THE ACQUISITION OF INDONESIAN WORDS BY FOUR-YEAR-OLD BATAK TOBA CHILDREN

This study deals with The Acquisition of Indonesian Words by Four Year Old Batak Toba Children. The focus of this study is to describe Indonesian content words and structural words uttered by Four Year Old Batak Toba children. There are three questions to be answered namely: (1) what content words of Indonesian are acquired by four year old Batak Toba children, (2) what structural words of Indonesian are acquired by four year old Batak Toba children, (3) how Batak Toba children at the age of four acquire the Indonesian content and structural words the way they are. A qualitative research was conducted to enable the researcher to answer the questions. Observation and interview were earned out to the Batak Toba children twice a week for three months by using observation and interview sheet. The findings indicate that the total number of uttered words is 1015 with 732 Indonesian content words and 283 Indonesian structural words. These four year old Batak Toba children acquired their Indonesian words through their interaction with their friends and families. Based on the findings, some suggestions are made: (a) for parents to assist their children in the process of language acquisition so that the children can acquire the words correctly, (b) to inform parents about language acquisition as the anticipation for them who are worried about their children language, (c) for the students to conduct another research with other children with different age at different language so they have much knowledge about children language acquisition at many different ages.