Code Switching as Interlanguage Communication Strategy by Indonesian EFL Learners

Endang Fauziati, Hartati Widiastuti, Hanif Maghfur Darussalam

Abstract


This study was aimed at exploring the use of code switching (CS) as interlanguage communication strategy by EFL students when they were communicating in English. Particularly, this study tried to describe the patterns of CS as communication strategy and factors that contributed to the use of the CS as communication strategy by the EFL learners. It was a qualitative research using 30 students of one of Junior High School in Surakarta as research subjects. The data were collected through elicitation technique in which the research subjects were given a task to describe a cartoon. Their utterances were recorded and used as primary data source. Utterances that contained CS were identified and used as primary data. The data were analyzed qualitatively by inductive techniques, using Dornyei and Myers-Scotton analysis frameworks. The research findings were then interpreted based on relevant theory. The results showed that the students used three types of CS, namely tag code switching, intra-sentential code switching and inter-sentential code switching. Three factors identified as the reasons of the use of CS as communication strategy were bilingual, limited mastery of English and as a compensation strategy. It can be concluded that the use of CS by EFL learners is a natural and unavoidable phenomenon since this represents one of the communication strategies to compensate for the EFL learners' limited mastery of the target language they are learning.

 

Abstrak

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengeksplorasi penggunaan alih kode sebagai strategi komunikasi bahasa antar pembelajar bahasa Inggris di Indonesia. Secara khusus, penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan pola alih kode dan faktor yang berkontribusi pada penggunaan alih kode tersebut sebagai strategi komunikasi oleh pembelajar bahasa Inggris. Jenis penelitian ini adalah kualitatif dengan subjek penelitian 30 siswa dari salah satu SMP di Surakarta. Pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan teknik elisitasi, yang dilakukan dengan memberikan tugas kepada subjek penelitian untuk mendeskripsikan sebuah kartun. Ucapan mereka direkam dan digunakan sebagai sumber data primer. Ucapan yang mengandung alih kode diidentifikasi dan digunakan sebagai data primer. Data dianalisis secara kualitatif dengan teknik induktif yang menggunakan kerangka analisis Dornyei & Myers-Scotton. Temuan penelitian kemudian diinterpretasikan berdasarkan teori yang relevan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa siswa menggunakan tiga jenis alih kode, yaitu alih kode tag, alih kode intrasentensial, dan alih kode antarsentensial. Tiga faktor yang berkontribusi terhadap penggunaan alih kode tersebut adalah kedwibahasaan, penguasaan bahasa Inggris yang terbatas, dan sebagai strategi kompensasi. Dapat disimpulkan bahwa penggunaan alih kode oleh pembelajar bahasa Inggris merupakan fenomena alami dan tidak dapat dihindari dalam pembelajaran bahasa Inggris sebagai bahasa asing. Hal ini merupakan salah satu strategi komunikasi untuk mengompensasi keterbatasan penguasaan bahasa sasaran.


Keywords


code switching; communication strategy; compensation strategy; EFL

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.26499/rnh.v9i2.2950

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