SLA "Baby Talk" Yulia Helwana (0713042053)

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) Assignment
(Baby Talk)

By :
Yulia Helwana
0713042053









Art and Language Department
English Education Study Program
Teacher Training and Education Faculty
2010

INTRODUCTION


Language is a means of communication. Language is taught to a person since she/he was a baby. Language that is learnt at the first time is called as the first language , native language or mother tongue. There is a distinction between language learning and language acquisition. Language learning is defined as knowing the rules, having a conscious knowledge about grammar. In the other hand, the term of language acquisition refers to a process of a development of ability in a language by using I in natural, communicative situation.
Language development is a process starting early in human life, when a person begins to acquire language by learning it as it is spoken and by mimicry (Jimmy Wales, Wiipedia). Children’s language development moves from simple to complex. Baby talk contributes to mental development, as it helps teach the child the basic function and structure of language. Usually, language starts off all recall of simple words without associated meaning, but as children grow, words acquire meaning, with connections between words being formed. As a person get older, new meaning and new associations are created and vocabulary increases as more words are learned. The children learn their first language without conscious instruction from parents or caretakers. They learn their first language through some developmental stages. Those stages later will be discussed in this paper.









DISCUSSION
This research was done to analyze the utterances when the child interact with adult. The data was taken from the interaction of a child named Alya Nadifa, with her mother . she is 2 years old and she is the first daughter of Mr. Mirwan Santoso and Mrs. Anastasia Santoso. They live in KH. Ghalib street No. 1 Pringsewu. Mr. Mirwan Santoso is a teacher of senior high school in Pringsewu. While Mrs. Anastasia Santoso teach at one of elementary school in Pringsewu.
The analysis will be based on some theories that are taken from the book entittled An Introduction to Second Language Acqusition and some other sources that related to analysis.

A. Theories
The stages of children’s language development are:
1. Telegraphic Speech
Telegraphic can be defined as the early speech of the children. This is because it lacks infections and many of the small ‘function word’, such as articles and prepositions. The earliest stage consists of one word utterances. For example :
 More page (asking an adult to continue reading).
 Sweater chair (Indicating where the sweater is).
It is clear that, because the utterances are reduce, the situation plays an important role in confeying the meaning. The result is the same twowords might convey very different meaning in different situations. For example, one child was heard to say mommy sock on two occasions, when picking up her mother’s sock and wher her mother dressed her. In the first instances, then the relationship between the two words was one possesion (as in ‘this mommy sock’), whereas in the second, it was one of the agent and object (as in ‘mommy is putting in my sock’). Even at this stage, we can see t5hat children use the lamguage creatively, since they use utterances, which they can never have actually heard. Nor it can be claimed that the utterances are simplyimperfect attempts to immitate what the child might have heard from adult.
Los Bloom (1970) found that sentence containing two nouns were used to express five kinds of relationship depended on their observation of the child in actual situaton:
1. Conjuncton (e.g. cup glass, c.f. cup and glass).
2. Description (e.g. party hat,c.f. a party hat).
3. Possesion (e.g. daddy hat, c.f. daddy’s hat).
4. Location (e.g. sweater chair, c.f. indicating where the sweater is).
5. Agent-object (e.g. mommy book, ex. ‘mommy is reading a book’).
Dan Slobin (1979) lokked at the communicative functions performed by two-word utterances in the speech of children acquiring six different languages. He found seven main type of function:
1. Location or naming (e.g.there book, buch da).
2. Demanding or desiring (e.g. mmore milk, mehr milch).
3. Negating (e.g. not hung ry kaffe nein).
4. Describing an event or situation (e.g. block fall, puppe kommt).
5. Indicating possesion (e.g.my shoe,mamas hut).
6. Describing aperson or a thing (e.g. pretty dress,milch heiss).
7. Questioning (e.g.where ball,woo ball).

2. The development of infction and function words
Telegraphic speech extends beyond the two-words stage. For example, as the child processing capacity grows, we find longer utterances, which are still telegraphic:
Andrew want that Canstand up table
At th same time,however, children are in the process of mastering inflections (such as the s, which belongs on want and stand in the above examples) and finctions words (such as the article a or the, which are omitted above). In the relevant studies, these small items are usually referred to as morphemes, eventhough in normal linguistic terminology, ‘morpheme’ is a much wider concept.
Brown (1973) studied hoe three children acquired furteen of these morphemes in their first langauge. He found that the fourteen morphemes were acquired in a sequence that are remarkablysimmilar for the three children. The odrer of the morpheme was:
1. Present progressive ing (as in she is running)
2. Preposition on
3. Preposition in
4. Plural s (as in two books)
5. Irregular fast form (as in she went)
6. Uncontractible copula (e.g. is i n yes, she is)
7. Possesive ‘s’ (as in daddy’ hat)
8. Articles a and the (which wee classified together)
9. Regular past end (as in she walked)
10. Regular thitd-personsingular s (as in she runs)
11. Irregular third-person-singular forms (e.g. she has)
12. Uncontestable auxiliary be (as in she was coming)
13. Contractible copula(as in she’stired)
14. Constractble auxiliary(as in he’scoming)

