LECTURERS’ CODE SWITCHING
IN ENGLISH DEPARTMENT CLASSES
A Thesis
Submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Magister Humaniora
By:
NOVITA CHAIRANI HARAHAP Registration Number: 8136111047
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
MEDAN
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First and foremost, the writer would praise and say thank God, Allah SWT, the Almighty God and Most Beneficial for His grace, guidance, praise, honor and mercy that have been given to the writer’s life especially in enabling
her to complete her thesis and to fulfill the requirements for master degree at English Applied Linguistics Study Program, Postgraduate School, State University of Medan.
In the completion this thesis, the writer wishes to acknowledge her deepest gratitude for all generous guidance and assistance which has been given to her by a lot of people. The highest appreciation goes to her two advisers, Prof. Dr. Sumarsih, M.Pd as her first adviser and Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum as her second adviser for all of their guidance through the completion of this thesis.
Then, her appreciation also goes to Dr. Rahmad Husein, M.Pd as the Head of English Applied Linguistics Study Program and Prof. Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S., as the secretary of English Applied Linguistics Study Program who have assisted her in the requirement of administration process during the study in the Post Graduate Program of State University of Medan.
The writer’s great thanks also goes to her reviewers or examiners, Prof.
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M.,Hum and Bahagia Saragih., S.Pd., M.Hum., who sincerely gave her favors as the subjects for her study and motivations to complete this thesis.
Then, her gratitude goes to her friends as well (Rudi Purwana, Syarifah Siregar, kk Eka Sirait, Vista Simanungkalit, kk Gewinn Sigalingging, Atiqah Lubis, ‘Exsoe’ Eka Surya, Dewi Sinaga and kk Sofia Lubis,), and all friends in LTBI A3 XXIII who had given encouragement in writing this thesis. Her thank also dedicated to Bang Farid as the administrator of LTBI for his memorable helps assisting her in case of the administrations.
And again, this second dedicated thesis is proudly given to her beloved parents Ustari Harahap and Sari Bulan Mahyani Siregar for their endless love and her affectionate man, Bobi Nugraha Siregar. Their love, praying, support and motivation were really affected in completing her study. This thesis is also dedicated to her brother and sister, Mulia Habibi Harahap, and Ary Revani Harahap. May Allah SWT always blesses them.
Finally, may this thesis be useful for everyone who needs it and the construction criticism are expected from the readers.
Medan, February 2016 The writer,
iii ABSTRACT
Harahap, Novita Chairani. Registration Number: 8136111047. Lecturers’ Code Switching in English Department Classes. A Thesis. English Applied Linguistics Study Program. Postgraduate School. State University of Medan. 2016.
iv ABSTRAK
Harahap, Novita Chairani. Registration Number: 8136111047. Lecturers’ Code Switching in English Department Classes. A Thesis. English Applied Linguistics Study Program. Postgraduate School. State University of Medan. 2016.
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2.2 The Nature of Teaching English as Foreign Language ... 14
2.3 Relevant Studies ... ... 19
CHAPTER IV. DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS, AND DICUSSIONS ... 34
4.1 Data Analysis ... ... 34
4.1.1 Types of CodeSwitching Used by Lecturers of English Department ... ... 34
4.1.1.1 Morphological Code Switching... ... 34
4.1.1.2 Emblematic Code Switching ... ... 38
4.1.1.3 Intra-Sentential Code Switching ... ... 40
4.1.1.4 Inter-Sentential Code Switching ... ... 42
4.1.2 Reasons of Code Switching Used by Lecturers of English Department ... ... 44
4.1.2.1 Code Switching for Curriculum Access ... 44
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4.2 Findings ... ... 61
4.3 Discussions ... ... 62
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... ……. 66
5.1 Conclusions ... ……. 66
5.2 Suggestions ... ……. 66
REFERENCES ... ……. 68
APPENDICES ... ……. 72
Appendix 1. The Transcription of Lecturers Utterances ... ……. 72
Appendix 2. Interview Sheet……... 83
Appendix 3. Data Condensation: Types and Reasons of CS…… 83
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LIST OF FIGURES
Pages
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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background of the Study
According to Harmer (2001), there is a number of variables which govern
our choice of choosing the language forms namely setting, participants, gender,
channel, and topics. In line with Harrmer (2001), Holmes (1992) argues that
sociolinguists are interested in explaining why people speak differently in
different social contexts. And the effect of social factors such as social distance,
social status, age, gender and class on language varieties such as dialects,
registers, genres, etc, and they are concerned with identifying the social functions
of language and the way they are used to convey social meanings. In other words,
those variables affect someone’s language choice.
