Literature Review

Speech Community

People are social beings who belong to certain community. Each community has its own
characteristics including its way of communication. This kind of community is called speech
community. According to Gumperz (1971: 224), a speech community is “dynamic fields of
action where phonetic change borrowing, language mixture, and language shift all occur”.

Bilingualism

Spolsky (1998:45) defines bilingual as, “A person who has some functional ability in second
language”. This ability may vary from one bilingual to another. Related to speech community,
Hamers and Blanc (1987:6) define bilingualism as “the state of a linguistic community in which
two languages are in contact with the result that codes can be used in the same interaction and
that a number of individuals are bilinguals”. In short, bilinguals can choose what language they
are going to use. In this line, Spolsky (1998:46) says “the bilinguals have a repertoire of domain-
relate rules of language choice”. In other words, bilinguals can vary their choice of language to
suit the existing situation and condition in order to communicate effectively. This leads them to
alternate two languages within the same utterance or commonly called, code switching.

Definition of Code Switching

Code switching is potentially the most creative aspect of bilingual speech (Hoffman, 1991:109).
He further adds that the feature of bilingual speech such as interference, code mixing and code
switching are normal phenomenon because bilinguals often find it easier to discuss a particular
topic in one language rather than another (Holmes, 1992:44). Similiarly, Spolsky (1998) says
that bilinguals like to shift their language for convenience. This situation may be the basic reason
why people do code switching in their speech. Mackey (1970: 569) as quoted by Hoffman states
that interference is the use of features belonging to one language while speaking or writing
another. Hamers and Blanc (1987: 266) state that borrowing is taking over linguistic form
(usually lexicon items) by one language to the ‘langue’ as described by Mackey (1970), quoted
by Hoffman (1991: 102). Grosjean (1982) as quoted by Hoffman uses the term ‘language
borrowing’ to refer to the terms that have passed from one language to another and have come to
be used even by monolinguals. Redlinger and Park (1980: 339) write: ‘In this study, language
mixing refers to the combining of elements from two languages in a single utterance’. Genesee
(1989) suggests that: ‘It is desirable to extend the definition of mixing to include single word
utterances from one two languages during the same stretch of conversation between a child and
caregiver.’ Hoffman (1991:111) says that the most general description of code switching is that it
involves the alternate use of two languages or linguistic varieties within the same utterance or
during the same conversation. Redlinger and Park (1980) define code switching as “the
combination of elements from two languages in a single utterance”. Code switching is also
different from code mixing. According to Hamers and Blanc (1987:266), code mixing is a
strategy of communication used by speakers of a language who transfer elements or rules from
other language to their own language. These transferred elements are mostly in the form of
function words, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and adverbs (Hoffman, 1991:106).
McLaughlin (1984), as quoted by Hoffman (1991:110), emphasizes the difference between code
switching and code mixing in the sense that “code mixing takes place within sentences and
usually involves single lexical item while code switching is a language change occurring across
phrase or sentence boundaries.” Besides abovementioned explanations, the difference of
borrowing and code mixing or code switching is in terms of their writing. For borrowing, since
the loan word is already adapted into the native language, it is written in regular word, for
instance “seksi”. Whereas, for code mixing or code switching, since it still follows the
morphological aspect of the borrowed-language, so it is written in italics: sexy. For the emphasis
of the difference of code mixing and code switching, code mixing follow the rule of the native
language, for example “Foldernya yang kemaren sudah di-delete apa belum?”, while in code
switching which follow the rule of the source language, it will pronounced “Foldernya yang
kemaren sudah deleted apa belum?”.

Types of Code Switching

Blom and Gumperz (1972 in Saville-Troke, 1986:64) classify code switching into two
dimensions. There are two types of code switching based on the distinction which applies to the
style shifting. The first type is situational code switching. Wardhough (1986:103) states that
situational code switching occurs when the languages used change according to the situation in
which the conversant find themselves: they speak one language in one situation and another in a
different one. No topic change is involved. When a change topic requires a change in language
used, we have metaphorical code switching. Saville-Troike (1986:62) define metaphorical code
switching as a code switching occurring within a single situation but adding some meaning to
such components as the. The example of situational code switching is that in some universities a
ritual shift occurs at the end of a successful dissertation defense, when professors address the
(former) student as Doctor and invite first names in return. While, the example of metaphorical
code switching is when a German girl shifts from du to Sie with a boy to indicate the relationship
has cooled, or when a wife calls her husband Mr (Smith) to indicate her displeasure.

The second classification is based on the scope of switching or the nature of the juncture which
language takes place (Saville-Troike, 1986:65). The basic distinction in its scope is usually
between intersentential switching, or change which occurs between sentences or speech acts, and
intrasentential switching, or change which occurs within a single sentence.

Hoffman (1991:112) shows many types of code switching based on the juncture or the scope of
switching where language takes place, Intra-sentential switching (it occurs within a sentence),
inter-sentential switching (it occurs between sentences, emblematic switching (it is tags or
exclamation as an emblem of the bilingual character, establishing continuity with the previous
speaker, involving a change of pronunciation (the switching occurs at the phonological level,
involving a word within a sentence (this form of code switching is uttered within a sentence
involving nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.)
Code mixing is a part of code switching which can be included in the type of code switching:
“Involving a word within a sentence” because according to Poplack (1980), McLauglin (1984),
and Appel and Muysken (1987), code mixing is switches occurring at the lexical level within a
sentence.

Reasons of Code Switching

According to Hoffman (1991:116), there are seven reasons for bilinguals to switch their
languages. The seven reasons are as follows: (1) talking about a particular topic, (2) quoting
somebody else, (3) being emphatic about something, (4) interjection, (5) repetition used for
clarification, (6) intention of clarifying the speech content for the interlocutor, and (7) expressing
group identity.

Besides the reasons suggested by Hoffman, Saville-Troike (1986:69) gives additional reasons:
(1) softening and strengthening request or command, (2) because of real lexical need, either if
the speaker knows the desired expression in one language cannot be satisfactorily translated into
second, and (3) to exclude other people when a comment is intended for only a limited audience.