Pemilihan Bahasa dalam Masyarakat Multikultural

di Jember

Budi Suyanto

Jurusan Sastra Indonesia

Fakultas Sastra Universitas Jember

Jalan Kalimantan 37 Jember 68121

akang_busyu@yahoo.com

Abstract

An area whose society shows the character of plurality usually generates various complex life. The society of Jember have such character of plurality. At least there are four different ethnicities, four cultures, and four languages (namely Java, Madura, Chinese, and Using) that we can find in Jember. These four different ethnicities mingle in the society harmoniously. In such complex life of plural society there are process of association which is reflected in the language act by each ethnicity. Thereby, language choice becomes a key in cross cultural and cross ethnic communications. This article will scrutinize the problem of language choice based on the desire to form social cohesion. Problem will be explained by the use of sociolinguistic approach. Commonly, language choice phenomenon is attributed to social factors. According to the result of this study, language choices in communications of inter-ethnicity are in the form of displacing code and mingling code. Code switching is carried out to show esteem, respect, and wish of familiarity to a different ethnic addressee. Switchover to other Ianguages in a code switching event shows the integrative attitude of an addresser to the addressee. Code mixing that takes place in a language act and have wide geographical distribution is comprehended that there has been an associative process in the society.