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1. INTRODUCTION
1. 1 Background of the Study
The development of language in the world, especially in Indonesia has been happen from time to time. Nowadays, there are many languages are
developing in Indonesia. The ethnic language, and also
Bahasa Indonesia
itself has been changed in several ways of use. Some people mix it with their ethnic
language, some of them mix it with another language and even
Bahasa Indonesia
itself, has its own formal changes that are legalized by the government. Besides these third changes, Indonesian youth have used
Bahasa Indonesia
with their own way. It is a proof that language is changing day after day because it is dynamic,
social changes produce changes in language which happens slowly by the process of human interaction.
In this postmodern era, there is also
Alay
language that people use in their daily live.
Alay
or
4L4Y
,
Anak Layangan
or
Anak Lebay
is a pop culture phenomenon -It is a stereotype
describing something “tacky” and “cheesy”
norak
or
kampungan
. The
Alay
culture phenomena spans over a wide array of styles in music, dress, and messaging.
The word
Alay
or
Alayen
has no exact meaning or obvious derivation. One theory that is widely accepted is that
Alay
is a portmanteau of the term
Anak Layangan
Indonesian: Kiteflyer, a pejorative describing someone has
certain physical attributes from spending most of their time outside and getting sunburnt.
Alay text
is a form of Indonesian language that has undergone
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2 excessive get transformation. Contrary to the popular belief that it is
destroying the national language, grammatical standards are met in contrast to the modern Indonesian slang language. Similar to the jejebets a person who has
managed to subvert the English language to the point of incomprehensibility,
Alay
texts offer an alternative in compressing words so they are under the 160 character-limit in text messages, often to the point that they are impossible to read.
Rules in capitalization are mostly ignored.
Alay
language
bahasa alay
itself is a kind of language that comes from teenager or adolescence from the low class at the beginning. Clark and Eve 1977:
27, states that adolescence is about 13 to 19 years old. But nowadays the user of the
Alay
language is not only the youth. Mature people who are close to the youth world also use this language.The development of technology also has main
contribution in the development, change, and spread of language. The fast growth of electronic tools such us radio, television, fax machines, smartphone, ipad,
computer and so forth, bring new style of communication and also bring a drastic change in social, economic, cultural, and language styles. One of the electronic
technologies that bring a big effect in human languages is the computer and smartphone.
Twitter as one of social networks which is operated by using computer or smartphone of course has a big role as tools to express and spreading of
Alay
language. Almost all people of the world, there may be thousands or millions people, and also Indonesian people are included in twitter daily user. They use this
social network for many reasons: doing business such as having online store, use
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3 it as free album to collect photos, to find old and new friend from all over the
world and the main reason is to have fun by making communication with people among the world. These are why twitter can be a place where the language can be
mixed, changed, produced and lost. This condition may bring a situation where the youth no longer use
Bahasa Indonesia
in proper way. The appearance of twitter has encourage changing in the way of communication. Twitter which is
used as written communication tools that should use formal language, has prompted a shift in the use of spoken language become written spoken language.
Examples : 1. Formal Language
Saya akan pergi ke Medan bulan depan
Formal The first example is formal because it is compatible with the structure and the
diction of Bahasa Indonesia.
2. Informal Slang Language A: Hei , dude wanna join us tonight informal
B: Mmm, yups. gonna be there. informal.
From the second example, the conversation in informal because the dialogue use „wanna‟, „yups‟, „gonna‟ which are part of slang.
3.Word Abbreviation Emoticon Meaning
yang yg paling plg
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harus hrs
Emoticon Meaning
: smile
:- shock :-? Smoking
The other things that are usually found in informal written language is abbreviation and emoticon usage. People use abreviatons to make it simpler to be
written or typed. These abbreviations and emoticons are used commonly in informal written langauge and understood by many people. But nowadays, the
people have created a new style, not only modify the formal to informal. Use slang or use abbreviation and emoticon, they make a new style to write such as
mix alphabet with usual letter.
Alay
language may happen when a speaker chooses to use another language, makes it as daily language and does not maintain the
original language.
This
Alay
phenomenon also reminds us of phenomenon of slang language which always exists in every young comunication. Slang language has not
disappeared at all. For instance, term
bokap
or
nyokap
, these Slang language terms are often used in daily conversation nowdays. Slang is quite different with
Alay
language, this language is more complicated in its spelling or writing style.
