THE PERCEPTION OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT LECTURERS AS DIGITAL IMMIGRANTS TOWARD LANGUAGE OF DIGITAL NATIVES’ STATUS UPDATES ON Twitter AT STKIP PGRI TULUNGAGUNG

THE PERCEPTION OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
LECTURERS AS DIGITAL IMMIGRANTS TOWARD
LANGUAGE OF DIGITALNATIVES’ STATUS UPDATES
ON TwitterAT STKIP PGRI TULUNGAGUNG

THESIS

By:
YAN CAHYA RATRIOSA PUTRI
09360065

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG
OCTOBER 2013

THE PERCEPTION OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
LECTURERS AS DIGITAL IMMIGRANTS TOWARD
LANGUAGE OF DIGITALNATIVES’ STATUS UPDATES
ON Twitter AT STKIP PGRI TULUNGAGUNG


THESIS

By:
YAN CAHYA RATRIOSA PUTRI
09360065

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG
OCTOBER 2013

THE PERCEPTION OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
LECTURERS AS DIGITAL IMMIGRANTS TOWARD
LANGUAGE OF DIGITALNATIVES’ STATUS UPDATES
ON Twitter AT STKIP PGRI TULUNGAGUNG

THESIS
This thesis is subbmited to meet one of the requirements to
achieve Sarjana Degree in English Education


By:
YAN CAHYA RATRIOSA PUTRI
09360065

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG
OCTOBER 2013

MOTTO AND DEDICATION

Hai orang-orang yang beriman, jadikanlah sabar dan shalatmu sebagai penolongmu,
sesungguhnya Allah beserta orang-orang yang sabar”
(Al-Baqarah: 153)

SLOWLY BUT SURE
(Anonymous)

Dedication:
I dedicate this thesis to:

My beloved father and mother,
My sister and my brother,
My friends,
and my sweety boy,

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alamin, Wassholatu Wassalamu ‘Ala Rasulillah.
Praise is to Allah SWT, the main source of strength who always gives strength and
patience to finish this thesis. Shalawat and Salam may always be upon to the holy
prophet, Muhammad SAW.
The researcher would like to express his deepest gratitude to his first advisor
Drs. Soeparto, M.Pd and the second advisor Drs.Mas’udi, M.Pdfor their suggestion,
invaluable guidance and advice during the consultation period, and their comments,
valuable time, and correction during the completion of this thesis.
His

sincere

gratitude


and

appreciation

are

also

extended

to

FardiniSabilah,M.Pd, and the chairwoman of English Department at University of
Muhammadiyah Malang who has given the opportunity to the researcher in order to
conduct the research.
The last but not the least, a special thank goes to her belovedfather,
(PapiDaryanto) who always gives spirit and motivation, mother (Mami Ari) who
always givesadvice, financial, and everything in her life, also to her sister
(Onna,Arum), her brother (Okki, Erry, Oddi) and her nephew and niece (Alvaro and

Naysa) and especially for Dimas Raditiya who always support her with love, big
family Soeparto’s Thesis Guidance (Ramli, Irma,Dwi,Bintang,Dyah, Mualifa and
etc.)and for all of her friends who cannot mention one by one for their
encouragement, love, care and pray so that she can finish this thesis.

Malang, 29 October 2013
The Researcher,

Yan Cahya Ratriosa Putri

TABLE OF CONTENTS

APPROVAL SHEET ............................................................................................

i

LEGALIZATION .................................................................................................

ii


MOTTO AND DEDICATION .............................................................................

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................

iv

ABSTRACT ..........................................................................................................

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................

vi

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study ..............................................................................

1


1.2 Statement Problem ........................................................................................

6

1.3 Purpose of the Study .....................................................................................

7

1.4 Significance of the Study ..............................................................................

7

1.5 Scope and Limitation ....................................................................................

7

1.6 The Definition of Key Term .........................................................................

7


CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 The Definition of Perception ........................................................................

