MAINTAINABILITY OF BAHASA MALAYSIA BY MALAYSIAN STUDENTS IN MEDAN.

MAINTAINABILITY OF BAHASA MALAYSIA BY
MALAYSIAN STUDENTS IN MEDAN

A Thesis

Submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora

By:
INDRI HARMAILI LUBIS
Registration Number: 8126111010

ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
MEDAN
2016

ABSTRACT
INDRI HARMAILI LUBIS. Registration number: 8126111010.

Maintainability of Bahasa Malaysia by Malaysian Students in Medan. A
Thesis. English Applied Linguistic Study Program. Postgraduate School.
State University of Medan. 2016
The background of this research was how Malaysian students maintain their
Malaysian language in Medan even when they were far from their language
domain. When a certain language speaker moved to other area which use different
language and interact with them, they tend to adopt that new language. The
objectives of this study wire to find what factors that induce maintainability of
Malaysian language by Malaysian students in Medan, and how is the
maintainability of Malaysian language realized by Malaysian students in Medan
and also why the maintainability of Malaysian language is the way it does. This
research used descriptive research by giving the Malaysian students a
questionnaire and interviewing them. There were 21 Malaysian students as
informants, 16 men and 5 women. It was found that the maintainability happened
because Malaysian students were living in group, so they still use Malaysian
language regularly. Even when they were far from Malaysian language domain,
they still accessed Malaysian language media such as music, news, TV, radio etc
regularly and still active in chatting application with their friends who are still
living in Malaysia and use Malaysian language. They realized they maintainability
of Malaysian language by joining Malaysian community, where many Malaysian

students gather and speak in Malay, they also have good language attitude towards
Malaysian language. Those happened because when they lived in a foreign
environment they tried to find other Malaysian students to fell like home. That
makes them living together with other Malaysian students in group.

ABSTRAK

INDRI HARMAILI LUBIS. NIM : 8126111010. Pemertahanan Bahasa
Malaysia pada mahasiswa - mahasiswa Malaysia di Medan. Thesis. Program
Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris. Pascasarjana. Unimed. 2016
Latar belakang penilitian ini adalah bagaimana terjadi pemertahanan
Bahasa Malaysia terjadi di Medan. Walaupun mereka jauh dari daerah asalnya.
Ketika pembicara suatu Bahasa berada jauh dari daerah asal Bahasa tersebut, dan
berinteraksi dengan pengguna Bahasa lain, pengguna Bahasa tersebut cenderung
mengadopsi dan menggunakan Bahasa yang baru tersebut. Tujuan dari penelitian
ini adalah untuk menemukan faktor- faktor apa saja yang menyebabkan terjadinya
pemertahanan Bahasa Malaysia di Medan, bagaimana pemertahanan Bahasa
tersebut disadari oleh para mahasiswa Malaysia serta kenapa pemertahan Bahasa
tersebut terjadi. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian deskriptif dengan
memberikan lembar questionnaire pada para mahasiswa Malaysia dan kemudian

mewawancarai mereka. Ada 21 mahasiswa Malaysia yang digunakan sebagai
sampel yang terdiri dari 16 pria dan 5 wanita. Dari penilian ini di temukan bahwa
pemertahanan Bahasa Malaysia terjadi karena para mahasiswa Malaysia tersebut
hidup berkelompok disuatu tempat, dan karna mereka berkelompok mereka masih
menggunakan Bahasa Malaysia secara teratur dan setiap hari. Walaupun mereka
jauh dari tempat asal Bahasa Malaysia, mereka masih selalu mengakses berbagai
media yang berbahasa Malaysia seperti music, berita, TV, dan radio secara teratur,
serta masih aktif berbicara Bahasa Malaysia dengan teman- teman dan saudarasaudara mereka dengan menggunakan berbagai aplikasi chatting seperti BBM,
Facebook dan lainnya. Mereka juga menyadari pemertahanan Bahasa dengan
mengikuti berbagai organisasi, dimana banyak mahasiswa Malaysia berkumpul
dan berbicara Bahasa Malaysia. Dan mereka juga memiliki sikap yang baik
terhadap Bahasa Malaysia. Hal tersebut terjadi karena ketika mereka hidup di
Medan dan sendirian jauh dari Negara mereka, mereka mencoba untuk
menemukan mahasiswa Malaysia lainnya untuk merasa nyaman dan aman, hal
tersebut membuat mereka hidup berkelompok dengan mahasiswa Malaysia
lainnya.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All praises belong to Allah, who has commanded us to spread peace to all

