FIRST LANGUAGE PHONOLOGY ACQUISITION BY A TWO-YEAR-OLD MANDAILING CHILD.

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FIRST LANGUAGE PHONOLOGY ACQUISITION BY A TWO – YEAR – OLD MANDAILING CHILD

A THESIS

Submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program as the Final Requirement for the Degree of Magister Humaniora

By:

WILDAN ISKANDAR Registration Number: 809112042

ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL

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FIRST LANGUAGE PHONOLOGY ACQUISITION BY A TWO – YEAR – OLD MANDAILING CHILD

A THESIS

Submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program as the Final Requirement for the Degree of Magister Humaniora

By:

WILDAN ISKANDAR Registration Number: 809112042

ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL

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ABSTRACT

Iskandar,Wildan. First Language Phonology Acquitision by A Two Years Old Mandailing Child. Thesis. English Applied Linguistics Post Graduated Program. State University of Medan. 2013

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ABSTRAK

Iskandar,Wildan. Bahasa Pertama Pemerolehan Fonologi oleh Anak Suku Mandailing Usia Dua Tahun. Tesis . Program Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris Pasca Sarjana. Universitas Negeri Medan. 2013

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The writer would like to thank to Almighty Allah, who granted countless blessings, knowledge and opportunities to finish this thesis.

On this special occasion, he would like to extend his sincere appreciation to Prof.Dr. Lince Sihombing, M.Pd., his first Adviser for her advice, valuable time in giving the encouragement, guidence, suggestions, and for information that has enabled him to write this thesis until it comes to its present form. He also would like to express his special gratitude to Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd., his second Adviser, for his outstanding supervision.

He is also grateful to Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd., the Head of English Applied Linguistics Study Program and Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S., the Secretary of English Applied Linguistics Study Program and all lecturers of the English Applied Linguistics Study Program for the valuable knowledge they have transferred to him. In particular, he would like to give his special thanks to his reviewers and examiners Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A, Ph.D., Dr. Eddy Setia, M.Ed., TESP., Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum., for their valuable inputs in the process of making this thesis in this present form

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He would like to express his sincere appreciation and love to his parents, Syahrul Hadi Lubis and Nisma Sari Nasution, for all of the memory, love, advice and bless which has helped his more to finish his study and his wife, Rika Sri Devi, S.Pd.i., for his fidelity, love, understanding and care without complaining for less attention given to her during finishing this study.

Medan 9 Januari 2014

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CHAPTER V CONCLUSSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1 Conclusions ... 75

5.2 Suggestions ... 76

REFERENCES ... 77

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LIST OF TABLES

Pages

Table 1. The Example of A Two Year Old Child’s Words ... 14

Table 2. Indonesian Language Consonants ... 24

Table 3. Indonesian Language Vowels ... 26

Table 4. The Process of Reduction Data ... 45

Table 5. Substitution Process-Stopping ... 48

Table 6. Substitution Process-Fronting ... 51

Table 7. Assimilatory Process-Voicing... 55

Table 8. Syllable Structure – Cluster Reduction ... 59

Table 9. Syllable Structure – Deletion of Final Consonant ... 63

Table 10. Syllable Structure – Deletion of Unstressed Syllable ... 64

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1The Background of the Study

A Child needs two years to acquire the language since he was born until he/she can use the language in his/her daily life. A child is born with having no knowledge about any single word. She or he acquires the language through a process of acquiring, starting immediately from birth (Clark, 2003:1). This acquiring process of course is not done as a formal way which is always conducted in the class where the baby learns any field of subject by the help of the teacher. It means that the child acquires the language with their own ability without the process of teaching.

A Childis an individual who spends most of his time for learning. Therefore a common statement in society told that childhood is a time when a child spends mostly with studying and observing everything new in his/her life. That learning session is a process of studying and structuring language in which they will need to interact with society around them. Learning for a child does not mean like learning at school but learning means the process of acquiring the language.

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surrounding and human being like mother, father, brother or sister. The child develops the way of how to talk by hearing and imitating the sounds of the surrounding people.

One of the experts of the language acquisition says that the language acquisition for all children all over the world is the same at each chronological age along the development of language (Kormos, 2006). It means that the acquisition of the language by the children normally have the same stages namely at the age of four months, the children starts crying, cooing, and chuckling. At the age of six to nine months, the children start babbling. At the age twelve to eighteen months is their early words, commands and responding to “no”. One can predict what

developmental features should be present. A fourteen-month-old child, for example, may utter /naena/ for banana, while the two-year-old child may say /baena/, and the three- year-old child may finally say banana. When children learn a first language, they could build on preexisting notions of what to represent with knowledge as well as prior notions of communications, or children start to learn the language from having no words at all till they can discover what is represented in language (Clark, 2003). It means that the language acquired by the children is done by their own selves and they can do it by the help of their surrounding environment.

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the social of interaction and cognitive development. Those factors could determine whether language learners follow the same path, detect and use the same patterns, and make the same inferences about meanings during acquisition, then how actually children get their language faculty especially on their phonological acquisition.

This is one of the examples of the phonology acquisition. A child wanted

to say the word “ikan”, he said [i:kaŋ] in stead of [i:kan] when he saw his mother

brought some fish after shopping while pointing the fish with his finger. This is one of the ways in which a child is trying to communicate with the environment surround. Yet the most interesting phenomenon here is, the phonology process underlying the word formation produced by child. It can be seen that a child‟s

speech/pronunciation is different from the one produced by adult. The word „ikan‟

which should be pronounced as [i:kan], somehow is changed by a child into [i:kaŋ]. The process of change in pronouncing [i:kan] becomes [i:kaŋ] is

interesting for the writer.

