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THE MEANING OF THE ENGLISH VARIETY SPOKEN BY THE 

BALINESE VENDORS IN KUTA BEACH, BALI 

 

Tri Setianingsih (triset66@gmail.com) 

Faculty of Language and Art Education (FPBS) 

Institute of Teacher Training and Education (IKIP) Mataram 

 

ABSTRACT 

 

This study is concerned with the meaning of the English variety spoken by 

the Balinese vendors in Kuta beach, Bali which is located south of 

Denpasar City and become a tourism icon. As a part of tourism industry, 

Kuta beach is often visited by tourists from all over the world. There is a 

variety phenomenon in speaking English that may influence 

misinterpretation even though misunderstanding in face to face 

communication among the vendors and the tourists. This study aims to 

describe how is the semantic meaning which refers to the meaning in the 

dictionary and pragmatic meanings of the English variety of the Balinese 

vendors in Kuta beach, Bali. The result of this study is expected to be able 

to give new information to the readers about the meaning of the English 

variety spoken by the vendors in Kuta beach, Bali as a part of 

Sociolinguistics study. As descriptive study, the data findings in this study 

are described in form of words, phrases, and sentences. The data were 

collected by using two methods, participant observation and interview. 

Participant observation was mainly used to get the significant data from 

the subjects of the study. Audio and note taking techniques were used to 

collect the data during the participant observation. The result of the 

present study shows the meaning and characteristic English of Balinese 

vendors in Kuta beach, Bali is different from the meaning of the English 

used by the tourists (native speaker). Some English phrases which they use 

sound uncommon and sometimes they are ambiguous when they are used 

within a sentence.  

 

Key Words: Meaning, Spoken English, Balinese Vendors  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

mailto:triset66@gmail.com


 

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INTRODUCTION 

Balinese people, who work as vendors 

in Kuta beach Bali where the writer 

conducted this study, realize much the 

importance in having capability of 

speaking English to communicate with 

tourists from all over the world. 

Vendor is someone who is selling 

something. In this case, most of the 

vendors there are selling souvenirs 

such as silver jewelries, sunglasses, 

Balinese sarongs, and t-shirt or 

offering services such as hair braiding, 

making a tattoo or doing massage. The 

chosen word vendor rather than seller 

is used by the writer because the 

meaning of vendor is more appropriate 

than seller and according to the 

Cambridge dictionary the meaning of 

seller could be someone or a product 

which a lot of people buy (2008). 

The utterances such as “Buy me…buy 

me…, Sir…looking-looking is ok..” is 

one of the example of English variety 

spoken by the vendors in Kuta beach, 

Bali. As one of the tourism industry in 

Bali, which has popular name as the 

God‟s island or island of the thousand 

temples, Kuta beach Bali is one of the 

beautiful beaches there. The beach is 

always crowded with domestic and 

foreign tourists from all around the 

world. It becomes one of the reasons 

why Balinese people really love to 

become vendors in Kuta beach Bali. It 

means that the vendors have more 

opportunities in selling souvenirs or 

offering their services and of course 

they will get more money from those 

activities.  

The phenomenon of the English 

variety spoken by the Balinese 

vendors in Kuta beach Bali above can 

be regarded as one of the 

sociolinguistics phenomenon. In which 

there is relationship among the society 

and the language. As what Gumperz 

(1971) has observed that 

sociolinguistics there is a correlation 

between social structure and linguistic 

structure. He also observes any 

changes that occur between the social 

and linguistic structure. While 

Chambers (2002) defines clearly that 

sociolinguistics is the study of the 

social uses of language, and the most 

productive studies in the four decades 

of sociolinguistics research have been 

produced from determining the social 

evaluation of linguistic variants. 

 

RESEARCH FINDING AND 

DISCUSSION 

The data in present study are mostly 

English utterances transcribed into 

sentences. These utterances of 

conversation between research 

subjects and foreigners were collected 

through written record and audio 

record, but mostly the researcher did it 

easily by written record. The 

conversation is done directly by face 

to face and in natural circumstances in 

the process of selling and buying. 

Considering the research questions of 

the study, data findings are explain in 

terms of words, phrase structure, and 

sentence structure of the English 

variety spoken by the vendors in Kuta 

beach, Bali, and the context in which 

the English variety of vendors is used.  

To show how the meaning of the 

English variety spoken by the 

Balinese vendors in Kuta beach, Bali, 

the researcher describes data findings 

into three categories, first, the unique 

utterances found as well as the 

semantic meanings and the pragmatic 

meanings. Those unique utterances 

will be classified based on types of 

meaning in Semantics and types of 

meaning in Pragmatics. Secondly, the 

researcher will explain about the 

structure of the vendors „utterance. 