9

2.1.1 Types of Perception ...........................................................................

9

2.1.2 Influencing factors of perception ......................................................

10

2.1.3 Process of human perception ............................................................

11

2.2 Digital Immigrant ..........................................................................................


11

2.3 Digital Native ................................................................................................

12

2.4 Language Of Digital Native ..........................................................................

13

2.5 Twitter ...........................................................................................................

16

2.5.1 Home Twitter ....................................................................................

16

2.5.1.1 Retweet ...............................................................................


17

2.5.1.2 Replies and Direct Messages (DMs) ...................................

17

2.5.1.3 Hashtags (Signs and # Hash tags) .......................................

18

2.5.1.4 Twitter Status Update .........................................................

18

2.5.2 Profile ..............................................................................................

19

2.5.2.1 Timeline ..............................................................................


20

2.5.2.2 Info ......................................................................................

20

2.5.2.3 Photos ..................................................................................

20

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design.............................................................................................

21

3.2 Research Subject ............................................................................................

22

3.3 Research Instrument.......................................................................................

22

3.3.1 Document ..........................................................................................

22

3.3.2 Interview ............................................................................................

23

3.4 Data Collection Procedure .............................................................................

24

3.5 Data Analysis ..............................................................................................

24

CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Research Findings .........................................................................................

25

4.1.1 Negative Perception ..........................................................................

25

4.1.2 Positive Perception ............................................................................

28

4.2 Discussion .....................................................................................................

29

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
5.1 Conclusion ....................................................................................................

31

5.2 Suggestion .....................................................................................................

32

BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDIX I
APPENDIX II

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ary, Donald. 2002. An Introduction to research in education, United state of
America: Cambridge University.
Ary, Donald. 2010. An Introduction to Research in Education 8th edition, United state
of America: Cambridge University.
Bayne,S and Ross,J. 2010. “Digital Native” and “Digital Immigrant” Discourse: a
critique. Scotland: The University of Edinburgh.
Baron,N. 2008. Language in an Online and Mobile Wold. New York : Oxford
University Press.
Bennet,S.J and Maton,K. 2010. The Digital Native debate.Faculty of Education,
University of Wollongong.
Bogdan, Robert.C and Biklen,K. 2003. Qualitative Research for Education: An
Introduction to Theory and Methods. United State of America: Pearson
education group.
Cresweel,John. 2012. Educational Research.University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Crystal, David. 2001. Language and the internet. Cambridge University Press.
Ebner,M and Schiefner,M. 2010. Looking Toward the Future of TechnologyEnhanced Education: Ubiquitous Learning and the Digital Native. New
York: Information Science Reference
Fitton, 2012.Twitter For Dummies. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons Inc.
Gleason, Jean Berko. 2005. The Developments of Language, 6/e.Boston. Longman.
Lahey, Benjamin B. 2004. Pshycology: An Introduction (8th). United state of
America. Mc. Graw-Hill. Inc. United state of America.
Palfrey, John and URS Gasser. 2008. Born Digital Understanding the First
Generation of Digital Natives. New York. Basic Books.
Pang, Elizabeth S. et. al. 2003.teaching reading, international academy of education.
Available at http://www.curtin.edu.au/dept/smec/iae - accessed on March 15
2013.

Prensky, Marc. 2001. Digital Native, Digital Immigrant, part I and part II. From on
the Horizon: NCB University Press,
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/prensky-Digital accessed on February 15 2013.
Rahayu, Sri. 2012 . The Digital Native’s Perception toward The Mobile Phone Roles
In School at SMK MUHAMMADYAH 2 MALANG. Unpublished: UMM
Tapscott, Don. 2009. Grown Up Digital. New York: McGraw Hill Company.
Walgito, Bimo. 1997. Pengantar Psikologi Umum. Cetakan Kelima. Yogyakarta:
ANDI Offset.

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

In this chapter some aspects of introduction of thesis are explained. Those
aspects are: background of the study, statement of problem, purpose of study,
significance of study, scope and limitation, and definition of key terms.

