MINI RESEARCH

( The Acquisition of First Language Vocabulary: A Case Study of Two Years Old )

Course: Second Language Acquisition

Lecturer
Dr. Fahriany, M. Pd.

Written by:

Rohmatul Jannah

21180140000026

MASTER OF ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES

UIN SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH JAKARTA

2018
 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Humans born have an innate tool which is very important and sophisticated called
the Language Acquisition Device (LAD). This default device allows humans are acquiring
language since birth. In other words, human beings will be able to speak inexorably not to
obtain expression. It may imply that language acquisition in humans in the process is
natural and unintentional. As expressed by Chomsky that humans from birth will learn the
language by itself. Chomsky (2004) in Da Cruz (2015: 6) argues that children's ability to
learn the language is due to a genetically programmed organ located in the brain. Once
children are born and are involved in linguistic environments, they immediately start to
develop a language.
The first language acquisition process for each individual. This happens because of
the factors of parents and people around them. When children talk and train Paul (1996: 1)
is one of the most important domains in science, but it is not a coherent field of study. This
is caused by every aspect of language that has unique characteristics and it is not possible
for only one theory to capture the entire learning process. There are three estimates put
forward by Brown (2000) who discuss the theory of first language acquisition (B1),
namely discussing behavoristic, nativis approaches, and functional access.
Brown (2005: 22) says that a discussion of relationships can be carried out on
aspects that can be taken directly from linguistic policies that can discuss the relationships
and interactions between those responses and the discussions in the world associated with
them. A person who is willing to look at effective language as a manifestation of the right
response to the stimulus. If certain responses are stimulated repeatedly and become
habitual or conditioned, children produce linguistic responses that are indeed conditioned.
Review behavioral policies that focus on existing presence. Hopefully, if children are not
cared for or drilled in English, then check English very quickly and not well repeated. The
listening activity that takes place in the child is seen as a response to the stimulus.
In connection with the development of language needs, it is needed to realize that
humans need to improve language skills. Human language skills can be enhanced in two
ways, namely acquisition and learning. The acquisition is the process to get a language
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without deliberate action (unknowingly), usually unstructured, taking place in society,
informal, referring to the demands of communicating and have social consequences
(related to the community or neighborhood). That will be different from learning. Learning
is the process of getting a language which is deliberate, structured, formal, competency as
a significant capital, took place in the class, referring to the educational demands, and the
knowledge.
This study will focus on language acquisition in a two years girl who becomes the
object of observation. However, the understanding of language acquisition and learning,
then what factors associated with language acquisition are regarded to be necessary to
explain.
Based on the facts that exist, the researcher will analyze the acquisition of
language in the observed object, and the factors that influence the process of mastering the
first language for the observed objectives are discussed.
B. Research Question
To investigate the acquisition process that participants learn first language, the
formulation of research questions is listed below:
a. How is the process of acquiring a first language of two years old?
b. How does he produce words as a first language of two years old?
C. The Objective of the Study
The study is done to find the empirical evidence whether or not there is an to
investigate a learner's first language acquisition development on processing, word
production, and understanding if there is a step in English word production.
D. Significances of the Study
This study is supposed to give an advantage in providing information and
expanding theory in a field of word production. For the writer, it is hoped that this study
can give new informations to the writer how to increase the child’s vocabulary.
Consequently, it assumed that the result of the survey could enrich the source the word
creation and attribute as a layout for the next review.

