11 OUT OF 20

The main focus of this paper aims at analyzing the themes and characteristics of Pak De Samad in the short story entitled ‘Pak De Samad’s Cinema’ written by one of the most prominent Malaysian writers, Che Husna Azhari. After studying this short story meticulously, there are probably four main themes such as the novelty of something will soon wear off, education is a tool to behave in an acceptable way, changes are needed for survival purposes and resistance to change. Aside from the themes, there are two characteristics of Pak De Samad which are creative, and committed. These aspects play a vital role in enhancing one’s understanding of this short story.

Themes

The very first theme that is obviously illustrated in this short story is none other than the novelty of something will soon wear off. With reference to this statement “the schools no longer needed to resort to using Pak De’s Panggung for school concerts and speech days”, it is highly proven that something will no longer be used after ones have finally found the thing that works more effectively. Pak De Samad’s cinema, which is regularly used for school concerts, Speech Days, and to name a few, is finally “dead”. The death of Pak De Samad’s cinema was due to the existence of the state-of-the-art facilities and the rapid advancement of electronic mass media. It is definitely clear to the readers that everything will eventually come to an end. Therefore, the hidden message is to encourage the readers to be far sighted, optimistic and make use of the latest development. Otherwise, ones will surely be left behind and will not go far. Another theory that can explain the death of Pak De Samad’s cinema is “It was cursed by Pak De’s late father”. This theory suggests that ones must seek for their parents’ blessings before doing something so that this blessing will help them achieve their missions, goals throughout their lives. In other words, the parents’ blessings and commitment to one’s job is an indispensable key to the success of one’s life.

In the beginning of the short story, the readers are told that the gedebers, most of the time cut off their enemies’ ears and therefore there are few probabilities as to why the gedebers resort to cutting of their enemies’ ears. One of the probabilities is that most of the gedebers are uneducated and therefore will result in taking impulsive action. These actions shown by the gedebers indicates to us that education is an effective tool to differentiate what is considered as right actions and wrong actions. By receiving education, it will enable ones to live in a civilized way of life with reference to these two statements “we have become much more civilized” and “one hardly hears of any mini-axe attacks now”. In other words, the author also highlights the importance of being educated so as to behave in an acceptable way and to make an appropriate decision or wise judgement. Besides that, it is hoped that education will help ones to take a decisive action on dealing with problems. Conflicts, for instance, can be resolved without recourse to violence. Otherwise, ones will simply take immediate action as illustrated by Pak De Samad’s action “to go an amok” when his late father refused to give his share of the family land.

The next theme depicts to the readers that there will be some changes in one’s attitudes in order to adapt or survive in a new environment. This theme reflects the changes in Pak De Samad’s personalities in which he, who initially starts “his life in a very un-gedeber-like fashion” finally ends up being one of the author’s home-grown gedebers. This change has something to do with the survival purposes as “there were the marauding Japanese, always asking for food(and other things beside), and then there were the roving bands of robbers, hit-men and gangsters also going around looking for food and loot” at that time. Thereby, “desperate times called for desperate measures” and his solution was to be gedeber .The readers may conclude that particular circumstance compels ones to completely change their attitudes and these sudden changes in attitudes will affect their personal development either negatively or positively. Although his attitudes help him to survive during the war time, for example, it without no doubt affects his personal development negatively in which the gedeber’s attitudes are deeply embedded in him even if he stops being gedeber by referring to this statement “ but acquired habits die hard, so Pak De continued.” It is apparent when he threatened to go on rampage because his father did not want to give his share of the family land and the author seems to make a conclusion of Pak De Samad’s personalities by saying “ once a gedeber, always a gedeber…….”

