Bahasa, konteks dan pemikiran kanak-kanak Melayu: satu analisis pragmatik

Abstract

Children express their thoughts, knowledge of culture and create their concepts through language. The results of the present study indicate that Malay pre-school children are able to create concepts as well as elaborate and restrict the meanings of words. This proved that the lan-guage competence of the Malay children is related to their thought, whereby Malay culture stresses or emphasizes on the implicit meaning in conveying messages. This paper discusses the relationship of lan-guage, context and thought of Malay pre-school children in creating simile and conveying messages. This study used the observation and surveying method, while data were recorded as the pre-school children were in the midst of their spontaneous conversation during school activities. All collected data were analyzed using the Relevance theory.