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 CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter covers some theories related to the study. The discussion focused on
Vocabulary in a oral presentation.
A. Language Acquisition
First language acquisition refers to the way children learn their native language.
Second language acquisition refers to the learning of another language or languages
besides the native language.
For children learning their native language, linguistic competence develops in
stages, from babbling to one word to two word, then telegraphic speech. Babbling is now
considered the earliest form of language acquisition because infants will produce sounds
based on what language input they receive. One word sentences (holophrastic speech) are
generally monosyllabic in consonant-vowel clusters. During two word stage, there are no
syntactic or morphological markers, no inflections for plural or past tense, and pronouns
are rare, but the intonation contour extends over the whole utterance. Telegraphic speech
lacks function words and only carries the open class content words, so that the sentences
sound like a telegram.
The three theories of language acquisition: imitation, reinforcement and analogy,
do not explain very well how children acquire language. Imitation does not work because
children produce sentences never heard before, such as "cat stand up table." Even when
they try to imitate adult speech, children cannot generate the same sentences because of
their limited grammar. And children who are unable to speak still learn and understand the
language, so that when they overcome their speech impairment they immediately begin
speaking the language. Reinforcement also does not work because it actually seldomly
occurs and when it does, the reinforcement is correcting pronunciation or truthfulness, and
not grammar. A sentence such as "apples are purple" would be corrected more often
because it is not true, as compared to a sentence such as "apples is red" regardless of the
grammar. Analogy also cannot explain language acquisition. Analogy involves the
formation of sentences or phrases by using other sentences as samples. If a child hears the
sentence, "I painted a red barn," he can say, by analogy, "I painted a blue barn." Yet if he

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hears the sentence, "I painted a barn red," he cannot say "I saw a barn red." The analogy
did not work this time, and this is not a sentence of English.
Acquisitions
The "Innateness Hypothesis" of child language acquisition, proposed by Noam
Chomsky, states that the human species is pre-wired to acquire language, and that the kind
of language is also determined. Many factors have led to this hypothesis such as the ease
and rapidity of language acquisition despite impoverished input as well as the uniformity
of languages. All children will learn a language, and children will also learn more than one
language if they are exposed to it. Children follow the same general stages when learning a
language, although the linguistic input is widely varied.
The poverty of the stimulus states that children seem to learn or know the aspects
of grammar for which they receive no information. In addition, children do not produce
sentences that could not be sentences in some human language. The principles of Universal
Grammar underlie the specific grammars of all languages and determine the class of
languages that can be acquired unconsciously without instruction. It is the genetically
determined faculty of the left hemisphere, and there is little doubt that the brain is specially
equipped for acquisition of human language.
The "Critical Age Hypothesis" suggests that there is a critical age for language
acquisition without the need for special teaching or learning. During this critical period,
language learning proceeds quickly and easily. After this period, the acquisition of
grammar is difficult, and for some people, never fully achieved. Cases of children reared in
social isolation have been used for testing the critical age hypothesis. None of the children
who had little human contact were able to speak any language once reintroduced into
society. Even the children who received linguistic input after being reintroduced to society
were unable to fully develop language skills. These cases of isolated children, and of deaf
children, show that humans cannot fully acquire any language to which they are exposed
unless they are within the critical age. Beyond this age, humans are unable to acquire much
of syntax and inflectional morphology. At least for humans, this critical age does not
pertain to all of language, but to specific parts of the grammar.
B. Second Language Acquisition
What people think when they hear the phrase second language acquisition. Most of
them think that Second Language Acquisition means a foreign language or the experience
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they had as school students when they are angaged in the study of one or more foreign
languages. Second Language Acquisition, however, occurs in other forms in schools today
for example bilingual program. Another form of second language acquistion in an
educational context is the immersion programs which is popular in Canada and certain
parts of the United States. In these programs, native-English speaking children receive all
of their initial instruction in a second language. After the early grades, more and more
content courses are taught in their native language.
There are many reasons to study SLA as there are many places where second
languages are acquired and used. Fist of all, the study of SLA is fascinating in its own
right. Understanding it requires drawing upon knowledge of psychology, linguistics,
sociology, anthropology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistic, and neurolinguistics. Then, the
most obvious beneficiary of an increased understanding of SLA is the second language
teaching profession, and through the teachers, the learners themselves, indeed, many
researchers have been attracted to SLA research as a source of insight into the
teaching/learning proccess. As Corder (2007, p.7) puts it, `Efficient language teaching
must work with, rather than against, natural proccess, facilitate and expendite rather than
impede learning. `This can happen best when we know what those natural processes are.
People have been interested in second language acquisition since antiquity, hut in
modern times much of the reasearch emphasis was placed on language teaching. Large
comparative studies of language teaching methods were conducted. By the assumtion that
if language teaching methods could be made more efficient, then learning would naturally
be more effective.
Focusing research efforts on the learner and learning process has not meant ignoring the
effect of instruction on SLA. On the contrary, one of the fundamental goals of SLA
research is to facilatate and expedite the SLA research and appropriate instruction will
make a contribution indeed, there is a group SLA researchers whose special interest is in
conducting classroom-centered research. Having said this, the scope of research has broad-
ended. In fact, much of the research these past twenty years has been conducted on SLA in
a natural environtment.
A second language is one being acquired in an environtment in which the language is
spoken natively. For example, a Spaniard acquiring English in England would be acquiring
it as a second language. If he or she were studying English in a classroom in Spain.i.e.
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outside the environtment where the second language is spoken natively, he or she would be
acquiring it as a foreign language. In which environtment the acquisition takes place is
often related to the first variables, whether it takes place in a classroom or not, since
foreign languages usually require instruction whereas second languages can often be`
picked up` from the environtment. In second language acquisition field, however in this
book, we refer to both as instances of second language acquisition, taking up the differntial
effects of the two setting in. The scope of SLA Research must be to include A variety of
subject who speak a variety of native languages, who are in the process of acquiring a
variety of second languages in a variety of settings for a variety of reasons.
C. Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition and Learning

