Code Mixing in the Movie Tinggal Meninggal: A Sociolinguistic Study

Abstract

Language contact in multilingual urban societies often gives rise to code mixing, a phenomenon in which speakers combine elements from two or more languages within a single communicative event. This study investigates code mixing in the dialogue of the Indonesian film Tinggal Meninggal (2025) through a Sociolinguistics lens. The research aims to identify the types and functions of code mixing employed by the characters across various interaction contexts. A qualitative descriptive method is applied, with purposive sampling used to select sixteen dialogue excerpts as the data. The data are analyzed using Muysken's (2000) typology of code mixing and Hoffman's (1991) functional framework. The findings reveal that the code mixing in this film is exclusively Indonesian–English in nature and is classified into two types only: insertion, found in twelve data points, and alternation, found in four data points. Notably, congruent lexicalization does not appear in the data, as the structural divergence between Indonesian and English prevents the shared grammatical framing that this type requires. Insertion dominates the data, reflecting the tendency of urban Indonesian speakers to embed English lexical items into an Indonesian grammatical frame. Alternation, by contrast, surfaces in emotionally charged moments where speakers shift between structurally complete clauses from each language. The study concludes that code mixing in Tinggal Meninggal operates not merely as a linguistic habit but as a Sociolinguistics strategy that reflects the identity, social dynamics, and communicative needs of contemporary urban Indonesian speakers. This research contributes to the broader field of sociolinguistics by providing empirical evidence of how bilingualism is strategically utilized in modern Indonesian media, offering valuable insights into the evolving linguistic landscape and identity construction of contemporary urban societies.