The structure of the vendors‟ 



 

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utterances is needed to help in 

analyzing the meaning of it. As what 

Hasselgård et al. (1998) mentions that 

the informal speech is rather different 

with formal writing, especially the 

sentence structure and sound system. 

Related to the sound system, the 

researcher will analyze the 

pronunciation of the vendors which 

rather different with RP (British 

English) that may cause the appeal of 

misinterpretation and 

misunderstanding of the meaning. 

The English Utterances of Balinese 

Vendors, the Semantic meaning and 

Pragmatic meaning. 

 

1.“Buy me..buy me..Mam, looking-looking ,Ok..” 

Semantic Meaning Pragmatic Meaning 

Buy is to get something by paying 

money for it, me refers to the person 

speaking or writing. 

Mam is  US slang for a woman 

Looking-looking is a reduplication 

from looking (look+ing) means see, 

search, seem, direction, warning, 

hope 

Ok refers to agreement with 

something, it could be yes, right, 

never mind or no matter 

This utterance occurred in the situation 

when the vendor brings and offering 

silver jewelries to an Australian woman , 

so the possible meaning is number 2 

It‟s influenced by their national language, 

bahasa Indonesia „melihat-lihat‟ means 

see  

According to the context in which the 

Australian woman is permitted to see the 

silver jewelries never mind whether she 

will buy or no. 
Buy me, buy me, Mam, looking-looking, Ok!” 

T: “No..no..” 

V: “I give you cheap price, please for food” 

........ 

Buy me becomes popular expression 

among the vendors such as a 

trademark or jargon in Kuta beach 

when Kuta beach becomes one of 

tourism area in Bali. Some Balinese 

linguists (i.e. Prof. Artawa in Japan 

and Prof. Udayana in Texas when the 

researcher chats online in 2012) said 

that they did not know who brings 

those utterances, how and when 

exactly those utterances appeared in 

Kuta beach. However, the researcher 

found a book in 2010 entitle Buy Me, 

New Ways to Get Customers to 

Choose Your Product and Ignore the 

Rest, written by Marshal Cohen, a 

chief industry analyst of the NPD 

Group, Inc. Unfortunately, in his book, 

he didn‟t discuss anything about Buy 

Me itself , he only discuss about the 

economic sector and factors influence 

it.  

In this case, in the Semantic meaning 

Buy Me could be categories as 

connotative meaning which can be 

subjective or unstable. It depends very 

much on how an individual or society 

perceives a word.  It is the association 

that we make in our mind of what 

these lexical items represent (Leech, 

1981: 12).  Meanwhile, those 

utterances in Pragmatic meaning are 

indicated as indirect speech act 

because there is an ambiguity in the 

meaning. It occurred when male 

Balinese vendor try to attract attention 

from a customer, Australian female 

tourist, to see even though to buy his 

merchandiser, silver jewelries. The 

Balinese means by using the utterances 

are “Meliin nak tiyang abesik, cingak-

cingak malu, sing ken ken.” (Beli 

barang dagangan saya satu, lihat-lihat 

dulu tidak apa-apa.). In this case, the 



 

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most suitable of the indirect meaning 

from those utterances are “Buy 

something from me, Mam, just seeing 

is never mind”. The utterance is 

relevance to the on going situation of 

trading in Kuta beach, Bali. 

Unfortunately, as the time goes by, 

“some naughty people” in Kuta beach, 

Bali, use Buy Me as the literal meaning 

which means that they sell themselves 

or their body to the foreign tourists. It 

could be categorized as prostitution 

practice. It was ever uploaded in You 

Tube on April 25th 2010 entitle 

Cowboys in Paradise Bali and on May 

9th 2010 entitle Korean Film Porno 

Bali which the location of the 

background of the film in Kuta Beach, 

Bali. It has made a bad name in Kuta 

beach, Bali. That‟s why nowadays, 

rarely we heard the vendors offering 

their merchandises or services by using 

Buy Me. They have to find the new 

utterance beside Buy Me. The 

researcher found the new utterance 

used by some vendors is Buy One, 

which still has an ambiguity in 

meaning when ordinary people heard. 

Buy is to get something by paying 

money for it, one is a numeral of one. 

One of what is still no clear. To help 

the foreign tourist understand and 

comprehend of what they meant they 

show off their merchandises and using 

their gestures or body language to help 

in avoiding the misinterpretation and 

misunderstanding occurred along the 

conversation between the vendors and 

the foreign tourists. This expression is 

also influenced by their national 

language, bahasa Indonesia, „beli satu‟, 

which means in Basa Bali „ meliin 

abesik‟ or „tumbasin asiki‟ (more 

polite)  

 

2.“You go up, I go down” 

 

Semantic Meaning Pragmatic Meaning 

Go up, go down refers to 

move higher, rise or increase 

go down refers to move 

down to a lower level or 

place. 