Alay
text may have originated from the method of making strong passwords for internet accounts, which requires combinations of small and capital
letters, numbers, as well as special characters. Normally, to keep the password
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5 meaningful and easy to remember, the password would consist of normal words,
where some letters are capitalized or substituted with numbers e.g. the letter a with 4, the letter o with 0. Soon this becomes a habit in writing text in general,
and improved with mixing English and Indonesian in one sentence. Confusing text that could not be understood properly and probably has no meaning except
for the writer, is also considered as
Alay
Text. This type of text usually contains information of the writers mood and feeling, it is also common for the text to
contain the writers own philosophy on a certain topic such as love, heart break, and relationship.
This study focuses on the use of
Alay
language in social media twitter. In twitter, people are allowed to express their tought as free as they want. They can
write anything with their own style. So, here we can see how the
Alay
people use their own language.
1.2 Problem of The Study
The problems of the study are as follows:
a. What is the characteristic of
Alay
language are used in twitter status? b.
What is the meaning of vocabulary with
Alay
language characteristic found in twitter?
c. What is the dominant characteristic of
Alay
language used in twitter status?
d. Why do people use
Alay
language?
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1.3 Scope of The Study
Scope of the study has important purpose in writing this paper. It is used to limit the problem so the topic in this paper is more focused. The scope of this
study is about the
Alay
language based on Shinta 2011 found in Twitter status of the user friend personal account of widoro_4r17 followers.
1.4 Purpose of The Study
a. To describe the characteristic of
Alay
language used in the twitter status.
b. To explain the meaning of vocabulary with Alay language characteristic found in twitter
c. To explain the dominant characteristic of Alay language used in twitter status
c. To describe the reasons why people use
Alay
language.
1.5 Reason for Choosing the Topic
The reason for choosing this topic is to answer my curiosity about
Alay
language because I know the language from my sister who has been adept at using this language. I chose twitter as my research because Indonesia is the most twitter
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7 users in the world, and so many people use
Alay
language in twitter. In addition, I also want to tell people who do not know that the
Alay
language is also used to communicate each other.
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2. REVIEWS OF RELATED LITERATURE
In conducting a research, theories are needed in avoiding ministerpretation to analyze the problems in this study. The writer describes the language shift, youth
language and
Alay
language to support the content and the analysis.
2.1 Language
A. Definition of Language
Language can be defined as means to deliver something that comes in the heart. It means that the language as an instrument to deliver thoughts, ideas,
concepts or feelings to be conveyed to others. Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia KBBI, 1990: 66 says,
“Bahasa diartikan
sebagai system lambang bunyi berartikulasi yang bersifat sewenang-wenang dan konvensional yang dipakai sebagai alat komunikasi untuk melahirkan perasaan
dan pikiran.” Language is interpreted as a sign system of articulates sounds which is arbitrary and conventional used as a communication tool to bring forth
feelings and thoughts. Keraf 1997:1 says,
“Bahasa adalah alat komunikasi antara anggota masyarakat berupa simbol bunyi yang dihasilkan oleh alat ucap manusia.”
language is a means of communication between members of the community in the form of a symbol of the sound produced by human vocal organs.
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9 Khaidir 1998:21 says,
“Bahasa sebagai sebuah sistem lambang bunyi yang
arbitrer, yang dipergunakan oleh para anggota suatu masyarakat untuk
bekerjasama, berinteraksi, dan mengidentifikasikan diri.” Language as a symbol system sounds arbitrary, which is used by members of community to collaborate,
interact and identify themselves. Pei and Gaynor 1975: 119 says, “ Language is a system of communication by sounds, i,e., throught the organs of speech and
hearing, among human beings of certain group or community, using vocal symbols possessing arbitrary conventional meaning.” From the view of the
linguist like Kridalaksana, Pei and Gaynor above, Language can be emphasized as a symbol system. The term system contains the meaning existence and regularity
of the constituent elements. Effendi 1995:26 says, “a communications expert, look at the language of the
two side of the formal and functional”. Formally, “ Bahasa diartikan sebagai semua kalimat yang terbayangkan, yang dibuat menurut tatabahasa.” While
formally, “ Bahasa diartikan sebagai alat yang dimiliki bersama untuk
mengungkapkan gagasan.” Dirgo 1999 :1 says,
“ Bahasa adalah rangkaian bunyi yang dihasilkan oleh alat ucap manusia secara sadar.” Language is a series of sounds produced by the
human vocal organs consciously. And next Chaer and Agustina 2004:11 say , “
Hakikat bahasa antara lain bahwa bahasa itu sebuah sistem lambang, berupa
bunyi yang arbitrer, produktif, dinamis, beragam, dan manusiawi.” Based on the above meanings, we could conclude that language is the sound symbol used by
humans to communicate each other for the purpose of communicating.
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10 B.
