A Contrastive Morphological Analysis of the Tombulu Dialect of the Minahasa Language and Indonesian in the Context of Local Language Instruction

This research investigates the morphological differences between the Tombulu dialect of Minahasa and Indonesian, focusing on their implications for local language teaching. The study aims to identify those differences and develop pedagogical strategies to address them. Using a qualitative descriptive methodology with a comparative approach, the study adopted the PRISMA framework for systematic literature review, VOSviewer for linguistic cluster analysis, and Voyant Tools for qualitative data analysis. Data collection was conducted through semi-structured interviews with native speakers, direct observation, and document analysis. This study applied the linguistic cluster algorithm to identify key thematic patterns in the morphological structure of the two languages. The results show that there are significant morphological differences, especially in affixation, reduplication, and word formation. Tombulu dialect has a more complicated affix system, which is absent in Indonesian, while Indonesian morphology follows a more standardized and systematic pattern. These differences pose challenges in local language acquisition, especially in understanding word structure and meaning formation. This research recommends that local language teaching, especially for the Tombulu dialect, integrate pedagogical approaches that systematically consider morphological variation. It is suggested that curriculum design and teaching strategies be adjusted to address these linguistic differences to improve students' comprehension and proficiency. However, limitations of this study include a focus on one Minahasa dialect, which limits generalizability. In addition, this study relied on a small sample of native speakers, which may not be fully representative of the wider language community. Future research should consider a wider sample and explore the impact of these morphological differences in a multilingual context.