LANGUAGE CHOICE IN A MULTILINGUAL SOCIETY: A CASE STUDY OF STUDENTS AT MUHAMMADIYAH 3 JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

LANGUAGE CHOICE IN A MULTILINGUAL SOCIETY: A CASE STUDY OF STUDENTS AT MUHAMMADIYAH 3 JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

By:

Lia Amalia Amrina

12/336665/PSA/07188

POSTGRADUATE PROGRAM

FACULTY OF CULTURAL SCIENCES

GADJAH MADA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2013

Abstract

Indonesia has many different language and culture. It interesting phenomena of language choice in multilingual society. Yogyakarta is one of city that has multilingual society where many students from another country live and study in Yogyakarta. Therefore, the member of society certain choose what language, when, and to whom they speak. This interesting to writer to understand more about the phenomena of language choice among the various students in their daily lives, especially the students of Muhammadiyah 3 Junior High School where it has students from different city. In short, this research is aimed to understand and describe the language choice in Muhammadiyah 3 Junior High School as a multilingual society.

This is a qualitative research. In collecting data, the writer do direct interview with 50 students on random at Muhammadiyah 3 Junior High School. Then, the collected data are selected to be classified based on the origin of the students. After that, the data are classified again based on domains, addressee, and topic determine the language choice. Next, those are describe with other social factor proposed by Holmes like social distance, status scale, degree of formality and goals of the interaction.

The result of the research exhibits that Muhammadiyah 3 Junior high school come from at least 8 province in Indonesia and 2 students from different country. The domain of language use among the students are family, friendship, religion, education, and neighborhood. The regional language with informal style is always used in the domain friendship, whereas national language and formal style is used in the domain of education, religion and family. The formal style used when they talk formal topic and used when talking with older people. Then, specific social factors purpose by Holmes like social distance, (stranger s friend), relative status or role (teacher – pupil), degree of formality and the function or goal of interaction that influence to language choice.

Introduction

Language is the most important thing for human being. By using it, the human can communicate with other people and express their feelings. According to Samsuri (1983:9) language is a tool that used to express peoples thought and feelings, their willing and behaviors; a tool that is used to influence and to be influenced, and language is the first base and the root for human society. Therefore, language is important for human to communicate each other. Indonesia is one of countries which have many languages, like Javanese, Sundanese, Sasak language, etc. Eventhough, Indonesian people can master their national language (Indonesian) very well and also master their regional language. The regional language still used by society to interaction with other people, although Indonesia has Indonesian language as formal language. The regional and formal language has function and role in daily life. In this case, Indonesian speech community must be understand how, when, where, and with whom they speak.

Indonesia as multilingual community has phenomenon when they used language choice. The member of society has real fact when they used language choice in specific event (domain and setting). Indeed, the member of society will change their language (formal and regional language), especially in multilingual community. Yogyakarta is a city that has multilingual community, because there are many students who have many language studies in Yogyakarta. This fact made the researcher want to understand about phenomena of language choice. In this case the researcher take example in one of school in Yogyakarta. There is Muhammadiyah 3 Junior high school.

This research is sociolinguistics analysis (language and society) that will describe language choice in students with a domain like family, friendship, education, and religion. These researches also focus on the phenomenon of language choice in Muhammadiyah 3 Junior High School students. This research is interesting to do because the researcher can grow of language awareness to students.

Methodology

Type of this research is descriptive qualitative method. According to Bogdan and taylor (Moleong 1998: 3) qualitative method is research procedures which produce descriptive data in the form of words - written or spoken words of the peoples and behaviors that can be observed. This research also emphasize on context (language and situation), in the context of language in daily conversation.

In the collecting data, this research used “metode simak” with some technique like teknik sadap, dan teknik catat. According to Sudaryanto (1998: 2-9) “metode simak” is a method that is done by listening to the language, tapping technique is the technique of tapping or intercepting conversations language use by researchers with all the ingenuity and willingness. Recording technique is the technique of recording the data on the card immediately followed by the classification. Relation to this tapping technique, Fasold (1990: 47-50) argued about the method of introspection to analyze the values ​​and behaviors and whatever is in the community or the community itself. In this case, the researchers are examining the use of the language of his own people in the community effort to present the facts about language behavior that have been in the subconscious of the users.

The data that has been collected will be classified based on the domain and social factors by social context of the situation in this case examined the sociolinguistic analysis and specifically using the referential and contextual methods

Section 1

The research on multilingualism has been done by some sociolinguists. The following will be presented selective studies about it. in the text A. P. Sorensen Jr. (1971), entitled "multilingualism in the Northwest Amazon" (in Pride and Holmes, 1972: 78-93) argued that the central southwestern Amazon are filled multilingual community of many foreign tribes whom they have their own language support - himself. Tribes and languages ​​that are directly related to multilingualism, such as family language Tukano Northern Arawak language family, and some family languages ​​Pira - Parana.

