LANGUAGE MIXING AND CODE MIXING (BALINESE, INDONESIAN, AND ENGLISH) IMPLICATION FOR EFL TEACHING AND LEARNING

INTRODUCTION

In this globalization era, almost all of the learning institutions in Indonesia teach English as foreign language (EFL) to their students. TEFL is the teaching of English as a foreign language which can take place in any country, English-speaking or non-English speaking like in Indonesia. It is not surprising that EFL is also taught in the kindergarten students. People believed that English is a language with great reach and influence so it is taught all over the world under many different circumstances. The motivation behind the move towards teaching EFL is first and foremost to improve the local students’ English language competence as mastery in the language is an asset in seeking employment in the globalised economic world. In addition, the vast amount of information is currently available in English. Thus, it is hoped that the availability of English and more exposure to the language in the classroom can contribute to the students’ English language competence, which is the key to access information in a variety of fields and also to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge.

However, In Indonesia, teaching and learning EFL are not easy jobs for both teachers and students in non-English speaking country. Specifically in Bali, people use Balinese language as their first language or mother tongue and it uses actively in their daily communication with others, especially with their relatives. Indonesian becomes their second language in which it uses in both informal and formal situation such as: school, government offices, public places etc. English is rarely found in daily communication among Balinese so it is quite hard for Balinese to acquire English completely.

In fact, nowadays, there is a condition in which people commonly mix those three languages –Balinese, Indonesian, and English- in their communication. This condition of mixing three languages which is also known as code mixing is also occurred in teaching and learning process, especially in English subject. Code-mixing is the change of one language to another within the same utterance or in the same oral/written text. It is a common phenomenon in societies in which two or more languages are used. The advantages of using code mixing are also used in English instruction. English teacher will find that it is easier to transfer materials by mixing the languages since not all students are completely able to understand the explanation in English. Students will also find easier to understand the explanation if the language used by teacher is mixed with the languages they often used such as Balinese or Indonesian. However, using code mixing in teaching English is not only give advantages to the teaching and learning process but also some disadvantages. People find that mixing the languages can give some good and bad implications to the EFL teaching and learning. It means that the condition will give implications to the EFL teaching and learning for both the better and the worse.

This paper is aimed at examining the implications of language mixing and code mixing (especially Balinese, Indonesian, and English) for EFL teaching and learning. It will be started by giving the notion of code mixing, the application of code mixing in EFL teaching and learning, and the implications of it toward the EFL teaching and learning.

CONTENTS

A. The Notion of Code Mixing

Code-mixing are well-known traits in the speech pattern of the average bilingual in any human society the world over. Code here as defined by Ayeomoni (2006) will be taken as a verbal component that can be as small as a morpheme or as comprehensive and complex as the entire system of language. It has been variously termed “code alternation”, “language mixing” or “language alternation”. Several scholars have attempted to define code-mixing. Bokamba (1989), for instance, defines that code-mixing is the embedding of various linguistic units such as affixes (bound morphemes), words (unbound morphemes), phrases and clauses from a co-operative activity where the participants, in order to infer what is intended, must reconcile what they hear with what they understand.

This paper will use the definition of code mixing suggested by Bentahila and Davies. They defined code-mixing as random alternation of two languages within a sentence. It is often used interchangeably with another term, code switching. The term “code-mixing” refers to mixing of two or more languages within a sentence while the term “code-switching” refers to mixing of two or more languages at the clause level in a discourse in a fully grammatically way (Poplack, 1980). The basic difference between code-switching and code-mixing is the composition of the elements intermingled and the arrangement of such intermingling.

While linguists who are primarily interested in the structure or form of code-mixing may have relatively little interest to separate code-mixing from code-switching, some sociolinguists have gone to great lengths to differentiate the two phenomena. For these scholars, code-switching is associated with particular pragmatic effects, discourse functions, or associations with group identity. In this tradition, the terms code-mixing or language alternation are used to describe more stable situations in which multiple languages are used without such pragmatic effects.

