EFL StudentsAo Bilingual Community: A Sociolinguistic Study of Language Choice Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 eISSN: 2503-4197, pISSN: 2527-5070 Available online at:
indonesian-efl-journal.
http://dx.
org/10.
21462/ijefl.
EFL StudentsAo Bilingual Community: A Sociolinguistic Study of Language Choice and Its Implications Endang Susilawati1.
Eusabinus Bunau2 Universitas Tanjungpura.
Pontianak.
Indonesia susilawati@fkip.
id, eusabinus.
bunau@fkip.
Abstract:
This research was a sociolinguistic study focusing on bilingualism and language choice involving students from the English Education Study Program (EESP) as participants who were presumably members of a bilingual speech community.
The objective of the research was to describe the profile of the bilingual community members with their sociolinguistic background, to analyze the patterns of language choice that occurred, and how they represent the speakersAo sociolinguistic competence in social interaction, and to interpret how the language patterns imply the role of the English in the community.
A small-scale survey was conducted with non-participant observation using questionnaires and documentary sources as the tools for data collection.
The research concluded that students of EESP were firmly verified as bilingual speech community members.
They not only shared common stuff dealing with their academic right and duties, but also common languages as their repertoires with the same knowledge of appropriateness for the language choice practice.
The choice considered the social contexts in addition to the intelligibility of the language to the participants.
The co-occurrence of the choice showed that the rules of alternation existed, but were bendable.
It did not represent any situation of diglossia.
The occurrence of the patterns represented how the speakersAo sociolinguistic competence controlled the practice of the language choice.
As an implication.
English played additional roles for them to not only show their social status identity, but also as the language of education, as well as a language to build their global social networking.
Keywords: bilingual community, language choice, linguistic repertoire, sociolinguistic competence Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025
Endang Susilawati & Eusabinus Bunau
INTRODUCTION
Bilingualism is a common sociolinguistic phenomenon in almost all the countries in the world.
Nowadays, speech communities of a country do not only be in contact among themselves but also in contact with the other speech communities from other countries.
In other words, language contact within the country and between or among countries is inevitable.
Moreover, globalization, technology advancement, and the existence of social media have positively contributed to global language contact.
As a result, the number of bilingual or multilingual people is increasing while monolingual people are becoming rarer.
As one big country in Asia.
Indonesia is recognized as a multilingual country.
There are more than 700 vernaculars spoken by Indonesian people.
The people from different regions speak different vernaculars beside Indonesian as the lingua franca.
Therefore, most Indonesian people at least speak two different languages.
One is their mother tongue, the vernacular, which is usually spoken in family domain.
The other is certainly Indonesian, as the national language and the lingua franca.
Most commonly Indonesian is used for formal communication.
It is used at schools, offices, or other public places.
To some Indonesian people, they might even have the capability to speak more than one vernacular as they were born to parents who speak different vernaculars.
The place where they live will also possibly make them accessible to speak more codes or languages.
In addition.
Indonesian scholars are also required to learn foreign languages like English.
Arabic and some others ever since they go to middle schools.
To such an extent, it is presumed that Indonesian people mostly belong to bilingual or multilingual speech community.
As a matter of fact, a speech community is not always identical with an ethnic community because an individual member of a certain ethnic group might concurrently belong to various speech communities.
It is defined as a speech community when the members share the same linguistic rules as well as the set of social norms, local knowledge.
, beliefs and values, as the references for their social communication performance (Cockburn-Wooten & McIntosh, 2020.
Long & Xie, 2.
Referring to this definition, any group of community, including a group of students who share the same linguistic rules as well as such social norms and values can be characterized as a speech community.
In the case of students of English Education Study Program (EESP) of The Teacher Training and Education Faculty (FKIP) at Tanjungpura University (UNTAN), particularly, they should represent Indonesian scholars who learn English as a foreign language (EFL).
Currently, this group students live in Pontianak city, the capital of Kalimantan Barat, where UNTAN campus is Having such sociolinguistic background, they can be identified as a speech community who might share the same linguistic rules in common as well as the social norms, local knowledge.
, beliefs and social values, which might control their social communication Based on their place of origin and their current domicile, as well as based on their current social status, they are members of academics or scholars who might share the same linguistic rules of varieties of Malay.
Dayak.
Chinese dialects (Tio Chiu and Khe.
as they are native languages in Kalimantan Barat.
In addition, they might be from migrant families from other parts of Indonesia who had moved to Pontianak or other regencies in West Kalimantan for that long period of time.
Therefore, they might share their ethnicities and the vernaculars accordingly, like Madurese.
Javanese.
Sundanese, and so forth.
Bearing such social ethnic background will possibly identify the students as a bilingual speech community members who do Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 EFL StudentsAo Bilingual Community: A Sociolinguistic Study of Language Choice not only share the linguistic rules of their language repertoires but also the social norms and values which become the references for their language behavior in social communication or Being EESP students, they are majoring in English Education.
For their campus social interaction.
English is dominantly used as medium of interaction beside Indonesian.
Their vernaculars, however, might be coexistence among them while communicating outside campus.
The English is not merely for the medium of instruction in the classroom interaction.
The high communicative competence in English must be the target that they must achieve as well.
During the study period, they are trained to be future middle-school English teachers.
In other words, they are expected to achieve high English communicative competence well after completing their In short, students of EESP are presumably accessible to numbers of codes .
as their language repertoires, they can be characterized as a bilingual community who should share the same social norms and values to guide them for their daily communication practices (Janyk & Janykovy, 2023.
Sulis, 2023.
Wei & Garcya, 2.
