Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Language plays an important role in human life. It is used to communicate with other people. Besides, language is also used to express the idea in human thought into many forms like poem, short story, song, etc. Language that is used by a speaker reflects the thought, behavior and the culture of the speaker himself. In communicating with others, the people have their own styles. The style that they use is not the same. The different kind of style that they use depends on the social context like the people around them. It is also determined by their educational background, status, etc. We can also see it in how many languages that they use when communicating with other people. In monolingual society, the people only use one code or one language in communicating with others. They only mix the style or dialect when they are talking. But, the people that live in the bilingual or multilingual society usually use two or more codes or languages to communicate with other people. 1 Based on Nababa n statement, bilingualism is people’s habit of using two languages in their interaction with other people. 2 Mackey and Fishman in Chaer dan Agustina stated that bilingualism can be defined as using two 1 Dra. Aslinda, M.Hum and Dra. Leni Syafyahya, M.Hum, Pengantar Sosiolinguistik Bandung : PT. Refika Aditama, 2007, p.16 2 P. W. J. Nababan, Sosiolinguistik : Suatu Pengantar Jakarta : PT. Gramedia, 1984, p .27 languages by a speaker in his interaction with other people. 3 Kridalaksana stated that bilingualism is the using of two or more languages by a person or a community. 4 A speaker who is able to speak in two or more languages is unimpeded to communicate with others based on what they need by determining the people they speak with, in what situation and the purpose of communication itself. Therefore, we often see the code switching and code mixing in a conversation. There are many factors that influence people using code mixing, such as the speaker uses another language to soften the aim of the utterance, to avoid ambiguous meaning, the word in another language is easier to remember and the sense of the word is more stable and the limitation of the word of the speaker’s language. 5 Indonesian people are the plural society with many kinds of ethnic groups, cultures, customs, religions, and languages. They usually communicate with two or more languages. Most of Indonesian people are bilingual; they are able to communicate in two languages; national and traditional language. According to Hoffman and Stork as quoted by Alwasilah, traditional language or vernacular language is general language, which is the original language of a country, like native European language in middle era. 6 3 Abdul Chaer and Leony Agustina, Sosiolinguistik:Perkenalan Awal Jakarta:Rineka Cipta, 2004, p.84 4 Harimurti Kridalaksana, Kamus Linguistik Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2008, p.36 5 Uriel Weinreich, Languages in Contact : Finding and Problem New York : Mouton Publishers The Houge, 1963 6 A. Chaedar and Alwasilah, Sosiologi Bahasa, Bandung : Angkasa, 1990, p.73 Nowadays, as everything becomes more sophisticated, English has become a language that many people in Indonesia speak in their daily communication. In addition, globalization era forces people to develop their skills in many fields especially language. The language that has become an internati onal language is English. So, there’s no wonder that many people in Indonesia is capable to speak English fluently. The using of English has entered many fields like politics, economy, education, art and entertainment. There are many announcers in the radio program mixed English in their conversation. Many writers also mixed English in the novel they wrote and the journalists especially in the teenage magazine also mixed their articles with some English phrases and vocabularies. The famous people like politician, singer, actor or actress mix English in their daily conversation like Cinta Laura, Manohara and Agnes Monica. Many musicians also put some of the English words or phrases in their song lyrics. In addition, television programs especially the hosts also mix English in presenting a program. One of them is Indonesian Idol. Indonesian Idol is an annual Indonesian singing competition which began its first season in 2004. Part of the Idol franchise, it is based on the British reality program Pop Idol. It is aired on RCTI, one of Indonesia’s largest commercial television networks. Indonesian Idol became one of the most highly publicized music competitions in Indonesia. After Indonesian Idol’s appearance on Indonesian television, many new similarly themed reality shows were aired. 7 In this season, Indonesian Idol has 4 judges. They are Erwin Guttawa, Anang Hermansyah, Rossa and Agnes Monica. The host of Indonesian Idol, Daniel Mananta frequently mixed English when he was presenting the program. Beside Daniel, the judges of Indonesian Idol 2010 also mixed English when they were giving the comment to the contestants of Indonesian Idol. For example: Host: “Kalo anda ingin Igo menjadi the next superstar untuk Indonesian Idol 2010, ketik IGO”. The utterance above contains a code mixing which is the next superstar that can be classified as a noun phrase with superstar as the head word. The speaker uses phrase the next superstar because of introduction and development of the new culture. The comment of the judges and the utterance of the host make the writer curious to analyze about code mixing which was used by the judges and also the host of Indonesian Idol. The writer wants to analyze the kind of word classes, and phrases that are frequently appeared when the judges and the host of Indonesian Idol season 6 on RCTI mixed code when they gave comment or gave the utterances. Besides, the writer also wants to analyze the factors that influence the people mix code in their utterances. 7 http:en.wikipedia.orgwikiIndonesian_idol accessed April 19 th 2010 10.36 pm

B. Focus of the Study