xxiii language to non-formal one. As a result, this will cause the ignorance of the
role relationship namely incongruent situation, for one of the elements of communication cannot be available.
Therefore, it can be concluded that incongruent situation enables the interlocutors speaker and listener to alter the use of language variation from one
to others. In this phenomenon, not only language variation changes, but also other cases. All those are correlated to the certain situation
4. Communicative Competence
According to Trudgill 1992; 31 the concept of communicative competence is a central one in the ethnography of speaking. This concept,
introduced by Hymes 1996, is defined as what speakers need to know to communicate appropriately within a particular speech community. Troike in
McKay and Hornberger 1996; 363 states that communicative competence involves knowing not only the language code but also what to say to whom and
how to say it appropriately in any given situations.
Hymes in Trudgill 1992; 17 points out that knowing the grammar, phonology and lexicon of a language is not enough. All native speakers of a
language also have to know how to use that language appropriately in the society in which they live. They have to know when to speak and when not to, which
greeting formula to use when, which style to use in which situations, and so on.
In short, communicative competence constitutes everything involving the use of language and other communicative dimensions in particular social setting.
Language Variation
Hudson in Sociolingiustics 1980: 24 says that variety of language is a set of linguistics items with similar social distribution. This definition allows
English, French, London English, and the English of football commentaries, the language or languages used by a particular person as “varieties of language”.
As its own name implies, language variation focuses on how language varies in different contexts, where context refers to things like ethnicity, social
class, sex, geography, age, and a numbers of other factors 2002, available at http:www.unc.edu~gerfenLing30Sp2002sociolinguistics.html
. It means that language varieties not only occur because of the speakers, but also occur because
xxiv of the speakers’ social activities. The varieties will increase more and more if
language is used by many speakers in a widespread area. The statement above is similar to what Shuy says that language variation
is a fact of society, tied in with the traditions of people and the social factors that distinguish different social, cultural and ethnic groups from each other 1984: 236.
Chaer and Agustina 1995 state that language variation is considered as a result of complexity of language speakers as well as language functions. It has
already fulfilled its functions as a means of interaction in a complex society. Moreover, language variation is not limited to pronunciation, but it also
occurs at other level linguistics analysis to such as vocabulary, word structure morphology, and grammar syntax. Beside that, language varieties can be
associated with setting, purpose, region, ethnicity, social class, status and role, and sex and age.
1. Varieties associated with setting
