of SMP Swasta Karang Sari, Medan, Mrs El
Rika Sempana Ginting S.Sos who has give me permission, helps for present
study. And also for all teacher of SMP Swasta Karang Sari for your supports.
8. My Gratitude to Mr. Badrul Lail S.Pd.I as Headmaster of Kindergarten School
Tarbiyah Al-Islamiyah Kampung Baru Medan, who has allowed me to
conduct a research in his school.
9. Special Thanks to my beloved friends A2 2012 Hiskia Manurung S.S, M.Hum
Elvida Wahyuni, S.Pd., M.Hum, Marina Sari Rambe S.Pd. M.Hum, Carmelia
Ulina Samosir S.S, M.Hum, Khairunnisa Br Batubara S.Pd, M.Hum, Azizah
Husda, S.S, M.Hum, Mahya Humaira S.Pd.I, Dwi Maia Novitri S.Pd,
Ismayani S.Pd, Indri Harmaili Lubis S.Pd, Novi Dian Isra S.S, they all have
given me a cheerful and joyful world and beautiful togetherness.
10.The last, this Thesis is far from being perfect, but it is expected that this
Thesis will be useful not only for the researcher, but also the readers. For this
reason, constructive thought full suggestion and critics are well come to make
this Thesis better.
Finally, may Allah SWT receive all their works and kindnesses. Amin.
Medan, 11 Februari 2016
i ABSTRACT
MUHAMMAD MAHFUZ, 8126111022, Complex Sentences Acquisition Of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students At Raudhatul Athfal Tarbiyah Al-Islamiyah. A Thesis. English Applied Linguistics Study Program. Postgraduate School, State University of Medan. 2015
ii ABSTRACT
MUHAMMAD MAHFUZ, 8126111022 Complex Sentences Acquisition Of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students At Raudhatul Athfal Tarbiyah Al-Islamiyah. A Thesis. English Applied Linguistics Study Program. Postgraduate School, State University of Medan. 2015
iii
2.1.1 Factors that Influence Children Language Acquisition ... 10
2.1.2 Language Acquisition of 4-5 Year Old Children ... 12
2.2 Complex Sentence ... 13
2.2.1 Noun Clause ... 16
2.2.2 Relative Clause ... 18
2.2.3 Adverbial Clause ... 19
2.3 Social interaction and language acquisition ... 23
2.4 Social interaction and language ability ... 24
2.5 Kindergarten Student ... 26
2.5.1 The Meaning of Kindergarten ... 26
2.5.2 The Age and Characteristic of Kindergarten students ... 26
2.6 Relevant Study ... 28
3.5.3 Conclusion Drawing or Verification ... 35
3.6 The Trustworthiness of the Study ... 36
3.6.1.Transferability ... 36
3.6.2 Dependability ... 37
3.6.3 Confirmability ... 37
iv
CHAPTER IV ... 38
DATA ANALYSIS ... 38
4.1 Data Analysis ... 38
4.1.1 Types of Complex Sentences Produce by Five Years Old Kindergarten Students ... 39
4.1.2 Complex Sentences Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students in Their Social Interaction ... 69
4.1.2.1 Complex Sentences Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Student Using Coordinating Conjunction ... 69
4.1.2.2 Complex Sentences Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Student Using Subordinating Conjunction ... 72
4.1.3 The Reason of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students Complex Sentences production ... 75
4.1.3.1 Complex Sentence Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students to Express the Time ... 75
4.1.3.2 Complex Sentence Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students to Express the Cause & Effect ... 76
4.1.3.3 Complex Sentence Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students to Express the Condition ... 78
4.1.3.4 Complex Sentence Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students to Express the Purpose ... 80
v LIST OF TABLES
Pages Table 1. Complex Sentences Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students
With Noun Clause ... 41 Table 2. Complex Sentences Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students
With Relative Clause ... 45 Table 3. Complex Sentences Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students
With Adverbial Clause ... 52 Table 4. Complex Sentences Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students
With Adverbial Clause of Time …………. ... 52 Table 5 Complex Sentences Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students
With Adverbial Clause of Place ... 58 Table 6. Complex Sentences Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students
With Adverbial Clause of Cause and Effect ... 60 Table 7. Complex Sentences Production of Five Years Old Kindergarten Students
With Adverbial Clause of Manner ... 67 Table 8. Total of Complex Sentences Produce by Five Years Old
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background of Study
The study of children’s language acquisition is always interesting to be
investigated. There are still many puzzles of this children language acquisition
found by the researchers. It’s about how they acquire the very complex system of
language such as phonetics, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics which are related
to each other and interwoven in a single unity. It becomes a miracle for humans
and it makes a big question for the scientists. It is only a gift given by God or in
other words it is innate or it is acquired through processes which engage many
factors such as the children biological aspects, children’s learning and
environmental influences. All of these views are debated year by year since the
exact answers of this milestone have not been found yet.
