International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 3 | Page 44

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES SPRING 2016
or a clause of a language is inserted in a text of another language ( ibid ). Inter-sentential switching occurs when the speaker changes the language from one sentence to another ( MacSwan , 2006 ).
Furthermore , Hassall et al ( 2008 ) investigated the attitude towards western loanwords ( used to be Dutch then mostly English recently ). Among 153 Indonesian undergraduate students , western loanwords are viewed as nice-sounding and enriching Indonesian . The participants disagree that the use of western loanwords should be avoided . Western loanwords do not necessarily pollute the national language ( Indonesian ). This finding may contradict the early attitude towards the use of English in Indonesia . For a long period , English was viewed as a threat that might harm the national language , culture , values and behaviour ( Lauder , 2008 ). English was believed to bring with it ‘ western liberal values ’ which potentially collided with traditional Indonesian values . Questions sparked on the ability of Indonesians to protect their values and nationalism and to resist the imperialism and liberalism brought along by the use of English ( Alwasilah , 1997 ). The attitude towards loanwords may contribute to the findings of this study , as the participants of this study might have related reasons ( to the explanation above ) for using English on Facebook .
English lexis has also been used extensively in Indonesian adolescent slang and colloquial Indonesian . Wijana ( 2012 ) in examining Indonesian slang dictionaries produced by Lavia ( 2007 ), Sahertian ( 2008 ) and Mastuti ( 2008 ) found the following loanwords from English :
1 . ‘ master ’ when talking about an expert 2 . ‘ hunting ’ ( to look for / to explore / to find something among many options such as when going shopping for clothes ) 3 . ‘ affair ’ ( when someone cheats on partner or is in an unusual relationship ) 4 . ‘ error ’ ( mistake , or when someone makes a mistake ; could function as a noun or an adjective ) 5 . ‘ stand by ’ ( to be ready ) 6 . ‘ nyemok ’ ( to smoke ).
It is also worth looking at how the internet has played an important role in making English more widely spoken in Indonesia . Retrieved from www . internetworldstats . com , by June 2014 over 71 million Indonesians ( out of a total population 250 million ) were internet users . Around 51 million are registered on Facebook . Facebook has been used to report their activities , express their feelings or even to show where they hang out or what they eat . The tone of the language on Facebook is often casual . Early findings on computer-mediated communication ( CMC ) explored extensive use of abbreviations , acronyms , emoticons , irregular sentence patterns and rude language ( Baron , 2008 ). Social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been found powerful for the development of certain language norms , especially those against the standard or majority norms ( Wei , 2000 ). Based on that
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