Since 1990s, numbers of studies started to examine an issue related to the
target (second language; hereafter L2) and native (first language; hereafter L1) use
in an English as Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. In the past, some studies
proposed L1 use contrasted the pedagogy of teaching English through English
(Chambers, 1991; Halliwell & Jones, 1991). For those studies, teaching through
the target language makes the language authentic and helps learners to be familiar
with the whole English environment. This statement supports Krashen (1981)’s
comprehensible input and natural order hypothesis. However, recently, this
English-only pedagogy has been questioned and some research studies show that
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questioned that whether the fact that a class is conducted entirely in the target
language results in greater intake by those learners.
Code switching is a tool for the acquisition of subject-appropriate
vocabulary in first and second language. It is an important instrument in
enhancing teaching and learning processes in that it helps students at lower
proficiency levels better comprehend ides and convey their thoughts (Tang, 2002;
Greggio & Gil, 2007). Referring to the six functions of code switching including
quotation, addressee specification, interjection, repetition, message qualification,
personification or objectification, Gumpers (1982) considers it as a special
discourse strategy which bilinguals usually use foe different purposes during their
communication.
In most English as Language Teaching (ELT) classrooms, teachers apply
code switching usually automatically and unconsciously (Bilgin, 2013). However,
it may be helpful in terms of providing a smooth transition between two
languages. According to Mattsoon and Mattson (1999), this code-switching of
teachers function differently in ELT classrooms. One of the functions it serves is
topic switching which implies using the native language while giving instructions
of grammar rules of the target language. Here, code switching facilitates students'
comprehending the rules of L2 by the help of L1. Another function is the affective
one which enhances building solidarity and achieving a relaxing learning
atmosphere. This may help weaker students since they may need L1 to
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Ladd (2013) states that experienced teachers are on average more effective in raising student achievement than their less experienced counterparts. As one of the goal in educational program is boosting up the students’ achievement, hence the greater effective the teacher teach, the greater development of the students achievement will be. In other words, teaching experience will be one of the important factors in the success of teaching learning process. So lecturers’ teaching experience will also be the consideration in this research.
Related to the use of code switching especially by English lecturer, the frequency of using code switching by the more experienced lecturer will not more than the less. Thus, the more experienced lecturer will use English dominantly. But in fact, some students have their own opinion that if the lecturer teaches the lesson only in English especially to the certain terms or some topics that need greater comprehension, sometimes the lecturer needs to switch the language. They think that using only English as the language instruction sometimes makes them frustrated than lead them to be lazier.
However, code switching has been considered by some researcher as an
indicator of poor proficiency in one language. Altarriba & Heredia (2001) state
that one of the most frequent explanations of why bilinguals switch the language
is that they do it to compensate for the lack of language proficiency. The argument
is that bilinguals code switch because they do not know either language
completely. On the other hand, Ellis (1994), Cook (2001), and Richards and
Rodgers (2001) who are specialized in second language acquisition stated that
although the exposure to the target language (L2) can help learners to achieve the
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are still lots of factors affecting the learning success. For example, English-only
classroom would lead to frustration and anxiety because the learners cannot get
enough and proper comprehensible input. Hence it might be one of the reasons of
the lecturer in switching the language in the teaching process.
Due to the theory of types of code switching, Hoffman (1991) states there
are three types of code switching namely emblematic code switching,
intra-sentential code switching, and inter-intra-sentential code switching. Emblematic code
switching as Poplack (1980) refers it as tag switching is the insertion of tag or
exclamation of a certain language to another language, while intra-sentential code
switching is due to the insertion of language below a clause level such as a word
or a phrase and inter-sentential occurs when the language inserted is at clause
level.
Related to the above types of code switching, in switching Bahasa
Indonesia to English or vice versa, it was found that some examples of code
switching used by some lecturers of State University of Medan who teach English
in English Department classes could not be categorized as in the above types. The
examples could be seen below.
