'SOK INGGRIS' OR SIMPLY BECOMING TEACHERS? SOCIAL STIGMA, LINGUISTIC CAPITAL, AND CODE-MIXING IDENTITY AMONG PRE-SERVICE ENGLISH TEACHERS AT UNIVERSITAS NEGERI MEDAN
Abstract
In this qualitative case study, the code-mixing strategies adopted by fifteen (R-01 to R-15) pre-service English teachers from Universitas Negeri Medan English Education Department (PBI)'s 2025 batch in Indonesia are analyzed in relation to the role of sociolinguistic stigma (Sok Inggris). Guided by Bourdieu’s theoretical constructs of linguistic capital and symbolic violence, along with Norton’s investment model, Blommaert’s scale perspective, and García and Wei’s concept of translanguaging, the research explores the impact of such stigma on identity construction and multilingual practice. Through direct observation, WhatsApp conversation analysis, and semi-structured interviews, the following four key findings were identified: (1) an endemic habitus of inserting academic lexical terms in English into conversations in 93.3% of the subjects; (2) a morphosyntactic mixing of Medan dialect pragmatic particles (ko, kan, we, lah) alongside English and Indonesian in 73.3% of the subjects; (3) a contradictory structure with 66.7% reporting stigma and 93.3% accepting code-mixing as integral to their identity as PBI Unimed; and (4) the emergence of a pedagogical orientation, where 73.3% have plans to use code-mixing as a scaffolding device in future teaching endeavors.
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