From this phenomenon, it can be known that a child seems to have their own words by simplifying the way of an adult in expressing a word, which they catch as the input of their phonology system, whenever they got a difficulty in pronouncing well the adult‟s word. Though child‟s word is different fromadult‟s,

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child is interesting to do. Thus, that kind of case is the main background for this study to be observed.

In order to do this study, a two-year-old child has been observed. For that purpose, an intended person for the subject of this study should be found. His name is Hafidz Al-Farisi Lubis, he is a Mandailingnese. A two-year-old Mandailing child is decided to be observed and investigated since there is an overview states that most children begin to produce recognizable words at the same points in the second year.

Second year in children language development is considered as a phase where their ability in producing words and sounds grows rapidly overlapping their first years. Furthermore this study has revealed the process of phonological acquisition which occurred in a Mandailing child who is entering second year of his life. Through this study the writer has tried to find the vocabularies of a two years old child whether at the age of two, he acquires nouns, adjectives, verbs or adverbs, the vocabularies which are acquired by him also be determined which word class is the more dominantly produced.

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learning and developing their language. And what makes the researcher chose Hafidz Al-Farisi is since he is one of the son of the writer‟sbrother, it is believed that the observation and investigation much more accurate and easier. In addition, Hafidz Al-Farisi Lubis is familiar with the writer therefore he has not be shy to speak out by the time he is being observed. That is one of the reason why the writerinterests to do this research, besides he is very keen on the phonological production of child and he loves children so much and wonder of how they could speak.

This study used one of the theory of first language acquisition which covers also children‟s language development especially phonological acquisition in analyzing the case. For the appropriate theory, the study used the theory that is delivered by Ingram (1989) who describes about the phonological processoccurs in child. He sees that this process as consisting of a universal set of hierarchically ordered procedures used by children to simplify speech (Fletcher and Garman, 1986). In other book, Ingram also stated that children acquire phonological system of adult by creating their own structure, and later on change it if their knowledge about adult‟s phonological system is getting better (Chaer, 2003).

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where and how actually sounds are produced in human‟s speech organs

(Ladefoged, 1975).

This study is aimed at find it whether there is a chance to apply the theory of Ingram to the process of phonological acquisition of a two year old Mandailing child, what sound or phoneme are acquired andhow the processes of phonology is in a two-year-old Mandailing child.

Chomsky in (Dardjowidjojo, 2000)stated that language is actually not a process which is done by the children, yet happens to them. Still on the same book, He said that human being has a, what he called, Faculties of the Mind. It is spaces of abstract intelligent within the mind of human being. And one of those spaces is allocated for the using and acquiring of language. Thus, by analyzing and moreover understanding the phonological process occurred in a two-year-old Mandailing child, It is expected that people will have description inside their mind about how child‟s speech is formed.

1.2The Problems of the Study

In relation to the background of this study, the problems of this study are formulated as follows.

1) What phones are acquired by a two years old Mandailing child?

2) How does a two years old Mandailing child acquire the phonology production?

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1.3 The Objectives of the Study

In relation to the above problems, the objectives of the study are formulated as follows.

1 To find out phones are acquired by a two yearsoldMandailing child.

2 To describe how a two years old Mandailing child acquires the phonology production?.

3 To describe the phonology productions of the words acquired by a two years old Mandailing child.

1.4 The Scope of the Study

This study attempts to investigate the phonology production of the first language by a two-year-old Mandailing child. The aspects that has been observed in this study are the words‟ production of the child, the way the child acquires the words of the first language and to describe the phonology production. But the main aspect that has been observed in this study is the phonology production of the first language he acquires.

1.5 The Significances of the Study

The findings of the study are expected to be significantly relevant to theoretical and practical aspects.

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information about language acquisition by a two-year-old Mandailing child when he/she utters the language in the situation especially about the first language phonological production of a child. Consequently, it given a better understanding and a new insight on how language acquisition is related to the aspect of language acquisition study. This contribution given tentative framework for a comprehensive analysis of language acquisition by a two-year-old Mandailing child.

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1 Conclusions

1) A two years old Mandailing child acquired and mastered some aspects of phonology such as noun, verb, adverb and adjective and mostly covered noun. It happened because naturally, a child at the age of two-year-old mostly cover the acquisition of language from its surrounding environment.

2) A two years old Mandailing child acquired the language by interacting with surrounding environment mostly consist of things whether it is living things or dead things, and in expressing the language in his daily life, the child hardly used body language or gesture, he used it in a certain time in order to help him deliver the meaning of what he is about to speak to his co-speaker.

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5.2 Suggestions

In relations to the conclusions, suggestions are offered as the following; 1. Parents need to know the way of children acquire the language and

masters some aspects of phonology, in order to help them managing their utterances during having interaction with their children since children need a very perfect model of language use.

2. Other researchers who want to conduct futher research to know more about the language acquisition on child and it not going to be only limited on a two-year child but also to the child at different age in order to enrich the knowledge of language acquisition in general and language production in specific.

3. Playgroup’s teachers should learn how the way childreen acquire the

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FIRST LANGUAGE PHONOLOGY ACQUISITION BY A TWO-YEAR-OLD MANDAILING CHILD.