Code Switching in Indonesian Pop Songs

This study aims at describing code switching found in Indonesian pop songs composed by some Indonesian pop song composers. The research problems are what types of code switching and what are the reasons why the composers switch the language in their songs.

This study is expected to give some useful contributions to the theory of Sociolinguistics, particularly the theory of code switching. The findings of this study are expected to give some useful insights to English Department students in order to get better understanding of the use of code switching by Indonesian pop song composers. It is descriptive qualitative study and the data is in the form of written lyrics.

The writer collects data by finding the lyrics of Indonesian pop songs in the internet and in the songs magazines, selecting lyrics that consist of Indonesian-English code switching, and coding the selected code switching by giving numbers to help the analysis run well.

The results show that there are 4 types of code switching which are used by Indonesian pop song composers, namely intra-sentential switching, inter-sentential switching, emblematic switching, and involving a word within a sentence. 6 reasons why Indonesian pop song composers code switch their language are talking about a particular topic, inserting a sentence fillers or sentence connectors, repetition used for clarification, expressing group identity, softening and strengthening request or command, and inserting a real lexical need. There is an additional reason why they code switch their language, that is for marketing purposes.

Ifa Dewi Safitri

Key words: Code switching, Indonesian pop song lyrics