man kind and also who gave health, chance and capability to the writer to finish
the thesis. May peace and blessing of Allah be upon Prophet Muhammad SAW
who introduced us good behaviours.
Foremost, the writer would like to express her sincere gratitude to her
advisers, Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A.,Ph.D and Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan,
M.Hum for the continuous support and guidance to finish the thesis, for their
patience, motivation, enthhusiasm, and immense knowledge given to the writer.
Moreover, the writer would like to express her thanks to the examiners, Prof. Dr.
Busmin Gurning, M.Pd, Prof. Dr. Sumarsih, M.Pd and Dr. Rahmad Husein,
M.Ed for their suggestions, comments and questions for the thesis improvement.
Their guidance helped her all the time of research and writing of this thesis.
Besides her advisers and examiners, she would like to thank to all lecturers of
English Applied Linguistics Program for their encouragement and insights.
Sincere are expressed to her parents, Guntur Lubis and Nurmaisah
Hasibuan. Special thanks for her husband to be Muhammad Rahman, SE for his
motivation and care to the writer Her special thanks also go to her brothers
Mukmin Ikhsani Lubis and Flora Indah Lestari Lubis, S.Pd for their support, love
and care., Last but not least, her thanks to her friends especially of English
Applied Linguistics Programs Ismayani, S.Pd, Elvida Wahyuni, S.Pd M.Hum ,
Marina Sari Rambe, S.Pd M.Hum, Mahya Humairah, S.Pd M.Hum, Dwi Maya

Novitri, S.Pd M. Hum ,Muhammmad Mahfuz, S.Pd.I M.Hum, Hiskia Manurung,
M.Hum, Nurhalimah, S.Pd M.Hum for their support and suggestions.
Finally, the writer hopes that the readers will give any comments, respons,
and corrections for the mistakes of this thesis. The writer realizes that this thesis is
still far from being perfect. May this thesis be useful and may it be one of the
references for the next research and enhance our knowledge. May Allah SWT
bless us forever. Amin ya Rabbal ‘alamin

Medan, May 10th 2016

The Writer

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pages
ABSTRACT .............................................................................................. i
ABSTRAK ................................................................................................ ii
ACKNOWLAGDGMENTS ..................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................... v
LIST OF TABLE ...................................................................................... vii

APENDIX ................................................................................................. viii
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................... 1
1.1 The Background of the Study ....................................................... 1
1.2 The Focus of the Study ................................................................. 6
1.3 The Problems of the Study ........................................................... 7
1.4 The Objective If the Study............................................................ 7
1.5 The Significance of The Study ..................................................... 7
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED STUDY ..................................... 9
2.1 The Language Society .................................................................. 9
2.2The Language Maintenance........................................................... 12
2.2.1 The Factors of Language Maintenance .............................. 14
2.2.2 The Language Use in Family Domain ............................... 16
2.2.3 The Language Use in Neighborhood Domain ................... 17
2.2.4 The Language Use in Workplace Domain ......................... 17
2.3 The Effort in Language Maintenance ........................................... 18
2.3.1 The Vitality of the Local Language (Vernacular) .............. 19
2.3.2 The Language Use in the Society....................................... 21
2.4 The Language Revitalization ........................................................ 22
2.5 Malay Language ........................................................................... 22
2.6 Malaysian Students in Medan....................................................... 23

2.7 Related Studies ............................................................................. 25
2.8 Conceptual Framework................................................................. 26
CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHOD ................................................... 28
3.1 The Research Design .................................................................... 28

3.2 The Subject of the Study .............................................................. 28
3.3 The Instrument of Data Collection ............................................... 29
3.4 The Technique of Data Collection................................................ 29
3.5 The Technique of Data Analysis .................................................. 30
3.6 The Trustworthiness of the Study................................................. 31
CHAPTER IV. DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ... 32
4.1 Data Analysis ................................................................................ 32
4.1.1 Family and Language Background .................................... 32
4.1.1.1 The Gender, Age and Family Background................ 32
4.1.1.2 Language Biography ................................................. 33
4.1.2 Language Use .................................................................... 34
4.1.2.1 Language Environment at Home/ In The Family ..... 35
4.1.2.2 Language Use With Friends ...................................... 35
4.1.2.3 Language in the Community ..................................... 35
4.1.3 Language and Media .......................................................... 36

4.1.4 Language Attitude .............................................................. 36
4.1.5 Additional Questions.......................................................... 38
4.2 Findings ........................................................................................ 38
4.3 Discussion ..................................................................................... 39
CHAPTER V. Conclusion and Suggestion ................................................ 41
5.1 Conclusion .................................................................................... 41
5.2 Suggestion .................................................................................... 42
References ............................................................................................... 43
Appendix

............................................................................................... 46

LIST OF TABLES
Pages
Table 4.1. Gender and Age .........................................................................

33

Table 4.2. The Frequency of Speaking Malay ............................................

34

Table 4.3. Malay Language Proficiency .....................................................

