Registers Study with the Sociolinguistic Approach
I. INTRODUCTION
I. 1. Background of the Study
Communication
is really important for people to interact with other people. Therefore, a
language is needed as a tool to deliver information to other people. A language
is also needed to maintain relationship with other people in a community. As
Trudgill says in Nasr that language is not only it is as means of communication
information but also a very important means of establishing and maintaining
relationship with other people (1985: 40). Because language plays an important
role in the process of social interaction, so language and society can not be
separated between each other. There is a close inter-relationship between
language and society (Nasr, 1980: 141)
In the society, we can find people
in a small community have a different language, called a language variety to
reflect their group in the certain characteristics. Hudson states that the defining
characteristic of each variety is the relevant relation to society –in other
words, by whom, and when, the items concerned are used (1980: 25).
People who are their occupation with
a certain job or profession in their working are or group of community, use a
language variety that make it different with people in other community or when
they are talking to their family. The differences come from context, vocabulary
that they are used in their occupation of their environment.
According to Holmes (1992: 276) the
term register describes the language of groups of people with common interests
or jobs, or the language used in situations with such groups. The different
occupational group usually uses the specific vocabulary to show their identity.
They use register to interact and communicate with other people in the certain
group in the different situation. So, context is needed in order to avoid
misunderstanding or misinterpretation. Holmes (1992: 12) describes some factors
in social context that influence language in used are:
1.
The participants :
who are speaking and who are they speaking to?
2.
The setting
: where are they speaking?
3.
The topic :
what is being talked about?
4.
The function :
why are they speaking?
The language used by people
is not only based on the characteristic of the speaker (people in a certain
group), but also it is determined by the context of the communication. In this
case, people may use more that one language depends on the factors of the
context they use in the community.
Then, discussing about a
special language used by people in one group of job is interesting because the
vocabulary that is used cannot understood by people out of that community. They
are people who work especially at PT. Petrokimia Gresik.
The worker who works in PT.
Petrokimia harbor, as one of the groups in their community of their job, has a
characteristic of particular languages or vocabularies which are difficult for
some people outside their community to understand the meaning. So, these
characteristic of each variety has a relationship with society. It means that
people have to know, when, and where they are using it. Holmes states language
varies according to where it is used and to whom, as well as according to who
is using it (1992: 245).
At the workplace, the
worker who works in Petrokimia harbor tends to use formal language when one
communicates with his companion in official atmosphere. Much attention should
be paid to the language used by the workers who work in Petrokimia harbor,
because it was recognized that there are character cal register used when they
are communicating with their companion about their work. It sometimes difficult
to understand or even sounds odd for other people outside their community
because many workers in this community use the technique language. Consider the
following conversation between two groups of operator in formal situation.
Group A: Tadi malam trestle
conveyor 03M602 trip overload. Setengah jam lagi shuttle conveyor 02M606 pindah curah. Sebentar lagi ada kapal Acid datang.
Group B: Line-nya apa sudah press test?
Group A:
Oke, kemarin udah di-inspect.
The example above illustrates the
language variation namely the register used by the workers who work in
Petrokimia harbor. Some of the words like trestle
conveyor, 03M602, trip, overload, shuttle conveyor, 02M606, kapal Acid, Line,
press test, and inspect have
aroused big curiosity for the first time it is heard, it is found to be
difficult to understand the meaning. Although most of the language uses English
language beside technique language, we still do not understand the meaning of
the words before we know the context. Therefore, it is taken as the object of
the study because it is considered very interesting and useful for some extend
questioning to investigate. Next, this study is taken in Petrokimia Gresik
harbor. Petrokimia Gresik is one of the big industries in Gresik that produce
fertilizers.
I. 2. The statement of the problems
The statement of the problems are
formulated by the writer as follows:
1.
What registers used by the workers who work in
Petrokimia harbor?
2.
What are the reasons of using the form of register in
Petrokimia harbor?
I. 3. Purpose of the study
According to the statement of the
problems, the writer presents the purpose of the study, they are:
1.
To list in the register characteristically used by
workers who work in Petrokimia harbor.
2.
To find out the reasons of using the form of register
in Petrokimia harbor.