Code-mixing involves a number of implications in EFL teaching and learning. As previous study stated that one of the implications is that when a vocabulary item is presented to students through code-mixing, they will be able to rely on their existing morphosyntactic knowledge to use the new vocabulary for other syntactic functions (Celik, 2003). The relevant literature suggests that, there are mixed feelings towards code-mixing. A number of positive viewers have pointed out several merits of code-mixing. One benefit of this method of vocabulary presentation, as Celik (2003) describes is time; that is, both preparation and implementation of this method require a minimal amount of time. Another benefit is that, this technique does not require additional materials. As Ying (2005) contends, those who look at code-mixing from the negative perspective, see it as a disease, something to be avoided. After all, this technique does involve a number of constraints. All EFL learners in a classroom must share the same L1.

B. The Application of Code Mixing in EFL Teaching and Learning

Learning English as a foreign language happens in some countries around the world. Indonesia is one country that use English lesson as one subject that taught in every school. Teaching foreign language in classroom commonly face a lot of troubles since that English language itself is foreign language for those children. For students in big city or centre of province, the use of English must be touching most aspect of their daily life. They may see advertisement, announcement, and public information in English. However, children who born and raised in rural area are rarely find those thinks written in English. This condition make the English language become a strange subject to be taught even in school when the teacher of English language may not be really fluent in using English itself.

Based on the fact above which is easily found in our daily life, teacher initiatively uses strategy to overcome this problem in their English classes. Code-mixing represents one of the strategies that EFL teachers often use to accommodate the students' level of English proficiency. Some researchers analyze the phenomenon of code-mixing by EFL teacher, especially the functions of code-mixing in English teaching classrooms nowadays. According to finding and analysis, code-switching and code-mixing can be a good device to underline the importance of a particular piece of information, whether it is a grammar role, a name or an order.

So it may be suggested that code-switching and code-mixing in language classroom is not always an obstacle in learning a language as what conventional view see it, but may be considered as a useful strategy in classroom interaction, if the purpose is to make meaning clear and to transfer the knowledge to students in an efficient way. In another word, the use of code-switching and code-mixing somehow builds a bridge from unknown to known and may be considered as an important element in language teaching when used efficiently. Meanwhile, the researcher suggested to pay-attention of using code-switching and code-mixing in excessive way because it could be result in negative influences.

Code- mixing for teaching strategy

The use of code-mixing as teaching language strategy is worldwide used by teacher especially in EFL classroom. It is because the use of code-mixing makes the students more comfort in learning English as a foreign language. When the teacher teaches the students with full English non-stop during the lesson, students will easily get bored since that the students do not understand or only understand few of the words used by the teacher. In order to make the students understand rapidly the meaning of a sentence or words, English teachers in Bali sometimes have to put one or two words in English sentence using Balinese or Bahasa. By this way, students will feel that English lesson is not a lesson that has to be afraid of, since mixing the languages is not a big problem for the teacher and it is not considered a big mistake for students. When students start to feel comfort and enjoy along the lesson, they will pay much more attention toward the lesson. Start from this condition students will love English and curious to learn more.

Code-mixing as teaching strategy may used to overcome some difficulties in teaching vocabulary and structure in EFL classes especially when the students’ difficulty is in understanding the teacher’s explanation toward the topics given. More explanation about the use of code-mixing in teaching vocabulary and structure, will be given as following

The use of code-mixing in teaching vocabulary

The use of code-mixing usually appears when teacher has to introduce new target vocabulary items. Code mixing involves the use of L1 or L2 words in foreign language utterances. \. Further, it is found that even the precise bilingual have to drawn on vocabulary from one language while speaking another. This may be taken to indicate that vocabulary is organized the way synonym and antonym is organized in one’s L1. The example of the use of code-mixing in learning vocabulary

1. First step: to get meaning of words and meaning of paragraph

For getting word meaning

“Table is meja” while the teacher point at the table

“Students look at to your book page 19, mengerti?”

“You are a smart student. Pintar reading and writing in English”

“Bupati is leader in regency. His name is Bapak Bagiada.

“In Sukawati, we can find so many togog”

“Anak luh nganggon skirt, anak muani nganggon short”

“Girl memakai ribbon on hair, she is beautiful.

In this examples teacher uses L1 word in purpose to make a student get the meaning for the next English word. We can see in the (2) example, the elementary student does not know about the meaning of ‘leader’. By putting word bupati and bapak, we can hope that they will understand that meaning of ‘leader’, since that they know Bapak Bagiada is the leader of Buleleng.

