CODE-SWITCHING IN THE FILM UPTOWN GIRLS (2003): A SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF COMMUNICATIVE FUNCTIONS IN CHARACTER DIALOGUE

Abstrak

Alih kode merupakan fenomena sosiolinguistik di mana penutur berganti antara dua bahasa atau lebih dalam satu percakapan. Penelitian ini mengkaji fungsi komunikatif alih kode yang tercermin dalam dialog antarkarakter dalam film Amerika Uptown Girls (2003) karya sutradara Boaz Yakin. Sepengetahuan para peneliti, belum ada studi sosiolinguistik sebelumnya yang mengkaji film ini. Dengan menggunakan pendekatan deskriptif kualitatif, penelitian ini menerapkan kerangka fungsional dari Appel dan Muysken (1987), Gumperz (1982), Poplack (1980), dan Holmes (2013) untuk menganalisis dua puluh tuturan terpilih yang dikutip secara verbatim dari transkrip resmi film. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan empat fungsi komunikatif utama: ekspresif (35%), fatik (30%), referensial (20%), dan direktif (15%). Penelitian ini memperluas kajian alih kode ke ranah bahasa Inggris monolingual berbasis kelas sosial.

Code-switching is a sociolinguistic phenomenon in which speakers shift between two or more languages or language varieties within the same conversation. This study examines the communicative functions of code-switching as reflected in character dialogue in the American film Uptown Girls (2003), directed by Boaz Yakin. To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, no previous sociolinguistic study has examined this film, representing a gap this work addresses. Using a qualitative descriptive approach, the study applies functional frameworks drawn from Appel and Muysken (1987), Gumperz (1982), Poplack (1980), and Holmes (2013) to analyse twenty selected utterances quoted verbatim from the film’s published transcript. Data were classified by structural type and communicative function through a three-stage analytical procedure. Results show four primary communicative functions: expressive (35%), phatic (30%), referential (20%), and directive (15%). The study also finds that characters use language alternation to construct social identities, manage power relations, and express emotional states. These findings extend code-switching research into a class-inflected monolingual English setting.