I. 4. Significance of the study
Through the study, the writer
expects to have more knowledge in additional reference especially in
occupational community. Later it will increase the writer’s understanding about
language variety and its speech community. For the readers, this study is
expected to be knowledge about a special knowledge or vocabulary that is used
in a workplace.
I. 5. Limitation of the study
This study is the sociolinguistic
which discusses about language variety related to occupation on formal
communication by the workers who work in Petrokimia harbor in Gresik.
Petrokimia Gresik harbor is taken to be the observation because many
interesting words or vocabularies used by the workers are found here.
The participants are members of the
workers who work in Petrokimia harbor in Gresik especially the workers who work
in the loading and unloading department focused on the conveyor. Many
vocabularies which become characteristic by the workers in this community that
is difficult to understand. So, the social context is needed for the writer to
understand the meaning of the words. However this study is limited to the
register used by all workers who work in Petrokimia harbor especially in the
loading and unloading department. Next, this study only took place in the shore
of the Petrokimia harbor.
I. 6.
Theoretical framework
Due to
limited space below, the researcher will bravely outline the theoretical
framework.:
Language
variation: A set of linguistic items with the sense of mutual intelligible,
which means that among people who are in communication with one another, they
will understand each other (Hudson, 1980: 24). Because it comes from the same
profession, that is expected that he will use the particular language around
his community during the communication.
Register:
language used by the workers who work in Petrokimia harbor in Gresik.
Code
switching and code mixing come from ethnic group. Thus logically they may use
different language in different communication.
Code-switching:
A single speaker uses different varieties at different times (Hudson, 1980: 56)
Code-mixing:
A switch of code within a simple utterance without any associated topic.
(Wardaugh, 1998: 108)
II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
II.
1. LANGUAGE
Language is embodiment of
mind that is revealed by utterance or body language. Like Joy (2003: 2) says
about language, language is more abstract and multimodal; it can be manifested
through signs, symbols, finger spelling, written words, and Braille. Getting
interaction to others is a necessary life, therefore communication cannot be
separated from human’s life activity and language always has important role in
communication.
The
function of language will appear in a communication between one and another.
Like what Joy states (ibid.: 3), communicativity refers to the function of
language. In this case, language has sign that is shown through writing,
listening, reading, or use other sign to express one’s feeling and idea as its embodiment
to influence other humans.
II.
2. PRAGMATICS AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Pragmatics and discourse analysis are
the types of the study of philosophy that cannot be separated. They study about
language in use within the context in a certain situation. Both pragmatics and
discourse analysis study the meaning of words in context (Cutting, 2002: 2). It
means both of them study the meaning of words in context, concentrating on how
the language becomes meaningful and unified to their users, and then study the
speakers short term, purposes in speaking, and long-term goals in interacting
verbally (Cutting, 2002:2).
Obviously, pragmatics and
discourse analysis are different. Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning,
the study of contextual meaning, the study of how more get communicated than is
said, and the study of the expression of relative distance (Yule, 1997:3). From
Yule’s definition, pragmatics is the study about the analysis of what people
mean by their utterance according to the context or investigating the speaker’s
intended meaning or the invisible meaning from her/his utterance. Speaker
sometimes has to determine how much need to be said by her/his utterance to the
listener. Therefore, it can be concluded that pragmatics is the study of the
relationship between linguistic forms and the users of those forms (ibid,3), in
this case, the speaker to the listener.
According
to Coulthard (Cutting (2002: 2-3), discourse analysis studies how chunks of
language beyond the sentence level are organized, how the social transaction
imposes a framework on discourse. meanwhile, pragmatics takes a socio-cultural
perspective on language usage, examining the way that the principles of social
expressed is determined the social distance between speakers.
Basically,
discourse analysis and pragmatics are interrelated, because in analyzing
discourse, we also analyze pragmatics, as Brown and Yule write that ‘doing
discourse analysis’ certainly involves ‘doing syntax and semantics’, but it
primarily consists of ‘doing pragmatics’ (1984:26)
principally,
the discourse analyst treats the data as the record (text) of a dynamic process
in which language was used as an instrument of communication in a context by a
speaker/writer to express meanings and achieve intentions (discourse) (Brown
and Yule, 1984: 1-3). Afterwards, investigation will be concentrated to what
language is used for, based on the two major function of language:
transactional and interactional.
