How an Indonesian child learns English  

Oleh:

Djonhar, Santi Chairani ; Rosihin

Jenis: Article from Proceeding
Dalam koleksi: KOLITA 16: Konferensi Linguistik Tahunan Atma Jaya Keenam Belas Tingkat Internasional, page 434-435.
Topik: acquisition; grammatical morphemes; syntactic constructions; exposure
Fulltext: 434-435 Santi Chairani Djonhar, Rosihin.pdf (237.42KB)

Isi artikel

Chomsky (1999) states that “ … language learning is not something that a child does; but it is something that happens to the child if he is placed in an appropriate environment. …” To prove this statement, I conducted a study on how an Indonesian young boy, named Reno (aged 4.1) acquires English through watching English cartoons on TV (Disney?s Junior). Data collection is based on naturalistic corpus, a quite large sample of his spontaneous speech. The data was collected at a regular basis (once a week) in one year through audio-recording. The data then was transcribed and analyzed to see the development of English. This study focuses on one major question, does Reno?s English learning adopt the universal principles of language acquisition, especially as they are applied to English? To be precise, first, how Reno develops and uses his English grammatical morphemes: the ending –ing, regular plural ending –s, possessive ending „s, third person singular present tense –s, copulas/auxiliary verbs: are are („re), am („m), is („s), regular past tense ending –ed, articles, a, an, the and how he constructs sentences starting from simple forms to the most complex ones: want-, negative-, interrogative-, passive-, clause-, conjoined-, and relative- constructions. This study shows that within one year, Reno?s development and uses of his English grammatical morphemes and syntactic constructions a relatively significant since in only one year, Reno could produce various linguistic elements and sentence constructions accordingly. The findings of this study, therefore, have proven that the acquisition of English in a foreign setting like Indonesia can be similar if not the same as that of English children. This boy, Reno, is a native Indonesian who learns English just by watching English cartoons; or he got exposure to the real use of English through cartoons (English films). The process of his English development follows the same path as that of English children. This is because there are liable universal principles apparently underlying this condition, namely, Universal Grammar (or Language Acquisition Device) in the child?s brain, critical period in learning language, and most of all sufficient exposure and opportunities to use English (language).

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