In relation with the study of the theory of multilingualism, Fishman (1971) argued that understanding who speaks what language to whom and when in a multilingual speech community characterized by a relatively stable multilingualism and spread out. He added that it's associated within group (or intra-group) multilingualism (between communities multilingualism), namely that the multilingual background in which a community used two ​​or more language or language variety for internal communication purposes. In fact these cases, community network members can communicate with each other easily and in a language or variations exist. In a multilingual speech community, language choice becomes a habit and it works fine based domain, speakers, and topics.

Section 2

Certain social factors - who you are talking to the social context of the talk, the function and topic the discussion - turn out to be important in accounting for language choice in many different kinds of speech community. A number of such typical interactions have been identified as relevant in describing patterns of code choice in many speech communities; it’s called domains of language use. Greedfield (via Fishman, 1971:22) state that five domains in the language use, there are family, friendship, religion, education and employment. A domain involves typical interaction between typical participants in typical setting. Domain is clearly a very general concept which draws on three important social factors in code choice participant, setting and topic.  The component of a domain do not always fit with each other. People may selected a particular variety or code because it makes it easier to discuss a particular topic, regardless of where they speaking. At home, people often discuss work or school, for instance, using the language associated with those domains rather than the language of the family domain. Some describe this as "leakage", suggesting it is in some way irregular - the code associated with one domain is "leaking" into another.

Then, Holmes (2001: 25-26) state that characteristic social factor, there are the social distance (strange vs. friend), relative status or role (teacher and student), degree of formality and function or goal of interaction. From the social distance, how well do they know each other, i.e. what is the social distance between the participants? Are they strangers, friends, and brother? The relationship between each other is relevant on language choice. Typical role relationship is teacher – pupil, doctor – patient is important and become another factor on different of status social each other.

Section 3

From the 50 sampling questionnaire, the phenomena used foreign language, national language, and regional language and also formal and informal different domain were clear. Thus, not all these questionnaire were analyzed, but it would have taken two respondents (man and women) to be analyzed. Based on the answers from the respondents (SMP Muhammadiyah 3 students), it clearly that SMP Muhammadiyah 3 students are multilingual, and they can communicate more than one language. They use (understand) foreign language (English and Arabic), national language (Indonesia), and their regional language (Javanese language).

·         The language choice in SMP Muhammadiyah 3 students based on region.

No	Region	Regional language
1.	Central java	Javanese language (ngapak language)
2.	West java	Javanese, sunda
3.	Yogyakarta	Javanese
4.	Jakarta	Indonesia, betawi
5.	East java	Javanese, Madura
6.	East Kalimantan	Banjar, Indonesia
7.	Palembang	Palembang
8.	London	English
9.	Bali	Bali
10.	Malaysia	Melayu language

 From the respondents, we knows that they can communicate with Indonesia language (formal and informal) as national language. Beside that, they also learned and practiced other language in their school like regional language (Javanese), English language in each week.

Section 4

Table. 2 the origin of Muhammadiyah 3 Junior High School Students

No	Origin	Regional language
1.	West java	Sunda, Javanese language
2.	Central java	Ngapak, Javanese language
3.	East java	Javanese language
4.	Bali	Bali language
5.	East Kalimantan	Banjar, bontang
6.	Jakarta	Betawi language
7.	Palembang	Palembang, melayu palembang
8.	Yogyakarta	Karma, ngoko, Javanese language
9.	Malaysia	Melayu, English
10.	England	English

From 50 students, it can be seen clearly in table 2 that students come from 10 origin, they are consist of 8 origin from Indonesia and the other come from Malaysia and England. Most of the students come from java like Yogyakarta, central java, and east java. In the table, the students from central java are divided into the students whose mother tongue is standard Javanese (Semarang, Magelang, Klaten) and whose mother tongue is Ngapak Javanese (Bayumas). As it is known that ngapak Javanese has different vocabulary and accent from the standard Javanese.

In this research, the writer found the phenomena of language choice, for example the student from Bontang, East Kalimantan used some language (Batak, Bontang, Bugis and Banjar language) when she communicated in different domain. There are sample domain of language based on gender.