Generally,
the data derived by a discourse analyst is the result of a spoken recorded
which is transferred into a written transcription. For this job audio recorder
is needed as a supporting equipment.
II.
3. SOCIOLINGUISTICS
Besides people exist as
individual, they also exist as social humans in society to interact with one
another. To interact with someone, people need language as a tool in
communication. Sociolinguistics is a branch of linguistics related to language
used in society. Like Holmes (1992: 1) states sociolinguistics study the
relationship between language and society. It means that what one says depends
on the social context in which s/he exists in. they way people talk is
influenced by the social context in which they are talking (ibid: 1).
II.
4. LANGUAGE VARIETY
Language contains a great
deal of variety along time to time in the world. It happens because of
relationship between language and society. This phenomena reflects a problem
such matter of social-economic, sex, ethnic, profession and more cause people
separate to multi communities, and then create multilingual societies.
Furthermore, language becomes a characteristic that distinguishes one community
to others. Living in multilingual societies forces people to use more than one
language in their interaction to people with different background; consider it
is important avoiding impolite impression and misunderstanding between speaker
and the recipient. Holmes (1992: 80) says when people belong to the same group,
they often speak similarly. But there are many different groups in a community.
In this case social network is needed to focus social features of the speakers,
such as status, age and ethnicity, to characteristics of the relationship
between people.
There are several factors
or components that influence the use of language that is offered by Hymes
(Wardaugh, 1998) his SPEAKING acronym:
S –
the setting and scene of a speech situation. Setting refers to the time and
place, i.e. the concrete physical circumstances in which speech takes place. Scene
refers to the abstract psychological setting, or the cultural definition of the
occasion.
P –
the participants, include various combinations of speaker-listener,
addressor-addressee, or sender-receiver.
E –
the ends, refers to the conventionally recognized and expected outcomes of an
exchange as well as to the personal goals that participants seek to accomplish
on particular occasion.
A – the
act sequence refers to the actual form and content of what is said: the precise
word used, how they are used, and the relationship of what is said to the
actual topic at hand.
K –
the key, refers to the tone, manner, or spirit, in which a particular message
is conveyed: light-hearted, serious, precise, pedantic, mocking, sarcastic,
pompous, and so on.
I –
the instrumentalities, refers to the choice of channel, e.g., oral, written, or
telegraphic, and to the actual forms of speech employed, such as the language,
dialect, code, or register that is chosen.
N –
the norms of interaction and interpretation refers to the specific behaviors
and proprieties that attach to speaking and also to how these may be viewed by
someone who does not share them, e.g., loudness, silence, gaze return, and so
on.
G – the genre, the final term, refers to clearly
demarcated types of utterance;
suchthings as poems, riddles, sermons, prayers, lecturers, and
editorials.
By using the knowledge of
‘SPEAKING’ components above, it is expected that the speaker could speak not
only grammatically correct but also appropriate with the situation.
II.
5. SPEECH COMMUNITY
Speech community can be
defined as people who use a given language (or dialect), as Lyon’s statement
quoted by Hudson
(1980: 25). But this is certainly unclear, because that definition does not
specify a clear limitation about the social or cultural unity.
For a better understanding
of speech community, Gumperz (Hudson, 1980: 26) give a definition of speech
community as follows:
“The speech community: any human aggregate
characterized by regular frequent interaction by means of shared body of verbal
signs and set off from similar aggregates by significant differences in language
use”
This definition
introduces that there should be some specifically differences between the
member of the speech community and those outside it, and it does not require
that there should be just one language in one speech community.
II.
6. REGISTER
Register is one kind of
language variety which depends on the usage of language in certain situation. According
to Holmes, register describes the language of groups of people with common
interests or jobs, or the language used in situations associated with such
groups (1992: 276). Some describe ‘register’ more narrowly in specific
vocabulary related to different occupational groups. Notably for occupational
groups, they generally use their vocabulary principally in this variety to
express certain meaning for technical reason. Semantically, the vocabulary of a
group of specialist can be different from the understanding of people out that
group, so it is not a simple thing for the outsider to sincerely understanding
the speech.
