TANGZILAL IMAM MA'RUF (0853042039)

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (SLA)

MIDDLE SEMESTER TASK

BABY TALK

TANGZILAL IMAM MA’RUF

0853042039

ENGLISH DEPARTEMENT

LANGUAGE AND ART DEPARTEMENT

EDUCATION AND PEDAGOGY FACULTY

LAMPUNG UNIVERSITY

2012

I. 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.

While babies usually learn the sounds and vocabulary of their native language through imitation, grammar is seldom taught to them explicitly; that they nonetheless rapidly acquire the ability to speak grammatically supports the theory advanced by Noam Chomsky and other proponents of transformational grammar.

II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Brown (1980:17) says that every one of us has witnessed the remarkable ability of children to communicate. A small babies, children babble coo and cry and vocally or non vocally send an extraordinary number of messages and receive more massages. As they reach the end of their first year, specific attempts are made to imitate words and speech sounds heard around them. And about this time, they utter their first “words”. At around 18 months of age, these words have multiplied significantly and are beginning to appear in combination with each other to form two-word and three-word “ sentences” which are usually called as “telegraphic” utterances –such as “all gone milk,” bye-bye daddy.” Gimme toy,” and so forth.

Children are known as “good imitators”( Brown,1980). Two types of imitation behaviorist assume one type of imitation that is surface structure imitations, where a child repeats or mimics the surface string, attending to a phonological code rather than a semantic code. It is the level of imitation that enables an adult to repeat random numbers or nonsense syllables or to mimic unknown languages. According to Brown (1980) the earliest stages of child language acquisition may manifest a great deal of surface imitation, because the baby may not posses the necessary semantic categories to assign “meaning “to utterances. But as the child perceives the importance of the semantic level language, he attends primarily to the meaningful semantic level,i.e the deep structure of language. in fact the imitation of the deep structure of language can literally block his attention to the surface structure, therefore on the surface structure, he becomes poor imitator. Let’s have a look at the following conversation:

Baby talk is more effective than regular speech in getting an infant's attention. Studies have shown that infants actually prefer to listen to this type of speech. Some researchers, including Rima Shore (1997), believe that baby talk is an important part of the emotional bonding process between the parents and their child that help the baby learn the language. More than one language can also be learned because eventually, the baby will be clever enough to differentiate the languages. It is easier to learn languages as an infant than as an adult.

Other researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Wisconsin confirm that using basic “baby talk” helps babies pick up words faster than usual. Babies actually pay more attention when parents use infant-directed language, which has a slower and more repetitive tone than used in regular conversation.

Based on Pica, the characteristics of baby talk are summarized below:

1. It has shorter, more complete sentence.
2. The syntax is simplified through use of fewer subordinate clauses and coordinates construction.
3. The vocal pitch was higher and its range was wider.
4. The speaking rate was slower, marked by many pauses between utterances
5. The articulation was more precise.
6. Attention to the here and now.
7. The use of self reference.

Based on the theories above, this research is proposed in order to identify how adults communicate with a baby by using baby talk.

III. DATA COLLECTING TECHNIQUE

The data in the form of video was recorded on Saturday, April 21^st, 2012. The baby’s name is Quanesha Atahiya Fadaniya whose nickname is Nesha. She is a first daughter of a married couple Farid, S.E and kurni Wijayati, A.Md. She is 2 years old. This video was recorded in my grandma’s house when Nesha was playing with her doll. Let us see the following video below:

The transcript from video above is:

Ma’ruf : “Itu tisu buat ngelap ingus Nesha. Nesha pilek ya?”

Nesha  : “ehmm, e..e...”

Ma’ruf : “ iya?”

Nesha  : “uhuk-uhuk” (coughing)

Ma’ruf : “ko batuk?”

Nesha  : “he...e...”

Ma’ruf : “Nesha kemaren jalan-jalan ya?”

Nesha  : “Jallaan...”

Ma’ruf :  “Jalan-jalannya ke mana?”

Nesha  : “Jallaannya pagiyy..”

Ma’ruf : “Jalannya pagi? Iya ke mana jalan-jalannya?”

Nesha  : “he..e.. ke laut”

Ma’ruf : “ke laut?”

Nesha  : “e...e...”

Ma’ruf : “Jalan-jalannya sama siapa?”

Nesha  : “Cama papi, cama kaka Kaila”

Ma’ruf : “Terus sama siapa lagi?”

Nesha  : “Cama papi, cama bunda”

Ma’ruf : “Sama siapa lagi?”

Nesha  : “Cama mamah, cama bunda”

Ma’ruf : “Sama papi, mamah, bunda, terus sama siapa lagi?”

Nesha  : “Cama papah Neica”

Ma’ruf : “Sama uni? Uni siapa? Uni Kai.....?”

