The Sociolinguistic Study on the Binan Terms Regarded as Slang of the Gay Community in Jember

Abstract

Language is a certain device used by people to communicate in sorts of topic and purpose both in spoken and in written. In this study, the subject of the research is spoken language which is used by a certain speech community, in this case the gay community in Jember. The gay community in Jember has its own distinctive language which is different from the standard language, as what Gumperz (1979:25) said that the speech community is a number of people who usually create their own language and they use the language to identify which groups in society they belong to. The terms which are created and used by the gay people are called Binan terms. Binan terms have unique word formations. The word formations of Binan terms basically include derivational processes including unique affixes and word substitutions. Binan terms are included in one of language varieties, called slang. Binan term has certain purposes behind its creation. This study concerns three major problems, those are: first, the word formations of the gay terms; second, the reasons of using the gay terms; third, the occasions when the gay usually uses the gay terms. There are eight processes of the word formations of the gay term. Those word formations basically include word substitutions and word omissions. There are four reasons of using the gay terms, those are: secrecy, solidarity, prestige, and the need to show social identity. The use of the gay terms is influenced by some factors such as the status scale between the speaker and the hearer, a social distance scale between the speaker and the hearer, formality scale or the setting of interaction, and the purposes or topic of interactions. vii The type of research used in this study is qualitative research. Suzan and Mackey (2005:152) state, “Qualitative research is a research based on descriptive data.” In this study, the researcher still involves numerical measurement to get more valid data, as what Grix (2004:120) explains that qualitative analysis comprises the data which are not in the form of number, but it is still able to involve numerical measurement. The techniques of collecting data in this study consist of observation, interview, and questionnaire. In this study, the researcher uses semi-structured interviews. The researcher uses a written list of questions as a guide, while she is still having the freedom to digress and probe for more information. In the interview, the researcher interviews two of the gay members of the gay community in Jember. To get more valid data, the researcher also uses questionnaires. Six out of ten gay members of the gay community in Jember participate in the questionnaires.