Jurnal Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik
Vol 20, No 3 (2017): March

Language as a Status Symbol of Power in Social Interactions at a Multicultural School in the City of Medan

Ahmed Fernanda Desky (Magister of Sociology Program, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, North Sumatera University.)
Pujiati Pujiati (North Sumatera University.)
Muba Simanihuruk (Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, North Sumatera University.)
Rizabuana Ismail (North Sumatera University.)
Ria Manurung (Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, North Sumatera University.)



Article Info

Publish Date
04 Aug 2017

Abstract

One’s habit in language use is influenced by daily social life structures thereby creating different interaction patterns both individually or as a group. Sociology of language critically analyzes the use of language as a symbol of power which dominates the arena in a multicultural school. This research utilizes mixed methods as it is considered capable of finding and answering the issues and problems under examination. The location of research was Sultan Iskandar Muda High School which is the only multicultural education curriculum based pilot school in the city of Medan. The informants in this study were the principal, teachers, and students while the respondents were samples of high school students totaling 86 individuals. Research results show that one’s power in language use is determined by one’s interest in using language. School power and individual power has different portions when positioning one’s self during interactions. Although power is coercive in nature, the community must submit to rules of the school. The power of the school in determining language emphasizes values of nationalism, which is different to individual or group power which adjusts the language to the situation at hand so that relations of language use has its own portion of interaction in the multicultural school.

Copyrights © 2017






Journal Info

Abbrev

jsp

Publisher

Subject

Law, Crime, Criminology & Criminal Justice Social Sciences

Description

Jurnal Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik (JSP) is an open access, and peer-reviewed journal. Our main goal is to disseminate current and original articles from researchers and practitioners on various contemporary social and political issues: gender politics and identity, digital society and disruption, ...