Being members of a bilingual community, language choice practices should be a part of their linguistic behaviors, which should be governed or controlled by numbers of social constraints co-occur in a communication process (Lorenzoni et al.
, 2022.
Tamburelli et al.
, 2.
In fact, bilingualism and language choice have been interesting issues to study.
They are not supposed to be exclusively linguistic matters, but complex phenomena that should be analyzed using multidisciplinary approaches (Blackwood & Ryyneland, 2021.
Koch, 2.
At the individual level, bilingualism is recognized as bilinguality.
It refers to an individualAos psychological state of accessing more than one language.
A bilingual person will be challenged with such a complicated language behavior in a communication, whereby he should be competent to appropriately choose one code .
over the other for a particular situation of The choice is not necessarily for the reason of the intelligibility of the language repertoires that the participants share.
Instead, other sociolinguistic constraints might control the choice, such as the different medium or channel .
s in oral or written variet.
, the purpose of the communication, and the different social functions of the languages.
Besides, other socialpsychological factors like the setting, the social distance of the participants, and the topic of the conversation or the speech would rather cause the choice of one language than the other (Arellano-Vyliz et al.
, 2025.
Devane et al.
, 2.
Studies on bilingualism and language choice have been conducted for different purposes as well as with different approaches.
In the context of Indonesia as a multilingual and multicultural country, some studies have been previously done as well.
One of them was conducted by Jumadi et al.
about a multilingual and multiethnic community from Banjarmasin city in South Kalimantan.
The researcher employed a mixed-methods approach, combining questionnaires and in-depth interviews in their study.
The findings showed that Banjar language was used predominantly by the members of Banjar ethnic community at home and public places.
Meanwhile, those of Dayak ethnic community prefer using Banjar language and Indonesian to using their own native language.
Other migrants or immigrants which were from various ethnic origins, like Madurese.
Bugis.
Javanese and Sundanese tend to choose their own native language in family domain and in internal group communication.
Meanwhile.
Banjar and Indonesian were chosen at public settings, especially for inter-ethnic communication.
In school setting, teachers used Indonesian as the medium of instruction and for formal meeting, whereas students chose both Banjar and Indonesian as the means of communication.
In almost the same way, the Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 Endang Susilawati & Eusabinus Bunau employees in government offices also used Indonesian and Banjar for either formal or informal The findings implied the dominant role of Banjar language, the local language, beside Indonesian as they were common language repertoires that were shared by all the speech community members.
Another study about language choice had also been previously conducted by Nasution & Ayuningtyas .
They took a speech community from a Chinese ethnic community who resided in Medan.
North Sumatra as their research participants.
The speech community shared common language repertoires, such as various dialects of Chinese language, such as Hokkian.
Tio Ciu.
Hakka.
Hai Lho Khong, and Kong Hu beside Indonesian.
They also used questionnaires to collect the data.
The choice of the accessible language.
was identified based on family and occupation domains.
The findings proved that the choice of the language use was not merely controlled by the domain but more by either inter- or intra-ethnic relation among the participants in a communicative event.
Hokkien was dominantly chosen for intra-Chinese ethnic communication as Hokkien was the dominant speech community among the Chinese ethnic community in Medan.
Meanwhile.
Bahasa Indonesia was used for inter-ethnic communication.
The two previous studies above took the bilingual speech community based on their place of domicile and only focused on analyzing the pattern of the language choices without having further interpretation about the extent to which the role of each accessible language repertoire is important for the members of the speech communities.
Besides, the underpinning theories were only limited to the choice of the language based on particular domains without considering social-cultural contexts as they possibly become other constraints which govern the language As a part of linguistic behavior, the appropriate choice of address forms carried social meaning (Rodryguez Tembrys, 2024.
Xu et al.
, 2.
The choice was practiced by the community as a part of their linguistic behavior that follow the sociolinguistic norms of the society indicating various social meanings, such as politeness, honorific, intimacy, and social distance, as well as indicated in-group and out-group orientation.
The domains of communicative situations of the choice were family and neighborhood interaction.
The choice of an appropriate form of address should follow the rules of alternation.
In addition, the choice was in consideration with either the addressee was inside or outside group member of the community beside the above-mentioned social categories of the addressee (Renna, 2023.
Soomro, 2.
Such alternation rules had represented the sociolinguistic competence of the speech community in choosing appropriate form of address.
Unlike previous studies that included two or three different ethnic groups or backgrounds, the current study involved a bilingual speech community of academics and scholars coming from various subethnic groups and speakers of local languages.
They were students of EESP at FKIP UNTAN, as EFL students, who had been living in Pontianak city at least since they were registered as students of UNTAN.
Coming from various ethnic backgrounds, they might share the same vernaculars and social cultural norms in common.
However, different vernaculars and social cultural norms might co-exist among them.
While being members of scholars they must share many things in common as well.
They do not only share their right and duty as members of campus civilians but also share the same language repertoires.
Moreover, they are majoring in English education, which enables them to be competent in the language.
In other words.
English Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 EFL StudentsAo Bilingual Community: A Sociolinguistic Study of Language Choice becomes their additional language repertoire beside their vernaculars and Indonesia as their national language.
After all, being exposed to such a multilingual state.
EESP students were supposed to experience such a language behavior for their daily communication through which the practice of language choice is unavoidable.
It should be a part of their sociolinguistic competence which should accompany their linguistic competence in their communication practices.
They must be able to choose one particular code .
over the other for one particular situation of communication appropriately.
Such an appropriateness in a language choice practice will indicate the speakersAo linguistic competence in their language repertoires and will simultaneously show the role or the function of each language of those repertoires.
