Endah Savitri Kusuma 0713042026 (BABY TALK)

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
(BABY TALK)




Arranged by:
Endah Savitri Kusuma
0713042026






SCHOOL OF EDUCATION AND PEDAGOGY
ARTS AND LANGUAGE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM
UNIVERSITY OF LAMPUNG
2010Baby Talk

According to Snow (1977) who investigated the properties of mothers’ speech to their children in first language acquisition study found that children heard fluent meaningful and coherent corpus of linguistic features which could be used as data for language learning. In this study mothers, speaking with their first born children, were found to modify the form and content of their speech in ways which were distinctive in kind or number. It can be seen in the following transcript of conversation between adult and the baby.

Baby        : Ata…
Grandmother    : Di Jakarta, iya?
Baby        : Iya, ta…
Grandmother    : Kapan ngambilnya di Jakarta?
Baby        : Apan
Grandmother    : Kapan ayah ngambil? Besok?
Baby        : etok
Grandmother    : Besok, warna bajunya, eh warna mobilnya apa? Biru?
Baby        : Iya, iru
Grandmother    : Oia, biru. Untuk oma ya mobilnya ya…
Baby        : Iya, Amo...
Grandmother    : ya, boleh gak untuk amo mobilnya?
Baby        : Amo
Grandmother    : iya, boleh gak?
Baby        : Amo, Apo
Grandmother    : untuk Apo juga mobilnya, boleh?
Baby        : Apo
Grandmother    : He eh, mobil ayahnya diambil apo boleh gak?
Baby        : Mobo, mobo…
Grandmother    : Mana mobonya?
Baby        : Ayah
Grandmother    : punya ayah ya, nanti kalo ayahnya dating bawa mobil, apo sama amo diajak ya…
Baby        : yo yo…
Grandmother    : Yo yo… ke KFC ya…
Mother        : Awas tu matanya ma… Ooo... kita pulang aja ya...
Baby        : toh toh...
Mother        : Ooo... tos
Baby        : amo
Mother        : Kiri kiri, kanan
Baby        : Eh... eh...
Mother        : Kiri kiri opa...
Baby        : Eh eh eh... akit.
Mother        : sakit?
Baby        : Atu
Aunt        : Ini siapa ini?
Baby        : Amo
Aunt        : Oma…
Baby        : Apo
Aunt        : Oma
Grandmother    : Udah biarin… dia kayaknya enaknya amo apo…
Mother        : Eh, kok diulangin lagi? Oh lagi kesel ama oma?
Baby        : Huah… huah…
Mother        : Gak boleh gitu sayang… eh, kita pulang ajalah kalo nakal pulang.
Baby        : heeee….
Mother        : Mau pulang? Mau mine papa mau pulang?
Baby        : Ayah...
Mother        : tempat ayah ? ayah lagi dikantor... mau minum susu gak ?
Baby        : cucu...
Mother        : Minum susu ya... susu kotak aja ya bunda ambilin…
Baby        : Yo yo…
Mother        : Susu botol apa kotak?
Baby        : Otak…

From the transcript above, Parent’s or adult’s language in the child’s language acquisition plays an important role. Regardless of one’s position is on the innateness of language, the speech that baby hear is primarily the speech heard in the home, and much of that speech is parental speech or the speech of older siblings. It will be remembered that baby will react very consistently to the deep structure and communicative function of language. The baby does not react overly to grammatical correction as in the “Kapan ayah ngambil? Besok?” dialogue as quote above. Such input is mostly ignored unless there is some truth or falsity which the baby can attend to. Therefore, if the baby says: ”Amo” and the adult says: “Oma”, the baby may readily correct himself and say “Maaa”. But, what the research shows is that in the long run, the baby will repeat models in meaningful contexts, eventually transfer correct forms to his own speech and therefore correct “amo” to “oma”.

In the conversation, there are some misunderstanding between adult and the baby. But, it can be done by understanding the context of conversation. The adult often repeat what the baby said and the baby always respond the adult in very simple words. The baby likes to respond the adult by repeating the last words that adult said before. For example:
Grandmother    : Besok, warna bajunya, eh warna mobilnya apa? Biru?
Baby        : Iya, iru
The baby’s word is still limited and very simple so, the adult should train the baby to talk more by asking the baby so the baby will respond the asking little by little.

Based on the analysis above, it is clear that the importance of the issue is the fact that,
-    Adult input to the baby is far more important than nativist might believe.
-    Adult input or speech seems to shape baby’s acquisition.
-    The interaction patterns between adult and baby change according to the increasing language skill of the baby.
-    Nurture and environment are tremendously important though it remains to be investigated just important adult input is as a proportion of total input.