The Choice of Topic The Social Distance

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1. The Choice of Topic

The first reason for code-switching that the writer would like to discuss is the choice of topic. It was referred to, as Holmes 2001 stated, ‘referentially oriented’. Since the object of this study was translated woman magazines, there were a lot of article discussing beauty products and fashion items. Moreover, most of the terms dealing with those two topics rarely use Indonesian language. For example, the phrase hairstylist was often used instead of penata rambut. Also, the word makeup was used frequently in the target magazines. In fact, in Indonesian language, people can say tata rias but the writer of the article would rather use the word makeup than use the word tata rias. The other topic which also demands the use of code-switching was electronic topics. There were also some topics in the target magazines which provided the readers with reviews on some new gadget stuffs. For example, the writer of the article tended to use the word wireless instead of nirkabel. Another example was the word hard disk. The writer preferred using English term to Indonesian’s though in Indonesian language has the word piringan keras. Another example of a referentially oriented code-switch is when someone switches code to quote a person’s saying. Therefore, the editor switched code when quoting from others to support his or her opinion. For example, “If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body life. For life and death are one.” That was a wise word that was quoted from Kahlil Gibran’s. Another example was “You say I’m crazy, I got you crazy, You’re nothing but womanizer…womanizer…” . That was some parts of song lyrics. 53

2. The Social Distance

The second reason was the social distance between the editor of the magazines and the target readers. Based on the data collected, some of the English code-switching cases found in the target magazines were informal English. The editors of the magazines might expect to build a closer relationship to the target readers so they used informal English code-switching instead the formal one. Some examples of the informal English code-switching in the translated woman magazines were mostly abbreviations of particular words. For examples: Grab’em now It happened in advertisement category when there was a special promotion of an accessories brand. In this case, English code-switching happened to create a closer distance with the target readers by using the informal one. Pancake ‘Em All The example above occurred in feature category. The writer of the magazine wrote an article about a restaurant which has kinds of pancakes as the special menu. The word ‘em in the sentences above was the abbreviations of the English word them. The other example was C’mon. That utterance was the contracted form of the sentence Come on. Another example was Wanna have bouncy hair?. The expression wanna in the examples above was the abbreviation form of the expression Do you want to. 54 Other examples of English code-switching which were done to build close relationship were integrated loanwords. For examples: 1. Tahun baru brand new job-lah 2. …, kesamaan selera soal musik dan fashion-lah yang membuat kami benar- benar asyik, …

C. Implications