Besides, the occurrence of the choice would represent the patterns, or the rules of the choice happen to the community.
In short, this research has three purposes .
to describe the profile of the bilingual community members with their language repertoires and their sociolinguistic background.
to analyze the patterns of language choice occurred and how they might represent the speakersAo sociolinguistic competence in social interaction.
to interpret how the language patterns might imply the roles or the functions of English to the community members due to their status as students of EESP.
LITERATURE REVIEW
1 Bilingualism and Bilinguality Bilingualism is an interesting issue to discuss as it is not exclusively a linguistic matter.
It also include socio and psychological matters.
From sociolinguistic perspective, bilingualism is referred to a social norm.
It refers to a linguistic community in which numbers of individuals in the community are capable to speak more than one language.
However, it not only a result of two or more languages in contact alone but also the result of pattern of marriage, the living arrangement in the society, and other social networks (Wardhani & Djuharie, 2025.
Mittal et al.
Terminology of bilingualism is commonly used interchangeably with multilingualism as it might represent an individual who speak two or more languages.
However, bilinguality is commonly distinguished from bilingualism.
Bilinguality refers to the cognitive and psychological state of an individual bilingual in their social communication.
It is identified as individual bilingualism.
It should consider the degree of access according to various dimensions beside linguistic such as psychological, cognitive, psycholinguistic, social psychological, sociological, sociolinguistic, and sociocultural.
Meanwhile, bilingualism is concerning bilingual people in social level with their communicative behavior.
It refers to the state of a linguistic community in which two languages or more are in contact.
If a society consists of people who are bilinguals, it belongs to collective, social or societal bilingualism (Moskovchuk & Gusev, 2025.
Titone & Tiv, 2.
In other words, societal bilingualism occurs when a speech community members have bilingual competence in two or more codes or languages and when those languages coexist within the The bilingual competence can be acquired in two different ways, one is through natural acquisition in a social context, and the other is through formal learning (Berthele, 2021.
McKinney, 2.
It is primary versus secondary bilingualism.
Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 Endang Susilawati & Eusabinus Bunau In addition, bilingualism might affect the norms of interpersonal and intergroup communication, language policy by the government, education system, and other social, cultural and psychological matters.
Consequently, members of bilingual community should be faced with such linguistic behavior, especially in the way they choose one code for particular communicative situation over the other.
When bilingual speakers know the alternatives and be aware of the rules for appropriate choice, they acquire good communicative competence (Belinda et al.
, 2021.
Makayev et al.
, 2.
2 Language Repertoires.
Language Choice, and Factors Affecting the Choice As it has been mentioned, bilingual community members are accessible to more than one language as their language repertoires.
In the case of Indonesian people, most of them are bilingual and many of them are even multilingual.
Mostly.
Indonesian people speak their vernaculars, or their local languages as their mother tongue as Indonesia is known as a country with most languages (Aji et al.
, 2.
Normally, they use the language in their family domain and with surrounding people.
The languages represent their ethnic identity (Gerdner, 2021.
et al.
, 2.
, or their place of origin and they may also indicate the place of their present Commonly, those languages are used for communication in internal group members.
Besides.
Indonesian people also speak Bahasa Indonesia as it is the national language for them which symbolizes their national identity.
For Indonesian scholars, particularly, they usually learned foreign language like English.
Arabic.
Mandarin, and many more.
For some instrumental purposes.
Indonesian school curriculum required Indonesian scholars learn foreign languages since they go to Junior High School, especially English (Maulia, 2025.
Wulandari et al.
, 2.
Therefore.
English is required for Indonesian scholars.
Being accessible to more than one language as their language repertoires, bilingual speakers should perform their communicative competence well, especially for the language choice in different social context.
Some non-linguistic factors, however, may also be taken into consideration as well while making the choice of using a language in the conversation.
Such an appropriate choice will represent the speakersAo good communicative competence, particularly their sociolinguistic competence (Varsat, 2024.
Oybek & Shuxrat, 2.
Remarkably, a language choice is affected by some social contexts.
The speakers need to realize to whom they are talking to, what is the social context of the talk, what is the function and topic of the discussion.
The patterns of the code choice based on such consideration are known as domains of language use (Kasim, 2023.
Kouega & Lontsi, 2.
In many communities, the domains can be classified into family, friendship, religion, education, employment, neighborhood, and other possible social networks.
Accordingly, the topic of the talk or conversation should be relevant to the domain, the participants, and the setting.
Eventually, the language choice should take those social factors into consideration.
In more detail, it is explainable that setting deals where and when the talk is occurring.
Meanwhile, participantsAe addressor and addressee, should consider age, sex, and social status.
Moreover, language choice can be influenced by social and political identity (Fadlilah et al.
Sabaty-Dalmau, 2.
Such a case is exemplified by the communicative situation of Indonesian speech community which belongs to a multilingual speech community.
Mostly.
Indonesian people speak their vernaculars as their local languages.
The languages represent their ethnic identity or their place of origin, and most probably indicate the place of their present Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 EFL StudentsAo Bilingual Community: A Sociolinguistic Study of Language Choice Commonly, those languages are used for communication among internal group Besides, they also speak Bahasa Indonesia as it is the national language which symbolizes their national identity.
The language is commonly used for external group communication and mostly used in more formal setting such as at offices, schools, mosques, churches, and other public places.
In some countries, the choice of language is determined by strictly separated functions of the two or more language repertoires of the speech community.
Such configuration is called diglossia (Roushdy, 2.
It is a situation of bilingualism where two different languages or two or more varieties of the same language are used for different functions.