Vocabulary is the basic unit of language. Without grammar, very little can be conveyed,
without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed. Vocabulary can be defined as ‘’words we
must know to communicate effectively; words in speaking (expressive vocabulary)
and words in listening (receptive vocabulary)’’. The acquisition of an adequate vocabulary
is essential for successful second language use because without an extensive vocabulary,
we will be unable to use the structures and functions we may have learned for
comprehensible communication. In applying the linguistic theory to second language
acquisition, Gregg argues that in characterizing second language knowledge, as in
characterizing primary language knowledge, it is necessary to differentiate between
competence and performance.
A competence-based approach based on Chomsky perspective to SLA would
therefore advocate the development of linguistic or grammatical competence as to be the
central domain of second language learning. Gregg goes along with this view and states,
“As have often been pointed out, acquisition of language involves more than the
acquisition of rules for the production of utterances. It involves the acquisition of
knowledge, including knowledge that will never find expression in output: knowledge of
ambiguity, anaphoric relations, possible versus impossible interpretations of sentences,
possible versus impossible sentences, and so forth. It is this knowledge, acquired or innate,
that I believe should be viewed as the domain of SLA theory” From a more
psycholinguistic perspective, Bialystok proposes a processing model which attempts to
explain the distinction between the second language learner’s knowledge of a second

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language and his ability to use that language. In the final development of his model,
Bialystok argues that knowing a second language involves two distinct components: “the
mental representation of systematic, organized information about the target language and
the procedures for effectively and efficiently retrieving that knowledge in appropriate
situations”. Because these components are so distinct, according to Bialystok, the learning
of each may be independent, except that a structure must be represented mentally before it
can be used.
In as far as the retrieval procedures of her model, Bialystok states that there can be
a difference among the learners in ‘efficiency’, referred to as ‘automaticity’ which is seen
as the basis for fluency. Because fluency is distinct from and independent of knowledge, a
language learner may be accurate and hesitant, accurate and fluent, or inaccurate and
fluent. In applying the information processing theory of cognition and memory proposed
by Anderson, O’Malley et al highlight Anderson’s distinction of ‘declarative knowledge’
(what we know about or static information in memory) and ‘procedural knowledge’ (what
we know how to do or dynamic information in memory).
According to Anderson’s theory, declarative knowledge includes examples of
things we know about including definitions of words, facts and rules, and this type of
knowledge is represented in long-term memory as abstract meaning. In applying this type
of knowledge to SLA, information in either the L I or L2 has a meaning-based
representation and would be stored as declarative knowledge through either propositional
networks or schema. This is factual and rule-bound information and the way it is organized
in memory may have a substantial effect on the L2 learner’s ability to transfer it effectively
and accurately into the new language.In English as a second language (ESL), learning
vocabulary items plays a vital role in all language skills (i.e. listening, speaking, reading,
and writing.
With economic globalization and multipolarization of the world, English becomes
more and more important, because it is considered as the tool for absorbing and
communicating information. Recent research indicate that teaching vocabulary may be
problematic because many teachers are not confident about best practice in vocabulary
teaching and at times do not know where to begin to form an instructional emphasis on
word learning.

