Language acquisition of Malay childrens through role reversal imitation

• Main Authors: Mansor, Marzalina, Ismai, Nor Hasimah
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Perlis 2017
• Subjects: PL Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/25783/1/JHDC%206%202017%20129%20140.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/25783/; https://johdec.unimap.edu.my/index.php/volume-6-2017
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

The question of how a child acquires the first language has long been raised and discussed. Recent studies in the west such as the study by Piaget (1962), Sherman (1971) and Ingram (1989) explained that children are making imitations in language acquisition, also previous studies have their own hypotheses in solving the problem about the concept of imitation in the acquisition of this language. In Malaysia, for example in the study of Asmah (1988), Abdul Aziz Sharif (1994) and Mohd. Amin & Vijayalecthumy (2006) also explained that the acquisition of Malay children's language also through 'imitation'. 'Imitation' here means that Malay children acquire the language by imitating language spoken by parents or individuals who are close to them.Hence, the language acquisition research will focus on language acquisition based on role reversal imitation. Role reversal imitation is a 'role-copying' strategy in usage-based theory highlighted by Tomasello (2003). It was found that the concept of 'imitation' in the acquisition of Malay children was initially quite little, then increased rapidly and at the end of two years old, the imitation was a slight deterioration.