Performances of Identity Through Code Switching in Non-English Department Students’ Social Media Accounts

Abstract

There are still limited studies on code switching in social media especially in BlackBerry Mesenger, as previous studies usually focus on verbal forms in non- online contexts. This study attempts to examine the identity of the students of Christian University in Java performed through their social media status updates. Identity classifications based on Bouvier’s (2012) work constitutes the foundation of this study. The data of this study were collected by gathering all screenshots of 30 Non-English Department students of Christian University in Java who posted their status updates in two languages, Indonesian to English and vice versa, from August to December 2015. Those data were all classified into several kinds of classification from Machin and Van Leeuwen (as cited in Bouvier, 2012). Findings of the study indicate that most participants fall under the functionalisation category where their identity is defined in terms of what they do, what they think, what their political outlook is, as well as what hobbies they pursue and what media they choose to consume. Implications from this sociolinguistically oriented study to ELT are provided.