1.1 Background of the Study
In this modern era, when every people have to build a good communication
with each other, language is totally needed in achieving their arms. We need media to
help us communicating in among countries. Communication does not just use face to
face but now we can communication with each other use technology. Communication
by using technology raises a perception that will bring people to their own opinion
about the perception.
There are a number of labels to describe the young people currently studying
at school or college. They include the digital natives, the net generation, the google
generation or the millennial. All of these terms are being used to highlight the
significance and importance of new technologies within the lives of young people
(Gibbons, 2007).
Perception is the process of organizing and interpreting information received
from outside world (Lahey, 2004: 114). According to Rakhmat, (2001:51) perception
can be obtained by inferring information and interpret the message. There are two
types of perception: positive and negative perception. Positive perception can be said

1

2

as a good perception and negative perception is a bad perception. Rahmat (2001)
states there are two factors that influence perception. First is personal factor or
internal factor comes from two sources; physical and psychological. The second one
is situational factor/external factor are stimulus and environment factors where
perception is continuous.
Social media is the term commonly given to internet to hand mobile-based
channels and tools that allow users to interact with each other and share opinions and
content. As the name implies, social media involves the building of communities or
networks and encouraging participation and engagement. Social media technologies
take on many different forms including magazines, Internet forums, weblogs, social
blogs, microblogging, wikis, social networks, podcasts, photographs or pictures,
video, rating and social bookmarking. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing,
wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, and voice over IP, to name a
few. Many of these services can be integrated via social network aggregation
platforms. By applying a set of theories in the field of media research (social
presence, media richness) and social processes (self-presentation, self-disclosure)
Kaplan and Haenlein created a classification scheme in their Business Horizons
(2010) article, with six different types of social media: collaborative projects (for
example, Wikipedia), blogs and microblogs (for example, Twitter), content
communities (for example, YouTube and DailyMotion), social networking sites (for
example, Facebook), virtual game worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft), and virtual social
worlds (e.g. Second Life). However, the boundaries between the different types have
been increasingly blurred. For example, Shi, Rui and Whinston (2013) argues that

3

Twitter, as a combination of broadcasting service and social network, is better to be
classified as a "social broadcasting technology."
In the statement before said that digital native’s language is influenced by
technology development. It means that when they find out new words from the
technology they use, they will use it in their daily activity. It is suitable with their
characteristic that is easy to accept new transformation in their life including
language or new words. The new words that they use such as, cemungud(keep
spirit),ciyus(serious),miapah(what for),eah(yes), vuk(fuck) etc.In fact, digital
immigrants never use those words. It is because digital immigrant’s language
development is not influenced by technology development. Those words like
cemungud in digital immigrant as semangat, ciyus as serius, miapah as demi apa, eah
as iya and vuk as fuck, but the digital immigrant use this word rarely.
Twitter users today is dominated by young people who are usually called
digital natives. According to kid (2010:183) a digital natives is the generation born in
the digital age, the student who grew up never knowing a world without computers.
Twitter is on of social media that a service for friends, family, and co–workers
to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent
messages. People write short updates, often called "Tweets" of 140 characters or
fewer. These messages are posted to your profile, sent to your followers, and are
searchable on Twitter search.
The classification of people into digital natives and digital immigrants is
controversial. Some digital immigrants surpass digital natives in tech savvy, but there
is a belief that early exposure to technology fundamentally changes the way people

4

learn. The actual classification of people into immigrants and natives is tricky as the
adoption of digital technology hasn’t been a unified phenomenon worldwide. For
North America, most people born prior to 1980 are considered digital immigrants.
Those closer to the cutoff are sometimes called digital intermediates, which means
they started using digital technology in their early teens and thus are closer to digital
natives in terms of their understanding and abilities.
"Digital native" is a term for people born in the digital era. Generation X and
younger. This group is also referred to as the "iGeneration" or is described as having
been born with "digital DNA." In contrast, the term "digital immigrant" refers to
those born before about 1964 and who grew up in a pre-computer world. The terms
"digital immigrants" and "digital natives" were popularized and elaborated upon by
Dr. Mark Prensky (2001) and critiqued for their validity and usefulness by Harding
(2010) among others. In the most general terms, digital natives speak and breathe the
language of computers and the culture of the web into which they were born, while
digital immigrants will never deal with technology as naturally as those who grew up
with it.
A digital immigrant is an individual who was born before the widespread
adoption of digital technology. The term digital immigrant may also apply to
individuals who were born after the spread of digital technology and who were not
exposed to it at an early age. Digital immigrants are the opposite of digital natives,
who have been interacting with technology from childhood.Digital immigrants are
believed to be less quick to pick up new technologies than digital natives. This results
in the equivalent of a speaking accent when it comes to the way in which they learn