One is as high (H) language, and the other is as low (L) language or variety.
In diglossia, the H language indicates prestige, superiority, formality, and standardization.
In contrast.
L language marks informality, locality, and solidarity or membership of a peer or ethnic group (Cooper & Lampropoulou, 2021.
Diaz & Fields, 2024.
Han & Wu, 2.
In short, language choice may be in connection with the social functions of the language (Montero, 2.
3 The language choice as the representation of sociolinguistic competence Sociolinguistic competence should be acquired by any language speakers.
It is a part of communicative competence, besides linguistic or grammatical, discourse, and strategic In language teaching and learning, these parts of communicative competence must be targeted (Guo, 2024.
Rahman, 2.
From a sociolinguistic perspective, it deals with the norms of appropriacy.
It indicates a speakerAos sociolinguistic competence.
Having communicative competence in a language, the speaker should acquire the norms of appropriacy in addition to its grammatical accuracy and fluency (Iswandari & Ardi, 2.
In other words, the appropriate choice of a language in a given situation for members of a bilingual community will represent their sociolinguistic competence.
Furthermore, sociolinguistic competence is about knowing how to use and respond to language appropriately, given the setting, the topic, and the relationships among the people communicating (Oybek & Shuxrat, 2.
It is the knowledge of appropriateness .
hether and to what extent something is suitabl.
, occurrence .
hether and to what extent something is don.
, and feasibility .
hether and to what extent something is possible under particular circumstances (Varsat, 2.
In the context of language uses, it refers to how a speaker may or may not speak or use language in consideration to the social contexts.
For a bilingual speaker, particularly, having sociolinguistic competence means to be aware of what language to use by the constraints of who.
he is talking to, when and where the talk is occurring, what topic and what purpose is the talk about.
Concerning this.
Gondra et al.
and Rajendram .
categorized five variables underlying whether or a conversation may or may not occur.
Setting refers to the place and the situation .
ormal or informa.
where the conversation is taking place, .
Participants, the people involved in an exchange and the social status or the role-relationship between or among them, whether they are in equal status, or one may be superior to the other, .
Gender, research clearly shows that men and women typically use language differently when addressing either members of the same or the opposite sex, .
Channels, deals with spoken or written language.
Different channels might require different language use, and .
Topic, the topic we are addressing affects our lexical and grammatical, and even the language choice.
These variables should be relevant to consider in language choice practices.
Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 Endang Susilawati & Eusabinus Bunau In overlapping, the choice of language varieties can be categorized in association with a number of social and cultural dimensions.
They are associated with setting, activity domain, region, ethnicity, social class, status and role, role-relationships, sex, age, personality states and abnormal speech and the last is non-native varieties (Mardikantoro et al.
, 2023.
Zampieri et al.
, 2.
analyze communicative competence in micro level, she was in agreement with the three discrete units of analysis suggested by Yurina & Doronina .
, as the framework of communicative activities, namely: communicative situation, event, and communicative act.
In addition, the analysis of a communicative event should begin with the description of the components of communication which include genre, topic, purpose or function, setting, key, participants, message form and content, act sequence, rules of interaction, and norm of interaction (Taussogarova et al.
, 2.
Referring to all the concepts described above, this particular study used the conceptual framework that views bilingualism at the societal level, as it is a part of sociolinguistic It refers to the state of a speech or linguistic community in which two or more codes or languages are in contact or coexist within the community.
In such a collective bilingualism, the occurrence of language choice is considered a part as their linguistic behavior.
The topic and the purpose of communication are also taken into consideration.
By analyzing and interpreting the patterns of language choice practiced or performed by the bilingual speech community of the students of EESP, the study expected to discover how the sociolinguistic contexts might govern the choice of language in a given situation.
The findings should simultaneously represent the sociolinguistic competence of the members of the bilingual Besides, it would imply how each of the speakersAo language repertoires was RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This was a sociolinguistic study focusing on the issues of bilingualism and their language choice As an empirical science, the data of a sociolinguistic study must be founded on an adequate database from a variety of sources, like censuses, surveys, documents, and interviews (Chand, 2.
However, the appropriate method should depend on the relationship of the researcher and the speech community, the type of data being collected, and the particular situation in which the field work is conducted (Miceli & Posada, 2.
Therefore, this research applied a small-scale survey for the data collection since it was a relevant approach to adopt to study bilingual communities (Hopkins et al.
, 2.
Besides survey, the conversation document of communicative events also included to prove if the patterns of language choice practiced by the speech community naturally occurred.
The participants in this research were students from EESP FKIP UNTAN.
They were verified as a bounded knit to form a dense social network (Alasmari et al.
, 2.
Being campus civilians, they did not only share some study stuffs but also share common language repertoires as they were coming from various ethnic backgrounds.
There were 370 students who were actively registered in EESP of FKIP UNTAN, and however, the participants selected as the population for this research were only those who were seated in semester V and VII or higher, resulting in 167 participants.
They were purposively selected in consideration of the participantsAo good achievement on their basic English competence, both in oral and written, in addition to their accessible vernaculars as their mother tongues or local languages, as well as for their ethnic origin identity and Indonesian as their national identity and as the lingua franca.
Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 EFL StudentsAo Bilingual Community: A Sociolinguistic Study of Language Choice The techniques of data collection were by non-participant observation through questionnaires and documents (Chand, 2025.
Creswell & Creswell, 2018.
Hopkins et al.
, 2.
The questionnaires were constructed based on the relevant points of the required information or data that would denote the studentsAo identity as members of a bilingual speech community.
