LANGUAGE VARIATION MATTERS: ADOLESCENT LANGUAGE ON INDONESIAN RADIO

Abstract

Radio in any platform still plays a vital role in today’s world. It is acknowledged to be at hand more than just providing announcers, news, and songs. It facilitates companionship and emotional connection with the listeners. While a large body of research has been conducted to reveal teen language in print media, language on adolescent radio stations remains scarcely investigated. This study examines language variation and text structure of the fillers on the teen radio stations, RRI Pro 2 Yogyakarta and Prambors as representative of public and private stations respectively. It also seeks to show the attitude of the two stations to language variation of Bahasa Indonesia. The data of the research consist of the textual structure and language features realizing the fillers. The findings of the study reveal that both stations use the same generic structure in terms of salutation, theme orientation, and theme elaboration, but differ in the concluding stage. The former uses an expert judgment or punchline to conclude its fillers, whereas the latter misses out this important aspect to convince the listeners about the validity of the information. As for the language features, the filler on RRI Pro 2 Yogyakarta is overwhelmingly characterized by standard phonological, morphological, and syntactical choices, whereas that on Prambors satisfies the teen language variation in the three levels. Despite targeting the same group of age, the contrast in the choice of language variation between the two representatives are attributable to the different attitudes to Bahasa Indonesia that both stations hold. RRI Pro 2 as the subsidiary of Indonesian government seems to be obliged to use the standard variation, whereas Prambors as a profit-oriented station views that language variation matters, and that speaking in the language of the audience is one of the ways to maintain companionship and interpersonal connections with its listeners.