Investigating Bilingual Students’ Codeswitching in Medan

Abstract

This study tries to investigate a model of conversation between Bahasa Minangkabau-Bahasa Indonesia bilingual student's conversations in the city of Medan. Recordings and interviews were carried out to elicit relevant data. Qualitative data was collected using an observational framework. The data source was Minangkabau undergraduate students of the University of Sumatera Utara. The data was recorded conversations by using of transcribing different short Bahasa Minangkabau-Bahasa Indonesia conversations. Data were analyzed using Malik’s framework (1994) to find the factors that lead to code-switching. The study also discusses the types of code-switching that frequently occur during the conversations using Poplack’s framework (1980). The findings revealed that ‘lack of register ability’ was the most frequent factor for motivating the students to code-switching and ‘pragmatic reasons’ was the lowest factor. The most common type of code- switching was intra-sentential that was a predominant outside classroom and the lowest type of code-switching was tag switching. The study also revealed that age and length of stay influenced the code-switching use.