Table 3. Domain of language use of Ridwan Atras S. from Yogyakarta

Domain	Addressee	Setting	Topic	Variety/ code
Family	Parents	Home	Talking about school	Kromo Javanese
	Brother	Home	Talking about technology	Indonesia
	Maid	Home	Talking about food	Indonesia
Neighborhood	Neighbor (younger)	Home	Talking about game	Ngoko Javanese
	Neighbor (older)	Home	Greeting	Kromo
Friendship	Friend at school	School	Talking about friend, game, sport	Ngoko Javanese
Religion	Ustadz	Mosque	Talking about “ibadah”	Formal Indonesian and kromo
Education	Teacher	School	Talking about lesson	Formal Indonesian and kromo
	Officer	School	Talking about payment and food	Formal Indonesian

From the table 3, it can be seen that Ridwan (one of students from Yogyakarta) has five domains of language use; family, neighborhood, friendship, religion, and education. In the domain of family and neighborhood, when he talks to his parents and older neighbor, he uses Kromo Javanese (formal and standard Javanese). It is different when he talks to his younger neighbor and his friend in school, he uses Ngoko Javanese (informal/ casual Javanese). As it is divided by Clifford (via Suwito, 1985: 28) that Javanese has main speech levels, namely Krama/ formal and Ngoko/ informal. Karma is divided into Krama Inggil/ very formal, karma biasa/Krama/formal and Karma Madya/ Madya. Meanwhile, Ngoko is divided into Ngoko Madya / Madya. Ngoko biasa/ Ngoko and Ngoko sae. In the data, Ridwan usually uses Krama Javanese to older people (parents, teacher, ustadz,and older neighbor). At the same age, he uses Ngoko Javanese to younger neighbor and his friend at school to keep intimacy between each other.

Table 4. Domain of language use of Radiva Rusda Hidayat

Domain	Addresses	Setting	Topic	Variety/ code
Family	Parents	Home	Talking about daily activity	Indonesia
	Sister	Home	Talking about daily activity	Bontang, kaltim, Indonesia, jawa , bugis, batak
	Maid	Home	Requesting to make a some food	Javanese
Friendship	Friend at the college	College	Talking about man	Bontang – Indonesia
	Friend at the school	School	Talking about study, man, and gossip	Javanese, batak, bugis,
Religion	Ustadz	School	Talking about religion	Formal Indonesian
Education	Teacher	School	Talking about study	Formal Indonesian
	Headmaster	School	Talking about family	Formal Indonesian
	Officer	School	Taking about school payment	Formal Indonesian
	Officer	Canteen	Buy some food	Ngoko javanese
Neighborhood	Neighbor (older)	Home	Talking about school	Bugis, Indonesia
	Neighbor (younger)	Home	Talking about environment	Ngoko, Indonesian, batak

Table 4. Shows that Radive Rusda Hidayat (one of students from Bontang, East Kalimantan) has five domain of language use, namely: family, friendship, religion, education, and neighborhood. In the domain of family, when she talks to her parents about daily activity, she uses Indonesian language. In her explanation, she uses Indonesian language because her parents come from different island and language. Her mother come from Batak, North Sumatra, and her father come from Bontang, East Kalimantan. To be understood each other they use Indonesian in conversation for daily life. In case, she getting of best of three regional language. They are Batak, Bugis, and Javanese language. So, when she talks to her sister, she use mix language, something she uses Batak, Bugis or Javanese language because she has been live in Java.

In domain of friendship, for example interaction with close friend in the school or college when she talks about gossip or study, she uses Bontang language when she talks with her friend in college because she knows Bontang language but when she talks to her friend in the school, she uses Ngoko Javanese because most of her friend come from Javanese. It shows that when she talks to her close friend she uses mix language or informal to make intimacy each other.

Conclusion

Muhammadiyah 3 Junior high school is one of Muhammadiyah School which have a various students who has various language and culture. The phenomena of language choice always happen in daily life. The students in Muhammadiyah 3 Junior High School have five domain of language use; they are family, friendship, religion, education and neighborhood. In the domain of family and neighborhood taken in the home, the addresses are parents, sibling, and older neighborhood. The topic usually talk about daily life and sometimes talk about education. In these domain, most of them choose native language in formal style when they talk with older people, whereas they choose informal style like Ngoko Javanese when they talk with friends in the school or neighborhood. In the domain of education and religion taken place at school, mosque, and office they also use Indonesian language with formal style, but sometimes they use mix code between Indonesian – Javanese when they talk to teacher or friend in formal situation.

From the explanation, it can be conclude that in the domain of family and neighborhood native language and informal style more chosen the students than formal style, whereas Indonesian language and formal style is frequently used in domain education and religion. Then, the specific social factor proposed by Holmes like social distance (stranger vs friend), relative status or role (teacher – pupil), degree of formality and the function or goal of interaction, in fact influence their language choice.

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