Using cyber communication to help second language learners in practicing their skill in using the language has been considered as an option that matches the learners’ interest. Borau et al. (2009) made use of Twitter to provide opportunities to their students to produce English actively for communication. The result of the study revealed that students find it easier and become more confident to communicate using English after using Twitter. However, what
about the choice of language that they use in their utterances? The present study analyzes the choice of language that fifteen first grade senior high school students use while producing English utterances in Twitter. In Twitter, there are two ways in writing updates: using one’s own ideas and words or quoting from various sources. As for the former, this present study aims to: (a) categorize the communicative functions of each of the utterances using list of communicative functions by van Ek (The Threshold Level for Modern Language Learning in chools:1976) and Finocchiaro (1983) and (b) the reasons for code switching in some cases. As for the latter, this study
attempts to find out how the students make use of quotations in their utterances. The result of this study revealed that in terms of the type of communicative
functions expressed in the students’ twitter, the two most dominant ones are reporting and expressing feelings. As for code-switching, three reasons are
identified: (a) the students’ lack of competence in English, (b) the absence of equivalent expression in TL and (c) the need to emphasize the content of the
message and to quote somebody’s word. As for the use of quotations, there are two cases: (a) the students tend to either quote a statement as it is or modify the quotation, both of which are from a single source and (b) to combine quotations from multiple sources. |