The other data were about the way they decided their language choice based on the social constraints, which were relevant to the social contexts, such as the setting, participants, the topic of the talk or conversation, and the function of communication, as well as the channels for language use (Agustine et al.
, 2021.
Bratlie et al.
, 2.
For time efficiency, the questionnaires were distributed through Google Forms to the research participants.
Additionally, data were collected from relevant selected documents.
They covered the studentsAo records on their social and personal identity.
The documentary data were previously collected solely for the purpose of obtaining initial information about the studentsAo demographic background.
The data analysis started from analyzing the sociolinguistic background of the participants.
Then continued by analyzing the co-occurrence of the language choice based on the selected social contexts which were adapted from (Taussogarova et al.
, 2.
and (Bratlie et al.
, 2.
The process of how the speakers decided their language choice would draw the patterns of the language choice performed by the bilingual speech community members.
The data were classified using tables and then continued with a descriptive analysis accordingly based on each selected context.
The result of the analysis would indicate the co-occurrence of the language choice and would implicitly represent how the speakers applied their sociolinguistic competence in choosing one language over the other in such a given situation.
The last step was to interpret how the pattern of choice might imply the roles or the functions of each language repertoire to the members of the community, especially the role of the English as their social status for majoring in English education.
RESULTS
1 The Sociolinguistic Background of EESP Students as a Bilingual Community Having a social status of university students, students of EESP shared the same rights and duties for their academic stuffs, the same languages in common as their language repertoires.
Besides, they also share more or less the same social-cultural values as the reference to their social interaction behavior because most of them share the same places of origin, the regencies of West Kalimantan.
Only a few of them came from other provinces.
In detail, the place of origin of the participants is in Table 1 as follows:
Total Table 1: The Place of Origin of the Community Place of Origin Number in Percentage (%) Pontianak City Kubu Raya Regency Sambas Regency Sintang Regency Singkawang City Ketapang Regency Sanggau Regency Other Regencies of West Kalimantan (Melawi.
Kayong Utara.
Bengkayang, and Sekada.
Other Provinces (Central Java.
Lampung.
Tanggeran.
Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 Endang Susilawati & Eusabinus Bunau In terms of their ethnicity, the community members claimed that they also came from various ethnic backgrounds.
In accordance with their place of origin, they were predominantly from a Malay ethnic background, with various Malays in West Kalimantan.
More of them .
1%) were Pontianak Malay, followed by Sambas 11.
Kubu Raya 6.
Javanese 10.
3%, and other Malay ethnics 9.
The rest were other various ethnic groups, such as Dayaks.
Chinese.
Minangkabau.
Madurese, and the mix of Malay and other ethnic groups .
1%).
Consequently, those various ethnic and origin backgrounds correspond to various access to their vernaculars besides the Indonesian as their national lingua franca.
Their vernaculars were identified from their places of origin and their current domiciles.
Some of them even spoke more than one vernacular since they were migrants from other regencies in West Kalimantan or other provinces to Pontianak City as well as because they had grown up from a bilingual family.
They spoke Pontianak and Kubu Raya Malay .
6%).
Sambas and Singkawang Malay .
8%).
Sintang and Melawi Malay .
6%), whereas some others speak Javanese .
2%).
Meanwhile, the rest spoke varieties of other Malays like Sanggau.
Ketapang.
Kapuas Hulu, and other varieties of Dayaks from those places of origin.
In addition, a few of them .
%) also claimed that they spoke other local languages, such as Javanese.
Sundanese.
Padangnese or Minangkabau.
Madurese.
Buginese, and Bataknese.
For the fluency level for all these vernaculars, they claimed that it ranged from low to high levels of fluency.
Linguistically, the Malay and Dayak languages in West Kalimantan exhibit distinct varieties.
The examples are identified phonetically and lexically, as shown in the following Table 2:
Table 2: Varieties of Malay and Dayak Language in West Kalimantan phonetically BM Sambas Pontianak Sanggau BM Sintang Ketapang BD Kanayan What Who apa .
so?] .
ejO?] .
Perut .
ojO] .
osar/ .
Where Stomach/ Notes: EL (Englis.
IL (Indonesia.
ML (Malay Languag.
DL (Dayak Languag.
To some extent, those languages are also lexically different.
They can randomly be identified as the following Table 3:
Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 EFL StudentsAo Bilingual Community: A Sociolinguistic Study of Language Choice .
InI] Panggil .
Bohong .
Tidak .
Table 3: Lexical Varieties of Malay and Dayak Language in West Kalimantan (Phonemicall.
Sambas Pontianak Sanggau Sintang Ketapang .
inI] .
InI] .
InI] .
Kanayan .
InI] .
iyak-biya.
nak-ana.
Being Indonesian scholars, they also speak Indonesian with a high level of fluency, as it was the official language at schools and in other public places.
Simultaneously, they were also accessible to speak English, their first foreign language, due to their status as students who were majoring in English Education.
They claimed to speak English with varying levels of fluency.
Besides the English, some of them .
%) claimed to speak Arabic.
Japanese.
Korean.
French, and German at a low level of fluency.
In short, those numbers of languages co-existed in their social The languages they speak indicate that the students of EESP were members of a bilingual or multilingual community.
2 The Patterns of Choice and Sociolinguistic Competence Representation Being members of bilingual communities, students of EESP must be exposed to such a sociolinguistic behavior in their daily communication practices, which is called a language choice.
A language choice practice does not occur randomly and merely for the reason of the language intelligibility, because the participants of a conversation share the same languages.
Instead, the choice is also governed by social and cultural contexts of the communication.