34

Table 4.4. Quantity of Malay Students Who Belongs to Malay Organization

35

Table 4.5. Frequency in Using Median In Malay Language ......................

36

Table 4.6. Attitude towards Malay Language .............................................

37

APPENDIX
Page

Appendix I (Documentation) .................................................................... 46
Appendix II (Questionnaire) ...................................................................... 50

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background of the Study
The existence of language cannot be separated from human life. According
to Holmes (1992), every language represents the temple in which the speaker’s
soul is his/her devotee. It seems that everything related to human life in the
society involves language because it is through the language that interaction
among tribes, ethnic groups, and religions can happen. However, language is not
always able to maintain by the ethnic group especially in the multilingual
societies. People used language as a means of thinking and feeling, as well as a
means of expressing thought and feeling in a society. There are thousands of
languages used in the world. It is because language is a product of culture, which
means that different cultures many have different cultures may have different
languages or different dialects. It is also functioned to show their existence,
identity and culture in the society. On the other words, a community’s way of
using language is a part of the community’s culture, is a way of displaying group
identity. Ways of speaking function not only to facilitate communication, but also

to identity the social position of the speaker, as Crystal (1997) stated that people
keep maintaining their language in order to create cultural diversity, keep ethnic
identity, enable social adaptability, increasing security for the children
psychological, and increase the linguistic sensitively.
Naturally, both human beings and their languages are as one unit that
cannot be separated. A language is so important that it is supposed to be a mean of
communication in a society. The nature may give opportunity for both of them to

increase or to decrease in their important performance in the society. The
language may use a concept system which donates the community to interpret
reality. The complexity of the language may bring in different views. The views
may be different so the different views on the reality can bring in different
perceptions from many aspects of the lives in the society.
When someone goes to another place, it is very important to keep his/her
own native language. Even s/he could be influenced with language shift in the
new place, but the native one still used in order to maintain it continuously. There
are some reasons for a person or group to go somewhere such as education, live
place, refuges, and so forth.

Almost all minority groups who live in such

multilingual circumstance lack political and economic power; minority groups
often become bilingual in the dominant language for both instrumental and
psychological reasons. Even the speakers who are in the process of shifting do not
show the same degree of shift all at once in all of the purposes or situation for
which they use any language. Further, from the stand of dominant group the
presence of minority groups can be an obstacle to communication and, more
importantly, to national integration, it may sound cynical but history supports the
comment of Laponce (1987: 198) that dominant groups tolerate minorities “only
on condition that they accept at least partial linguistic assimilation (learn the
dominant language) and keep their member small.”
There is no guarantee that all languages in the world can survive along
with their speakers. The expanding era of this globalization, with a small group of
nations dominating the scene, has got an adverse effect on the language itself of a
community. The positive side of the effect, such as: good employment, standard

of living, for example, B.J. Habibie (an Indonesian), who study in German. He got
achievement there and be offered to work there because of his ability in his field.
While negative one of the effect, such as: war, politics, catastrophe, human
interference in some case have given conspiracy in making some groups socioeconomically dominant, and also as a consequence promoted the cultures and
language of these groups over those of other non dominant groups, Hudson (1985:
81) defines that culture as the kind of the knowledge which we learn from other
people, either by direct instruction or by watching their behavior.
As Jamil (2008) described in his dissertation which is titled Language use
and maintenance among the Moroccan minority in Britain, Moroccan immigrant
to Britain then there were studies conducted in the seventies and early eighties in
this area by scholars. Not surprisingly, Moroccan language behaviour has changed
in the last decades as a comparison of the findings of the above mentioned
scholars and the data collected in Morocco indicates. The question which arises is
to what extent the British-Moroccans are trapped in a “time warp” and to what
extent the comparative study is helpful in determining the linguistic changes and
the behaviour of the British-Moroccans given the fact that they still have frequent
contact with Morocco.
To avoid language shift or even language endangerment it is essential that
language maintenance or language revitalization be applied soon. Language must
be retained and maintained because language is as a mean of language users'
identity. As it is stated by Holmes (2001:63) where language is considered as
important symbol of a minority group's identity, the language is likely to be
maintained longer.

The efforts in retaining a language in order not to shift which may possibly
cause language endangerment are not easy to do these days. It is due to the
language contact because the high of the mobilization of the people. That's why it
is needed such good of strategy to solve it. The strategy is the policy which will
be given to the conceptual decision or political decision, to solve the language
problem at the national level so that it into daily use and special use language.
Daily use language is the language for communication among them for their daily
needs while special use language is the one for special needs other than daily need
such as talking on a certain event.
As long as a society still uses their languages as their prestige and heritage
from one generation to another so the language also still survives in their lives.
Consequently, a language will be in danger when the community does not use
their own language. It is due to the factors that occur in a certain community. It
possibly happens to bring some issues on the language endangerment to sonic
communities and to their languages, even local languages in Indonesia. Darhemi
(2002) adds that the issue is devoted to problems of endangered languages,
particularly endangered languages spoken by minorities, focusing on the
sociolinguistic study of the causes, circumstance and result of the endangerment,
and other structural and social process related to endangered languages and to
their survival. Also Koenig (2002) states that it attempts to analyse the, causes,
circumstances and results of language endangerment as well as the social
conditions and effects of political intervention in favour of survival of endangered
minority languages.