For getting paragraph meaning

“A lot of accident happens in road. Of course, there as some reasons for this, one of this may be that the law in our country is so lemah. However, another reason may be because the driver is punyah after drinking alcohol, and the bigger problem arise when the officer takut to report it to his boss”

“People can easily terpengaruh by other people. Since that in school we meet a lot of friends. We have to be selektif in choosing friend. School must be a good lingkungan for the students”

In this example we use code-mixing to make the student understand the whole meaning of the context that has been discussed. It is not important that they have to understand every single word in it. They only need to grab the meaning and understand it in a whole. Like the example (1), by looking at the words lemah, punyah, and takut while consider other words (law, officer, alcohol, etc) we can hope that they will get the meaning of the paragraph.

2. Second step: to discuss the topic

When they understand the topic given previously, for example, “Road Accident” topic, they will be able to discuss that topic in group. Along this process, teacher has to pay much more attention to listen their discussion in order to know how they are going to talk about it and how many target lexical items that they use. When this discussion happen and the student start questioning about what an English word for lemah, punyah and takut, or what the synonym for them, teacher then have to ask them to look at it on their dictionary. This condition will stimulate students to be curious and active in finding new vocabulary.

3. Third step: to write their own writing

After students get the meaning of paragraph and discuss it, they have to be able to write their own writing in a same topic with the topic that previously given. For example, “Road Accident”, let them read it silently. Then ask them to write their own paragraph just like the “Road Accident” paragraph. The aim of this activity is to make sure that the students really get the message and able to use the target lexical items in English even able to use the synonym of them.

By the explanation and example above, clearly that code-mixing is an effective strategy for teaching new vocabulary. Since that students enrich by a lot of vocabularies, they will able to develop their skill in writing, reading, listening and speaking. Since that code-mixing is available used in English class (as long as it is not too much) students will be braver to express their idea trough writing or speaking. They will understand that in some cases or in a certain occasion, they are allowed to mix their language into L1 and L2 languages as well as foreign language. However, code-mixing has to use wisely in order to avoid the redundant use of it. Teacher has to explain that the use of code-mixing is not totally wrong, but to be a fluent user of foreign language, they have to avoid the use of code-mixing unless they forget the meaning in English. Students in this case, have to know that the use of code-mixing in English lesson is not bad, but it is also not good if they use it too often.

C. The Implications of Code Mixing in EFL Teaching and Learning

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

A. Conclusions

From the discussion above, we can conclude that:

1. Code-mixing are well-known traits in the speech pattern of the average bilingual in any human society the world over. According to Bentahila and Davies (1983) code-mixing is the random alternation of two languages within a sentence.

2. Code mixing can be used as a strategy to teach English as Foreign Language (EFL) especially in teaching vocabulary to the students. The use of code-mixing makes the students more comfort in learning EFL. It can be taught through three steps, such as: get meaning of words and meaning of paragraph, discuss the topic, and write their own writing. It is believed that this strategy will give advantage to the students’ mastery of vocabulary.

3. Code-mixing involves a number of implications in EFL teaching and learning.

B. Suggestions

There are some suggestions that can be given for the reader while applying code mixing in teaching English to the students:

1. Make an agreement with your students about the use of code-mixing in their English class and by time you have a role to reduce that amount to few words only

2. Use code-mixing strategy in certain condition only. For example when you think that those L2 words are difficult to be understood by the students or the paragraph is too complex for the students

3. Code-mixing is used for instructional purposes, not for making a joke or making funny expression. Do not let the students to use code-mixing for joking in inappropriate way because it will reduce the value of L2 language

4. Tell the students that mixing their L1 and L2 language sometimes is allowed, but to use it too often is wrong because it will make the students lazy

References

Ariffin, K & Susanti. M. 2011. Code-switching and Code-mixing of English and Bahasa Malaysia in Content-Based Classrooms: Frequency and Attitudes. Malaysia. Linguistics Journal June 2011 Volume 5 issues 1. Retrieved (December 1, 2011) from http://www.Code-mixing malay.com/documents/biRouh_rep.pdf

Celik, M. Teaching Vocabulary Through Code-mixing. 2003. Turkey. ELT Journal Hacettepe University. Retrieved (December 1, 2011) from http://www.teaching vocabulary.com/documents/Celik_rep.pdf

Poplack, S., 1980. “Sometimes I’ll Start a Sentence in Spanish y terminó en español: Towards a Typology of Codeswitching”, Linguistics 18(7/8), pp. 581-618.

