MECHANISM ON THE ACQUISITION OF BALINESE LANGUAGE AS A MOTHER TONGUE IN THE MULTILINGUAL COMMUNITY OF DENPASAR

This research focusses on the study of the acquisition of the Balinese language in the multilingual community in Denpasar. One of the most important aspects in biolinguistic diversity is the speakers’ acquisition of their own language (Chomsky, 1965; McNeill 1966 in Brown 2000; Fry, 1979) as well as the surrounding environment of the speakers such as the strategies of the parents in transmitting the language to their children (Romaine, 1999). The speakers in the environment strongly determine and directly influence the acquisition, mastery, and the use of language (Holmes, 2001). This research is conducted to investigate: 1) the mastery and the acquisition of the Balinese language of the parents and that of the children at the pre operation period (Piaget, 1972 in Brown 2000:61) or at the level of “adult like grammar” (Fry, 1979), 2) the strategies used by parents to transmit language to their children, 3) the language/s used by the children in the domains of family, friendship, and education. The study was conducted in four main areas; in the North, South, West, and East Denpasar (see Suastra et al, 2017). The subjects were children between the ages of 4 to 6 years and were in kindergartens. The application of a number of theories such as language acquisition (Chomsky, 1965; McNeill, 1966 in Brown 2000; Fry, 1979), strategies of parents in transmitting language (Romaine, 1999), and language used in domains (Fishman, 1972; Holmes, 2001) are important in the analysis. The correlation of mastery, acquisition, and language use of Balinese by the children produces a model of language use in the multilingual community in Denpasar