Concerning this, it was discovered that the students of EESP performed such regular patterns for choosing a code or a language they accessed in a communicative event.
The first social contexts which governed or controlled their language choice dealt with the domains or settings, where and when the communication was occurring.
They included at home, school or campus, at other public places like cafe, or other places where the students usually hang out and meet people.
The second was the participants involved in a communicative event.
The participants and their social relationship were usually aligned with the settings.
The third context was the topic of the The fourth was the purpose of the communication, and the last context dealt with the channels to use for each language repertoire they were using.
The co-occurrence of the language choice is in Table 4 below.
Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025
Endang Susilawati & Eusabinus Bunau
Domain/ Setting Family Campus/School Neighborhood
Other public places Table 4: The Choice Based on the Domain or Setting Language Repertoires LL/Vern 72% 25% 3% 40% 46% 14% 43% 46% 11% 70% 30% 0% 18% 82% 54% 38% 8% 48% 40% 12% 12% 42% 48% 80% 15% 5% 13% 20% 12% 47% 31% 80% 18% 2% OFL
20% 80%
20% 80%
0% 100%
0% 100%
20% 70%
Notes: LL/Vern: Local Language/Vernacular.
IL: Indonesian.
EL: English.
A: Always.
ST: Sometimes.
N: Never.
These abbreviations .
are also applied to Table 4.
3 Ae Table 4.
The first social context that altered the language choice was the setting or domain, the place and the time the communicative event was occurring.
Local languages were mostly used in family domain .
%), the neighborhood domain .
%), followed by the school/campus domain .
%).
Meanwhile, local languages were still the choice for other public places and workplace domains with the least frequency .
% and 54%).
The data indicated that local language.
was used in all available domains even though the frequency was in various levels.
Meanwhile.
Indonesian was the first priority to use in school/campus domains .
%), other public places .
%), and in workplace .
%).
Nevertheless.
Indonesian was still used in neighborhood and family domain .
% and 86%).
In addition.
English is the participantsAo first foreign language, and it is chosen to use the most frequently in the school/campus domain .
%), ranging from the frequency of always .
%) to sometimes .
%), and used in the domain of other public .
%) and workplace domain 33%).
Additionally, it was also used in both the family domain .
%) and the neighborhood domain .
%).
The last, as less than 20% of the members claimed to speak other foreign languages with a low level of fluency, spoken in other public places .
%), school/campus .
%), and family .
%) domains.
The second constraint for the choice of language among the community members occurred in consideration of the participants involved in the conversation or the communicative event, as well as the existence of their social role-relationship, as shown in the following Table 5.
Table 5: The Choice Based on the Participants and the Role-Relationship
Language Repertoires Participants and the roleLL/Vern 1 Family members 86% 10% 4% 20% 42% 38% 0% 20% 80% 2 Teachers/Lecturers 87% 80% 20% 0% 20% 80% 0% 3 Schoolmates 68% 10% 22% 48% 22% 30% 10% 90% 0% 4 Friends from the same place 65% 20% 15% 32% 45% 23% 5% 45% 50% or the same social activities 5 Friends from different 100% 0% 100% 80% 15% 5% 6 People I meet in public
10% 22% 68% 75% 25% 0%
40% 60%
OFL
15% 75%
35% 61%
25% 65%
Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 EFL StudentsAo Bilingual Community: A Sociolinguistic Study of Language Choice Normally, their role-relationship existed in consistent with the setting of the communicative Local language.
or vernacular.
were mostly chosen when the speakers talked to family members .
%) and then to members from the same place or those who shared the same social activities .
%).
Besides, the local language.
were commonly used when talking to schoolmates .
%) and possibly used when they met people in public places .
%).
Only a few of them used their local language.
with their teachers or lecturers .
%).
Furthermore, since English was accessible to the community members, they could use English in their social interactions.
However, they could only use the language to communicate with other members who shared the same language only.
For such a case, they used English the most when communicating with their teachers or lecturers .
%) and their schoolmates .
%) as well as with people or friends from different countries .
%), and to friends from the same social activities .
%) as well as the people they met in public places .
%).
Yet, some of them also sometimes used the language when talking to their certain family members .
%).
Moreover, the choice based on the topic of conversation is presented in Table 6 as follows:
Table 4: The Choice Based on the Topic of the Conversation Topic SpeakerAos Family OtherAos matter of General topic about school or study matter Specific topic from a subjectmatter or a Any topic from social Language Repertoires LL/Vern 15% 80% OFL From the data displayed, it was discovered that the third context that made the choice of one particular language repertoire to use was the topic.
of the conversation.
In this case, their local languages were chosen to use when the topic of conversation was about personal matters of other people in their surroundings .
%) and the speakerAos own personal matters .
%).
Another topic Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 Endang Susilawati & Eusabinus Bunau that made the members use the local language in a conversation was any topic from social media .
%).
Meanwhile, the local language.
were less used for conversing about the topic of school matters .
%).
Indonesian was used the most for the topic of school matters .
%).
The English was the choice when talking about the school matters .
%), social media issues .
%), and the speakersAo own personal matters .
%), whereas the other topics were almost never conversed in English.
addition, other foreign languages were used the most .
%) for talking about the speakersAo own personal matters.
The fourth social context affecting the language choice was the purpose or the reason behind the Please see Table 6 below:
Table 6: The choice based on the purpose or the reason behind the communication The purpose/ the To show the speakerAos ethnic and cultural identity To show the speakerAos national To show the speakerAos social status identity To show the speakerAos power and To show the speakerAos group solidarity or group Language Repertoires LL/Vern 17% 80% 3% OFL It is shown that the community members had some reasons behind using one particular language out of all their language repertoires.