5

and adopt technology. A commonly used example is that a digital immigrant may
prefer to print out a document to edit it by hand rather than doing onscreen editing.
The above description is a theoretical consideration about digital native vs
digital immigrant, Twitter, and perception. The following discussion will be about the
some previous studies about perception and Twitter conducted by, Anggita (2012),
Rahayu (2012) and Claudia (2005).
According to Anggita (2012) investigated about colloquial language found on
English writing update status on twitter focused on what are colloquial words found
on English writing updates status of twitter and what are technical terms used to form
the words based on word formation process. This research reveals that there were 90
colloquial words. There were 43 colloquial words based on the theory word
formation process and 47 colloquial words did not belong to the theory found on
Engling writing updates status twitter in internet www.twitter.com. There were 8
technical terms used based on theory word formation process to form the colloquial
words. Twitter users in status update for example,”Duno” is the example of blending
from “ Do not know”
Claudia (2005) investigated about the word formation of thealay language in
status update on twitter, describes the word formation of the alay language used by
tweeps and give the meaning of the alay word in Indonesia. This research reveals that
there are 90 alay words found. There are 35 alay words which conform the theory of
the word formation such us clipping, blending, and multiple process, 33 alay words
do not conform the theory word formation and 22 alay words are called conversion.
These research studies show that the language use on twitter. Twitter is important to

6

be discussed because many tweeps often use language out of the theory of word
formation.
Rahayu (2012) has studied about the way to communicate in social media, she
found that Perception using social network was not only for communication but also
for knowing something new the writer wants to analyze.
Based on the previous of the studies above, the researcher would like to know
the perception of the digital immigrants toward language used on twitter status
update, especially language of digital natives’ status updates on twitter. Twitter is
different with another social networking because the character letter to compare the
tweet is limited not more than 140 characters, automatically the twitter users mostly
shorten the words, twitter is one of the most social networking application for internet
users (Pan, 2010:23). As the researcher states before, the digital native’s status update
sometimes hard to be understood by the digital immigrant. It is the interest reason the
researcher to object observation what is the digital immigrants’ perception toward the
language of digital natives’ status updates on twitter.
1.2 Statement Problem
Based on their background of the study discussed above, the research problem
is formulated as the follow: “How is the digital immigrants’ perception toward the
language of digital natives’ status updates on twitter at STKIP PGRI
TULUNGAGUNG?”

7

1.3 Purpose of the Study
To know the digital immigrants’ perception toward the language of digital
natives’ status updates on twitter at STKIP PGRI TULUNGAGUNG.
1.4 Significance of the Study
After this study has been completed, theoretically the researcher attempts to
provide a real description about the digital immigrants’ perception toward the twitter
status updates of digital natives at STKIP PGRI TULUNGAGUNG. Practically, it
helps the digital immigrant more understand about the digital native.
1.5 Scope and Limitation
The scope of this study focused on language of digital natives’ status updates
on twitter. The researcher limits the study on digital immigrants’ perception toward
the language of digital natives’ status updates on twitter at STKIP PGRI
TULUNGAGUNG.

1.6 The Definition of Key Term
According to the title of this thesis, the writer wants to present the definition
key term that can be use to make the readers easy to understand that the writer is
trying to write and classify the problem be discussed in this script.
The definition of the term used are as follow:
1.

Digital Immigrant: Someone who was born before the existence of digital
technologies and adopted it to some extent later in life. Someone who was not
raised in a digital environment but still uses and adopts many aspects of
technology (Prensky, 2001a).

8

2.

Digital Native: Those born roughly between 1980 and 1994 (Bennett,
Maton&Kervin, 2008). A person born in an environment that has emerged
much technology.

3.

Twitter

: One of social networking that helps every people to communicate

more efficient and easy with their family and their friends. According to
O’Reilly and Milstein (2011:7),

a messaging service that share a lot of

characteristics with communication tool, the message that send and receive
are no more than 140 characters or about the length of a news headline.
4.

Tweets: Is the action of posting message or status update sent on twitter
(Admin,2011). One of features that is always used by every user to share their
direct activity that they do, share their feeling and other friends could give the
direct comments, choose like sign or symbol to show that the reader interested
in the status.