Wardhaugh, R. 1998. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Third Edition. USA. Blackweel Publishers. Ltd

Zarei, A & Tagipour. S. 2011. The effects of code-mixing, thematic clustering, and contextualization on L2 vocabulary recognition and production. Iran. Journal of Language and Culture. Retrieved (December 1, 2011) from http://www.academicjournals.org/JLC

http://arief.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/pengertian-code-mixing/

http://blog.timesunion.com/vinoteca/defining-codemixing/2721/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-mixing

http://home.comcast.net/~codemixingslp/implicational.1.htm

http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-fields-multi.cfm).

http://www.nethelp.no/cindy/define.html

http://www.slideshare.net/cmcgoun/codemixing-2913116

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ETHNOGRAPHY OF COMMUNICATION

1.Introduction

Communication is theoretically a neutral way of sharing knowledge or worldviews and of maintaining social relationships. Practically, some aspects of communication can vary according to geographical areas, social class, gender, age and level of education. Ethnography is a field of study that is concerned primarily with the description and analysis of culture, and linguistics is a field concerned, among other things, with the description and analysis of language codes (Troike, 2003). According to Crystal (2008) ethnography is a branch of linguistics that studies language in relationship to investigation of ethnic types and behavior.

Ethnography of communication relates ethnography, the description, and structural-functional analysis of society and culture, with the ‘language’ – a cultural behavior that navigates and helps to share knowledge, arts, morals, beliefs, and everything acquired by man as a member of society. The ethnography of communication is an approach, a perspective, and a method to and in the study of culturally distinctive means and meanings of communication. The approach can be use to produce hundreds of research reports about locally patterned practices of communication, and has focused attention primarily on the situated uses of language. It can also been productively applied to various other means and media of communication including oral and printed literature, broadcast media, writing systems, various gestural dynamics, silence, visual signs, the Internet, and so on.

To do it ‘language’, designed and structured by pattern of culture, acts as a communicative tool. Language carries and transmits social/cultural traits through generations. The role of speech behavior, one of the aspects of language, has always been significant in cultural anthropological research. Ethnography of Communication, the concept introduced by Del Hymes in late sixties, is an active action of human way of life. He and his associates constructed a model of ‘Speaking model while tried to understand society and culture of an ethnic group through communication process

2. Nature of the Approach

The approach is concerned with; (1) the linguistic resources people use in context, not just grammar in the traditional sense, but the socially situated uses and meanings of words, their relations, and sequential forms of expression; (2) the various media used when communicating, and their comparative analysis, such as online "messaging" and how it compares to face–to–face messaging; (3) the way verbal and nonverbal signs create and reveal social codes of identity, relationships, emotions, place, and communication itself.

Reports about these and other dynamics focus on particular ways a medium of communication is used, on particular ways of speaking, on the analysis of particular communicative events, on specific acts of communication, and on the role of communication in specific institutions of social life.

In addition to its focus on locally distinctive practices of communication, the ethnography of communication is also guided by a particular methodology and general concerns in theory development. As a theoretical perspective, it offers a range of concepts for understanding communication in any possible scene and/or community; as a methodology, it offers procedures for analyzing communication practices as formative of social life. The methodology typically involves various procedures for empirical analysis including participant observation in the contexts of everyday, social life, as well as interviewing participants about communication in those contexts.

3. The Origin of Ethnography of Communication

The ethnography of communication was founded by Dell Hymes In 1962. Hymes published a paper that called ‘a new area of study’, a kind of linguistics that explored language not just as a formal system of grammar, but as something culturally shaped in the contexts of social life. In 1964, Hymes and his colleague John Gumperz published a special section of the journal ‘American Anthropologist’, the basis of a highly influential reader on the subject, pioneering a general path for ethnographic studies of communication.

Some studies explored aspects of communication that were often ignored, such as gender role enactment, the social processes of litigation, marginalized styles, social uses of verbal play, and culturally distinctive styles of speaking. By the late 1980s and 1990s, a bibliography of over 250 research papers in the ethnography of communication was published, with another reader and several books appearing (e.g., Katriel 1986; Philipsen and Carbaugh 1986; Carbaugh 1990). These demonstrated how communication was a culturally distinctive activity while examining issues such as the ways communication varied by social agent and class, relationships between speaking and silence, as well as intercultural interactions.

