International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 3 | Page 46

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES
SPRING 2016
‘mengklik’ is formed by an Indonesian prefix me(N) + an English verb ‘to click’. In formal
standard Indonesian, a prefix is inserted prior to a verb (Englebretson: 2003, pp. 17-21).
Most English lexical items found in the borrowing incidents are nouns (12 out of 22).
It reflects Poplack, Sankoff, and Miller’s (1988) finding that nouns have the highest amount
among other English function words and they are usually borrowed.
(2)

Lomba fashion show kreasi daur ulang oleh designer nak smanses.
[Fashion show competition featuring recycled creations by students of SMANSES.]

(3)

… Open house nya seminggu lho, dari tanggal 1 – 8 April …
[… The open house will be held for a week from April 1 – 8 … ]

Example (2) and (3) show some English nouns which are preferred to the Indonesian words.
‘fashion show’ and ‘designer’ sound more familiar and more casual than the Indonesian
translation ‘peragaan busana’ and ‘perancang busana’. They are more familiar because they
might be more frequently written or spoken in media such as TV or internet. The affixes peand –an in the Indonesian translation may make it sound more formal and used less
frequently.
‘open house’ became popular after some important people in Indonesia such as the
former president, some politicians and some religious leaders held an open house or an
open day to welcome people to their house on some big days (independence day or
religious days) and it was usually broadcast in the news.
Four occurrences of common abbreviations are found such as ‘LOL’ (laugh out loud,
found twice), ‘BB’ for Blackberry smartphone and ‘BTW’ (by the way). The contraction of
‘wanna’ occurs four times while the actual ‘want to’ occurs three times.
Some code-switching occur because the tone of the sentence would sound different if it
were done in only one language. Indonesian discourse particles might play a role in it.
(4)

We’re just metres away from our destination eh keburu ujan. Neduh dulu lah.
[We’re just metres away from our destination but it starts to rain. Gotta find a
shelter, then.]

(5)

I am going to sell my car in Jakarta. Interested PM ya. Thanks
[I am going to sell my car in Jakarta. If any of you are interested, send me a private
message, won’t you (or please)? Thanks]

Discourse particles are often used in colloquial Indonesian. Just like other discourse
particles, ‘eh’ in (4) does not really mean anything. It helps the sentence sound more
friendly. ‘lah’, still in (4) shows that the language is colloquial. It switches the somehow
serious tone in the first part of the sentence, to a wittier one in the rest of the sentence. In
(5), ‘ya’ functions as a tag question as mentioned by Sneddon (2006). Again it might show a
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