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Sociolinguistic Variation and Language Acquisition across the Lifespan
Edited by Anna Ghimenton, Aurélie Nardy and Jean-Pierre Chevrot
[Studies in Language Variation 26] 2021
► pp. 103–128

Chapter 5
Acquiring social and linguistic competence

A study on morphological variation in Jakarta Indonesian preschoolers’ speech

ORCID logo | Universitas Indonesia
ORCID logo | Fryske Akademy | Utrecht University
ORCID logo | Utrecht University
The present chapter discusses the acquisition of social and linguistic constraints by Jakarta Indonesian preschoolers. We examine the morphological aspects in two Indonesian varieties, namely Bahasa Indonesia (BI) and Colloquial Jakarta Indonesian (CJI), focusing on the use of transitivity and intransitivity marking verbal prefixes. Data in this study come from two periods of interviews in formal and informal settings with a six-month interval. Participants in this study are children of middle-class families (N = 63). We investigate whether they use BI prefixes and CJI prefixes appropriately in terms of situations and morphological rules. Findings in this study indicate that these children acquire the social and grammatical constraints at the same time in the informal situation.
Keywords: constraints, morphological variation, preschoolers, Indonesian, Jakarta
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.An overview of Jakarta’s sociolinguistic situation and its impact on children
  • 3.The observed prefixes and the morphological rules
  • 4.Method
    • Obtaining children’s speech data
  • 5.Children’s stylistic input
    • 5.1Obtaining information on linguistic input
    • 5.2Stylistic input
  • 6.Assessing children’s stylistic profile
  • 7.Applying the morphological rules in different situations
  • 8.Results and discussion
    • Using the observed prefixes, assessing the situation, and applying the rules
    • The use of (+sit+rul) in both situations over time
    • The use of (−sit+rul) in both situations over time
  • 9.When do children acquire the social and linguistic constraints?
  • 10.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 16 August 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.26.05kus
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