Aside from that, the author also underlines the theme of resistance to change in this short story. The readers find out that Pak De Samad’s idea of opening the cinema was strongly opposed by his very own father, Awang Kecik (the little Awang). The rejection of the notion of opening the cinema was due to the fact that “ his father was not going to be party to the building of a house of sin” and “only ingrates and infidels go to the cinema”. Based on these two statements, there are two interpretations that accounts for the rejection of Pak De Samad’s idea as well as his father’s resistance to change. Firstly, the readers may discover that religious excuses have simply been used to disapprove of the new idea or new change. Ones will simply resort to using religious excuses without really understanding the positive effect of new change on the community itself. In fact, Islam especially never discourages people to make new change as long as it is in accordance with the Islamic teachings. In addition, Islam greatly encourages Muslim people to make change in improving standard of living instead of staying remaining in the comfort zone for example. Secondly, the narrow-mindedness shown by Awang Kecik reflects the vast differences in idea between the old generation (Awang Kecik) and the young generation (Pak De Samad). It is undeniable that the gap between these 2 generations causes new change to be hardly accepted and it implies to the readers that being a senior member of the community does not necessarily mean the symbol of ultimate power whereby he or she can simply brush aside other people’s ideas and take them for granted. By looking at different angle, it also gives the readers a new perspective on the best way of dealing with the new idea that requires ones to listen to the new ideas put forward by someone, study the possible effect of the new idea and finally work the new ideas out collaboratively and cooperatively in order to make it a great success.

Characteristics

The final aspect that should be taken into account when analyzing this short story is the study of Pak De Samad’s characteristics since he plays a major role in the short story. Pak De Samad is undoubtedly a creative individual since he comes up with the idea of opening the cinema in Molo which is “the very first ever cinema in the whole district too’. The notion of opening the cinema stems from his determination of doing something different which anybody has not done at that time. Although Pak De Samad has not received any formal education, he is amazingly able to think of this wonderful idea and most importantly, he is keen to make this idea an auspicious success. Even though his father deplores, loathes his idea and refuses to give him his share of the family land, he is extremely resolute to carry out his mission by “threatening to go on an amok”. The readers will also realize that by being creative shown by Pak De Samad benefits them since they actually open their minds to all the probabilities and ultimately, a successful outcome is actually within the realms of possibility. This is proven when Pak De Samad’s cinema is “used for everything” in which the use of Pak De Samad’s cinema is not limited to showing films only but also to performing school concerts and Speech Days as well as performing bangsawan plays like “Puteri Cendawan Merah” and “Puteri Cendana Biru” and indubitably, it is indeed a phenomenal success. In other words, ones never know the potential of something until they try it out and are willing to take risks.

Aside from being creative, Pak De Samad is also viewed as someone who is passionately interested in being gedeber and committed to this job. This is evident when Pak De Samad “takes his vocation even more seriously” and “becomes a full-time gedeber” during “zaman ka’ak” (“hard times”). Moreover, he also does a few successful commissions on disposal jobs, teach-a-lesson jobs, the send-a-salam jobs and never turns down “any member of the family to run errands”. Therefore, some readers may look at this attitude embodied by Pak De Samad in a positive way in which commitment to ones’ work is a primary key to one’s success and triumph. Without doubt, this kind of attitude plays a very significant role in improving the quality of one’s work. Several readers, however, see this attitude does not go hand in hand with Pak De Samad’s profession since this kind of profession is against any religious teaching. In the point of religious teaching’s view, this job is morally wrong in which requires ones to barbarically or violently punish for example his or her preys. It is totally different from someone who is absorbed in his or her work which is in accordance with religious teaching. Although many interpretations made by the readers, ones above all should bear in their minds that positive attitudes towards ones’ work will enable them to enjoy the fruit of their labour at the end of the day. All in all, Pak De Samad is seen as an epitome of man of his work in which he consistently tries his very best carrying out his duty.

Conclusively, the themes and the characteristics that have been discussed such as the novelty of something will soon wear off, education is a tool to behave in an acceptable way ,changes are needed for survival purposes ,resistance to new change and being creative as well as being committed to the job enable the readers to understand this short story better and explicitly, the study of the themes benefits the readers since it help broaden their minds and deepen their horizons. Most importantly, the readers will appreciate the beauty of the literature as it undeniably enriches their lives and their souls by reading such a thought-provoking story.

Food for thought

Babies’ Grammar Development

Baby Talk

The grammar development of infants is best referred to as “Baby Talk”. Baby talk, according to Steinberg (2006), is a form of Parentese but with its own characteristics. Ii is also best decribed as something that parents learn from other adults and involves standard vocabulary. Insofar Baby talk is concerned, it involves the use of vocabulary and syntax that is overly simplified and reduced. In comparison with Parentese, syntax plays a less vital role in Baby Talk. It is proven that parents at times use standard syntax in Baby Talk. The comparison between the syntactically correct sentence in Parentese and syntactically incorrect sentence in Baby Talk is shown below so as to compare and contrast the lexical items used and thus highlighting the unique traits of both Parentese and Baby Talk.