Register is associated an
act of communication that is called ‘dimension’. There are three types of
dimension. The first dimension is FIELD which concerns with the ‘purpose’ and ‘subject-matter’
of the communication, the second is MODE that refers to the ‘means’ by which communication
takes place (spoken or written) and the last, TENOR which depends on the relations
between participants (Hudson, 1980: 49). By identifying register in the three
dimensions, people is expected to understand to where a communication should be
depend on the context situation that they want to refer.
Those dimensions above
then is used to differentiate register into several terms (ibid: 52-53),
namely: INFORMAL term, e.g. “How rad
it is!” The term of register here is slang which is used by the young who is reacting
with the opposed situation. ‘Rad’ is abbreviation from the word ‘radical’. That
kind of slang word is categorized informal register. FORMAL term, “Ladies and
Gentlemen, please enjoy the event.” It is an example of an utterance from a
presenter of entertainment on a stage. S/he uses standard language, which has
relation to society because it is does not a kind of dialect that expressing
informal language and technical term. TECHNICAL term:
Tadi malam trestle
conveyor 03M602 trip overload. Setengah jam lagi shuttle conveyor 02M606 pindah curah. Sebentar lagi ada kapal Acid datang.
This utterance is taken from a
dialogue of workers at PT. Petrokimia Gresik. A worker gave information to
another worker that the ship that brought acid will be come and everything was
ready. Syntactically and lexically it can be categorized as formal register,
but also the use of chemist register and equipment register signals this
technical register.
Beside those terms, there is also a
register that regarded as appropriate for addressing babies called ‘baby talk’.
This register usually used by adult to a child.
II.
7. CODE CHOICE: CODE-MIXING
Code switching and
code-mixing are the two phenomena that arise because of that social
circumstance. A ‘code’ here refers to a particular dialect or language that one
chooses to use in communication between two or more parties (Wardaugh, 1998:
99).
Code choice is selected
by people when they speak in certain situation either by switching or mixing
codes. Code mixing is a code that people use to mix languages even they have
switch language, it is called code switching (ibid: 102). When the language use
changes according to the situation in which the conversant find themselves, it
is called situational code-switching, in here, there is no change in the
topic, but when the change of topic requires a change in the language used, it
is called metaphorical code-switching (Wardaugh, 1998: 103). People may
decide to switch from one code to another code as an identity indication and
solidarity expression. As Holmes states that a speaker may similarly switch to
another language as a signal of a group membership and shares with an addressee
(1992: 41).
The use of code-mixing
often occurs in PT. Petrokimia Gresik activity. The workers frequently use English
words for technical reason between each other on order to get the point of what
speaker means in his utterance. By using technical code, it is expected the
listeners understand what the speakers intend to words.
A multilingual
code-mixing in PT. Petrokimia Gresik is one example of the existence of
multilingual code-mixing that generally occurs by people in multilingual
societies. Most people with different background (social-economic, ethnic,
occupation) live together in one community, and it becomes a factor that forces
them to use more that only one language in an interaction to others.
II.
8. APPLIED OF LINGUISTICS APPROACH
Studying language is a
crucial issue for people who want to learn it. Whereas, language is a tool of
communication for people, Bell
creates an approach to applied linguistics that it is necessarily for them to
understand about ‘what is language?’ and ‘what language for?’ After answering
the question, it can be drawn the purpose of it from the approach. It means
that the implementation of the approach, ‘How can people learn language?’ (1981:
112).
Applied linguistic is an
approach of linguistics to apply in particular domain like teaching,
sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, etc. Bell
considers (ibid.: 110) applied linguistics as mediator between theory and
practice in society. It means that applied linguistic has a function to lead a
human scientist, especially a sociolinguist how to combine her/his theory into
her/his particular practice that s/he conducts for her/his research in society.
It is crucial for
scientist to see a language as a validity system that happens in society.
