The Nature of Code-Switching

11

2. Code-switching

According to Asher 1994 in The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Volume 2, “the term “code” refers to variety of a language.” Asher defined code-switching as the switching from one variety to another, either of the same language or of different languages, in speech or writing. There are some different arguments which were proposed by linguists in order to define the terms code-switching and borrowing. Some linguists differentiate these two terms. However, many linguists tended to see that code- switching and borrowing as a continuum. In this research, the writer sees code- switching as similar process. It has been supported by Rezaeian 2009 in Structural and Social Aspects of Code Switching Among IranianCanadian Bilinguals who viewed that “code-switching and borrowing have similar processes which fall along a single continuum.”

a. The Nature of Code-Switching

In sociolinguistics, the speaker uses a term to perform language style which is called ‘code’. Tanner in Pride says: “Code… refers to any form of a speech whether named or unnamed that the society in question differentiates from other forms. The concept code thus includes both where we commonly understand by the term language, and into language distinction that I call varieties, that is, speech levels, dialects, and styles” 1972:126. There is a different meaning of ‘code’ from Longman, Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. “Code is a term which is used instead of language, speech variety or dialect.It is sometimes considered to be a more neutral term that the others. People 12 also use ‘code’ when they want to stress the uses of a language or language variety in a particular community” 2002:79. Bilinguals usually switch some of code in their speech. This phenomenon is often called code-switching act. For example, in a conversation between speaker A and B who come from Javanese, in the middle of conversation a Bataknese joins them, so A and B who are Javanese switch their language into Bahasa Indonesia because of the presence of the third person that urges A and B to do switching act. According to Gardner 1997, as seen in Jaworsky Coupland’s Modern Lingusitics: Sociolinguistic: A Reader and Coursebook, code-switching is defined as “the use of two or more languages in the same conversation or utterance” 1997:361. This kind of behaviour can occur in the situation of bilingualism where people use more than languages. It also possibly occurs in the regional minorities in which a speaker becomes the new comer of a community, so that he has to adapt within the society. In addition, Gardner argues that behaviour involved in the phenomenon relying on the sociolinguistics circumstances and the language combination as well. Hymes 1974 defines only code-switching as “a common term for alternative use of two or more languages, varieties of a language or even speech styles” while Bokamba 1989 defines both concepts thus: “Code-switching is the mixing of words, phrases and sentences from two distinct grammatical sub systems across sentence boundaries within the same speech event… code-mixing is the embedding of various linguistic units such as affixes bound morphemes, words unbound morphemes, phrases and clauses from a co-operative activity where the participants, in 13 order to infer what is intended, must reconcile what they hear with what they understand.” Drawing upon this qutation, code switching engages and requires two languages or more which are used by people in same speech event. Therefore, the language alternation needs to involve language elements of those two languages by the process of borrowing and constructing or combining. A speaker may borrow certain language elements from another language, for instance in the form of a word, phrase, clause, or even a complete sentence, and combine them with the language elements of her or his native language. Valdes-Fallis 1977 as cited by Duran in Toward a better Understanding of Code-Switching and Interlanguage in Bilinguality: Implications for Bilingual Instruction explains that code-switching may happen if two languages used simultaneously or interchangeable. In addition, Peter Stockwell 2002:135 states that code-switching is often the specific mechanism through which the borrowing of words and constructions happens. From these two arguments, it can be drawn that code switching occurs simultaneously in two languages which are used by a speaker. The speaker may borrow or combine certain words between native language Bahasa Indonesia and foreign language English. But of course, in order to create an appropriate combination of two elements from different languages, the speaker should have the basic language competence of both languages. It is expected that the words the speaker constructs is a matched combination in the code-switching which fulfils the requirements of grammatical rules of certain languages. 14 According to some linguists’ perspective about code-switching, it can be concluded that code-switching is a product of language alternation in the same utterances. This change is indeed expected to have the same meaning.

b. Reasons of Code-Switching