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 English language is, needless to say, the language of instruction in Ghanaian
schools, colleges and universities. It is also the language of all formal professions in
Ghana. In Ghanaian schools all subjects such as mathematics, science, social studies
(history, geography and civics), art, and information and communication technology are
taught and learned through the medium of English. Yet English language is a second
language to a vast majority of Ghanaian students regardless of their stage in the education
ladder. The stark fact is that English language is not the language that parents or relatives
spoke to those students at home; nor it is the language spoken to them in the larger network
of communities in which they were socialized during their infancy, teenage, and adolescent
formative years.
Consequently, we are not surprised at all when recently a Ghanaian education
official was reported as saying that Ghanaian primary and junior secondary teachers have
difficulties teaching English effectively. Most Ghanaians frown on the phrase that English
language is a second language to them, because they feel and believe that they possess a
measure of English proficiency equal to native speakers of the language in Australia, Great
Britain, New Zealand, the United States, and South Africa.
This means that English language has absolutely no cultural roots in Ghanaian
linguistic history and for that reason it is not the language spoken in wider social circles in
Ghanaian communities. There may be some truth in that assertion but having English as a
second language does not necessarily suggest a lack of proficiency in that language. It does
mean also, as one expert has stated, that English language has absolutely no cultural roots
in Ghanaian linguistic history and for that reason it is not the language spoken in wider
social circles in Ghanaian communities.
Specifically, the study seeks to address the following objectives: Describe the
socio-economic characteristics of the students which affect their rate of acquisition of
English vocabulary as a second language. Discuss the various vocabulary learning
strategies and how it is applied to help the students in acquiring the second language.
Identify and rank the constraints that hinder the ease of acquisition of the English language
vocabulary is research study aims to investigate the significant contribution to the
development of learning strategies within Second Language Acquisition studies through
reviewing empirical and theoretical works from various literature and the use of
demographic features from the respondents. The thesis is also aimed at defining learning
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strategies in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and at analyzing approaches to identify
which of these approaches guide teachers in applying appropriate methods that promote
the use of learning strategies in the process of SLA.
This kind of information can be useful, not only for the teaching of English in the
classroom but also to the Ministry of Education, especially to language planners and
writers in their decision-making. The study should also contribute to the research literature
in the field of Second Language Acquisition.This study will therefore be a strong advocate
of balanced English
D. Young Learners and Their Characteristics
As Vygotsky states, although children may use the same words with adults, they may
not hold the same meaning for those words. The acquisition of word meaning takes much
longer than the acquisition of the spoken form of the words, and children use words in their
speech long before they have a full understanding of them.
If we had to have complete knowledge of words before using them, we would be
restricted to very limited vocabulary. In this sense, our production races a head of our
comprehension and vocabulary development is a continuous process not just adding new
words but of building up knowledge about words we already know partially.
Vocabulary development is also about learning more about those words and about
learning formulaic phrases or chunks, finding words inside them and learning even more
about those words.
Increasing the depth of vocabulary knowledge does not happen automatically in a
foreign language, even in most favorable circumstances such as immersion programs.
Conceptual knowledge grows as children experience more of the world in their daily lives.
It depends on the maturation factor as well.
Younger children tend to make syntagmatic associations, choosing a linking idea in a
word from a different part of speech or word class (dog: bark). Older children are more
likely to respond to cue words with words from the same word class (dog: animal), which
is called pragmatic responses. Children’s shift to pragmatic responses reflects other
developments:

I. They become more able to deal with abstract connections (dog is an animal) and develop
skills for working with ideas and talking about what is not present.