Acquiring the language takes a very long process namely started from
babbling until he/she can use the language. It means that one needs several years
to acquire the language since he can use the language in his daily life. Babies are
not born with the ability of speaking. They acquire the language through a process
of acquiring, starting immediately from birth (Clark, 2003:1), this learning
process of course is not done as a formal way which is always conducted in the
class where the children learns any field of subject by the help of the teacher. It
means that the babies acquire the language with their own ability without the
2
Taylor (1990) said that there are three aspects that influenced children
language acquisition, there are: parents, environmental influences, and the child’s
biological aspects. These aspects have their own impact to the children language
acquisition.
In children’s language development, parents are children the first teacher
and family becomes the first teaching place (Huang, 2004). In line with this Olson
(1986) also said that mothers will give children the most input. From mothers’
speech, children can acquire the language gradually. This shows the importance of
mothers’ speech to their children’s language. In children language development,
mothers play the essential role. From their points the researcher can realize the
importance of mothers in children’s language acquisition.
Child who hear more variatif language and more complex language,
develop language more quickly. For example, Huttenlocker (2002) in his study
showed that four years old children whose parents produced a lot of complex
utterance containing more than one clause tended to be good at producing and
understanding sentences. In line with this, Carpenter and colleagues have found
that the type of interaction that parents engage in with their children has an effect
at the younger ages (Carpenter et al, 1998). More specifically, he found greater
language gains for young children whose parents engaged in a lot of joint
engagement activities with their children. Many studies report that children who
come from the graduated family tend to learn language earlier and faster than
3
Dealing with syntax acquisition, sentence is one topic that discussed in it,
and complex sentence is a subtopic of sentence beside simple sentence, compound
sentence, and compound complex sentence.
By the age of five years old, the children should be able to produce the
complex sentence as what Dardjowidjojo (2000) said that “sebagian besar kalimat
tunggal telah dikuasai anak sebelum umur 5,0 sehingga pada tahun kelima ini dia
hanya memoles saja atau memperbaiki kekeliruan di sana sini” most of simple
sentences have been mastered by the children before age of 5,0 year, so that in the
fifth year he just polish and fix the mistakes”.
Vygotsky (1979) stated that the social interaction plays a fundamental role
in development of cognition. Only when children interact with others in the social
environment, their inner development will start. Therefore, social interactions
become one certain part of children’s development. Also in Gleason’s (2005)
thought, he declared that conversation may be learned in early interactions, such
as taking turns and the way express. As a result, this long life process of
development was dependent on social interaction and that social learning actually
leads to cognitive development. Moreover, generally speaking, the children’s
social interaction is firstly occurred in the family. Thus at the beginning,
children’s language acquisition will take place with their parents. Parents will
become children’s first teacher (Hong, 2004).
