School-Aged Children and Adult Language Production in an Indonesian TV Show

The aim of this research was to find out the language produced by the school-aged children and the adult in a TV show. The study was carried out applying descriptive qualitative research design. The data for this research included the conversations between an adult (the host) and three school-aged children. The data analysis procedures included- observing the video, transcribing the conversation, identifying the linguistics and non-linguistics features of the utterances, categorizing the language produced by the children and the adult, and interpreting the result of the analysis. The findings of data analysis showed that the five-year-old children produced one-word and two-word utterances rather than longer sentences. In contrast, the seven-year-old child produced longer sentences rather than one-word or two-word utterances. On the other hand, the host applied different ways and modified the way she produced language (‘caregiver speech’ or ‘motherese’) such as using exclamation, using gestures, using complimenting words, using intimate pronouns, and using direct instruction. The results obtained indicated that the school-aged children and the adult have their own ways in producing language in a TV show in Indonesia.