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II. They build up more knowledge of the world and words, and ways of organizing,
classifying, labeling, categorizing, comparing and contrasting them.
The words for basic level concepts are the most commonly used words, they are learnt by
children before words higher or lower in the hierarchy and they are more likely to have
been mastered than superordinate and subordinate levels that develop through formal
education. Early vocabulary learning may be ineffective, if words are not consolidating
(unite) and used regularly.

E. Relevant Studies

When vocabulary items are taught before an activity, the students may benefit from it in
two ways:
1. It helps them comprehend the activity better.
2.It is more likely that they acquire the target vocabulary words.
Primary school children should be exposed to vocabulary items repeatedly in rich contexts.
We can’t expect them to learn the items we teach and to remember all in the lesson two
days later. Thus, a newly taught word should reappear many times and in different
situations for the following weeks of instruction. The vocabulary items should be
revisited/recycled in different activities, with different skills and for multiple times.
Another important component of vocabulary teaching in primary school classes is deep
processing, which means working with the information at a high cognitive and personal
level. Deep processing makes it more likely to remember the information, as the students
build connections between new words and prior knowledge. Instead of memorizing list of
words and their meanings, personalizing vocabulary lessons greatly helps students’ deep
processing.

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 CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY

A. Research Method and Design

This study was a case study on the first language acquisition. The study will be
presented in a qualitative approach. Following this approach, it is decided to record the
learner's word production to collect the data — this study not aimed at finding out a
definitive conclusion but is intended to discover specific issues to provide some insights
into similar future studies. The methodology that will use in this is the descriptive method.
B. Research Participant
The primary participant of this research was a two years girl with name Amel. The
other participants were the parents, grandparents, aunt, and housemaid the data taken
through some observations.
C. Data Collection Technique
The data will be collected by in-depth interview and documentation. The
interviews in this study will be divided into two. The first will be interview A which given
to the student's herself. The second will be interviewing the parents, grandparents, aunt,
and housemaid. The data were taken through some observations. The study was designed
with a qualitative research model. Data collection is done by direct observation by
recording the utterances of the child. That is, every word and, both in happy conditions and
in a state of displeasure, are all documented.
D. Data Analysis Procedures
The writer will adopt Miles and Huberman (1994) model to process data. The
participant of the study on observing this first language acquisition is a little girl, at the age
of two years. She is acquiring three languages as well as a first language. Those three
languages are Javanese, Bahasa Indonesia, and English. Those three languages she got
from the language used by the caretaker's speech or language caregivers ( in this study they
are people around the object of the study, grandparents, father, mother, aunt, etc.).

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 CHAPTER IV
FINDING AND DISCUSSION
A. Data Finding
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The acquisition of the first Indonesian language vocabulary (B1) of the second
child of 2 years of age observed for two months is illustrated in the table. More clearly
described as follows.
Vocabulary Tested by Children in Desember 2018 The vocabulary spoken by 2
years old in 7 Januari 2019 is shown in table 1 following.
Table 1. Children's Speech in May 2010
Minggu ke-
Ujaran Anak
1 2 3 4
Ma V
da V
Ju V
Mi V
Au V
Bar V
Ton V
Vi V
Aba V
nini V

Child vocabulary acquisition that can be spoken in the first week of December, Ma
utterance ma means eating. The child only mentions the first syllable, but the ending is not
spoken. This speech occurs when a child sees food. However, if the child only sees his
mother, the vocabulary means greeting the mother. The da test means that by saying the
first syllable is not spoken and the consonant sound h at the end of the word is not spoken.
In the second week, ju's words meant clothes. Mention of the final syllable ju and
syllable first the ba is not spoken. The speech mi means drinking. The mention of the first
syllable and the second syllable of the num is not spoken.

