1. A Contrastive Analysis
between Bahasa Indonesia
and English in ELT
Dawood Dana Jaya
Widya Paramita

2.  Contrastive Analysis means the comparison of
two languages by paying attention to differences
and similarities between languages being
compared. For example, we compare Bahasa
Indonesia and English
 Robert Lado (1957:59) states that, based on the
similarities and differences between L1 and L2,
then the level of students’ learning
difficulties can be divided in two, they are easy
and difficult. Difficulties are concerning
difficulties in the areas of phonology and
structure.

3. In applying contrastive analysis in the
classroom, the teacher can use linguistic
aspects, such as phonology and syntax.
 Phonology
Phonology is the study of sounds
distribution in a language and the
interaction between those different sound

4. Example 1
Bahasa Indonesia
Vowels
English
Vowels
a
i
u
e
o
Long
i: – cream, seen
ʒ: – burn, firm
ɑ: – hard, far
ɔ: – corn, faun
U: – bloom, glue

5. Example 2
Syntax
Syntax means the study of the rules that
govern the ways in which words combine
to form phrases, the idea of plural, and
sentence.
1. Phrase
Bahasa Indonesia
Rumah besar
Nenek saya
Pada pagi hari
Pada malam hari
English
Big house
My grandmother
In the morning
At night

6. 2. The Idea of Plural
Plural here refers to the form of a noun or a verb which refers to
more than one person or thing. No definite rules how to create a
plural form of a word except by reduplicating it, e.g rumah-
rumah, mobil-mobil.
Bahasa Indonesia
Serigala itu binatang
English
a wolf is an animal
Wolves are animal
Wolf is animal

7. 3. Sentence structure
 A short hand way of saying that pattern is; a sentence consists of Noun
Phrase and Verb Phrase
Indonesian English
NP.VP NP.VP
Paman pergi ke Surabaya tadi malam
Kakak ke kampus naik motor
Ibu ke pasar naik becak
Uncle went to Surabaya last night
Brother rides motorbike to campus
Mother goes to market by pedicab
Note: NP: Noun Phrase
AP: Adjective Phrase
Adv P: Adverbial Phrase
VP : Verb Phrase

8. 4. Passive and Object-Focus Construction
The passive form of a verb phrase contain this pattern; be + past participle, e.g is bitten, was
stolen, can be taken. In Indonesian, passive is shown by adding di- before a verb, e.g dimakan,
ditipu, dipermalukan. In most clauses, the subject refers to the “doer”, or actor of the action of the
verb (Leech and friends, 2003).
Bahasa Indonesia English
P: Makanan itu tidak dimakan oleh saya
A: Saya tidak memakan makanan itu
Makanan itu tidak saya makan*
Tidak saya makan makanan itu*
A: I did not eat that food
P: That food was not eaten by me yet
Note: A: Active P:Passive
* NonCanonical Passive/Object focus

9. Errors such as *Orang tua yang Rika menemui di sekolah….or *Demonstrasi
yang saya menonton di TV…are common to occur in the speech or writing
produced by speakers of English learning Indonesian. Apparently, this is a kind
of error known in TEFL as transfer. That is the carrying over of a syntactic
structure in English into Indonesian (Kadarisman, 2002:3).
Indonesian English
Orang tua yang ditemui Rika di sekolah adalah
kakeknya
The old man (whom) Rika met at the school was his
grandfather
*Orang tua yang Rika menemui di sekolah……..
Demonstrasi yang saya tonton di TV sangat
menakutkan
Demonstration I watched on TV was very scary
*Demonstrasi yang saya menonton di TV…….

10. Conclusion
In teaching and learning English as second
language, contrastive analysis is really
helpful for both the teachers and the
students, because we will know the
differences and similarities between source
language (L1) and target language (L2).
Therefore, it is easy for us to learn and
adjust to the target language. So that, we do
not incorporate the system of our source
language to the target language, because
each language has distinct system

11. THANK YOU
REFERENCES
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