The devalopment of children’s language

Introduction

The devalopment of children’s language is an interesting matter to discuss in phonology. We have already discussed clearly about LAD in our previous meeting. Here, we would like to take another object as matter of our discussion. Now, we try to use our previous discussion as one of source. We take some part in it and we try to analyse some distinction bwtween the development of western and Indonesian baby.

This article address for how to Western and Indonesian baby produce sound in the phonological processes. It also attaches some differences within the producing sound. In this case, actually we have to know it, why the processes are different. In previous discussion there are some aspects which do not be addressed yet that become our current discussion, such as, first Language Acquisition for Indonesian baby since we are not native speaker for English Language, so we never know how actually   the phonological processes develop for Western baby by comparing the processes and implementations between Western and Indonesian baby.

Hopfully it is able to support the deeper understanding about Language Acquisition of students.

Discussion

1.     Stage of development

There are some stage where the baby developes their language.

1.      Vegetative sound (0-2 months)

The sounds used in this stage are simply the natural sounds that babies make, e.g. crying, coughing, burping, and swallowing. These sounds have no real communicative significance as such: the baby cries reflexively (reflexive crying) because he or she is hungry or uncomfortable; the child burps because of wind, and so on.

2.      Cooing and laughter (2-5 months)

These vocalizations usually occur when the baby is comfortable and content. They are typically made up of vowel and consonant sounds.

3.       Vocal play (4-8 months)

At this stage the infant engages in longer and more continuous streams of either vowel or consonant sounds.

4.      Babbling (7-13 months)

This is the stage most commonly thought of as being associated with language development. Most parents will remember their child passing through this stage.

There is no significant difference between Western and Indonesian stage of development. The moments above also uccur for Indonesian baby since all babies in the world actually have the same processes. 

2.     Children’s Phonological Simplifying Processes

Young children have insufficient ability to co-ordinate the movement of their vocal apparatus. Therefore, they simplify the production of complex words. These simplifications are not random but predictable. Many phonological processes have been identified. This article considers structural simplifications such as reduplication, deletion, metathesis and cluster reduction, and systemic simplifications such as substitutions and assimilations.

Structural Simplification involves 3 alterations to the structure of a particular word, they are:

a)      Reduplication occurs whenever the initial CV syllable in multisyllabic word is repeated.

Example:

Western baby	Javanese baby
Bottle said as bobo. biscuit being said as bibi Water being said as wawa.	Dik kono said as nono Mrene said as nene

b)      Deletion occurs omit particular speech segments. There are two main speech segments that are typically deleted: (1) Consonant deletion occurs whenever a consonant in syllable-initial or syllable-final position is omitted.

Western baby	Indonesian baby
(Initial consonant deletion), e.g. cat becomes at, boat becomes oat or at the ends of words (final consonant deletion), e.g. lid becomes li, cup becomes cu.	mobil said as /bi/.

(2) Weak syllable deletion occurs whenever the unstressed or weak syllable of a multi-syllabic word is omitted.

Western baby	Indonesian baby
Banana may become nana; octopus may become ocpus.	-

c)      Cluster reduction occurs when one or more consonants in a cluster are omitted.

Western baby	Indonesian baby
. Plan (CCVC) becomes an (VC); mast (CVCC) becomes ma (CV). Plan (CCVC) may become pan (CVC) or lan (CVC); mast (CVCC) may become mas (CVC) or mat (CVC).	-

d)     Metathesis occurs when two consonants within a syllable are placed in a different order.

Western baby	Indonesian baby
Cup becomes puc; dog becomes god.	-

Here we can see some difference between implementation of phonologycal process for western baby and Indonesian baby. Structural simplyfication happens to all children whenever they are. On the another hand, Indonesian babies are unable to produce all categories in structural simplyfication, such as metathesis, cluster reduction, and in weak syllable deletion since Indonesian words includes Javanese do not have the same pattern as in English langiuage.

The common situatuation that happen in Indonesia are:

·         Reduplication such as, disana said as nana

·         Deletion such as, mobil said as bil

·         Tend to use the last syllable such as, sepeda said as da.

This happen based on Slobin oppinion that whereever children stay, they tend to pay attention to the last pattern of word. It happens regularly to Indonesian children then to western children since the pattern used in Indonesia has complex pattern or polysyllabic while the most words English language is monosyllabic. Here the children in Indonesia have to decide which syllable that will be produced then; they choose the last syllable based on reason above.