3. The development of ‘transformation’
At the same time as children are interesting their mastery of grammatical morphemes, they also increasing their ability to carry out’transformations’ on the sentece sructture, in order to produce more comllex utterances. The development of negatives has attracted paticular attention. For both of these structures, children seem to follow simmilar sequences of development as in the following:
1. At first, the negative is not part of the structure of the sentence. It is simply attached to the begining or end,as in:
No singing ong
No the sun shining
2. At the second stage of the development, the negative element is inserted into the sentence. Instead no or not, children may use don’t or can’t, but they don’t yet infect these for different persons or tenses:
I no want envelop
He no bite you
3. Children begin to produce the appropriate part of of do, be or the modalverbs,to suit the person or tense:
You don’t want some supper
Paul didn’t laugh
I am not a doctor
With introgatives too, children first produce sentences in whcih the internal structure of the sentences isnot effected. In ye/no questions, they first use intonation:
See hole?
You can’t fix it?
For wh-introgatives, the question word is at first simply placed in front of the sentence:
Where daddy going?
Why you caught it?
Later, children master the use ofi nversion with the auxiliary d, as in the adult system. The development of these transformations provide interesting evidence that gramaticaldevelopment is a partly a matter of growing “competence” (i the sence of underlying knowledge) and partly a matter of increasing ‘peformance’ capacity.
Ursula-Klima (1968) found found the following progression in the child ability to carry out more than one transformations in a single utterances:
1. At one stage, the childcan either invert subject and verb or purpose aquestion word, but donot do both. We thus find inversion in yes or noquestions (e.g. can he ride a truck?) but not in wh-question (e.g. where can i pu them?)
2. Later, the child is able to combine both operations, so that we find wh-questinin inversion (e.g. wh can he go out?). However, it may be still be beyond the childcpcity to carry out theree operations, so that the inversion may not take place if the sentence isalso negotiated (e.g. why hecan’t go out?).
3. Eventually, thislimitation goesand thechild is able to perfrm the three operation in the same utteranc preposeaquestion word, invert, negate (as inwhy he can’t go out?)

4. Later of development
It is clear that the limitation in the child performance become less restrictive and that he become able to operation of a more and more complexnature. As well as operation within a single clause, these include the joining of two ormoreclauses into acomplexsentence. There is evedence that is later development starts with causes used as object of the verb (e.g. I think it’sthewrong way). Some subbtle grammar distinction may be mastered much before age ten. Forexample, Jhon asked Bill to come and Jhon promised Bill to come (the person who expected to come is Bill in the first sentence, but Jhon in the second sentence).
5. The language environtment of the child
There have been a number of observational studies of the language adressed to small children by mothers, other adults or older children. These studies have showen that this so-called ‘caretaker speech’ has a number of characteristics which distinguish it from typical speech between adult. For example:
 It is generally spoken more slowly and distinctly.
 It contains shorter utterances.
 It is more grammatical, with fewer broken sentences or fals starts.
 It contains fewer compex sentences (e.g. with two clauses).
 There is less variety of tenses.
 The range of vocabulary is more limited.
 There is more repetition.
 The speech is more closely related to the ‘ here and now’.
Caretaker speech seems particularly suited to helping thecold to learn the rulesand meaning of the language. It is clearer toperceive and simpler in structure; the childhas time tobecome familiar with a limited range of language; and meaning is clarified by repetition. If this special kind of input is an important factor in the learning process, it may provide us with clues as to the kind of input that is more likely to facilitate second language learning.
Simplification could also make caretaker more suitable asamodel for imitation. However, the role of imitation in the acquisition process is not clear. It seems that when children imitate an utterance they have just heard, they usually change it so that it conform to the grammar (i.e. creative rules) that they themself arer operating at the time. Another aspect that needs to be taken into account is correction by the caretaker.

B. Trascription of Develoment Language acquisition in L1
 First participant is a mother
 Second participant i her daughter (Alya), she is 2 years old.