In Sumatera, especially in Aceh and Medan, there are a number of
Malaysian students who are registered as college students. In Aceh for example,
they chose to study at IAIN Ar-Raniry because they want to study theologies
filed. Not only in Aceh, in Medan (especially in UIN), they are also registered as
students in some fields that has relationship with theology. The interesting one is
they went to study there in a group. They live in the same dorm and the location
not quite far from the campus. Sumarsono (1990) found that the residential areas
are one of factors of language maintainability. Even the users are minority, but if
they live in the same residential areas, they are able to maintain their physic,
economic and culture.
In addition, from one of the lecturer there, the writer got information that
sometimes, they still use their native language in classroom when they answer the
question. For example when they answer the question, they use their native
language that there are some differences in pronunciation and also meaning. For
example “kami dari kumpulan enam akan membentangkan presentase kami.… “.
In Indonesia, in formal situation such as in school or university, the students
should speak Bahasa Indonesia. Even though some words have the same meaning
(arbitrer) but there are some words that has the same pronunciation but different
meaning such as “senang” (in Bahasa) means difficult in Malay.
In daily conversation, they still use their own language each other. As
Thomas (2004:158) stated that how you talk, along with other kinds of social
codes such as how you dress or how you behave, is an important way of
displaying who you are; in other words, of indicating your social identity. When a
group of people do not maintainability their language anymore, all their kinds of

social codes are missing. Identity of a certain culture is showed thorough among
others by language use includes the language use in the society.
Progress in understanding of many aspects of the lives especially the
language use may result in the complexity of reality because the developing
linguistic diversity which has given the characterization of the human beings.
Languages are supposed to be the important part of lives in the society which
transmits the values. Every language which is used in the society shows the
important thing which makes the people understand the values. UNESCO Ad Hoc
Expert Group on Endangered Language (2003:3) defines diversity language is
essential to the human heritage. Each and every language embodies the unique
cultural wisdom of a people. The loss of any language is thus a loss for all
humanity. So, language maintainability is necessary to do in order to avoid losing
of any languages and also humanity. Moreover, Goa (2006:58) states that
successful intercultural communication is a matter of highest importance if human
kind and society are to survive. In addition, Jandt (2003:40) states that language is
a way of marking cultural identity. Language differs, on the other hand, from
other phenomena in that it is used to refer to other phenomena and has usually to
be used to refer beyond itself.
Based on the phenomenon above, the writer would like to study about
language maintenance in Malaysian students who live in Medan especially who
study at UIN.
1.2 The Focus of the Study
The study focuses on language maintenance and language attitude toward
the realization of language maintenance of Malaysian students at UIN-SU.

1.3 The Problems of the Study
Based on the background of the study, the problems to be investigated are
formulated as follows:
(1) What factors induce maintainability of the Malaysia language by
Malaysian students in Medan?
(2) How is maintainability of the Malaysia language realized by Malaysian
students in Medan?
(3) Why does the maintainability of Malaysia language remain in the way it
does?
1.4 The Objectives of the Study
In relationship to the problem, the objectives of the study are:
(1) to describe the factors of Malaysia language maintainability of Malaysian
students in Medan.
(2) to investigate the realizations of Malaysia language maintainability of the
Malaysian students in Medan.
(3) to reason of maintainability remains among Malaysian students in Medan.
1.5 The Significance of the Study
The findings of the study are expected to offer theoretical and practical
significance. Theoretically, the findings potentially enrich theories of language
maintenance especially about Malay language of the Malaysian students in
Medan, the factors influence maintainability of the Malaysian students in Medan,
the pattern of maintainability of the Malaysian students into Bahasa and the
reason of maintainability of the Malaysian students shift into Bahasa. In addition,
the findings potentially justify theories of language maintainability.

Practically, the findings of the study is potentially contributes information
about maintainability of the Malaysian students in Medan, for students, lectures,
researchers, and also the government. Secondly, the teacher, students, and Malay
can use it to support the reversing of the Malaysian students in Medan. Thirdly,
the findings of this study can inform the finding to the next researcher who has
intended to gain a deep insight especially in Malay language in Malaysian
students in Medan and generally in language planning theories.

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