SELNISTIA HIDAYANI
God gives people brains to
stimulate and to respond many phenomenon surrounding them.
They could be social, cultural, or language
phenomenon. It means that the environment could impact on the way of thinking and acting.
It shows that human gets his
language by the nature (Chomsky) and learns language by looking
at people habits (Skinner) in Dardjowidjojo (2005: 235). Their theories seemed againts each other
although they could be each related.
While being babies, spontaneously, they could produce some simple sounds. Their sound production
grows at the same time with our body’s growth. Their speaking ability
grows in
line with their speech
organs’ growth. In the other hand,
people try to learn something
new from their environment. Therefore, adult
people always motivates and
introduces them to know more about many things. They deliver ideas of words’ concept and examplify a pattern of sentences. Or, they drill their
children to practice some words or sentences in order to realize the students’ performances. As the result the goals
of communication will be fulfilled.
One of English skill is speaking. Speaking in
globalization era is an important competency that should be mastered by every English graduates. It has an important role in job opportunities. Moreover,
Indonesia is open market for many countries. It applies International free trading. But, this skill becomes one of problems for
Indonesia students. They still have no sufficient skills particulary in
speaking. Some people including
teachers said that most
students could not speak English shopisticated. Does it
become general issue?. Of course,
it is interesting since several experts
such as Chomsky and Skinner have different idea of
this skill.
Skinner’s theory begins his experiment
in a mouse while getting its meals. He examined
gradually, from the easier into the dificult one. He found its
activity describing a repeated
practice to get the meals. Its way of getting the meals shows a pattern although it does
not do regularly. His perspective asserted that drilling is an important
element in foreign language teaching such as oral approach and audiolingual
approach (Dardjowidjoyo, 2005: 235). Then, his finding is known as verbal behavior (1957).
In other hand, Chomsky made
note to argue Skinner’s theory above. Chomsky’s opinion is that language acquisition does not come from nurture
(behaviorism) but from nature (Language
Acquisition Device/
LAD). Children achieve their language skills in as
the same time as their gesture skills. He
argues that they have a set
of LAD (Dardjowidjoyo, 2005: 235). He
states that only human beings who have LAD so that they can not equity to the animal. They are different creatures. Dardjowidjoyo (2005: 237) said
that people need both nurture
and nature to acquire a language.
Nature must be supported by nurture. Then, peope’s language skill could be reached well. LAD also help them to the appeareance of words (Alwasilah, 2010:89). Devitt and Sterelny (1987: 175 in Alwasilah, 2010: 89) stated that thought is dominant to vocabulary. In this case, vocabulary also will influence peope’s thoughts. Therefore, between word and thought relate each other. For
example, a baby who has LAD lives in environment in which there is no one speak
Indonesia. The baby lives without
Indonesia language, he or she possibly
until adult might not speak Indonesia. It means
that Language competency can
not be mastered if there is no practices and environment included. This fact explaines that LAD works through practicing.
References:
Alwasilah, Chaedar. 2010.
Filsafat Bahasa dan Pendidikan. Bandung: PT REMAJA ROSDAKARYA
Dardjowidjojo, Soejono.
2005. Psikolinguistik Pengantar Pemahaman Bahasa Manusia. Jakarta: Yayasan Obor
Indonesia
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