The Conversation as Follow:
(The setting is in the living room)
Mother : “y Allah, bawa apaitu sayang?”
Alya : “idon.. idon...”
Mother : “bukan spidol, itu namanya stabilo.”
Alya : “ini y mah?” (showing a correction pen/tip-x
Mother : “ini tip-X.”
Alya : “iya”
Moher : “ ini tip-X. Eeee.. kamu megangnya salah, kan udah mama ajarin cara megangnya.”
Alya : “di atas...”
Mother : “ ha?”
Alya : “di atas..”
Mother : “iya di atas berdiri, masa’ kayak gitu, coba puter.
Alya : “hmm??”
Mother : “diputer”.
Alya : “hmmm?
Mother : “dipindah..”
Alya : “hmmm?”
Mother :”iya megangnya gimana? Sikin aja bisa megang kok.”
Alya : “mana?”
Mother : “Megang pulpen Sikin. Sini, masa kebalik balik niujungnya, liat.. berdiriin dulu pulpennya, berdiri, pegang...naaa..
Alya : “hmm”
Mother : “wana apa itu?”
Alya : “warna itu”.
Mother : “apa?”
Alya : “warna olen”.
Mother : “warnanya itu warna olen. Waaahhh pinter.!!
Alya : “untuk apa ini mah? Untuk apa ini?”
Mother : “ooo... itu untuk ngehapus. Itu namanya tip-X. Alya dapat ini dari siapa?”
Alya : “hmmm”
Mother : “haa???”
Mother : “yang ini gimana ini? Gini?”
Mother : “diapain?”
Alya : “gini..”
Mother : “diapain?” ya udah Alya dulu yang nyoba.. gimana tadi megangnya? Salah megangnya...”
Alya : “euh.. ni eh..”
Mother : “diriin dulu”
Alya : “diriin du...”
Mother : “nah itu pinter”.
Alya : “ni?”
Mother : “bukan gitu,, dia ini dipencet... Seeeeettt...tu keluar kan? Udah dipencet aja dikit-dikit...”
Alya : “daaahh pencet..”
Mother : “ada.. udah keluar tu,, heeehh udah, nanti kena sarung maza. Jangan kenceng-kenceng. Ini ih bolong, ni ni kan udah putih ni. Ini kan buat ngapus ini.”
Alya : “ihhiii..”
Mother : “hhee”
Alya : “ma.. mana yang dipencet mana ma?”
Mother : “yang dipencet ya yang tengah”.
Alya : “ni?”
Mother : “tengah ini maksudnya”.
Alya : “hmmm”.
Mother : “megangnya, tu liat tangan Alya putihtu, putih kan? Duuh gak bisa ilang lho. Megangnya gimana sayang?”
Alya : “...........”
Mother : “sholat yuuukkk”.
Alya : “.............”
Mother : “sholat yuuukkk”
Alya : “minjem.. minjem.. minjem..dulu
Mother : “tutup tutup..bukan, bukan itu....”
Alya : “gimanain?
Mother : “ini yang putih tutupnya kesini.. ya tutup yang bener cobe.. bisa gak nutup?”
Alya : “hmmm, dipencet....”
Mother : “dipencet?”
Alya : “yang ini?

C. Analysis of Development Language Acquisition L1
The focus of this analysis is theutterances that are produced by the mother to the child.The aim of this analysis is to know how the adult speak to the children. Based on the conversation, the writer found some characteristics of mother speech to the children. Those characteristics are:
a). It is a shor sentence. For example: (wana apa itu?)
b). The syntax is simplified through use of fewer subordinate clauses and coordinate constructions.
c). The vocal pitch was higher and its range was wider. For example: (itu bukan spidol... ).
d). The speaking rate was slower, marked bymany pauses between utterances, but fewer dysfluencies within them. For example: (ini sta..bi..lo..).
e). The articulation was more precise, with more audible dictinctionsbetween voiced and voiceless consonant such as t and d. For example: (dipencet).
f). Phonologycal features were simplified, for instance in the use of tummy for stomach.
g). Attention to here and now, theuse of present tense verbs and reference to concrete items within the child’s view.
h). The use of self reference through kinship terms instead of pronuons such as ‘mommy is drawing a pictue’ and ‘whereis Sally’s ball?’ instead of ‘where is your ball?’ and so on.

In terms of more interactional perspective mother speechalso has the following features:
i). Mother’s repetition of their own words and those of their children. For example: (dipencet, iya dipencet..pencet..seeettt..).
j). Sometimes mother expanded what their children said by using additional commentary or adding grammatical inflection. For example: (when the child said “tengah pencet” the mother respond with, “ya yang dipencet yang tengah”.



CONCLUSION

Language that is learnt at the first time is called as the first language, native language, or mother tongue. The first stage of language development in the first language is telegraphic speech. Telegraphic speech can be defined as the early speech of the children. The are some characteristics ofmother speech to their children. Usually, the utterances that are priduced by the mother to theirchldren is using short sentences, higher and wider vocal picth, the speaking rate was slower and has many pausesbetween utterances, using more precise articulation with more audible distinctions berween voiced and voiceless consonants such as t and d , and there are more repetitions of their own words.