Beyond Borders: Indonesian as an Emergent Lingua Franca in a Multicultural International Student Dormitory

Abstract

The internationalization of higher education has increased student mobility, yet language barriers continue to expose international students to loneliness and social isolation, and most evidence on this problem comes from English-speaking host countries. This study examines how Indonesian, acquired largely outside the classroom, emerged as a shared language among international students living with local students in a university dormitory in Medan, Indonesia, and how this process related to their sense of belonging. Using a qualitative reflective case study design, the research involved sixty-two international students from Thailand, Cambodia, Yemen, Sudan, Nigeria, and the United Kingdom and ten local students, from whom fifteen key informants, fourteen international and one local, were purposively drawn. The author, who acted as both an instructor of Indonesian for Foreign Speakers and a daily-life companion, collected data over one academic year through conversational interviews guided by an interview protocol, participant observation recorded with a field-note protocol, and a reflective journal. Data were examined through reflexive thematic analysis that combined deductive codes from intergroup contact, contact zone, third space, and abrogation–appropriation theories with inductive codes emerging from the narratives. The findings reveal four stages: communicative silence driven by practical necessity, Indonesian as linguistically neutral ground, everyday routines as the main learning site, and Indonesian as a marker of shared identity that preserved national identities. The study concludes that a language foreign to all residents can become a co-owned space of belonging, suggesting that language programs and student-affairs units should intentionally design informal, task-based intercultural contact.