Data 1
ST : Oh… Leopard
NR : No leopard but ‘leperd’
NR : OK. See this. Any one …?? Any oneyang bisa mendescribegambar ini? Who can directly describe this picture?
Come on, Rizki. What can you see on this?
Data 2
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Saya yang nentukan. Are you agree? ST : Yes Sir.
BS : You about this, you about this and you about this. Tell to your group. Paham?
In data 1, the lecturer firstly spoke in English by saying OK. See this. Any
one …??Any one, then she switched her language into Bahasa Indonesia by saying
yang bisa mendescribe gambar ini? When she switched her language, one word
was switched partially in Bahasa Indonesia namely mendescribe. Here, a
morpheme of Bahasa Indonesia namely men- was switched to English word
describe. Similarly in data 2, a partial switching was also done by the lecturer
through the word mempresentkan. In this case, prefix mem- and suffix –kan of
Bahasa Indonesia are uttered together with the English word present.
As code switching is accepted as a sociolinguistic phenomenon, its usage
and function may vary from culture to culture (Bilgin, 2013). Such being the case,
EFL teachers’ view of code switching from different cultures may be worth
examining. Furthermore, related to the above mentioned examples, the words
mendescribe and mempresentkan were the focus in this study. Both of the words
showed the occurrence of code switching. These words could not be categorized
as emblematic code switching since the insertions were not in the form of tag or
exclamation. It also could not be categorized as intra-sentential or inter-sentential
code switching because they were not a word or phrase even a clause.
In the light of these considerations, this qualitative study was an attempt to
describe the types of code switching uttered by the lecturers of State University of
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that considered as more important that was to explore their reasons to do code
switching in the class. Since the above utterances stated in the examples above
were not in the three proposed types, it would be an interesting research to be
conducted.
1.2 The Problems of the Study
This study was aimed to provide answers to the following questions:
1. What are the types of code switching uttered by the lecturers of English
Department in the teaching process?
2. Why do the lecturers of English Department switch the language for each
type of code switching in the teaching process?
1.3 The Objectives of the Study
Based on the above research formulation, this study had some objectives
as follows:
1. to describe the types of code switching uttered by the lecturers of English
Department in the teaching process.
2. to explain the reasons of the lecturers of English Department using the
code switching for each types in the teaching process.
1.4 The Scope of the Study
This study was limited to the use of code switching in language instruction
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observation was limited to 8 meetings because each of the lecturers was observed
twice. The lecturers’ teaching experience was also one of the aspects that will be
taken into account. In this study, the type of code switching was focused based on
the theory of Hoffman (1991) and the reasons were based on theory of Selamat
(2014)
1.5 The Significance of the Study
This study is intended to be significant both theoretically and practically.
Theoretically, this study was hopefully to be able to:
1. enrich the knowledge or theory about code switching
2. be an inspiration for other researchers to conduct further research related
to code switching
3. be guiding information for other researchers who are interested in studying
code switching
Practically, this study was also expected to:
1. provide especially the lecturers related to all English matter to
appropriately use code switching in the language instruction in the
teaching learning process
2. provide readers or other researchers in using code switching in a better
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions
After analyzing all utterances related to code switching used by English
lecturers, conclusion are drawn as follows:
1. Four types of code switching found namely 1) Morphological Code
Switching, 2) Emblematic Code Switching, 3) Intra-Sentential Code
Switching, and 4) Inter-Sentential Code Switching.
2. Reasons of the lecturers’ to code switch are in terms of 1) Curriculum Access
such as explaining meaning of words, explaining difficult concepts,
explaining grammatical, checking for comprehension, introducing unfamiliar
material, triggering to be accustomed to, talking about trending topic, ethnical
approach, and varying the instructional term, 2) Classroom Management such
as organizing classroom tasks, maintaining classroom discipline, and drawing
students’ attention, also 3) Interpersonal Relationship in case of positive and
negative effect.
5.2 Suggestions
Based on the conclusions above, this study has some suggestions as
follows:
1. The English teachers or lecturers partially switch Bahasa Indonesia to English
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language instruction even as language communication though sometimes
code switching cannot be avoided
2. The teachers or lecturers to use code switching in building up interpersonal
relationship to the students
3. The other researcher who interested under the same topic that is code
switching to explore more types of code switching or reasons to switch the
code of a teacher or lecturer in order to add more knowledge of code
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