“That's Why I Never Learned English From Indonesian Teachers”: Investigating Native-Speakerism in Youtube Video Comments

Authors

  • Vindi Kaldina Universitas Bangka Belitung
  • I Nyoman Pasek Darmawan Universitas Bangka Belitung

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30983/mj.v3i1.6450

Keywords:

Native-Speakerism, YouTube Comments, English Accent.

Abstract

Abstract

This study aims to examine the extent to which native-speakerism (NS) is embedded in the comments responding to a YouTube video entitled “Salah Kursus Bahasa Inggris?- Seleb English†by a YouTuber named Sacha Stevenson. The researchers believe that native-speakerism, an ideology that creates a power imbalance favoring native speakers of English over nonnative speakers of English, is present in the video, in which the content creator scrutinizes Indonesian people’s English accents. However, this paper focuses on the comments responding to the video, since they can show to what extent NS is adopted by EFL speakers/learners in Indonesia. The data was retrieved using YouTube Data API and Python programming language, sorted using Microsoft Excel, and categorized by applying three reading steps into four levels which spans from 0 (no indication of native speakerism) to 3 (strong indication of native speakerism). The findings are presented descriptively and analyzed within the theoretical framework on NS.  The results suggest that NS is present in the observed comments on all three levels, which suggests how deeply embedded the NS ideology within the community of Indonesian English language learners and speakers. Suggestions on how to counter this ideology are presented in conclusion.

Keywords: native-speakerism, youtube comments, english accent.

Abstrak

 

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengamati sejauh mana native-speakerism (NS) terkandung dalam komentar tanggapan pada video YouTube berjudul "Salah Kursus Bahasa Inggris? - Seleb English" oleh YouTuber bernama Sacha Stevenson. Para peneliti percaya bahwa native-speakerism, sebuah ideologi yang menciptakan ketimpangan kekuasaan yang menguntungkan penutur asli bahasa Inggris dibandingkan penutur non-natif bahasa Inggris, ada dalam video tersebut, di mana pembuat konten mengkritik aksen bahasa Inggris orang Indonesia. Namun, penelitian ini berfokus pada komentar-komentar yang menanggapi video tersebut, karena komentar-komentar tersebut dapat menunjukkan sejauh mana NS diadopsi oleh penutur/pelajar bahasa Inggris di Indonesia. Data diambil menggunakan YouTube Data API dan bahasa pemrograman Python, diurutkan menggunakan Microsoft Excel, dan dikategorikan dengan menerapkan tiga langkah pembacaan menjadi empat level yang mencakup level 0 (tidak ada indikasi native speakerism) hingga level 3 (indikasi kuat native speakerism). Temuan tersebut disajikan secara deskriptif dengan analisis dalam kerangka teoritis tentang NS. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ideologi NS terlihat jelas dalam komentar-komentar yang diamati pada ketiga level, yang menunjukkan seberapa dalam ideologi tersebut tertanam dalam komunitas penutur/pelajar bahasa Inggris di Indonesia. Saran bersifat praktis tentang bagaimana menghadapi ideologi ini disajikan dalam kesimpulan.

Kata Kunci: native-speakerism, komentar youtube, aksen inggris


 

Author Biographies

Vindi Kaldina, Universitas Bangka Belitung

Vindi Kaldina, MA is currently a lecturer at the English Literature Department of Universitas Bangka Belitung.

I Nyoman Pasek Darmawan, Universitas Bangka Belitung

I Nyoman Pasek Darmawan is currently a lecturer at the Department of English Literature, Universitas Bangka Belitung

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Submitted

2023-07-05

Accepted

2023-12-18

Published

2023-06-30

Issue

Section

Articles