LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MEAN LENGTH OF UTTERANCE (MLU) BY A 4-YEAR-OLD INDONESIAN CHILD

This study deals with realization of meant length of utterance (MLU). The objective of the study is to find out language development of a four -year-old child through measuring her MLU, and to describe the characteristic of childs shortest and longest utterances, whether it is question, responses, topic expansion or topic initiation. The data were the utterance of the subject. There were 100 utterances. Based on the analysis, the meant length of utterance by a 4-year-old child is 4.29. There are only 4 utterances of the shortest utterances. The dominant characteristic is response. There are 3 responses and the percentage is 75%. Then, there is only 1 question and the percentage is 25%. There is no topic expansion and topic initiation in shortest utterances. Based on the longest utterances, there are 14 utterances. The dominant is response.There are 7 responses and the percentage is 50%. The question is only 1 and the percentage is 7.1%, there are 5 topic expansion and the percentage 35.8% and there is 1 topic initiation. The lowest are question and topic initiation. The dominant characteristic from all utterances, 100 utterances, is response. There are 57 responses and the percentage is 55.9%. Then there are 29 and the percentage are 28.4. Question are 9 and the percentage is 8.8%. And there are only 7 topic initiations and the percentage is 6.9%.