PHONOLOGY INTERFERENCE OF BAHASA INDONESIA IN THE SPOKEN
LANGUAGE OF THE ENGLISH DEBATING SPEECH
By: Tri Hari Nurdi
A. Background of Choosing The Subject
Indonesia is a heterogeneous country since it has numbers of people come from
different ethnic groups with different languages as well. It uses more than one
language for communication among the people all over the country, its people
speaks variety kinds of languages depend on the area they come, which called
regional language. Javanese, and sundanese as well as bataknese are the examples of
regional languages in Indonesia.
Besides, Indonesians also speak bahasa Indonesia for communication
activity. It has function to unite those different regional languages, as not all
Indonesians are able to comprehend all regional languages. By regarding its function
to unite the various kinds of regional languages, bahasa Indonesia is called National
language, that is language which is learned and spoken by people to communicate
across island in Indonesia.
For communication activity, Indonesians often involve their native languages
or mother tongues, or first languages. Encarta (2005:3) describe first language as the
first somebody learns as a child at home. It is used to communicate within the people
in a certain community in a specific region as well. Regional languages like
mentioned above are the examples of first languages for Indonesians as it is spoken
as day-to-day language.
Bahasa Indonesia can be conclude into second language for Indonesians
since it used only in particular occasion, not in daily conversation. Quirk (3) argues
that language is called second language when it is used necessarily for certain
official, social, commercial or educational activities within a certain country.
Therefore, bahasa Indonesia can be called as the second language for Javanese,
sundanese or bataknese. However, there are numbers of people use bahasa Indonesia
for daily conversation, such as the people stay in urban city like Jakarta.
Another language learnt and spoken by some Indonesians is English as
foreign language. It is taught in some formal education institutions, such as schools
and universities, as well as non-formal ones. As time goes by, more and more people
started from elementary school up to university students learn it as they realize that
English plays an important role in the world and becomes an international language.
Moreover, it is used in international forum whereby the members of the forum may
express their ideas, thoughts and feelings by using English.
In line with that, quirk (1957) defines the term foreign language as follows:
“By foreign language, we mean a language as used by someone for
communication across frontiers or with people who are not his
countrymen.”
The definition gives idea that foreign languages is used only when the
speaker encounters a situation when he has to deal with people from other countries
whose languages are different from his native language and not used for everyday
communication.
This foreign language is used by Indonesians in particular situation only,
such as in formal meeting, speech, lecture, travelling activity, touring guide,
debating speech and many more. The last activity is the most interesting one uses
English, since nowadays more people practice it. Furthermore it also will be the
topics of the discussion in this paper.
Debate is one of several activities using English actively in a form of spoken
language, not in the written one. The debaters – those who perform debate supposed
to speak English actively while delivering arguments during debate. They are not
only forced to speak English fluently, but also to have basic knowledge related to the
topics that is being debated.
This activity is done by the students in some educational institutions. Even,
several of them establish the debate organizations to follow up the ability of the
students in speaking English. There are some advantages of debate for instance
sharpen mind, broaden knowledge, enhance the English speaking ability as well as
encourage mental behaviour.
According to Oxford Advance Learner Dictionary, debate means formal
argument or discussion of a question, especially in a public meeting or in a
Parliament with two or more opposing speakers and often ending in a Vote
(1995;307). Referring to the definition above, it can be conclude that debate is a
discussion which is delivered by using formal language with two or more speakers
who attempt to defend their arguments by providing it with some evidences, in order
to strengthen the arguments. If there is no solution, the vote will be taken to end it.
The definition of debate in general shares rather different term with the debate which
is practiced by the students. The debate which is practiced by the students and
becomes the topics of the discussion can not be ended by vote. There must be the
winning team in the debate. The system applied in the debate is Austral-Asian
parliamentary system in which there are two opposing teams consist of three
speakers in each try to defend their arguments. The first team is called affirmative or
government team who attempts to support the issue while another one is called
negative or opposition who negates or opposes the issue. The team who is able to
convince the adjudicators by giving factual evidence will win the competition.
Delivering arguments by using English is not an easy matter to do since
English is not daily language owned by Indonesian debater. Being non-native
speakers who do not use English actively in everyday lives, it is quiet possible for
them to make errors when they attempt to convey message into English due to the
influence of their native language, that is bahasa Indonesia. It is possible to happen
since they accustomed to use bahasa Indonesia rather than English for daily
conversation.
The use of English by Indonesian debaters during debate would be the most
interesting topics to be analysed. The analysis concern with the errors occurred
while delivering arguments in English as the influence of bahasa Indonesia.
Therefore, the writer gives the title to his paper “The Interference of Bahasa
Indonesia in the Spoken Language of English Debating Speech”.