CODE SWITCHING

Have you ever heard the following sentences ? Kata mama aku, perfume itu wanginya gak longlasting…jadi mendingan kasi bracelet from platina” (Indonesian/English). "Aku free hari ini" (Indonesian/English). "Suami saya dulu slim and trim tapi sekarang plump like drum" (Malaysian/English). The proceedings went smoothly, ba? (Tagalog/English). In linguistics, this phenomena is called code switching. Code switching is a widely observed phenomenon especially seen in multilingual and multicultural communities. Crystal suggests that “code, or language, switching occurs when an individual who is bilingual alternates between two languages during his/her speech with another bilingual person” (1987). Code-switching can take on several forms including alteration of sentences, phrases from both languages, and switching in a long narrative This paper discusses the underlying reasons of code switching.

Code switching is done deliberately due to different situations. This switching allows one to predict language choice; there is a "simple almost one-to-one relationship" (Gumperz , 1982) between extra-linguistic parameters and the appropriate language for this situation. The above sentence “The proceedings went smoothly, ba? (Tagalog/English) is used to express solidarity to the new comer who is a Philipino. This is categorized as emblematic or tag switching. The Tagalog tag ba can also depict an ethnic identity marker.

People use different code to elaborate the purpose of the interaction. When I teach, I use English and Bahasa Indonesia interchangeably. English is used to provide as much English exposure as possible. While Bahasa Indonesia is used as the last resort when explaining concepts using other techniques fails. Once I found that many students did not understand my explaining the concept of cohesive devices in the Composition Class in English. They were unable to identify the cohesive devices in the paragraphs in the handouts. To end the students’ confusion, I switched into Bahasa Indonesia. What I did is classified as intra-sentential switching. This switching is commonly used only when speaking to bilinguals. Holmes asserts that “only proficient bilinguals switch within sentences” (46).

On the other hand, my students code switch because they are not proficient bilinguals yet. In many occasions, they struggle to find the English phrases or dictions when talking. The sentence like “ The tiger menerkam the deer quickly” appeared when they wrote a narrative paragraph. Because they switch at sentence boundaries, it is called as inter-sentential switching (Holmes, 46).
People do code switching to respect the addressee. Each of the codes represents or symbolizes a set of social meanings. This type of switching has been called metaphorical switching. The speaker convey affective meaning as well as information (Holmes, 42-43). The sentence Apa “panjenengan” sudah dengar tentang perubahan peraturan perusahaan ? clearly shows how a fluent Javanese speaker who is currently using Bahasa Indonesia with another older Javanese switch to “Panjenengan” (kamu) to show respect.

People are often unaware of the fact that they code –switch. The change in feature of the social setting, the topic of discussion, the aspect of purpose of interaction may be the reasons for code switching. Even though reactions to code switching style are negative in many communities, this linguistic phenomenon can be a good control of both codes.


References
Crystal, D. (1987). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University
Press: Cambridge.
Holmes, Janet. (2008). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. London: Longman
Gumperz, John J. (ed.) (1982.) Language and Social Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press