<![CDATA[Generation Alpha—those born from 2010 onwards—grows up in a dynamic bilingual or multilingual environment where the mother tongue (a regional language) remains in use for daily communication at home and in the community, while Indonesian is formally taught in schools as the medium of instruction and a marker of national identity. However, among speakers of the Banyumasan (or *Ngapak*) dialect in western Central Java, mother-tongue interference in Generation Alpha’s spoken and written Indonesian remains strong, despite their early exposure to digital media and formal education. This study aims to identify the forms of phonological, morphological, and syntactic interference from the Banyumasan dialect into the Indonesian produced by Generation Alpha, and to analyze the factors influencing the extent of this interference. Employing a descriptive qualitative approach with a case study design, the research involved 30 Generation Alpha students (aged 10–12) from three elementary schools in Banyumas Regency, Central Java. Data were collected through recordings of spoken language (semi-structured interviews and storytelling tasks) and analysis of written texts (narrative and descriptive essays). The study yielded three main findings. First, phonological interference was most dominant in the pronunciation of the vowel /a/ at the end of words—often articulated as /ə/ (schwa)—and the shift of the consonant /s/ to /h/ in specific positions. Second, morphological interference was evident in the use of certainty-marking particles, such as *-e*, which were inappropriately inserted into standard Indonesian sentences. Third, syntactic interference was reflected in sentence structures featuring inversions characteristic of the Banyumasan dialect, as well as the omission of prepositions in certain constructions. The dominant factor driving this interference was the family environment, where the Banyumasan dialect was used exclusively (86% of participants reported using the dialect at home), whereas exposure to digital media and the duration of formal education showed no significant correlation with the level of interference. This study concludes that the mother-tongue interference observed in Generation Alpha speakers of the Banyumasan dialect is systemic in nature and requires specific pedagogical intervention, rather than merely additional exposure to standard Indonesian. Consequently, teachers need training to explicitly identify patterns of Banyumasan dialect interference and to design contextual Indonesian language instruction that utilizes the contrasts between the dialect and the standard language as teaching material, rather than treating them as "errors" to be penalized.]]>
Copyrights © 2024