Indirectly, people  thought that it is a such 

movement or action of someone to go up to the 

higher level/place or go down move down to a 

lower level or place. However, this utterances 

occur while process of bargaining prices between 

V4:ok..you go up, I go down, seventy thousand 

T: sixty, ok 

....... 

We do not know what exactly 

happened when someone said “You 

go up, I go down”, if we do not know 

the context or situation behind the 

occurring of the utterances. For 

example, we do not know You and I 

refer to who and whom. Utterance „go 

up and go down‟ is seen as an action 

relating with stairs, go up the stairs 

and go down the stairs.  

Meanwhile, as the context we know 

that this utterance occurred in Kuta 

beach, Bali. In the process of 

bargaining or negotiating in Kuta 

beach, a vendor usually mentions the 

price of their merchandises or services 

as high as they want. It is happened 

because they realizes that the foreign 

tourists have a lot of money and they 

will bargain the price as low as 

possible. That is the reason of the 

occurring of the utterance go up and 

go down. In pragmatic meaning this 

indirect meaning tends to be classified 



 

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as metaphor in which the speaker try 

to express the process of bargaining 

the price as doing action go to the up, 

and go to the down stairs. In basa 

Bali, the word go up means menek and 

go down means tuun, in Bahasa means 

naik turun. You go up, I go down 

means “rarisan ragane menek tiang 

tuun” in bahasa ‘kamu naikan 

penawaran harga, saya turunkan 

penawaran harga.‟ If we often visit 

traditional market in Indonesia we 

found that this utterance is a such 

common sense in the process of 

bargaining or negotiating price in the 

process of trading or selling in  

traditional market in Indonesia.

 

3. “Morning price....”  

Semantic Meaning Pragmatic Meaning 

Morning refers to the part of the day from 

the sun rises or you wake up until the 

middle of the day or lunch time. Morning 

is usually used for early time of the day in 

the morning, this morning etc. Price refers 

to the amount of money for which 

something is sold for example  the car is 

priced one hundred thousand 

Morning price refers to the price in 

the morning or opening price. The 

vendor or a common seller in Bali 

usually give a cheap price in the 

morning to make their 

merchandisers easier to be sold 

soon. 

V4: Ok, morning price I give you , please choose 

T: .hmmm.. well this one is good (see to her friend) 

...... 

All the vendors in Kuta beach do not 

know how and when the expression of 

“Morning price‟ occurred among 

them. Most of them only copy or adopt 

from their senior vendors who has 

more working experiences as vendors 

in Kuta beach.  In the morning we 

usually will feel fresh with new spirit 

and new hope of the day. It is also 

happened with the vendors in Kuta 

beach Bali. They hope that their 

merchandisers or services will be sold 

soon with the highest prices as they 

want and they will get and bring a lot 

of money.  

As a phrase, the utterance  “Morning 

price”   itself in semantic meaning has 

connotative meaning, in which 

morning price may has the connotation 

cheap price in the society (Kuta beach, 

Bali). This utterance in pragmatic 

meaning is a part of indirect speech act 

and classified as metaphor in which 

the price is equal to the price in the 

morning. Morning itself refers to the 

early time of the work day. Commonly 

most of the vendor in Kuta beach, will 

give cheapest price to the first buyer or 

customer that bought their 

merchandises or got their services in 

the morning of their work day. In their 

belief that the money from the first 

buyer will attract another money from 

another buyer to come to them. In 

other words we may say that the 

money from the first buyer will make 

them lucky and get more profit for the 

next transaction. Furthermore, they 

will wave the money from the first 

buyer to the other merchandises they 

have. It is meant that the other 

merchandises hopefully will be sold 

soon. They call it in basa Bali 

“penggarus” means “penglaris‟ in 

Bahasa. 

 



 

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Discussion 

As one of the tourism industry in Bali, 

Kuta beach is almost crowded 

everyday visited by tourists from other 

regions in Indonesia and countries all 

around the world. English as one of 

the International language is needed as 

the medium of communication among 

Balinese as the local people and 

foreign tourists. Most of the people, 

especially the vendors, who live 

surrounding Kuta beach and work in 

tourism industry are forced to capable 

in speaking English. In this case, 

setting (Kuta beach Bali as tourism 

industry) of the society of the Balinese 

vendors, influences the use of the 

English language (Holmes (1992: 12), 

Judd (1999: 162), and Hymes (1972)). 

