CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
In order to communicate with others, people use language. They always share their ideas to the others. This also happens to the children under five years old. They use their first language to communicate with the people around them.
In the age under five years old, the children have mastered at least 200-300 words. After getting their first language acquisition, they try to talk to the others. However, what the children speak or utter always depends on what they needed or what they wanted. In the other words, it is all about them, about their ego.
The children under five years old will use their first language acquisition to get the attention of the people around them. They try to utter in the way that they know.
In order to convey the children meaning or intention, they also show an act in their speech. This is called as a speech act. Speech act is the things which people usually do while they are speaking. Speech acts also known as the minimal unit of speaking.
Besides showing the act of their speech, the children under five years old also use strategy in their speech. The following is the example of the speech of the children. The following conversation is the conversation between children in the age of three years old with his/her mother.
Ibu : Adek makan sayur ya…
Anak : Emoh, aku ngga mau makan sayur.
Mother : Adek, eat the vegetable, okay…
Child : No, I don’t want to eat it
The conversation above shows the illocutionary act of refusal. The child uses bald on record strategy to refuse his/her mother offering. The development of the use of speech act and strategy are related to the growth of the children and the children cognitive. The following example is the conversation of the children in the age of four with her/his mother.
Ibu : Adek makan sayur ya...
Anak : Bu, sayurnya ngga enak.
Mother : Adek, eat the vegetable, okay.
Child : Mom, the vegetable is not tasty
The conversation above shows that the child uses the indirect illocutionary act of refusal. S/he uses the off record strategy to respond her/his mother utterance.
According to the situation above, it can be seen that the four years old children use different communication strategy from the three years old children. The writer tries to analyze the speech act and strategy of the children under five years old.
B. Scope of the Study
There are a lot of ways in analyzing the children speech by looking at the pragmatics point of view. It can be the study of deixis, reference, presupposition, implicature, speech act, politeness, and the conversation structure.
In this thesis, the writer is focusing on the speech act and communication strategy in the children speech, especially the children in the age of 3-5 years old. Since, the writer tries to find out whether the age of those children can affected on their speech act and or not.
C. The Aims of the Study
This research aims:
1. to describe the types of speech act of the children speech.
2. to describe the communication strategy in children speech.
3. to describe the influence of age to the ability of those children in producing an utterance.
D. The Research Methods
The type of this research in this thesis is a descriptive qualitative research. This is as a result of the fact that linguistics research is aimed to get the pattern of the language itself. In descriptive, there does not always need a hypothesis. Descriptive research presents a broad range of activities that have in common purpose describing the situation or phenomena.
The object which is used in this thesis is the utterances of the children under five years old. The sources of the data are taken from the primary and secondary data. The primary data are a data which are collected directly from the object, which is the original data. Next, secondary data are a data which are collected first from other resources. It could be a document or notes. It can also be used as the supporting data of the primary one (Susilo, 2003:24).
The method of collecting the data applied in this study is simak method by Sudaryanto (1993: 133). The techniques which are used by the writer are listening and speaking. For listening, the writer listens to the conversation of the children with the people around them. Then, the writer records their conversation. For speaking, the writer takes note of the conversation which happens in children under five years old. It is done after the writer tries to involve herself to the conversation of the children under five years old.
To get the data, the writer needs population and sample. The population is the whole utterances of children which are found in children speech. Sample is used to get the research data for the research itself. As a result of the use of entire utterances which are found in children speech, the writer uses total sampling. The total sampling is used because the writer wants to get the valid data. The sample is also purposive because the writer uses all utterances which are appropriate to the theory (Susilo, 2003: 28-27). The method of analyzing the data which is used in this thesis is padan pragmatik methods.
E. Underlying Theory
The basic theory of this thesis is the psycholinguistics theory about the cognitive development of children. According to Lundsteen in Dardjowidjojo (1991: 99), the development of language is divided into three levels:
1. Pre linguistic level
Pre linguistics level occurs in the age of when the baby is born until the age of three months. In this level, the sound comes from the larynx. Then, in the age of three until twelve months, the children use their lips and palate more often.
2. Proto linguistics level
The proto linguistics level could be found in the twelve months until two years old children. The children start to say 200-300 words in this level.
3. Linguistics level
The linguistics level occurs in the age of two until six years old children. They can say at least three thousand words. By using the theory of cognitive development of children as the basic theory, this research also uses the theory about speech act which is taken from Searle (1996: 47). According to Searle (1996: 47) in Yule, speech act is the action performed via utterances. There are three kinds of act in a conversation.
They are locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. A locutionary act is an act of how we produce the utterance or to produce a meaningful linguistics expression. In every utterance, there must be a function in it. The function which is found in the utterances is called the illocutionary act. Perlocutionary act is the effect of the utterance to the listener.
The type of speech act that will be discussed in this thesis is the illocutionary act. Searle (1996: 53) in Yule mentions five type of illocutionary act. The first illocutionary act is declaration. Then, there is an illocutionary act named directive. The third illocutionary act is commisive. After that, there is expressive illocutionary act. The last illocutionary act is assertive.
Meanwhile, the means for determining illocutionary act comes from Vanderveken (1990: 125) mentions fives primitives illocutionary act. They are the illocutionary act of assertion, the illocutionary act of commisive, the illocutionary act of directive, the illocutionary act of declaration and the illocutionary act of expressive.
Then, in every speech, the speaker uses a strategy in conveying their meaning or intention or to produce the act. The following is a speech strategy by Brown and Levinson in Yule (1996: 66) Communication Strategy of Brown and Levinson in Yule (1996: 66)
F. Writing Organization
This thesis consists of five chapters, they are:
Chapter I: INTRODUCTION
It contains the background of this thesis, the scope of the study, the aims of conducting this research, the research methods, underlying theories, and the writing organization.
Chapter II: LITERARY REVIEW
This chapter explains the theories which are used in conducting this
research. How to get a pen from someone else Say Something Say nothing On record off record (I forgot my pen) Positives Politeness (How about letting me use your pen?) Bald on record (Give me a pen) Face saving act Negative politeness (Could you lend me a pen?)
Chapter III: RESEARCH METHODS
This chapter contains the types of this research, the data source, the method of collecting the data, population and sample, the method of analyzing the data, and the method of presenting the results.
Chapter IV: DATA ANALYSIS
It contains the analysis about the speech act of children under four years old and their speech strategy.
Chapter V CONCLUSION
It includes the conclusion of the analysis the children speech.
