An Analysis of Directive Speech Act in 3 Years Old Children in Daily Conversation with Their Mom

This study has investigated the directive speech act at 3 years old children in mom and kids conversation. This study has formulated two research questions concerning the types and social functions of directive speech acts used by 3 years old children in mom and kids conversation. Then, this study applied the descriptive qualitative method because it described the social phenomenon of directive speech act used by 3 years old children in mom and kids conversation. The data were taken naturally from the daily conversations and analyzed based on the main theory from Leech (1993). After organizing and examining the data, it can be found that the total number of types of directive speech employed by 3 years old children in mom and kids conversation is 70 types. They are classified in to nine types. The writer found 19 utterances belong to the request. Requesting as the most data that found in this research, because in daily activity kids often request something to her mom from they wake up until they sleep. Meanwhile, the primary social function of directive speech is competitive through the use of 36 conversations. According to Leech directive speech acts are classified as competitive functions or competing with social goals.  These competitive goals are basic manners and intrinsically disrespectful and tend to cause conflict, such as commanding, requesting, asking, if they are told they tend to force. &nbsp