4. Conceptualizing Basic Units of Communication

The ethnography of communication offers a system of concepts that can be used to conceptualize the basic phenomena of study, and a set of components for analyses of those phenomena in detail, however, the phenomena of study can be understood. Hymes introduced four concepts as basic units for the ethnographic study of communication. They are (1) communication event, (2) communication act, (3) communication situation, and (4) speech community.

The concept of communication event has become a prominent starting point for these analyses; it draws attention to communicative action as formative of social processes and sequences. A communication event can be understood from the point of view of participants, an integral, patterned part of social life. Communication events typically involve a sequential structuring of acts, can be understood by formulating norms or rules about them, and involve culturally bounded aspects of social life which have a beginning and ending. Ethnographers of communication start their analyses by focusing on uses of the means and meanings of communication in particular socio–cultural lives. As a result, the locus of the study is on the practice of communication in contexts.

Communication events involve many kinds of actions. Events can be understood as the conduct of social actions, with communication act being the concept that brings together the performance of that action and its interpretation. One might say, e.g., "I enjoy hiking." This saying might perform many actions: it might be used to account for one's attire, to counter others with anti–hiking interests, and so on. The concept of communication act, then, ties ethnographic analyses to specific social interactions in order to understand the range of conduct and actions that is done by them. Communication acts are most typically parts of larger sequences of social actions and in this sense are often usefully conceptualized as integral aspects of communication events.

In any human community, there are many places where communication is expected or prohibited. These enter into ethnographies of communication as aspects of a setting in which communication itself occur. The concept of communication situation is used to identify specific settings and scenes for communication. For example, in some communities, communication situations involve the front porch, the television lounge, the bar, or a medical office. Unlike communication events, such as a church service, which are typically governed by a set of special rules and sequences, communication situations may involve activities with some particular limitation but without a strict sequencing of acts or activities.

A speech community is a group of people who share rules for using and interpreting at least one communication practice. A communication practice might involve specific events, acts, or situations, with the use and interpretation of at least one essential for membership in a speech community. The term "speech" is used here to stand in for various means of communication, verbal and nonverbal, written and oral; while the term "community," minimally involving one practice, usually involves many practices in general and thus used to embrace the diversity in the means and meanings available for communication.

As communities of people gather in communication, so do they conduct themselves in particular ways? It is these patterned ways of speaking (e.g., about politics, in worship, or in education that identify in which community one is, indeed who and where one is). In this sense, ethnographers of communication explore various ways of communicating, the situated variety in the events, acts, and situations of communicative life. Special interest are specific situations and events in which different cultural styles of communication are simultaneously active (Intercultural Sociolinguistics; Intercultural and Intergroup Communication; Intercultural Norms; Intergroup Contact and Communication).

5. The Ethnography of Speaking

People do not speak in uncontrolled manner. It means that there are factors which determine the production of utterances. Hymes (1974) proposed the term ‘SPEAKING’ to refer to the various factors which determine the do and the don’ts in the production of utterances. What Hymes offers is a necessary reminder that talk is a complex activity. In order to get successful communication, the speakers must reveal sensitivity to and awareness of each of the eight factors. Speakers and listeners must also work to see that nothing goes wrong. When conversation goes wrong, that going wrong is often clearly described in term of some neglect of one or more of the factors. Thus, in relation to the ethnography of speaking there are better speakers and poor speakers. A better speaker has special ability called communicative. Gumperrz (1972) stated that communicative ability is speaker’s ability to select from which appropriately reflect the social norms governing behavior in specific occasion.

SPEAKING is actually an acronym in which it consists of:

1. Setting and scene. Setting refers to the time and place while scene refers to the abstract psychological setting. Setting and scene will determine the choice of word in communication as it is made clear in the following example:

e.g. when Balinese come in into ‘griya’ (house of brahmana caste) they would likely use upper language instead of lower language. They will use ‘pewaregan’ instead of ‘paon’ even though they refer to the same concept that is kitchen. If the speakers do not use the upper class of language, they will be considered rude.

e.g. In relation to the scene, people are freely change scene for instance change of level of formality. These also influence the choice of words. As in change the level of formality is indicated by the words used. As in conversation Balinese commonly attended, when they say, for example ‘kene ne Man…’ the conversation will change from say joyful to serious. If this does not ignored by the listeners, the communication will collapse.