In Raudhatul Athfal (RA) Tarbiyah Al-Islamiyah the students are comes
from a variety of backgrounds, parent’s educational background, economic
background, and social status background. And these backgrounds had a closely
4
their school society, although with their teacher and their peers. For example,
children who come from a different parent educational background also have a
different way in acquiring the language. In this school the students with graduated
parents from senior high school habitually communicating with their children in a
short way, for example: when the teacher asked a question “dimana tadi
sendalnya di letak, abang?” the student just answered with “disana.”it is
different the students with graduated parents from a university. When the teacher
asked with the same question, then the students answered “didepan mi, di tempat
sepatu”. Another example when the teaching learning process in progress the
teacher asked the student "abang ngerti yang ummi jelasin barusan?” The student
only answer with "ngerti mi” and it is also different with the other one, when the
teacher asked him with the same questions and the student answered "ngerti mi,
tapi cuma sikit"
Based on this phenomenon, the researcher interested to investigate the
complex sentence acquisition by five years old kindergarten students. This study
described the complex sentences acquisition of five years old kindergarten
students with difference social interaction in RA Tarbiyah Al-Islamiyah in order
to know how the children complex sentences acquisition in this stage.
1.2 The Problems of the Study
Based on the background of the study above, the problems were
formulated in questions as the following:
1. What types of complex sentences are produced by five years old
5
2. How complex sentences are produced by five years old Kindergarten
students in their social interaction?
3. Why do five years old kindergarten student complex sentences
produced the way they do?
1.3 The Objectives of the Study
In accordance with the problems of the study, the objectives of this
research were:
1. to describe what types of complex sentences are produced by five
years old Kindergarten students in their social interaction,
2. to explain how complex sentences are produced by five years old
Kindergarten students in their social interaction,
3. to reason why do five years old kindergarten student complex
sentences produce the way they do.
1.4. The Scope of the Study
The children language acquisition was covered by Phonetics, Morphology,
Pragmatics, Semantics, and Syntax. Sentence in one subtopic of syntax and there
were four types of sentence, they were: 1) Simple Sentence, 2) Compound
Sentence, 3) Complex Sentence, and 4) Compound-Complex Sentence. The
researcher conducted this study in the scope of mother tongue acquisition,
particularly the complex senten acquisition as one of the acquisition field in
6
kindergarten student in their daily school interaction to looking for their
naturalistic in speaking without intervention of their parents.
1.5 The Significance of the Study
Findings of the study were expected theoretically and practically to give
much contribution in the world of children language acquisition research.
1. Theoretically, this study became the basic of the further research for
researcher who also interested in investigating the same area with
different focus and object.
2. Practically, findings of this study became some sort of guidelines for
the teachers, adults, and particularly parents who directly touch this
area, in order to be able to guide their children in having good
88
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 CONCLUSIONS
Based on the findings in the previous chapter, it could be concluded that:
1. Five years old kindergarten students already produced noun clause,
relative clause, and adverbial clause as types of complex sentences
2. Five years old kindergarten students used a noun clause, relative
clause, and adverbial clause as subordinate clause or dependent
clause to modify or give more explanation about the main clause or
independent clause to produce complex sentences. And they also
used a coordinating conjunction and subordinating conjunction to
join the dependent clause to the independent clause, or they just used
an intonation to separate between dependent clause from independent
clause
3. Five years old kindergarten students produce the complex sentences
when they want to express or to show ssomething such as to express
89
5.2 SUGGESTIONS
Based on the conslusions above, the suggestions are gives to the
following:
1. To the teachers
The teachers who have directly involved to the social interaction and
teaching learning process at school are suggested to take into account
of some factors which put impacts on children’s language
development to improve the understanding of children’s outcomes
and problems. When the teachers have known everything about the
students characters, it will be easier for them to transfer or deliver the
lesson to children since each child or student probably comes from
different language input. This is possible that even the same language
used by teacher will not be understood the same by all students.
2. To other researchers
Other researchers to do further research about the same topic
concerning complex sentences acquisition of five years old
kindergarten students with larger numbers of subjects. Perhaps, there
88
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