Analysis of Language Shift in Bangkanese People as Important Development in Language Study
Rico Fernando, Risa Rumentha Simanjuntak

English Department, Faculty of Humanities,
Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, INDONESIA 11480


Abstract

This research aims to find out the extent and the patterns of Bangkanese people who shift their language from Khek to Malay in the messaging app in Toboali city, South Bangka regency. This research is done using descriptive qualitative method to reveal the reasons in conducting the language shift and the patterns used during the language shift. Data for this present study is taken from questionnaire distributed to 20 Chinese-Indonesian relatives, who can speak both Khek and Malay, and a corpus of WhatsApp chat from the same community. Results show that economic and social reasons as dominant, meanwhile politic and attitude and value reasons are not identified as the main reasons why people shift from Khek to Malay in the messaging app. In addtion, according to Fishman^s domain theory results of this present research show that some topics can be considered as the patterns such as culinary, gardening, game, religion, and investment. It is concluded that the majority of Chinese-Indonesian people in Toboali are using Malay in the messaging app as their daily language as stated in the findings. Further study about this topic is possible to see more about the implementation of language shift in the messaging app.

Keywords: chinese-indonesian, khek, language shift, malay, messaging app

Topic: Education

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