THE LANGUAGE OF ONLINE OJEK DRIVERS: A SOCIO-SEMANTICS STUDY

Abstract

The present study describes the language use of online ojek (taxi bike) drivers through the socio-semantics study. This study involves a duality of sociology and semantics. It was conducted under an observed phenomenon of the emergence of unique vocabulary in the society. New meanings have been found integrated with the existing words as well as new words and meanings. This sort of language development is, in fact, not easily understood by society. Such development is usually better understood by younger fellows who interact more often with technology than their older counterparts, making such products of language development are not well delivered to all people. The data, the language use of online ojek drivers, were collected naturally by becoming a participant. One of the researchers was a verified online ojek driver in Jember, making him a competent data source. The data were analyzed using the match and switch technique to investigate any emerging differences in the social elements of the interlocutor. The study found a number of vocabulary which characterize the online ojek drivers. The vocabulary includes acronyms, coined terms, and coined words. These forms have different lexical meanings from the intended meanings. Meanwhile, the coining of new words characterizes the slang or classified to only the community of online ojek drivers. The three varieties of language use of the online ojek drivers indicates a phenomenon of a developing language along with the emergence of a social community. A community is a means for developing the language which will identify them as a community. The development of meanings are indicated by two phenomena. First, adding meaning to existing words, named as the process of polysemy. Second, the meaning develop along with adding of words in bahasa Indonesian vocabulary. While vocabulary develops along with its meaning, Indonesian also has the potential to develop its vocabulary and meanings as more social communities are emerging in the society.