A case study on the Indonesian language description in the language acquisition of a two-year old child's utterances

Listiani, Shinta (2002) A case study on the Indonesian language description in the language acquisition of a two-year old child's utterances. Bachelor thesis, Petra Christian University.

Abstract

The writer of this research is curious to know the Indonesian language description of a two-year old child?s utterances, and intends to find out what kinds of functions that she produces, kinds of utterances, how the subject uses her utterances. The writer of this research uses the theory of Language acquisition, in this case language development by Brown (1973). To identify the functions of the utterances that are produced by the subject, the writer uses the theory from Halliday; while the theory by Tarigan is used for classifying the kinds of utterances produced by the subject of this research. To show the development of the pattern from two-word to three-word utterances of the subject, the writer uses the theory of semantic relation discussed by Purwo (1990). Since this research is a case study, the writer uses a qualitative approach, and it is considered as a descriptive study. While the data is taken from fourteen-day observation of a two-year old child. The result shows that the theory of language acquisition development by Brown and the functions of language by Halliday, are in line with the subject?s utterance development. According to Brown?s theory, the two-year old child produces one-word to two-word utterances as the dominant structure, but it is possible for the child to produce longer than two-word utterances. This process also happens in the subject?s utterances. Whereas the functions of utterances produced by the subject are instrumental, regulatory, interactions, heuristic, representational, and imaginative. Besides, the kinds of utterances produced by the subject are imperative, interrogative, negative, request, complains, greeting, call, and exclamation.

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