INFERENCE: Journal of English Language Teaching

Vol. 1, No. 2, Agustus 2018

p-ISSN: 2615-8671
e-ISSN: 2615-868X

Research Article

CODE MIXING AND SWITCHING IN FILM “CRITICAL

ELEVEN” BY MONTY TIWA AND ROBERT RONNY
Sintha Yuanita ¹
NPM 20167470034
English Education Program, Postgraduate Faculty, Universitas Indraprasta PGRI
Sumardi ²
English Education Program, Postgraduate Faculty, Universitas Indraprasta PGRI
e-mail: sinthayuanita@gmail.com ¹
e-mail: sumardi@unindra.ac.id ²

Abstract. The objectives of this research are to know the types and the motives of code switching
and mixing in the film Critical Eleven. Besides, this research is aimed to know the interferences in
the utterances. The theories in this research are proposed by Muysken (2004). This research used
descriptive qualitative method. The data of this research was taken from the film transcript. The
data is divided into code mixing and code switching. Then, it is analyzed to find the possible reasons
of using code mixing and switching. The results of this research are: (1) The most frequent type of
code switching was intra-sentential switching that occurred 30 utterances (61,22%). Meanwhile,
the most frequent types of code mixing were insertion and alternation. Both types occurred 10 times
(47,62%). (2) The most frequent reason of code switching was talking about particular topic (14
data or 28,57%), meanwhile the prestige feeling motive was the most frequent reason of code mixing
(18 data or 85,71%). (3) There was an interference in the utterances that is caused by code mixing,
but the interference did not occur due to code switching. It happened because the speakers were
proficient in Indonesian and English.

Key Words: Code mixing, code switching, film

Abstrak. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui jenis dan motif alih kode dan campur
kode dalam film Critical Eleven. Selain itu, penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui interferensi
dalam ujaran. Teori-teori yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini merupakan teori dari Muysken
(2004). Penelitian ini dirancang dengan menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif. Data penelitian
diambil dari transkrip film. Data dibagi menjadi campur kode dan alih kode. Kemudian data
dianalisis untuk menemukan kemungkinan alasan menggunakan campur kode dan alih kode. Hasil
dari penelitian ini adalah: (1) Jenis alih kode yang paling sering muncul adalah intra-sentensial yang
terjadi dalam 30 ujaran (61,22%), sedangkan jenis campur kode yang paling sering muncul adalah
insertion (penyisipan) dan alternation (pergantian). Kedua jenis tersebut muncul sebanyak 10 kali
(47,62%). (2) Alasan utama dari penggunaan alih kode adalah berbicara tentang topik tertentu (14
data atau 28,57%), sementara motif prestise adalah alasan paling sering dalam penggunaan campur
kode (18 data atau 85,71%). (3) Ada gangguan (interference) dalam ujaran yang disebabkan oleh
campur kode, tetapi gangguan itu tidak terjadi akibat alih kode. Hal tersebut terjadi karena para
pembicara mahir dalam berbahasa Indonesia maupun Inggris.

Kata Kunci: Campur kode, alih kode, film

INTRODUCTION

In daily life, people use language to communicate with others to make a social relationship.
Language plays an important role in the society. It also can be said that language is a system of
communication, either spoken or written, used by a particular community, social group, or even country.
Every language expresses every people’s culture and identity.

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INFERENCE: Journal of English Language Teaching
Vol. 1, No. 2, Agustus 2018
p-ISSN: 2615-8671
e-ISSN: 2615-868X
Nowadays, there are so many people who master more than one language. Many of them master
two or more languages, namely their native language and the second language. People usually use their
mother tongue to communicate to their family and society. However, during their communication with
other people in certain communities or situations, such as business, education, ecommerce,
entertainment domain, there is a demand to communicate with other language. This condition caused
many people learn another language(s) to make their communication effective.
A lot of people in the world routinely use two or more languages in their daily lives. They called
bilingual/multilingual people. This also happens in Indonesia where its people are now more familiar
with foreign languages, especially English. This is because the use of English has very large portions,
especially in the domain of entertainment. The has caused people mix or switch from one language to
another unconsciously. These phenomena called code mixing and code switching. It is due to people
that often select codes and switch back and forth from one code to another code.
Gardner (2009) stated that code switching occurs when the speaker shifts from one language to
another or when the speaker switches from one code to another. It explains that code switching does
not only occur when someone switches the language, but also switches the code (dialect, intonation,
and so forth). The other phenomena code mixing happens also in our social life. According to Hudson
(as cited in Bhatia & Ritchie, 2012), code mixing occurs when a fluent bilingual talking to another
fluent bilingual, changes the language without any change at all in the situation. It explains that code
mixing occurs when the bilingual speaker alternates his/her language in one situation. Code mixing also
has some function. It can become someone’s sign to show what the second language which has
mastered. It is not only being the sign of someone’s identity, but also can be the measure of someone’s
language attitude towards the other language. Attitude in language gives people a good or bad choice
to decide whether the best language which the people have to choose (Tarigan, 2008).
We also know that code mixing and code switching phenomenon appear not only where the
society use more than one language, but also has become a necessity in that society because sometimes
people find that it is difficult to explain something in their native language or maybe the words in their
native language is uncommon. To keep the communication going well, they decide to use the common
words in other language rather than their native language.
There are some social factors, which motivated someone to code-mix or code switch their
utterances into two languages. Kim (2006) has established four social factor of code mixing. The first,
code mixing can occur when people know well who the interlocutor, it usually called participant role
and relationship factor. The second, situation and condition of people that can occur code mixing in
daily life, and it is called situational factor. The third, quotation, hedging, idioms also can appear people
to code mix their utterances. It is called message-intrinsic factor. The last, language attitude, security,
and dominance also can be the social factor of people to code mix.
In Indonesia, the use of language is also affected by the lifestyle of people in this modern era.
We can found code mixing and code switching in spoken and written language. Code mixing and code
switching in written language can be found in newspaper, magazine, novel, etc. The code mixing and
code switching can also be found in spoken language, namely entertainment program, such as radio
program, talk show, news program in television, and also film.
Entertainment is one of the most common community use two or more language in their
production. The demands of the globalization era and markets may be the reasons of their use of more
than two languages. Even though their basic language is Indonesian, they also commonly use English
in their program. It becomes something natural when master of ceremony (MC) of an entertainment
program, actress, singers, or public figures often use English for several purposes depend on its
circumstance.
One part of entertainment that is currently much preferred by people is the film. Many people
spend their weekend at the cinema to watch a film. Film is a type of visual communication which uses
moving pictures and sounds to tell stories or inform. People in every part of the world watch films as a
type of entertainment, a way to have fun. Lately we were treated to a lot of good Indonesian films.
There have been many Indonesian films can enter the nomination of international festival. Many box

