Language Variations in Speech Of 12 Years Old Children in The Community

Abstract

Abstract. This research aims to determine language variations in the speech of 12-year-old girls, especially children in Depok City who are active speakers of Indonesian. Both parents come from the Betawi tribe and both of them have a mother tongue, namely Betawi. In their daily lives, children use Indonesian, because parents actively speak Indonesian, even though it is interspersed with Betawi. Data collection was carried out using the observation method, listening to expert involvement, while data analysis used a qualitative descriptive method. The results of the analysis show that language variations in children's speech have fulfilled the range of speaker aspects, namely the presence of idiolects, dialects, chronolects, and sociolects. The child's speech is bilingual, namely Indonesian and Betawi. This happens because environmental factors play a major role in children's language acquisition, as well as geographical factors that give rise to language variations.