Contrastive Morphological and Syntactic Analysis on Lexemes between Indonesian and English as Instruction Language in Mobile Phones

Abstract

Instructions of how to use a mobile phone are vary from one to another device depending on the services provided in it. The instructions are construed in instructions languages using many languages available in it so the device can be used by different language users. Whatever languages used, they must perform the same instructions so the mobile phone can be operated successfully. This article discusses the similarities and differences of Indonesian and English as instruction languages in mobile phones. Instruction languages in mobile phones are provided mostly in form of words and phrases. Therefore this article discusses morphological and syntactic analysis from the lexical-based on derivative and compound words. The words are also divided into three categories; original, borrowed and inventing words. From the analysis, it is found that borrowed and inventing words are translated equally in both two languages, while original words do not have equal translation because each language has its own characteristics. There are similarities and differences on the amount of words between Indonesian and English in each instruction language used original words. The differences in the amount of words are existed because of the rules of preposition, articles, auxiliaries and compound words. The differences are also occurred in the instruction languages which have the same amount of words, because of the use of affixes, word formations on compound nouns and phrases, changes in words functions and the singular plural rules. These show that Indonesian and English apply different rules on words formation in instruction languages in mobile phones and they can create problems for users in switching languages in one device or using one language in more than one device.

Keywords: contrastive analysis, language instructions, lexis, morphology, syntax, original words, borrowed words, inventing words