Language Shift Language shift is known or relevant with “language change” or language
death”. Holmes 2001 gives some explanation about the language shift : The most obvious factor is that the community sees an important reason
for learning second language. The reasons are often economic, but they may also be political. The second important factor seems to be that the community
sees no reasons to take active steps to maintain their ethnic language or they may not realize that it is in any danger of disappearing. The social and
economic goals of individuals in a community are very important in accounting for the speed of shift.
The language shift itself refers to the degradation of using language by native speaker.Besides, Holmes also said that the most obvious factor is the
communities. It comes by the situation where the communities were in contact with another language and found a process where they feel comfort or it is
important for them to use the new language. The situation usually happens among the youth where they feel more comfort to use their own language to disguise the
meaning or just to make creativity. Some factors affect the language shift:
1. Demographic factor.
Holmes 2001: 59 also says demographic factors are also relevant in accounting for the speed of language shift. He also explains that the
technologies such us television also take a part in the speed of language shift.
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11 The demographic works as a barrier. When a community was located in an
isolated place, there is only a little opportunity for their language to be spread or to get a new language, which will involve their knowledge about the
development of language or the appearance of new language. However, the appearance of the technology today has destroyed some aspect of the language
barrier as long as the place has receive the new technology of communication.
2. Surrounding situations
In other case, the situation of surrounding will affect speaker to involve in language shift. The importance of using language in people‟s daily life
sometimes push people to learn and use a new language in continuity. When someone comes into a new place meet with new people who use diffrent
language that is used at his or her new place. Here will be chance for this people to forget his old language.
3. Social and economic
People cannot live alone, it means that they have to „get on‟ in the society. When people do an interaction, especially in a multi communities area, they
tends to use some different languages. Someone who is gathering with Bataknese people tends to use batak language. In other situation when this
people join with some friends from abroad, there will be chance for this people to use the language that is also used by his new friend, and there will
be a big apportunity for using English as a common international language.
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12 Along with the communication frequency with the abroad friends, there will
be a chance for the language shift. Economic factor also can be a reason for the language shift. A shift to
another language may influence someone depend on where he get a job. An Indonesia who gets a job in a German factory will speak German language
frequently. Even when one day he has to move to work in German, he has to use it in his daily life. Therefore, there is a big chance for
Bahasa Indonesia
to be shifted into German language.
A language shift can be happened in a short or long time, depend on the eagerness of the native speaker to maintain his language. Language shift not
only affects a small group of community, but it can also affect a big country; we can see Indonesia as the example. Indonesia has some changes in it
language from 1945 until today.
C. Youth Language
Actually, Youth language
bahasa gaul
has been occurred since long time ago. There are many varieties of the youth language. The language is always
changing from time to time because there will be a time when a language is death and being replaced by another new youth language. Sumarsono and Pratana 2004
: 81, categorize the youth language in Indonesia from 1950‟s to 1980‟s into four groups they are:
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13 1.
Put consonan V + vowel This style appeared around 1950‟s. The youth put consonant V + vowel on
every syllable, which was used at the time. Examples:
Mata
: ma + ta → ma + va + ta + va →
mavatava
eye
Mati
: ma + ti→ ma+ va + ti + vi →
mavativi
dead
Matang
: ma + tang → ma + va + ta + va + ng →
mavatavang
ripe
2. Change the last syllable with –sye
This language style appeared at the beginni ng of 1960‟s. This language
style just use the last syllable of the word dissaper another syllable then replace it with
–sye. Examples:
Kunci
→ kunsye key
Tambah
→ tamsye add
Sepeda
→ sepsye bicyle
3.
Walikam
style This language style appeared around 1
960‟s in Malang. It is read from the right to left.
Examples :
Mata
→ atam eye
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Tidak
→ kadit no
Sari
→ iras Beside reading the word from the last letter,
walikam
style also dismiss fonem h.
Examples :
Sehat
→ taes healthy
Lihat
→ tail see There are new vocabularies that appear in
walikam
style:
Walikam
Meaning jinjak
polisi
police nes‟
cantik
beautiful;
baik
kind raija
uang
money ebes
bapakibu
fathermother Beside read the word from the right to left, the word might be
added by any phoneme. Examples :
Tidak
→ kadit → kadodit no
Sehat
→ tahes → tahohes health
4.
Prokem
language This language style appeared around 1980‟s. This language is determined
by adding –ok among the first or second syllable of the word. It is almost the
same with the language that was used by the gay in Surabaya.