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 In the third week, the utterance of the bar means Allahu Akbar. There is one word
that is not spoken Au and the first syllable are not spoken. Tons of speech, means you want
to watch television. My first syllable and the second non syllable are not spoken. In the
words vi, it means television. The first syllable te, the second syllable le, and the four
syllables of the syllable are not spoken.
In the fourth week, the utterance of aba means brother (calling the seller who
passes). The final consonant is not spoken. In utterance, father means father. Glotal stop k
is not tested. Vocabulary Tested by Children in Desember 2018 The vocabulary spoken by
2 years old children in Januari 2019 is shown in table 2 following.
Table 2. Children's Speech in June 2010
Ujaran Pertemuan ke-
Anak 1 2
Ci V
Ni V
Su V
Muci V
Gi V
halo V
Mama V
tu V
udah V

In the first week of Januari 2010, the first meeting. In the morning there were two
new utterances on the acquisition of children's vocabulary, namely ci and ni. The ci test
means urinating with the first syllable of ken not spoken and the final consonant is also not
spoken. This entry means this or here with the final vowel I didn't say it. In afternoon there
are two children's vocabulary that is obtained by the child, namely su and muci. Su's words
mean milk with the second syllable is not spoken. Muci's speech means that there is music
with the final consonant k as a glottal stop not spoken.
In second meeting on January, in the morning only one pronunciation can be
pronounced, which is gi which means to go. The first syllable is not spoken. In the
afternoun there are four new utterances, namely: hello, mama, and tu. The halo speech was
13
examined, the acquisition of First Language Vocabulary was complete when he heard the
handhone ring and immediately picked it up while saying hello. Ma-ma means to look for
mama, that is to say it in full. This means that, that is vowel i as the initial letter of the
word is not spoken. Speech already means already.
Based on the data presented, the first language vocabulary of Indonesian children
aged 2 years is in the form of incomplete words and words that are uttered in full.
Development from 1 week 2 days in Desember and January has increased. Generally
utterances issued by children in happy conditions. Like wise developments in Januari.
However, in conditions of anger, the child is unable to utter utterances that are able to be
caught, which is heard, only sounds crying and rages.

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 CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION

A. Conclusions
As the writer in the first chapter, that she intended to find the empirical evidence
whether or not there is an influence of ability in the first language is so very interesting to
study. the number of developments in the language of each word issued, has meaning and
meaningful meaning. this is very meaningful in the development of a child's language. So
the results of the research have been done because the time is so short that it produces quite
a bit of vocabulary, but the changes are very visible. Changes every day also appear clear
and especially when the child is cheerful or wants something then more often the child
issues vocabulary. parents sometimes confused what the child said, so as caregivers must
understand what the child wants. A very interesting development and a moment that will
not be repeated.

B. Suggestions
From the research findings, the writer gives some suggestions. As the research, she
should be creative to get must be clever to attract the attention of children to obtain data
must be more thorough. in this study shows how great the grace of God has given humans
with many advantages. It really make things into existence. Masha Allah.
fragmentary vocabulary - a piece of it and more and more and more making such a good
development. environment is very influential for the development of children's language.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Gleason, Jean Berko dan Ratner, Nan Bernstein (editor). 1998. Psycholinguistics.
Edisi Kedua. New York: Harcout Brace Collge Publihers.
Krashen, Stephen D. 1981. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learni
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M. Gass, Susan dan Slinker, Larry. 2008. Second Language Acquisition: An
Introductory Course. Edisi Ketiga. New York and London: Routledge.
Mukalel, Joseph C. 2003. Psychology of Language Learning. New Delhi: Discovery
Publishing House.
Paul, Bloom. 1996. Language Acquisition: Core Readings. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
The MIT Press.

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