As what Coulmas said that language 

use is a social phenomenon in which 

there is causal links between the 

language use and the society (1998: 5). 

Society is any group of people who are 

drawn together for a certain purpose or 

purposes, while a language is what the 

members of a particular society speak 

(Wardhaugh, 2006: 1).  

As what we have seen above, the 

researcher found some differences of 

the use of the English language spoken 

by the vendors in Kuta beach Bali 

when they interact in trading 

transactions with the tourists from all 

around the world.  There is a variety 

occur during the conversation in which 

the vendors use English language with 

the Balinese or Indonesian linguistic 

features for examples the use of buy 

me, looking-looking, go up go down, 

big money etc.  

One of the reasons a simplification 

exist is the educational background of 

the vendors. Most of the vendors come 

from village far away from Kuta 

where the beach located such as 

Kintamani, Tabanan, Karangasem, and 

Gianyar. Unfortunately,  they only get 

formal education until Elementary or 

Yunior High School also. Meanwhile, 

the others don‟t get formal education 

at all. The economy sector and their 

environment may influence of it. 

That‟s why their English is rather poor 

and the only way to do to learn 

English is copying from their friends 

who become vendor before them. The 

vendors‟ educational background, the 

ethnicity (Balinese), and geographic 

origin may cause the appearing of the 

simplification even though the variety 

of the use of the English language. 

Simply, we say that participants as 

social factors influence the linguistic 

choice (Holmes (1992: 12), Judd 

(1999: 162), and Hymes (1972)). 

The English of the vendors is reflected 

in their daily activities when they 

interact with foreigners especially the 

native speakers during the process of 

selling or offering and transaction (the 

function, expected goals, ends of the 

communication, Holmes (1992: 12), 

Judd (1999: 162), and Hymes (1972)).  

They make use the utterances to attract 

the tourists and to create familiar 

environments.  

Talking about meaning, the researcher 

found that there is a difference among 

semantic meaning and pragmatic 

meaning. Meaning itself could be 

different among each people. As the 

heart of language (Riemer, 2010: 3),  

meaning is important to convey the 

message or information from the 

sender to the addressee.  Thus, we 

have to understand two types of 

meaning to understand what the 

speaker says by uttering a sentence. A 

view widely shared among linguists is 

that semantics and pragmatics are 

essential components that work 

together in a full description of 

meaning (Griffiths, 2006: xi).  

Some differences of the spoken 

English of the vendors  in Kuta beach, 



 

64 

 

Bali with the foreign tourists may 

cause the appear of misinterpretation 

and misunderstanding in the 

conversations. To help their utterances 

to be understandable and there is no 

misinterpretation with the foreign 

tourists as their customers, they use 

their gesture, behave and body 

language in the conversation.  

Fortunately, the native or the tourists 

as the buyers try understand and  

realise this phenomena. So far they 

feel comfortable and have fun with the 

utterances although sometimes they 

don‟t understand. 

 

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 

This final major section consists of the 

conclusion derived from the analysis. 

Additionally, the researcher also 

contributes recommendations for the 

readers and the future researchers. 

Sometimes, in the daily communication 

there are some difficulties to understand 

and interpretation of what the speaker 

or sender wants to convey to the 

addressee. The addressee has the task of 

trying to guess what the sender (the 

writer or speaker) intends to convey, 

and as soon as the sender‟s intention 

has been recognized, that‟s it – the 

message has been communicated. The 

sender‟s task is to judge what needs to 

be written or said to enable the 

addressee to recognize what the sender 

wants to communicate. 

Meanwhile, considering to the fact, all 

the findings, which are related to 

research questions of the study, the 

researcher concludes that the English of 

Balinese vendors in Kuta beach, Bali is 

unique. The uniqueness of their 

utterances are as below: 

1. Some phrases and sentences that 
they use in their utterances during 

they interact and communicate with 

the foreign tourists are different to 

the daily English utterances because 

they were inspired and influenced by 

their local tradition, belief and 

national language. 

2. They tend to omit some consonants. 
3. The three factors above become the 

reasons of the appearance of the 

ambiguity in the meaning. The 

meaning in semantics is much more 

different with the pragmatics. The 

meaning in semantics is almost the 

same with the meaning in the 

dictionary. Whereas the meaning in 

pragmatics depends on the context of 

situation when the language is used. 

4. To help their English function in the 
context of trading on the beach and 

less the misunderstanding and 

misinterpretation, they make use 

their gesture; their manner of 

speaking and their behavior during 

the interaction with the buyers. Thus, 

the Balinese vendors can achieve the 

aim of their conversation and the 

ideas or messages that they intend to 

be transferred can be understood and 

accepted by the foreign tourists as 

the buyers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

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