CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study

Language is an important phenomenon in our life. Most people will probably

think that human abilities in producing speech as only a gift birth, without

questioning where did this ability came from and how. Actually, human ability in

producing speeches is some kind of weirdness. Different from the human ability in

walking, speech ability is in some way involving the social community. If this social

community was changed, then human will only able to walk and applied the new

speech act acquired from the new social communities. So, walking is just only a

biological process yet speech act is concluded as a cultural process that needs to be

learned (Othman & Musanif. Pengantar Linguistik AM: 1).

According to Genitives Cognitive theory from Noam Chomsky (1959), human

brain was genetically already prepared for language acquisition. In order to produce

language, human brain is fully equipped with Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Chaer, 2003: 108).

We didn’t feel like in trouble when we produce speeches. When we say

something, feels like every series of word just came out so easily like that from our

mouth as we needn’t have to think of it first. This condition will occur each time we

have a little chat with friends and relatives (Soendjono. 2005: 115). This condition

can be understood because as a native speaker didn’t realize that in every

communication we have lies every details of words structure and mental preparation

from words selection until articulating it. This means that in every speech we produce

involving not only our Psychological aspects, but also our Neurological aspects

(Soendjono. 2005: 115).

1.2 Research Problem

1. Who will approximately fragile from being LATA?

2. What is the factor girls who get LATA in age between 17-25 years old

3. What is the symptom and characteristic of LATA suffered by teenage between 17-

25 years old.

4. What is the effect of LATA?

1.3 The Purpose of Research

1. Knowing the people who fragile of infected by LATA.

2. Finding the caused of LATA suffered by girls between 17-25 years old.

3. Knowing the symptom and characteristic of LATA which infecting teenage

between 17-25 years old.

4. Knowing the effects of LATA

1.4 Significant of Research

1. To makes teenage people being aware of LATA.

2. To helps future research in guiding their next research about LATA.

3. To know the character and the Factor of LATA.

1.5 Definition of Key Term

LATA is known as “imitative behavior”, sometimes LATA itself was given

bad connotation about it. According to Soendjono (2005: 154), one of the

characteristic of LATA is that “the person (female) always utters something which

closely encounter with male sex organ”. In dictionary by Hasan Sadily and John M.

Echoll, the meaning of LATA is “a nervous condition characterized by erratic

involuntary imitative behavior, often pornographic or socially disapproved and other

irrational imitative behavior”. According to Soendjono (2005: 154), Latah is some

kind of someone language disorder.

Refers to what is Soendjono opinion about LATA, we can see that LATA is

some kind of language disorders. There are several language disorders, according to

Chaer (2003: 152) in his book Psikolinguistik; Kajian Teoretik said that there are 1)

Disorder in speaking, 2) Disorder in Language, 3) Disorder in mind and 4) Social

Disorder.

Muhammadiyah University of Sukabumi is the first and the only University in

town. The University has so many faculties and Letters Faculty is one of it. English

Department is the only department under the Letters faculty responsibilities. As the

most promising department, the faculty tries to make their graduated student be able

to compete in the real worlds. This makes the faculty put several precautions so that
when the students were graduated, they will have several competencies. We are being

prepared to be a teacher, and interpreter, a guide travel guy, and others job which in

the real world might have needed them.

The word phenomenon means symptoms or something which happens

abnormally according to the society people. We can see the meaning of Phenomenon

in John Echoll and Hasan Sadili Dictionary means “gejala, atau kejadian yang luar

biasa”. Something abnormal is sometimes can be categorized as a phenomenon.

 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 Speech Production

According to Prof. Soendjono in his book (Psikolinguistik, pemahaman bahasa

manusia) that in producing speech we need to know that there are four level of

process in producing speeches

• Message

• Functional

• Positional

• Phonological

2.1.1 Message

This is the level where our message being processed. Message is something

that we wanted to deliver to our correspondence. In every speech we

produced, there must be a message that we wants to delivered, so that our

correspondence will understand what we are talking about and what we want

to do.

2.1.2 Functional

This is where the type of lexical we choose after we decided what is the

message of our speech. This lexical will be given a role in the sentence we
 produce and given syntactic function. Which one will be placed as subject,

Verbs, Object and others?

2.1.3 Positional

In this stage, we form constituent and affixation. Constituent is what we are

going to put as the subject of this speech, and affectation is something used as

a complement for words. We know that there are several type of affectation

such as Affix suffix and infix.

2.1.4 Phonological

The phonological aspect is when every level of speech production process

above being described and become an out put which later will be delivered to

our correspondence.

2.2. Language Disorders

Having language means that communication using one kind of language. If

we talk about how this ability of language can get into human hands, is that because

human have brain which develop and evolve. This also has a tight relation with the

Neurological aspect of every human on earth. The process of language acquisition

will keep on developing and evolve along with Gnosi and Kognisi process. Gnosi and

Kognisi means that in every word the child heard will become clearer and merge into

something which has meaning. First they will only knew that banana is a symbol of

yellow fruit and taste sweet, later on they will learn that the word banana is not have

to be sweet and yellow.

 The development of language is involving our neurological and psychological

aspect. If this two aspect grown and develop normally, this will makes our ability in

producing speeches and acquisitioning the second language easier. According to

Brocca (1861) a surgery expert from France, mentioned that in our brain part have an

area which effected our language producing. This area located in front of our brain.

Another doctor from German, Carl Wernick found that the back part of our brain is

the part for language comprehension. Both of them were doing this research after

they find a patient who cannot speak at all and cannot comprehend other people

speech.

There are several language disorders, according to Chaer (2003: 152) in his

book Psikolinguistik; Kajian Teoretik said that there are 1) Disorder in speaking, 2)

Disorder in Language, 3) Disorder in mind and 4) Social Disorder.

What we are going to discuss here is “Latah” or know as “imitative behavior”.

If we look for the meaning of Latah in John M, Echols and Hasan Shadili dictionary,

we will find out that Latah is a nervous condition characterized by erratic

involuntary imitative behavior, often pornographic or socially disapproved and other

irrational imitative behavior. According to Soendjono (2005: 154), Latah is some

kind of someone language disorder. This is happening when a person was shocked or

feel surprised, later that person utter spontaneously utterance and didn’t realize of

what was he uttering about. Latah in general, commonly considered equal with

Ekolalla. Ekolalla is an action which imitative other utterance or act, but actually

Latah is caused by a syndrome called Curah Verbal repetitive (Chaer, 2003: 154). The
characteristic is negative and pervert (Koprolalla) this was also cause by Locomotoric

disorder which can be triggered. Chaer also mentioned about Latah characteristic,

there are:

1. Only have by female in Gender.

2. Happening to female over 40 years old.

3. Usually they have a disapproved dream of male sex organ.

4. Correlated with Hysteric Personality.

Soendjono (2005: 154) said that Latah have 4 characteristics, there are:

1. Once said that this was only happening in South East Asia.

2. Mostly happen to female in gender.

3. Usually they utterance is closely encounter with sex or male sex organ.

4. If they were surprised by word, then they will only utter word also in

spontaneous act.

This four characteristic of Latah is never ever been researched and analyzed and it

would be very interesting if there are someone who held a research about it. From this

suggestion by Prof. Soendjono about language disorders especially Latah, the author

feels very interested to have a research about Latah.

Candra Pirngadie

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