Mommy give Jimmy apple VS I will give you an apple

Based on the two examples of sentences given above, it can be deduced that neither the modal “will” nor the indefinite article “an” has been included. Aside from that, substituting proper names such ( “Mommy” and “Tony” ) for personal pronouns (“I” and “You”) is very common in Baby Talk considering that the baby must have difficulty understanding the speaker-listener relationship. Prior to using suitable personal pronouns in their daily discourse, in other words, ones must learn and master the usage of personal pronouns. The substitution proper names for personal pronouns are not solely a trait for Baby Talk, but Parentense also shares this similar feature.

Parentese

Parentese is a sort of speech that children receive when they are young. Parentese, according to Reich (1986), is also best known as “Motherese”, “caregiver speech”, “Adult-to-Child Language”. All the above terms takes into account the fact that children gain knowledge and receive input from many immediate sources and the input received ha unique linguistic characteristics. As far as speech is concerned, it is highly grammatical and simplified. However, ungrammatical sentences are found to occur but rarely. On the other hand, speech directed to children mainly comprises of short sentences with simple structure rather than complex structure. For instance, this short sentence with simple structure as in “Julia is Karim’s spouse” is commonly uttered by parents to their children as compared to this complex sentence as in “ Julia who is sitting on the bench is Karim’s spouse”

Children’s Grammar Development

Holophrastic function: one-word utterances

Not only children use single words to refer to objects, but they also use single words to express complex thoughts that involve those objects. A three-year-old girl, for instance, who has lost her mother in a shopping complex, may cry out “mama”, meaning “I want mama”. Based on this example, it has shown to us that the use of single words by children can express a variety of semantic functions and complex ideas. Bear in mind that the strings of words produced by children at this stage are not yet sentences since the child pauses slightly and uses a falling intonation of the sort at the end of each word that is commonly used by mature speakers to indicate the completion of a sentence.

Telegraphic speech: two-and three-word utterances

Children generally begin to produce two-and-three-word utterances at the age of two. Below is a table that lists a number of common two-word utterances along with the grammatically correct sentence that might be produced by mature speakers in the same situations. The possible purpose of each utterance and several semantic relations involved are also indicated in the table below.

Table 1: Two-word child utterances and their semantic analysis

Child utterance	Mature-speaker utterance	Purpose	Semantic relations (expresses or implied)
Want cookie	I want a cookie	Request	(Experiencer)-State-Object
More milk	I want some more milk.	Request	(Experiencer)-State-Object; Quantification
My cup	This is my cup	Warning	Possession
Mommy chair	Mommy is sitting in the chair	Answer to question	Location
Big boy	I am a big boy	Bragging	Attribution
Not tired	I am not tired	Refusal	Experiencer-State-Negation
Where doll?	Where is the doll?	Question	Location
Dady run	Daddy is running	Informing	Agent-Action
Joe push	I (Joe) pushed the cat	Informing	Agent-Action-(Object)
Give candy	Give me the candy	Request	(Agent)-Action-Receiver-Object

(Adapted from An Introduction to Psycholinguistics)

The acquisition of morpheme

Morpheme acquisition begins once two-and three-word utterances have been acquired. As far as morpheme acquisition is concerned, the children start to add function words and inflections to their utterances. In other words, function words like the prepositions, the articles and the modals as well as the auxiliaries start to appear in children’s utterances along with inflections and tense marking.

Explanation of the order of acquisition

The order of acquisition, according to Steinberg (2006), is based on three variables which are (1) Ease of observability of referent (2) Meaningfulness of referent, and (3) Distinctiveness of the sound signal that indicates the referent.

Variable 1: Ease of observability of referent

The more easily a child can see, hear or experience the referent, the more likely are such referents to be stored in memory.

Variable 2 : Meaningfulness of referent

Referents objects, situations, and events that interest children will be learned faster than those lack such interest.

