International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 3 | Page 41

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES SPRING 2016 Code-switching and English Language Variations among Indonesian Facebookers Billy Nathan Setiawan Biodata: Billy Nathan Setiawan is a lecturer at Institute of Languages and Communication, Sampoerna University. He completed an MA in Intercultural Communication at The University of Manchester, UK. His research interests are in the area of intercultural communication and the connection among foreign language learning, identity and culture. His email address: [email protected] / [email protected] . Abstract Among Indonesians, English has also been used to communicate through social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter and so on. The use of English in such media has contributed to the development of Indonesian-English norms. This paper aims to analyse the English language variations and the Indonesian-English code-switching among Indonesian Facebookers (Indonesian term for Facebook users). Analysis will be based on similarities and patterns of linguistic features such as grammar, vocabulary and discourse style used by some Indonesians while writing English texts on Facebook. This study reveals that the use of English of some Indonesians on Facebook is sometimes influenced by the colloquial Indonesian, local pragmatic context and communicative norms. Code-switching has also been used to help the speakers convey the message better. Keywords: Code-switching, language variations, Indonesian-English Introduction This paper aims to investigate the English language variations and the Indonesian-English code-switching among Indonesian Facebookers (Indonesian term for Facebook users). The use of English, both in spoken and written form (such as on online blog, Facebook or Twitter) has been a ‘pride’ among the Indonesian young generation (Hassall, Murtisari, Donnelly & Wood, 2008). With the influence of the native Indonesian language and over 500 local dialects in Indonesia, Indonesian-English could become a new variety of Englishes. Some existing studies have revealed that Indonesian-English code-switching does not only occur in spoken form. Indonesian-English code-switching has been found in Indonesian blogs (da Silva, 2003). Moreover, a number of final year students have attempted to investigate codeswitching on Facebook (such as in Sutrismi, 2014). However, such studies mostly acknowledge the types and the reasons only. This paper seeks answers for the following questions: 1. Which patterns (grammatical structures, vocabulary and other discourse styles) could be traced from the use of English among Indonesian Facebookers? 2. What has influenced the patterns? 41 | P a g e