Markedness in Word-Order Typology of English and Minangkabaunese: What Should the EFL Learners Know About?

Abstract

Learners of a foreign language frequently face a lot of linguistic and non-linguistic learning problems and difficulties, including the EFL learners in Indonesia. The EFL learners whose native language is Minangkabaunese, for instance, may face grammatical problems dealing with phrasal and sentential constructions as the consequence of different word-order typology. In facts, there are different markedness values of word-order typology in English and those of Minangkabaunese at syntactic level of basic-grammatical construction. This paper discusses the comparison of markedness values of word-order typology of English and Minangkabaunese. Two questions as the basis of data analysis and discussion in this paper are: (i) what are the unmarked and marked word-order patterns in English and in Minangkabaunese at syntactic level?; and (ii) why do the EFL learners in West-Sumatera need to know the different markedness values? The data presented in this paper are those collected by means of a fieldresearch and supported by a library study. The analysis is based on the relevant markedness theories developed and used in Linguistic Typology. The result of data analysis tells that the S-V-O and V-O-S are the unmarked clause constructions and the O-S-V is the marked ones in Minangkabaunese. In English, however, the unmarked clause construction is only S-V-O meanwhile the others are the marked ones. Such different grammatical properties cause specific learning problems in the EFL learning in West-Sumatera.