Nesha  : “La..”

Ma’ruf : “Sama uni kaila juga di sana?

Nesha  : “Terus Nesha di sana maenan apa?”

Ma’ruf : “Maenan apa?”

Nesha  : “Maenan cama ka kaila.”

Ma’ruf : “Maenan sama siapa? Ka Kaila?”

Nesha  : “he...e..”

Ma’ruf : “Oo... maennya sama kak Kaila. Seneng gak Nesha?”

Nesha  : “Ceneng”

Ma’ruf : “Seneng? Seneng di sana?”

Nesha  : “Ceneng”

Ma’ruf : “Seneng, gitu!”

Nesha  : “Seneng”

Ma’ruf : “Nesha kemaren berobat ke dokter gak?

Nesha  : “Egak”

Ma’ruf : “Ko enggak?”

Nesha  : “Mo dicuntik”

Ma’ruf : “Mau disuntik?”

Nesha  : “i..yah...”

Ma’ruf : “Terus Nesha berani gak?”

Nesha  : “bani la...”

Ma’ruf : “Berani? Nesha nya berani disuntik?”

Nesha  : “he..e..”

Ma’ruf : “Terus Nesha nya disuntik gak?”

Nesha  : “dicuntik laaa”

Ma’ruf : “Disuntik? Disuntik di manyanya?”

Nesha  : “Di dalem laaa”

Ma’ruf : “Dimana geh di dalemnya?”

Nesha  : “Di dalem kemer”

Ma’ruf : “Di mana?”

Nesha  : “Di dalem kekemer”

Ma’ruf : “Di dalem kamar?”

Nesha  : “I.....ya....”

Ma’ruf : “Kamar!”

Nesha  : “Kamar!”

Ma’ruf : “Nah gitu ya, bukan kemer, tapi kamar!”

Nesha  : “Kamar!”

Ma’ruf : “Gitu geh... pinter.”

IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

It is true that when the adults talk to a baby, they automatically use different kinds of language variation which is called by baby talk. The adults modify their way of speaking when they are talking to the baby. It is universal, for every adult in the world will do the same to their own baby. From the conversation in the transcript in chapter III, it can be analyzed the input modification of the adult speaker (Ma’ruf) that is used to simplify the language in order to be easily comprehended by the baby, Nesha. Modification by the speaker occurs at the level of linguistic and interaction. There are three kinds of modification that are used in this research some of the characteristics of how the adult, Ma’ruf, talk to a baby, Nesha; such as:

1. Modification in speech rate, intonation and speech sound articulation.

It means that the adults try to simplify the language in speech rate, intonation and speech sound articulation in order to build well communication with the baby.
From the video, it can be seen that the adults use slow speech rate, low intonation and clear articulation, for example when Ma’ruf said, “Sama Kakak siapa? Kakak Kai… Kakak Kaila.” Those all are done in order to make the baby, Nesha easy to catch the idea of what the adults talk about.

2. Modification of morphology and syntax.

This modification of language simplifies the sentences in the part of word formation. From the video, it can be seen that the adults try to form simple construction of words that will be easy to understand by Nesha, to catch the meaning of the conversation, for example when Ma’ruf said, “Ke’ mana, ceritain?”, which can be said fully, “Bagaimana jalan-jalan Neisha kemarin? Coba ceritakan?”

3. Modification in vocabulary.

It means that the adults use the familiar vocabulary to communicate with the baby. From the video, it can be seen that the adults use a simple word that has been simplified by removing some letter from the word, for example when Ma’ruf said, “Sama siapa perginya?”, which should be said “Dengan siapa Nesha pergi ?”

In terms of more interactional perspective mother speech, there are some following features:

1. Mother’s repetition of their own words and those of their children, for example when Ma’ruf said: “Seneng gak Neisha? Seneng?” He did that in order to make Nesha understand what she was saying easily.
2. Sometimes mother expanded what their children said by using additional commentary or adding grammatical inflection, for example when Nesha answered what Ma’ruf asked by saying, “Kakak Kai.......”, then Ma’ruf repeated completely by saying, “Kakak Kaila”.

Based on the analysis above, it can be concluded that in interacting with a baby (in this case two years old), adults use short and simple terms to communicate with a baby, Nesha, in order to make her understand easily. The adult also should get the baby attention when they want to talk to her. Besides that, the adults can encourage the baby to talk by asking open-ended questions, which require more than “yes” or “no” answers. The last the adults have to use input modification & some characteristics which have been explained above, which is about 90 % of the characteristics summarized by Pica can be found in the transcript and video. It was done naturally by the adults, Ma’ruf, when speak to a baby, Nesha, in order to help her easier to understand what they mean.