The use of their local language.
was the foremost for the purpose of showing the speakerAos ethnic and cultural identity .
%), followed by the speakerAos group solidarity or their group membership .
%), and social identity .
%).
Indonesian was mostly used to show the speakerAos national and social status identity .
%).
The other most purposes to show the speakerAos group solidarity or group membership .
%), and less was to show his/her ethnic and cultural identity .
%).
Furthermore.
English was mostly used for the purpose to show the speakerAos social status identity .
%), the speakerAos power and control .
%), and solidarity or group membership .
%).
Only 13% community members claimed that they used other foreign language.
they accessed to show their power and control.
The last constraint that possibly made the speaker choose the language to use was the channel he/she used, whether it was in spoken or written form.
Local language.
were almost used in spoken form and less used in written form.
In the meantime.
Indonesian was used both in both channels but almost always in written form.
Likewise.
English was also used in both channels in almost the same frequency.
The language choice based on channel is as in Table 7 below.
Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025
EFL StudentsAo Bilingual Community: A Sociolinguistic Study of Language Choice Table 7: The Choice Based on the Channel
Channel
Spoken Form
Written Form
Language Repertoires LL/Vern 28 72% 0% 10 35% 55% 80
A ST
20 76%
28 70%
OFL
The data show that the language choice performed by the bilingual community in this study was not only governed by the same language repertoires they shared but also controlled by some social constraints.
The rules of alternation occurred in the practice of language choice, by considering the setting or the domain of the communicative event, the participants involved, the topic of the conversation, and the purpose or the reason for choosing the language in the communication, as well as the channel to use for the communication.
All their language repertoires might co-occur in different settings, as well as with any participants involved in the communicative event.
Local language.
were dominantly selected to show the speakerAos ethnic and cultural identity and group solidarity, and represented their place of origin and their recent domicile.
After all, the function of each language was not strictly isolated from the other but might overlapped functioning as another.
Furthermore, the transcription of the conversation quotations in one setting below shows that the participants of the conversation might use different languages concurrently.
Please see Conversation 1 below:
Conversation 1 (Setting: Campus.
Participants: students (Malay and Chines.
Topic: Extra Curricular Activitie.
S1: What did I get you? (EL) S2: Tempe mendoan.
(BI)
S1: Oh yeah? Emang mau di tas yang mana? (BI) S2: I'm not sure.
(EL)
S1: No, is it like a ransel or just what do you call it? Tas tenteng.
((EL BI)
S2: Handbag, handbag.
(EL)
S1: handbag.
(EL)
S2: Not sure karena kan aku kebanyakan handbag.
(EL BI)
S1: Aku nggak tahu ya event apa yang mereka pengen bikin sih.
I mean EDSA gitu loh.
(BI)
S2: Heeh.
Oh, kalua EDSA kan kemarin yang red kan? (BI) S1: Uh-huh.
S2: Yang donating blood.
(BI EL)
S1: Oh.
EPI red.
I think it hasn't done yet.
Harusnya bikin ini sih.
(EL BI)
S2: Harusnya donated dong.
Kamu pernah donated? .
ixing BI EL).
S1: I havenAot donated any drop of my blood because like I donAot think my blood is healthy.
(EL)
S2: But people need it.
S1: Truthfully speaking, um.
I can see my blood kalau misalnya diambil dari ujung jari itu.
ItAos like, tau gak sih darah apa, the red is-- ya, itAos not kotor, merahnya itu kayak burgundy.
ixing EL BI) S2: That's how it is.
A (EL)
In addition, the following data from Conversation 2 represents instances where both English and Indonesian were used interchangeably by the speakers.
Conversation 2 Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 Endang Susilawati & Eusabinus Bunau (Setting: classroom discussion among students.
Participants: S3 as the material presenter.
S4 and S5 as Topic: Language Teaching Media in TEFL Clas.
S3: Okay, we move to the second one.
SoAiyay! Here we are.
I have two media.
This one is the one I mentioned earlier, specifically for educational purposes.
The other one is a well-known application.
We use Canva, but itAos not just a graphic design sheet like you usually see.
This time, weAore using another CanvaAiletAos sayAisecret feature.
S4: Secret feature? S3: Yes, featuresAiplural.
This one is a collaborative drawing feature.
S4: So how do we use it in the classroom? S3: Good question.
With this very open feature, it opens up many possibilities for creating a variety of lesson plans.
For example, letAos say you are young learners, like in our previous practice.
I want to teach descriptive text.
I will give instructions.
Everyone can join the link, right? S4: Yes.
Yes.
S3: Then IAoll say.
AuPlease draw your favorite animal.
Ay S5: .
Who draws? S3: Everyone! YouAoll be given some timeAiabout five or ten minutesAito draw your favorite animal, your favorite subject, or even yourself.
Just draw, and then I will pick some students to come to the front and explain their drawings.
Is that understandable? S5: Yes.
Yes.
S3: Would you like to try? Ss: Yes.
S3: Okay, very good.
PleaseAi.
Aieveryone can access the link.
IAoll give you two minutes to draw your favorite animal.
Two minutes, start now.
Meanwhile, at home among the family members.
IL and the speakersAo vernacular were also concurrently used, as seen in Conversation 3.
Conversation 3 (Setting: at home by videocall.
Participants: family members F1: daughter of F3.
F2 and F3 sister and brother.
F4: daughter of F3.
their ethnic background: Javanese who were accessible to Javanese language/JL and Pontianak ML.