2. The participant. It refers to the people who are involved in communication. It includes various combination of speaker-listener, addressor-addressee, or sender-receiver. They generally fill the social specified roles. The relationship between the speakers-listeners limits the words used.

e.g. when parents talk to the children, they tend to avoid to use words that are considered taboo. Words such as ‘cai, leak, endasne or words denote private part of human body’ are avoided to use when speak to children.

3. Ends. Ends refer to recognized and expected outcomes of an exchange as well as to the personal goals that participant seek to accomplish on particular occasion.

e.g. this is commonly found in the drama gong (Balinese traditional drama play), Arja (Balinase opera) or puppet play which are aimed at amusing spectator. The actor generally uses words which denote physical deficiency such as ‘selem badeng kotot, endas talenan, gigi sambeng or etc. These words when are used in this occasion which are intended at amusing spectator will not give bad consequence but, when this kind of words are used in common conversation speaker may get punishment or may be considered rude.

4. Act sequence. Act sequence refers to the actual form and content of what is said: the precise words used, how they are used, and the relationship of what is said to the actual topic at hand.

e.g. what is said has to be relevant to the topic discussed. When talk about deity, Balinese will prefer to use words ‘lunga’ than ‘luas’ (these two words refer to the concept of movement to one place) or ‘mapakayunan’ rather then ‘nagih’(these two words refer to the desirability)

5. Key. Key refers to the tone, manner, or spirit in which a particular message is conveyed: serious, precise, sarcastic etc. The key may also be marked by certain kind of behavior, gesture, posture, or even deportment. When there is a lack of fit between what a person is saying and the key that person is using, listener are likely to pay attention on the key then to the actual content.

e.g. ‘nah’ when is used along with smile will indicate agreeing but, when ‘nah’ is said along with lurking aye and high intonation it indicate that the speakers are not with the listeners.

6. Instrumental. Instrumental refers to the choice of channel, e.g. written and oral and to the actual form of speech employed such as language, dialect, code that is chosen.

e.g. person who wants to be socially accepted, he may use dialect appropriate to the community attended. When go to Singaraja one may use ‘ake’, to Gianyar may use ‘cang’ or to Karangasem ‘tiyang’. These three words are first pronoun. When the uses of these pronouns are not considered speakers may be outed from the community. Do not even try to use word ‘ake’ in Karangasem because no one uses this word in Karangasem.

7. Norm of interaction and interpretation. Norm of interaction and interpretation refers to the specific behavior and properties that attach to speaking and also to how these may be viewed by someone who does not share them. However this norm may vary from social group to social group.

e.g. when directing Balinese usually use their right hand not their left hand. Balinese will say ‘ditu ye bedaja’ with their right hand pointing to the north.

8. Genre. Genre refers to the clearly divided type of utterance; such as things as poem, proverbs, riddle and lecture etc.

e.g. when you hear someone talk about ‘branangan, saet, saya, and ringgit’. From these words it can be concluded that he talks about cock fighting. Thus type of talk or genre of the talk can be identified by the use of specific words as indicated in the above example.

6. Data Gathering

First thing to note in conducting ethnographic research is that researcher should involve in every activities conducted by the member of the social community observed. The observation of a particular community is not attained from a distant and safe point but by being in the middle of things, that is, by participating in as many social events as possible. Researcher should at least be in the middle of community for about 6 moths.

Having understood with the basis nature of ethnography research, research should understand that they have to find certain commonalities among the members of the group, certain shared or mutually intelligible habits, social activities, ways of interacting and interpreting social acts. This is important, as generally community member will share the same knowledge among their group member.

In order to gather the data there some techniques used. They are:

1. Participant observation

In this technique, researchers intensively interact with other participant and might even get to participate in and perform the very activity they are studying. In the case of linguistic fieldwork, complete participation means being able to interact competently in the native language and even perform the verbal genres one is studying. Complete participation, when possible and ethically appropriate, gives researchers a great opportunity to directly experience the very processes they are trying to document. Though it is by no means equivalent to entering the mind and body of a native speaker, performing gives a researcher important insights into what it means to be a participant in a given situation and suggests hypotheses and further questions.