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 INFERENCE: Journal of English Language Teaching
Vol. 1, No. 2, Agustus 2018
p-ISSN: 2615-8671
e-ISSN: 2615-868X
office movie stories are lifted from best-selling novels. Filmmakers adapted the bestselling novel story
into a movie script. The story becomes more easily accepted by the audience.
The fact that “Critical Eleven” (Tiwa & Ronny, 2017) used a lot of code mixing and code
switching’s dialogs, is for the author a unique thing because in comparison with other Indonesian films,
this film used the code mixing and code switching consistently, even though the dialog is done by fellow
Indonesians, not with foreigners who speaks English.

METHOD
This research is designed as a descriptive-qualitative content analysis. According to Wardhaugh
(2011) qualitative research is a broad umbrella term that covers a wide range of techniques and
philosophies. Qualitative research was used to describe a social phenomenon. In other words this study
aims to describe the nature of something that is going on at the time of study. This qualitative method
provides complete information so that it is useful for the development of science and more applicable
to various problems. This research use content analysis method because the researcher thought that it
was an appropriate method for textual investigation. The method is used to analyze code mixing and
switching in the film “Critical Eleven” (Tiwa & Ronny, 2017).

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Based on the data description of the research, it has analyzed and found that there are 4 types
of code switching used in the film “Critical Eleven” (2017). The total number of code switching was
49 occurrences. There was intra-sentential switching that occurred 30 times (61,22%), inter-sentential
switching occurred 4 times (8,16%), emblematic switching occurred 7 times (14,29%), and establishing
continuity with the previous speaker occurred 8 times (16,33%). Intra-sentential switching has the
biggest portion because there are so many occurrences within a clause or sentence boundary, where
each clause or sentence is in English and Indonesian language. The total number of code mixing was
21 occurrences.
There were 4 types of code mixing used in the film “Critical Eleven”. There were insertion of
word and clause (10 occurrences or 47.62%), alternation (10 occurrences or 47.62%), and congruent
lexicalization (1 occurrence or 4.76%). The insertion and alternation have the biggest portion because
there are so many English common terms which usually used in daily conversation, especially in urban.
There are several motives founded in the research. Talking about particular topic was the biggest factor
founded in the data that reasoned the character using code switching. There are 14 from 49 data
(28.57%) code switching motivated by talking about particular topic. It caused of the character are urban
people that use English commonly in any topic in their conversation.
The prestige feeling motive was the biggest factor of code mixing in utterances. There are 18
from 21 code mixing (85.71%) motivated by prestige feeling motive. In fact, we could see that the
character in the film Critical Eleven came from educational background and lived in urban. They used
code mixing to build a prestige in their community and to make an intention from interlocutor.
There was no interference in code switching. But it was founded in code mixing. Since code
switching is used to compensate for language difficulty, it may be viewed as interference. But in this
research, code switching is used as a sociolinguistic tool – when the speaker talking about particular
topic and expressing their group identity - to develop the characters and stories in the movie, so it cannot
be concluded as an interference.

CONCLUSION
Based on the research, there are 70 data code switching and mixing in the film “Critical
Eleven”. The total number of code switching was 49 occurrences, meanwhile code mixing 21
occurrences. It can be concluded that the most frequent type of code switching was intra-sentential
switching (61.22%), meanwhile the most frequent type of code mixing was insertion and alternation
(both 47.62%). The biggest factor of code mixing in utterances was the prestige feeling motive
(85.71%), meanwhile the biggest factor of code switching in utterance was talking about particular

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INFERENCE: Journal of English Language Teaching
Vol. 1, No. 2, Agustus 2018
p-ISSN: 2615-8671
e-ISSN: 2615-868X
topic. It was also found an interference in the utterance caused by code mixing, but not in code
switching. It can be seen how the speaker mixed the code when he cannot find the similar words in his
language.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bhatia, T. K. & Ritchie, W. C. Introduction: The Handbook of Bilingualism. Oxford: Blackwell Publ.
2013.
Kim, E. Reason and Motivation for Code-Mixing and Code-Switching. Vol.4 No. 1. 2006: 46. EFL
Journal.
Gardner, Penelope. Code-switching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2009.
Muysken, Pieter. Bilingual Speech: A typology of Code-Mixing. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. 2004
Tarigan, H. G. (2008) Berbicara – sebagai suatu keterampilan berbicara. Bandung: Angkasa
Wardhaugh, Ronald. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011.

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