Topic: KidsAo matte.
F1: Yah, nih tante Sumi video call.
F2: Oh Adreena, enaknya makannya.
(IL)
F3: Mau gak tante? tawarin tantenya AuTante mau?Ay gitu.
(IL)
F4: Tante Mau? (BI) F2: Ngga, tante lagi makan, baru balik ya? capek ya? Dreena capek? Baru balek? Abang Doni .
er so.
disuruh sekolah ga mau dia.
Dreena? (IL) F4: Gak boleh males .
o Don.
, ya Dreena .
o F.
? F3: Gak boleh males .
o Don.
(IL)
F1: Alesan e opo, lek Sum.
Nek mangan sek ngantuk laa.
(JL)
F2: o gepok, disabet lek ora gelem.
(JL).
F3: Biar sukses.
(IL)
F2: Adreena jak tiap pagi setengah 6 pagi bangun.
Adreena jam 6 berangkat.
Setengah 6 pagi bangun mandi berangkat sekolah (IL with Pontianak Malay accen.
The data from the conversations reconfirmed that the rules of alternation occurred in the process of choosing one language over the other for one particular communicative event.
Yet, the rules were bendable or flexible.
Therefore, the patterns of choice did not represent any situation of diglossia.
Meanwhile, the awareness of the social constraints in the process represented the sociolinguistic competence of students of EESP as bilingual community members for their language choice performance and linguistic competence in the language Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 EFL StudentsAo Bilingual Community: A Sociolinguistic Study of Language Choice 3 The Implication of the Language Choice Patterns to The Role of English English was the first foreign language that the speech community had acquired beside their local language.
and Indonesian as the national language.
They were also accessible to the English due to their status as students of EESP who were majoring in English Education.
Their fluency level on the language ranged from the low to the high level but more of them .
ver 60%) were in the levels of average to high fluency.
The language was strongly corresponded to their social status as students.
It was dominantly used in school/campus domain.
Nevertheless, it was also used in some other domains like in public places even though the use was in lower level of frequency compared to the campus domain.
Besides, it was also possible to use in family and neighborhood domains with the least frequency.
Consequently.
English was not only limited to use when communicating with their schoolmates or campus fellows and their lecturers but also to the extended networking such as to communicate with friends from other countries, foreign people they met in public places and even with their family members who shared the language.
To summarize, being Indonesian scholars, students of EESP had acquired English as their first language in addition to their local language.
or vernacular.
as well as Indonesian.
Being competent in the language had made them accessible to more languages to communicate with.
The language had represented their social status, the power and control in social interaction.
the implication.
English had important role for them.
It was not only showing their social status identity but also functioning as the language of education as well as the language to build their global social network.
DISCUSSION
Based on the research findings, it has proven that local language.
or vernacular.
Indonesian, and English coexisted within the community.
Therefore, the students of EESP were confirmable as societal bilingualism (Mikhienko et al.
, 2023.
Mitschke, 2.
Being members of a bilingual speech community members, students of EESP were not only competent to communicate with more than one language, but they also shared the same knowledge of appropriateness, occurrence, and feasibility as controls to their social behavior, including their language behavior in communication (Chang & Bergen, 2024.
Kuznietsova, 2.
For this purpose, they should be aware of how to deliberate social context as the constraints to the choice of one language over the other for one particular event of communication beside the language accessibility and its intelligibility to the participants.
The co-occurrence of the language choice was performed by the bilingual community.
It had proven that the rules of alternation occurred in the process of choosing.
However, the existence of the rules did not indicate any severe or rigorous patterns.
In addition, the choice of the language was also referring to the function of one language repertoire separately from the other for the speakers.
The local language.
were mostly used to show their ethnic and cultural identity or their place of origin and their recent domicile as it was confirmed by Harianto and Syukri .
, and Peng and Patterson .
Indonesian was dominantly chosen for the purpose of showing the speakerAos national identity, which was also functioning as lingua franca for interethnic communication for Indonesian people.
This findings reconfirmed the previous studies by Nasution and Ayuningtyas .
and Jumadi et al.
Yet, the function of each language did not represent any situation of diglossia as it possibly occurred in other bilingual communities (Hopkins et al.
, 2023.
Lorenzoni et al.
, 2022.
Mittal et al.
, 2.
For English, in Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10.
November 2025 Endang Susilawati & Eusabinus Bunau particular, it was used to show their social status identity and power as well as control.
Thus, the accessibility to English had implied its additional function or role to them.
It was functioning as both the language of academics or education and the language for expanding their international social networking.
CONCLUSION
Based on the research findings, there were some points to conclude.
The first, the students of EESP were firmly verified as community members of bilingual speech community.
They did not only share common stuffs dealing with their academic right and duty but also shared common languages as their repertoires.
Their vernaculars indicated their ethnic identity, place of origin, and place of domicile.
and Indonesian symbolized their national identity.
In addition, they were also accessible to use English as their first foreign language which indicated their social status identity as students majoring in English Education.
The second, students of EESP also shared the same knowledge of appropriateness.
They realized that the practice of language choice was not only governed by the intelligibility of the language to the participants alone but also controlled by the social contexts as the norm.
The co-occurrence of the choice had represented the existence of the rules of alternation.
Yet, the patterns were not rigid but more bendable.
did not represent any situation of diglossia as it might occur in other bilingual communities.
Such patterns had represented the sociolinguistic competence of the bilingual speech community The last, being accessible to English as the first foreign language, it was particularly used to show their social status identity.
As the implication.
English played such an important role for them.
It was functioning as the language of education as well as the language to build their international social networking.
REFERENCES