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15 Examples :
Bapak
→ bap →b →ok →ap → bokap father
Ngumpet
→ngum →ng →ok →um →ngokum hide
Begitu
→begit →beg →ok →it →begokit Beside the word with the pattern above, it also find any words without
rule. Examples :
Amsyong →
hancur
broke into pieces Item →
kopi
coffee Ogut →
saya
I Ji →
kamu
you There are also some acronyms
Examples : HUT →
hanya untuk cinta
just for love Fanta →
fanatik tapi agresif
fanatic but aggressive Pendekar →
pendek tapi kekar
short but strong Metastesis
Besok → sobel tomorrow Piring → riping plate
Bener → neber true After 1980‟s the youth always produce new
bahasa gaul
. Around 2000‟s there are a newmillenium era with it‟s own language. In this era the speaket
tend to adopt a word which has different meaning but almost have a same sound.
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16 Examples :
1.
Mau
want become
mawarrose 2.
Aku tidak mau makan
I don‟t want to eat become
Akika tinta mawar macarena..
D.
Alay
Language Around 2011, there appeared new kind of youth language namely
Alay
Language
Bahasa Alay
.
Alay
language is a kind of language that is popular among the teenagers in Indonesia, now on. According to Shinta 2011:13,
Alay
4L4Y,
Anak Layangan
or
Anak Lebay
comes from the phoneme “a” and “lay”. These are an acronym for
Anak Layanga n
. In the beginning
Alay
is a term that is used to describe the low class teenager who use any aspect of fashion that is
copied from the celebrity. By the time, teenager or youth that use special freak kinds of writing that is usually difficult to be read. The user of this language will
mix capital alphabet, symbol and number to write a word or sentence. They will also add the alphabet, so it will be difficult to be read.
At the beginning,
Alay
is meant as a lifestyle of teenager or adolescence from low class, but it becomes a trend soon. Shinta, 2011:13
Shinta 2011 also says, “there are four categories of
Alay
”. They are different by their way of writing.
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17 Beginner:
“
seNank dech haTi sAaiia.. taDi paGi dianTeRin ama paCal dund.. tapi biNund juga, tumbEn yaCh paCal ku
saAiiank mao anTel
??” I‟m so happy.. this morning my boyfriend took me.. but I
also confused, it‟s not ususal that he car and want to do it. Intermediate:
“
hErandTh juJJa.. kOgh, cAaiiaa gugh iCa nGwerJaiNth sOal mTema Tikha yUaaccH..? KaTa pacALd, aaiiOO
sEmaNgadTh beLaJard.. bIaL piNteRd.
It‟s really confused me… Why did I can‟t do the math exercise? My boy told me to study hard to be clever.
High Level: “
DucH Gw4 5aiianK b6t sAma Lo.. 7aNgan tin69alin akYu
ya B3ibh” Oh… I really love you. Please don‟t leave me baby.
King of Alay: “
hErandTh s4iiA M4 Bh5A aLLai Ii4Nk an3H bln ngaCo, pi mAsEEch bNya6h aJj4 iAnk m4k3.. p4k3 iiAnk
n0rMaLd Jj4 dumMzz.. Bh4sa gN M4H BkiNdTh paLa pUsinK dUamzZ..
I confuse with this strange
Alay
Language. Why a lot of people still use it…Just use the normal one… Such
language is just making me get a headache. Beside the level, there are some types of vocabulary in Alay language.
They are „plat number‟ mix alphabet with number, „caps lock style‟, etc
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Style Word
Meaning
Plat Number t4 t3mp4t
tempat
place Caps lock
semester
semester
Etc plink p‟ling
paling
the most Luph, luff, loupz
cinta
love Kamuh, kamyuh, kamuwh
kamu
you Beside the freaky style of writing, this
Alay
community also has their own vocabulary and emoticons to express their feeling or mood.
Caps lock Acronym Number Meaning
AbcdE 4ih b0 cu4p33 deh
aduh bo capek deh
very tired cAbs caPcuS
c4but p3r61
pergi
go EmbEr
3mb3r
iyabenersetuju
yestrueagree Jk
ju5t k1dd1n6
hanya bercanda
just kidding From the example above, we can see that Alay language has chaged some
structure of the original word. It has ruined the word from the orthography side. Orthography is a system of writing a language.
Examples : Original word
Alay
language
No one no on3
For You 4U
I see you ICU
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19 A good orthography has to have the four things:
1. Easy to read
2. Facilitate the obtaining of information
3. Facilitate dissemination of information
4. Enable the spirit of learning
People who know the language can read it without feeling embarrassed http:ejournal.unud.ac.idabstrak420suprawa.pdf.
Beside the orthopraphy,
Alay
language also create many new term and acronym.