This technique has its weaknesses. The participation of the researcher in communities implies an attention to one’s role and one’s perception by others that can be very absorbing and, from the point of view of documenting what is going on, extremely distracting. Researchers should restrain themselves from complete participation. They have to stand and sit the least intrusive place. This is called blind spot. Other deficiency is that researchers have to find right demeanor for a given place. Sometimes this means that they must be immobile so as not to draw attention; other times, it means that they have to keep busy. There is also some occasion which is forbidden for stranger to enter.

2. Interview

Researchers are continuously asking questions and many of the questions they ask are about topics and issues they are trying to make sense of. In this sense, researchers’ questions are never useless even though any answers given are least informative, the answer might be quite informative for the researcher sometimes later.

Interview is good for obtaining background cultural information that is crucial for understanding particular speech exchanges researches are studying. The interview might be an occasion for getting a linguistic corpus for studying grammatical forms, stylistic variations, and attitudes toward the language (Hill and Hill 1986) in.

The weakness of this technique is that this technique is rarely providing the richness of information needed for culturally linguistic analysis. There are also differences among society about conceptualizing what interview is. Some societies believe that asking for personal motivation is not allowed. In relation to asking question, researcher should know about the ecology of asking question, that is who is allowed to question who, when and how.

Interview is differentiated as spoken interview and written questionnaire. Spoken interview is generally used for illiterate community while written questionnaire is usually used to eliminate the felling being interrogated.

3. Electronic recording

The introduction of recording machines such as the tape recorder and the video camera (or camcorder) among the field researcher’s tools has a number of advantages over the traditional method of participant-observation based on the researcher’s skills at listening, seeing, and (most importantly) remembering – whether or not aided by written notes. The ability to stop the flow of discourse or the flow of body movement, go back to a particular spot and replay it allows us to concentrate on what is sometimes a very small detail at the time, including a particular sound or a person’s small gesture.

The weakness of using electronic recording is that participant-observer paradox. To collect information researchers need to observe interaction, but to observe interaction (in ethically acceptable ways) we need to be in the scene; therefore, any time researchers observe they affect what they see because others monitor our presence and act accordingly.

4. Writing interaction

Ethnography can not be done without writing. Even though, the concept of writing interaction presents problem on the basis of accuracy of the record of a given expression, it is still needed as there is no perfect recording device that would reproduce the exact context of the recorded event. By writing researchers are expected to record what is other device can not record, for instance the data which occurs unexpectedly.

5. Identifying and using local language.

There is no question that researchers should try their best to become familiar with the language used by the people they study. This is important not only for the ability to conduct interviews without interpreters but also for understanding what is going on. The researchers attempt to speak the local language might sound; they symbolize a commitment, and show respect and appreciation for the cultural heritage of the people they study.

Unfortunately, it is often difficult for researchers to be already fluent in the local language before arriving at the field site.

Conclusion

It can be conclude that :

1. Ethnography of communication is the study of place of a language in culture and society.

2. Ethnography can be seen as an approach, a perspective, and a method.

3. Ethnography offers an account to conceptualize the basic phenomena of study, and a set of components for analyses of those phenomena in detail, however, the phenomena of study can be understood. Hymes introduced four concepts as basic units for the ethnographic study of communication. They are (1) communication event, (2) communication act, (3) communication situation, and (4) speech community

4. People do not speak in unmannered ways. There is set of rule that governs the way people speak. Hymes refers to this rule as SPEAKING. It consists of S=setting, P=participant, E=end, A=act of sequence, K=key, I=instrument, N=norm of instruction and interpretation, G=genre.

5. In conducting ethnography research, there are some techniques that can be used to gather the data. They are participant observation, interview, electronic recording, writing interaction, and using local language.

References:

Duranti, alessandro. 1997. Linguistics anthropology. Cambridge university press. New york

Carbaugh, D. 2007. Ethnography of Communication. University of Massachusetts. Selected Work. [available at : http://works.bepress.com/donal_carbaugh/12] [ viewed on 1st December 2011]

Crystal, D. 2008. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Sixth edition. Malden, MA. Blackwell Publishing.

Saville-Troike, M. 2003. The Ethnography of Communication. Third edition. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

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