·         Deletion the front consonant such as:

Uyung artinya burung

Onyet artinya monyet

Ambu artinya jambu

Isang artinya pisang

Eyuk artinya jeruk

Systemic simplifications involves 2 alterations to the structure of a particular word, they are:

a)      Substitutions there are many different types of substitutions that can be made in typically developing speech. The following ways are how to operate the Phonological Processes:

-          Fronting occurs when any consonant that is made posterior to the alveolar ridge is substituted by another consonant that is made at or in front of the alveolar ridge.

Examples:

Western baby	Indonesian baby
goat may be said as doat cod being said as tod gun being said as dun	kuku being said tutu gajah being said dajah didi being said gigi

-          Backing occurs whenever a non-velar or non-glottal consonant (i.e. a bilabial, labio-dental, dental, alveolar, post-alveolar or palatal consonant) is substituted by a velar /k ɡ ŋ/ or glottal /h ʔ/consonant.

Examples:

Western baby	Indonesian baby
bun may be said as gun door being said as goor tar being said as car	duduk being said guguk tali being said kali (this example usually occurs in a baby using ‘dot’ in fairly long time)

-          Stopping occurs when continuant consonants (nasals, fricatives, affricates and approximants) are substituted with a stop consonant /p b t d k g ʔ/.

Examples:

Western baby	Indonesian baby
consider the word sock. The initial ‘s’ sound is sustainable, i.e. we are able to prolong this sound when we say it. Try it now by taking a deep breath and see how long we can say the single sound ‘ssss…’ It is evident that we can hold this sound for several seconds. But now try and sustain the sound‘t’ (as in the words tip and hot). We will see that this sound cannot be sustained.	‘t’ is plossive (actually it is the same with western) e.i. topi and sikat. ‘s’ is fricative (it is also the same with Western) e.i. satu.

b)     Assimilations occur when one speech segment is transformed into another owing to the influence of a neighbouing segment.

Why the first sound produced by baby is mama and papa?

There are some reasons to why the first sound produced by baby is mama and papa such as: from the aspect of one step of development process, and neorobiologis. There are also some different oppinion between the linguist and psicolog.

When we discuss about this case, it’s better for us to have a look to the one step of development language process, babbling. Here, children have produced different vowel and consonant like frikative and nasal. They begin to mix consonant and vowel. Babling begins with consonant and followed by vowel. It happens around 8 months, in this agethe pattern K-V being repeted such as:

K1 V1 K1 V1 K1 V1…papapa mamama bababa…

Then many linguists argue that mama and papa can not be indicated as the name called for the mother and father since it is the only part of children articulation.

            On the contrary, some spycolog argue that there some emotional involve to the baby because of the near dictance among them and because of them the exist of the baby is mediated. So, the baby wants that name to be said for the first time.

From neurobiology we get the key, reduplication of words.Baby’s brain give good respons to it. (Judit Gervain, University British-Columbia expert). He found trough his observation involve 22 babies. When some reduplication words given, babies temporal brain and frontal give reaction. On the contrary, when unreduplication words given, there is no any respon from any part of baby’s brain.

Then, it is clear enough why the words "mama" atau "papa", "tata", "dada", become the easier word to train children. This attemp also indicates that ability in knowing words which are reduplication is base ability of people brain.

Finaly, it happens to both children in Indonesia and western baby. They produces mama and papa pattern in their development language process.

Conclusion

What are the differences between Western and Indonesian phonological processes?

1. The structure of words

            1. Monosyllable           ><        polysyllable

                    English                            Indonesia

            2. English        : many structures pattern CCVC                                cluster reductrion

Indonesia    : not many CCVC are found in Indonesian word structure since most

                       Indonesian word structures pattern CVCV.

    Those differences has influenced significantly to the production of speech sound.

2. The different society between Western and Indonesian babies that exist in their environment inflicts the different process. That has been prooved by comparing the process of symplification both English and Indonesian baby.

Reference

-          Bowen, C. (1998). Developmental phonological disorders. A practical gide for families ang teachers. Melbourne: ACER Press.

-          Grunwell, P. (1997). Natural phonology. In M. Ball & Kent (Eds.), The new phonologies: Developments in clinical linguistics. San Diego: Singular Publishing Group, Inc.

-          www.superduperinc.com

-          CLINIC FOR CHILDREN

http://childrenclinic.wordpress.com/

-   Dardjowidjojo, Soenjono. Psikolinguistik: Pengantar Pemahaman Manusia. Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 2003.

-     Tarigan, Henry Guntur. Psikolinguistik. Bandung: Penerbit Angkas, 1986.

-     Mar’at, Samsunuwiyati. Psikolingustik: Suatu Pengantar. Bandung: PT Refika Aditama, 2005.