Therefore, Bell
(ibid. :22) writes, “….the human scientist sees language as an open system
interacting with, changed by, and changing, its environment.” It means that
language is varied from one place to other place and creates a culture of the
group that different with another in the social context of language use.
A register is as one kind
of language variety with sociolinguistic approach try to give description of
variation of language in community: to whom, when, and to what end (ibid. :16).
In other words, it shows how different varieties of language were a product of
the ‘situational constraints under which they were used: addressee,
relationship, purpose, time, place, etc (ibid.:119).
The
diagrammatic form below (ibid. : 113) is drawn to show the inputs of the
Applied Linguistics in sociolinguistics approach.
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Figure 1: Inputs
to functional language teaching (Bell, 1981: 113)
From
the diagrammatic above, it can be captured that linguistic inputs,
sociolinguistic inputs, philosophical inputs, and other inputs have particular
purposes to where they will go, called functional approach. Then those will
become syllabuses that are used for education, in this case ‘notional
syllabuses.
III.
METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH
In answering the research problem, a
descriptive qualitative method is applied by the writer of this study. The data
needed are the result from observation including recording activity in the
observation area, in this case, the workers at PT. Petrokimia Gresik. This
chapter will describe: the research design, the subject of the study, data
collection technique, the instrument of the study, and data analysis technique.
III.
1. Research Design
Basically, this research
is categorized as qualitative research, since the data are in the form of words
or sentences which are separated according to each category in order to get the
conclusion (Arikunto, 1996: 243).
In the connection with
qualitative research, Lexy J. Moleong (2000:117)
gives a suggestion about its
characteristic:
“Ciri khas penelitian
kualitatif tidak dapat dipisahkan dari pengamatan berperan serta, namun peranan
penelitilah yang menentukan keseluruhan skenarionya” (the characteristic of
qualitative research cannot be separated from the participation in observation,
but he role of the researcher decides the whole of the scenario).
It means that this kind
of research is done fully by the researcher. More specific, this research is
also a descriptive research, since a descriptive research has a purpose to
describe the fact and characteristic about a particular field accurately. The
data collected do not intents to look for the explanation, examine a
hypothesis, make a prediction, or study an implication (Azwar, 1997: 7)
III. 2. Subject of the Study
III. 2. 1. Speech Community
For
this study, the speech community is the workers at PT. Petrokimia Gresik in PT.
Petrokimia Gresik.
III. 2. 2. Source of the Data
The
data needed are collected by doing observation in PT. Petrokimia Gresik. It is
located at Jl. Ahmad Yani, and it is done in the loading and unloading
department focused on the conveyor. The informants of the data are the workers
who work in the loading and unloading department focused on the conveyor. Their
utterance will be observed while they speak with the other in their working.
III. 3. The Instrument of the Study
In
a qualitative research, the researcher acts as the instrument of the research,
since all the research process is done by the researcher. Moelorng (2000: 121) says
that:
“Kedudukan peneliti dalam
penelitian kualitatif cukup rumit, ia sekaligus merupakan perencana, pelaksana
pengumpulan data, analisis penafsir data, dan pada akhirnya ia menjadi pelapor
hasil penelitiannya.” (the position of the researcher in qualitative research
is complex, he/she is the planner the implementer of he data collecting, the
analyst of data exegete, and in final becomes the reporter of his/her own
research).
The
idea of this research is done by the writer herself. This research is
interesting because it discusses one community which uses a certain language or
vocabulary. The observation to collect the data and the analysis of the data is
also done by the writer. The writer involves herself in the area observed as
one of the observer. It is automatically the writer made a recommendation to
get into the observation area.
III. 4. Data Collecting Technique
The
techniques used in collecting the data needed are: tape recorder to record the
utterances during the activity of the workers, and also jotted notes, for the
utterance that is identified by the writer as technical register. Jotted notes
technique is used to make it clearer for the researcher about the register words
that the workers used in their activity.
III. 5 Data Analysis Technique
Each
utterance that is found will be analyzed by analyzing the meaning of each
dialogue and its connection with the situation when the utterance occurs.
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Gillian and George Yule. 1984. Discourse
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Cutting, Joan. 2002. PRAGMATICS AND DISCOURSE: A resource book
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