HUMANIORA VOLUME 28 Number 2 June 2016 208 Geographical Infuences on the Language Skill of Elementary School Students in Lae-Lae Island Makassar City Yusri, Andi Reza Hidayat Makassar State University Email: yusriugm@gmail.com ABSTRACT This article describes how geographic factor infuences students’ language skill which in this case is the mastery of vocabularies. This study is a quantitative research with sociolinguistic approach. The respondents of this study were elementary school students that live in Lae-Lae Island, Makassar City, and as for the comparison the researcher took other respondents from other elementary schools in urban areas. The researcher selected 30 students from each school. The techniques used in this study were a vocabulary mastery test, observations, and interviews. The data analysis technique is descriptive analysis and independent sample t test. The result indicates that there are signifcant geographical factors on the students’ vocabulary mastery. Elementary students in urban area have higher skill in mastering vocabularies than those in Lae-Lae Island. In addition, the geographical factors also infuence the type of their vocabularies mastered by the students. The students from Lae-Lae Island are better in mastering marine vocabularies than those of urban areas. Keywords: geographical factors, language skill, vocabulary mastery, elementary school students, lae-lae islands INTRODUCTION Children’s language skill requires attention since the early age. One of the functions of the early development of children’s language ability is to enable them to communicate with their social environment which will directly infuence their intellectual ability. According to Hartanto (2011:387), language ability is one of the indicators in children cognitive development. Early detection of children’s language skill development is crucial to the success in maximizing the brain plasticity in the compensation of developmental disorders. Nelson (2006:146) and Tarigan (1998:239) reveal that the development of language ability is an indicator of overall development of children’s cognitive skill associated with their success in school. One of the developments of children’s language skill is obtained from the communities, in which they live. It means that the process of personality formation resulted from the contact with the surrounding community can give a special feature in the child’s language behavior. There have been a lot of studies concerning children language skill, for example the studies conducted by Hurlock (1978) and Widdowson (1983). Hurlock (1978:24) concluded that children language skill is affected by the factors of social- family, intelligence, health, encouragement and relationship with friends. Therefore, a good environment will support a good language skill development; on the contrary a bad environment will result in a bad development of language ability. A similar study was conducted by Widdowson (1983). Widdowson (1983: 59) concluded that Halaman 208-214