Background of the Study

1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Language is the most important tool of communication in human life. It will never be separated from human life because it is a human system which is used to communicate their ideas, feeling, desires, actions and experience for other people. In general, language refers to the human ability to learn and use systems of complex communication, or to describe the set of rules that make up these systems, or the set of utterances that can be obtained from those rules. According to Sapir 1921 language is a purely human and non- instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols. In addition, Rodman, et al 2010 said that language is sound units that are related to specific meanings and the sounds and meanings of words are arbitrary. From various definitions above, we can conclude that language is a system for communication that uses arbitrary signals such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols that enable human to cooperate. There are various functions of language in human life. According to Jakobson 1960, there are six functions of language in which each function has an associated factor, namely: the referential function, the expressive function, the conative function, the poetic function, the phatic function and www.eprints.undip.ac.id © Master Program in Linguistics, Diponegoro University 2 the metalingual function. The referential function corresponds to the factor of context and describes a situation, object or mental state. It is denotative, cognitive function, which is oriented toward the facts, example: The sun rises in the east. The expressive function or alternatively called emotive or affective function relates to the addresser. This function comes out when we want to express our emotion although we do not speak to give information. It is exemplified by interjections and other sound changes that do not alter the denotative meaning of an utterance, but add information about the addressers speakers internal state, examples: Wow, Ouch, Bah, Oh, Yuck”. The conative function is an orientation toward addressee directly. It is illustrated by vocative and imperative sentences, examples: Tom Go Away. The poetic function focuses on the message for its own sake and is the operative function in poetry as well as slogans, examples “horrible Vanda” instead of “terrible Vanda” or “dreadful Vanda” which have the same meaning. The phatic function is language for the sake of interaction. It sets for contact establishes, prolongs or discontinues the communication. We use this function to know whether the channel works or whether the contact is still there, e.g. “Do you hear me?” The metalingual or alternatively called metalinguistic or reflexive function is the use of language to discuss or describe itself. It is used whenever the addresser and the addressee need to check whether they use the same code and when the language is used to speak about language, e.g. “What do you mean by “unplugged?”. While according to Nababan 1993:1 language as a tool of communication has an important www.eprints.undip.ac.id © Master Program in Linguistics, Diponegoro University 3 role in human interaction because it is used to form and support social relationship. Hymes 1974:55-62 characterized some factors that strongly influence the speaker in the speech event into several speech components. Those components are arranged in such ways: S settings scene, the setting is a time and place of speech act, P participant is a speaker and audience, E end that is the goal or purpose and outcome of conversation, A act is an event in which a speaker is in talks, K key us the clues that establish the tone, manner, or spirit of the speech acts, I instrumentality is form and style of speech. N norm is social rules governing the event and the participants action and reaction. G genre is the kind of speech act or event. From the explanation of those components, we know that the speaker must know how to talk in appropriate sentences, tones, manners according to the topic, event and situation. The use of language for communication is determined by two factors, namely linguistic and non linguistic factors. One of nonlinguistic factors that affect the use of language is the social factor. It is because language is basically part of the communal system. The study of language is related to social factors is an interesting study. It is named sociolinguistics. Hudson 1996:1-2 said that sociolinguistics is not only about the form of language and its variations, but also the use of language in society. There are special social values and cultures in the use of language in every group of society. www.eprints.undip.ac.id © Master Program in Linguistics, Diponegoro University 4 As an object of sociolinguistics, the use of language in bilingual and multilingual community is interesting to study. In bilingual or multilingual community, people have a tendency to use two or more languages interchangeably for communication. They use language variety and variations in communication according to their situation, social and cultural background. This kind of phenomenon is recognized as code-switching. Code-switching, actually talks about the using of two languages in the same sentence or discourse Marasigan, 1983. Code-switching is a transitional language phenomenon that occurs due to the use of the language situation. It occurs when people switch more than one language in one speech event for the communication. Code-switching can be found effective in teaching and learning in a classroom context. In education forum, especially in teaching and learning activity, language has a function as a tool to convey informations. In teaching and learning activity, language choice has a considerable influence towards success of the hearer to interpret the speaker’s message. In chemistry classroom, the teacher often switches her language for a certain purpose in a specified situation. Code-switching is frequently used by teachers at school during teaching and learning process. The teachers frequently change from one language to another language in conveying her messages in the classroom. www.eprints.undip.ac.id © Master Program in Linguistics, Diponegoro University 5

1.2 Reason for Choosing Topic