Cross-Linguistic Influences of Malay Through Cartoons on Indonesian Children’S Language Use in the Home Domain
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Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 7 No. 2, September 2017, pp. 339-348 CROSS-LINGUISTIC INFLUENCES OF MALAY THROUGH CARTOONS ON INDONESIAN CHILDREN’S LANGUAGE USE IN THE HOME DOMAIN Zulfadli A. Aziz Yunisrina Qismullah Yusuf Chairina Nasir Claudia Masyithah Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh, Indonesia [email protected] First received: 7 July 2017 Final proof received: 26 September 2017 Abstract The Malay cartoons that air on Indonesian television channels are now popular among children in Indonesia. The shows Upin & Ipin, Boboboi, and Pada Zaman Dahulu are especially popular with Acehnese children. Initial observations found that these cartoons have played a great role in the increased use of contemporary Malay in their Indonesian. Thus, this study discusses the cross- linguistic influences of Malay from cartoons in Indonesian children’s language use in the home domain. Data were collected through recordings and field notes. Some steps based on the framework by Lacey and Luff (2007) were taken to analyze the data. The results were transcribed and sifted to distinguish the significant data. The recording and its transcription were then re-checked. The last step was categorizing the data into cross-linguistic influences based on Ringbom (1987). These influences include borrowing, hybrids, phonetic influence, and relexification. The results showed the presence of only two aspects of cross-linguistic influences: borrowing and phonetic influences. Borrowing was the most frequent aspect, followed by phonetic influence. Relexification and hybrid did not appear in the data. Nevertheless, there were other cross-linguistic aspects that were found in the data, including intonation, parenthetic remark, and interjection. In the broad-spectrum, the initial mimic on the Malay cartoon characters has expanded to employment in the language use of the children while speaking Indonesian. This study is expected to contribute in some ways or another towards the development of sociolinguistics, especially in cross-linguistic influence in children’s language use. Indonesia and Malaysia are neighboring countries, and language contact between the two countries is inevitable and evident. Hence, the study on the influences can benefit sociolinguistics, especially when investigating language change in the future. Keywords: cross-linguistic influences; cartoons; children; Indonesian; Malay Media have a role in children’s language heightens children’s learning (Dongo, 2015). In that acquisition; the child spontaneously and gradually sense, animation utilizes a combination of sight and develops an ability to use language through hearing sensors at the same time that make it easier interactive situations in his/her natural environment for children to acquire a new language. Nowadays, (Christakis, 2009). In addition to the immediate animation is often played on television in Indonesia members of the child’s family, the child is exposed and popular among Indonesian children are to language by means of media, especially televised Malaysian cartoons. Among many western and one. In early childhood, ages 4-10 years old, Japanese cartoons that dominate television in children tend to watch cartoons. Christakis (2009) Indonesia, the presence of the Malay cartoons is further claims that every human being who watches more relatable to the Indonesian children audiences, television can grasp 94% of the information through perhaps because both countries share the same their eyes and ears. People can remember 85% of ancestry (Clark & Pietsch, 2014). These animations what they see on television up to three hours later are known to be highly entertaining as well as and 65% up to three days later. Thus, as the human educational. The Malay cartoon that first aired in brain learn from events experienced by oneself Indonesia is Upin & Ipin. Due to the popularity of (Goswami, 2015), there seems to be a tendency that this cartoon, other Malay cartoons began to air as it acquires more information from audio-visual well, such as Boboboi and Pada Zaman Dahulu. media. They are broadcasted on one of the Indonesian Animation is one of the media that is terrestrial television channels. influential in children’s language development. The After making the initial observations on a use of a combination of sensory experiences number of families in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, the 339 doi: dx.doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v7i2.8135 Aziz, Yusuf, Nasir, and Masyithah, Cross-linguistic influences of Malay researchers found that some Acehnese children amount and type of transfer diverge according to today who are immense fans of the Malay cartoons several factors (Ilomaki, 2005). Early investigations and use the Malay language in their daily on cross-linguistic influence focused on language conversations. They mimic the language style change arising from contexts of language contact, performed by their favorite characters while talking e.g. the existence of language mixing, code to their siblings or parents. They speak as if they are switching, and the emergence of pidgins and creoles the characters in the cartoons and often employ as a result of communications between two or more catchphrases such as “betul, betul, betul”, “dua speech communities (Sankoff, 2001). The interplay singgit lah”, or “selamat pagi cikgu”. The Malay between earlier and later acquired languages is cartoons leave lasting effects on these children not termed by Sharwood Smith and Kellerman (1986) as only in the matter of knowledge and entertainment, cross-linguistic influence. but also on their daily language use with their peers Cross-linguistic influence embraces phenomena and families. The daily frequency of watching these such as transfer, interference, avoidance, borrowing, cartoons help the children memorize dialogues, and and second language related aspects further their Malaysian vocabulary in their (Chapetón, 2011). Studies of cross-linguistic conversations at home. They also pronounced the influence in second language acquisition (or SLA) words in the Malay language and used its language have been conducted at all the linguistic levels such expressions. Even though their parents do not speak as phonological, lexical, syntactical, and semantic. Malay at home, they still produced questions and For the purpose of this paper, the researchers statements using the Malay language. In view of concentrate on the lexical levels only. that, the researchers are interested in studying this phenomenon and the cross-linguistic aspects that Cross-linguistic Influence on the Lexicon influence these children’s language use, especially The cross-linguistic influence on the lexicon, or in the home domain. vocabulary of a speaker, is more noticeable than the Motivated by the aforementioned findings, the influence on grammar. The first language is a factor current study attempted to investigate the cross- in learning the second language vocabulary, and linguistic influences of Malay from cartoons on the closely related languages often share much more Indonesian children’s language use, especially at cognate vocabulary with one another than distant home. A number of studies have been conducted on languages (Ilomaki, 2005). Many studies have the cross linguistic influences from one language to shown that non-native language influence is more another on the learners in the classroom or learning common and frequent at the lexical level. In terms contexts (Cenoz, 2003; Chondrogianni, Vasić, of linguistic transfer at the lexical level, Ringbom Marinis & Blom, 2015; Ilomaki, 2005). (1987) proposes a framework of explicit cross- Nevertheless, no studies have investigated the cross linguistic lexical influence in production that linguistic influences of Malay cartoons on the includes borrowing, semantic extension, cognate, Indonesian spoken by children in the home domain. hybrid, blend, and relexification. According to And so, this research intends to fill that gap. The Ringbom (1987), borrowing covers hybrids, blends, result of this study can be used as additional relexifications and complete language shift. information and resources for related However, an item is taken to the target language sociolinguistics studies in cross-linguistic influences production in an unmodified form in language shift. among different language speakers. Since Indonesia Thus, hybrids, blends, and relexifications occur and Malaysia are neighboring countries and the when an item is modified morphologically or phenomena of language contact between the two phonologically to a target language-like norm. countries are inevitably evident, the study intends to benefit sociolinguistics especially in investigating Borrowing future language evolution. Borrowing or lexical borrowing is when terms or words from one language are taken and used in Cross-linguistic Influence another language. The words from the source The terms cross-linguistic influence and language language are usually inserted into the target transfer have been used interchangeably to refer to language without being adapted to the target the “practice which assumes that some kind of language’s morpho-syntactic and/or phonological influence is essential to the phenomenon of rules (Llach, 2010). Myers-Scotton (2006, p. 211) ‘transfer’” (Odlin, 2005, p. 3). Several expressions refers to lexical borrowing as “incorporating words can be used to refer to cross-linguistic influence, from one language (the donor language) in another such as language transfer, linguistic interference, the (the recipient