Variable 3 : Distinctiveness of the sound signal that indicates the referent

The greater the sound distinction involved, the easier it will be for a morpheme signal to be learned.

The Brown morpheme acquisition research

According to Roger Brown’s research on morpheme acquisition, the children are said to acquire the morphemes in a relatively similar order. The list of morphemes and the general order in which they were acquired are shown in the following table.

Morpheme name and concept	Examples	Observability of referent	Meaningfulness of referent	Sound signal for referent
(Present) Progressive	Mary playing	High	High	High
Prepositions	in,on	High	High	High
Plural	/s/, /z/, /iz/	High	High	Low
Past Irregular	came,went,sold	Low/ Medium	High	High
Possessive	/s/, /z/, /iz/	High	High	Low
Copula ‘be’ Uncontractible	What is it?	Low	Low	High
Articles	a, an, the	Low	Medium	High
Past Regular	/t/, /d/, /id/	Low/ Medium	Medium	Low
Third Person Regular	/s/, /z/, /iz/	Low	Low	Low
Third Person Irregular	does, has	Low	Low	High
Auxiliary ‘be’ Uncontractible	Is Mary happy?	Low	Low	High
Copula ‘be’ Contractible	Mary’s hungry	Low	Low	Low
Auxiliary ‘be'	Mary’s playing	Low	Low	Low

(Adapted from An Introduction to Psycholinguistics)

Later speech stages: rule formation for negatives and other complex structures

It is undeniable that one of the earliest sentence structure rules acquired by children is negation. There are three main periods, according to the classic research of Klima and Bellugi (1966) and others who later replicated their work, that account for the negative and other complex structures.

Period 1

No money, No play that, No fall

A negation marker (NEG) is placed or inserted at the front of an affirmative sentence. Therefore, we see the utterances commonly of the form, Neg t U (‘No fall’). It is also said that children all over the globe seem to use the same pattern in their early acquisition of negation.

I don’t want it, We can’t talk

Period 2

The negative marker, in this second period, tends to appear within the utterance as compared to the earliest period and the negation marker “Not” is preceded by the auxiliaries ‘do’ and ‘can’.

This can’t sick, I didn’t did it, Donna won’t let go, I am not a doctor, This not ice cream, Don’t touch the fish

Period 3

Insofar the third period is concerned, the copula ‘be’ (am not) and the modal ‘will’ (won’t) appear with negation. On the other hand, imperative negatives are formed with do instead of the simple negative. The children have a good idea of when ‘do’ must be included in the sentences (Don’t touch the fish,etc) and when ‘do’ must not be included in the sentences ( I am not a doctor). Even if the children’s mastery of negation at this period is almost complete, there are a number of minor problems such as the reassignment of tense from Verb to AUX remain to be resolved.

Language developments with advanced age including young adults

Elders have also been reported to produce more disfluencies, such as stuttering, word repetitions, and sentence fragments in speech, but they are able to repair speech errors as well as younger adults. Kemper and her colleagues found that syntactic complexity (e.g., the number of propositions or clauses in a sentence, types of syntactic structure used) declines gradually across the lifespan. Based on his research, he presented young participants aged between 18 to 24 years and older participants with 2,3,4 words and asked them to produce sentences that included the presented words. The result shows that the older participants performed as accurately as the young participants when 2 and three words were presented but less accurately when 4 words were presented. Apart from that, it also reveals that older participants produced correct, shorter, grammatically less complex sentence in comparison with young participants. In addition to that, older participants performed as accurately as the young participants when they produced sentences that included a verb with simple argument structure but less accurately when they used a verb with a more complex argument structure.

In another research, Kemper, Herman, and Liu (2004) gave both young and older participants sentence fragments to memorize that varied in syntactic complexity. Participants then had to produce a complete sentence using the fragment. The length, complexity, and propositional content of the young participants' responses were all affected by the complexity manipulation, whereas this was not the case for the older participants’ responses. One explanation of this finding is that the difficulty for older adults lies in the comprehension of the material to be retained for elaboration. Also, young adults produce more syntactically complex sentences than older adults when the verb provided takes a complement (Kemper, Herman,& Lian, 2003). Thus, this line of research provides evidence that working memory limitations constrain language production in older adults.