Faculty of Letter UM 2007 Code Switching Used by Indonesian Bloggers in Friendster Blogs

Tantri Almira Wardhani

Abstrak
This study aims at investigating the use of code switching by Indonesian Bloggers in Friendster Blogs. There are two research problems in this study, namely: What are the types of code switching occurring in Friendster blogs written by Indonesian bloggers? and What are the reasons why Indonesian bloggers switch their Bahasa Indonesia into English, or the other way around when they are writing Friendster Blogs? Theoretically, this study is expected to enrich the study of Sociolinguistics, especially the study on code switching and to give valuable contribution to the theory of language use and culture, particularly the theoretical use of code switching. Practically, this research is expected to broaden the knowledge of linguistics learners, especially the Sociolinguistics students about the phenomenon of switching language in Blogs writing. This study is also dedicated to the bloggers to open up their horizons about the facts of switching language that occur in Blogs writing. The research design of this study is descriptive qualitative and the source of the data of this research is the 10 Blogs, in the form of writing written by 10 Indonesian bloggers in Friendster Blogs. The duration of the data collection is for about two months, starting from February 1st until March 20th, 2007. The results show that there are four out of six types of code switching suggested by Hoffmans theory which are used by the Indonesian bloggers in their writing in Friendster Blogs. They are: (1) intra-sentential code switching, (2) inter-sentential code switching, (3) emblematic switching, (4) involving a word within a sentence. Then, the two other types of code switching which are not found in the research are (1) establishing continuity to the previous speaker, and (2) involving a change of pronunciation.

There are seven out of nine reasons of code switching according to Hoffmans and Saville-Troike theory which are used by the Indonesian youth in their writing blogs in Friendster Blogs. They are: (1) talking about a particular topic, (2) quoting somebody else, (3) being emphatic about something, (4) inserting sentence fillers or sentence connectors, (5) repeating for clarification, (6) expressing group identity, (7) real lexical need. Another reason of code switching used by Indonesian bloggers is to express emotional relationships. The other two reasons in the Hoffmans theory do not occur in the study. They are: (1) intention of clarifying the speech content for interlocutor and (2) To exclude other people when a comment is intended for only a limited audience.
From the results, it is obvious that the Indonesian bloggers employed code switching in their writing blogs. It can be seen that they use various types and reasons of code switching.