Examples :
Original word
Alay
language
Pergi cabcus cabut
Just kidding jk
Usually this
Alay
style is used in writing messag or social network such us twitter or sometimes it is also used in facebook. In this paper, the writer analyzes
Alay
language that is used in twitter. Based on
Alay
Handbook Shinta,2011 it can be concluded that Alay language is a kind of mess language which has these five characteristics:
1. Unusual acronym
Examples :
Acronym Meaning
ABCDE Aduh Bo Cape Deh Eke
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EGP Emang Gue Pikirin
DL Deritaloe
IP Ilmu Pendekatan
2. Unimportant additional alphabet
Examples : ●
Duch lama bungaetzz sechhh aduh lama banget sih
oh,I‟ve wait too long
●
Gagh suka dechh sama orang yang giutch, kan gagh sopanh namanyah gak suka deh sama orang yang gitu, kan ga sopan namanya
I don‟t like such kind of people, so rude
3. Put capital letter among the letters in the word
Examples : ●
keNAps kaMu DatangNYa lama sEkali
● kalaU kAmu mEmAnG SuKa Ya BiLanG Ja
4. Create new spelling of the original word
Examples :
Original word New spelling
Lama sekali lama beudz
Semangat cemungudh
Pergi cabcus cus
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21 5.
Replace letter with number
Originl word New word
Tempat t3mp4t
House h0us3
Tomorrow 2morr0w
2.2 Relevant Study
There are researchers that have done analysis about
Alay
language. So, in conducting this analysis, I have consulted the previous paper and research
findings. They are Widya Astuty, student of Indonesia University of Education Bandung, and Bangun Nogroho, student of State University of Malang.
Widya Astuti 2013 in her thesis en titled “Language Attitudes towards
Written Alay veriety in Facebook Interaction” . She uses a descriptive method to describe and interpret the data. The study reveals that the realization of written
Alay
variety in Facebook covers two broad categories, namely spelling and wrriten that involves a mix of capital punctuation. The spelling modifications in
written
Alay
variety were found to be in four different case, spelling shift, spelling addition, spelling deletion, contraction, and irregular spelling modification.
Related to language toward the written
Alay
variety, users and ex-users develop different attitudes towards the use of
Alay
variety. Users tend to have more neutral attitudes with the use of
Alay
variety, they develop more positive attitudes towards
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22 the variety. In contras, most ex-users react negatively towards the use of
Alay
variety as they consider that have a low prestige or status and is not a proper variety to use.
Bangun Nogroho 2012 in his thesis entitled “
Bahasa Alay
as a Current Iden
tity of Some Indonesian Tennagers”. His study is concerned with discussing the word formation of
bahasa Alay
, degree of similarity in
bahasa Alay
, and length of utterance and its ratio with standard language. The research design of his
study is qualitative-explanatory. The primary data are the written form, which are taken from the update statuses and comments from primary and secondary
respondents. The data were collected through document analysis.The research tried to find and identify the
Alay
words and utterances from statuses and comments posted by the respondents. The result can be classified into three major
categories. First, the word formation process reveals the lexical features of
bahasa Alay
. Fourteen word formation are found. Five of them [a] borrowing, [b] clipping, [c] contraction, [d] iconic, and [e] multiple processes. On the other
hand, the nine other categories [a] changing letters, with other letterssymbols representing similar sound, [b] changing voiceless into
voiced, [c] changing letters with numberssymbols, [d] changing certain syllable with letters, [e] doubling letters, [f] the pronunciation of words is
presented by numbers, [g] special writing, [h] special symbol, and [i] other changing are found in his research and considered to be important findings.
Secondly, the degree of similarity between
bahasa Alay
and the standard language reveals the orthographic features of
bahasa Alay
. They are classified into four
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23 categories: very similar, similar, different, and totally different. Third and finally,
the lengths of utterances are used to reveal the variation of utterance in
bahasa Alay
. They are classified into different criteria: very short, short, moderate, long, and extremely long. Thus, those three previous aspects are utilized to reveal how
bahasa Alay is able to serve the identity of certain group of teenagers in Indonesia. Thus, future researchers can elaborate more in the relationship between age of
Alay
users and the created lexicons. They can learn whether the orthographic distortion can classify the users into certain categories based on their age.
The writer choose
Alay
language as object of paper because inspired by Widya Astuti‟s thesis and Bangun Nogroho‟s thesis who analayzed
Alay
language. As well as Widya astuti and Bangun nugroho, the writer has some purposes of writing this paper : to show the tcharacteristic of
Alay
language used in the twitter, to explain about how the vocabulary variations formation pattern of
language, to describe the reasons why do people use
Alay
language, and to answer my curiosity about this language.
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3. METHODOLOGY