Mbasaaké in Family Circle: Linguistic Socialization of Politeness in Javanese
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Linguistik Indonesia, Agustus 2020, 165-178 Volume ke-38, No.2 Copyright©2020, Masyarakat Linguistik Indonesia ISSN cetak 0215-4846; ISSN online 2580-2429 MBASAAKÉ IN FAMILY CIRCLE: LINGUISTIC SOCIALIZATION OF POLITENESS IN JAVANESE Arapa Efendi1 Katharina Endriati Sukamto2 Ph.D. Student in Applied English Linguistics, Universitas Katolik Indonesia Atma Jaya & Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Universitas Internasional Batam1, Universitas Katolik Indonesia Atma Jaya2 [email protected]; [email protected] Abstract This qualitative preliminary study highlights a common linguistic practice of politeness in the Javanese family circle called mbasaaké, which refers to addressing or referring to a family member with a kinship term that does not necessarily portray the actual family relationship. This study aims to demonstrate that this pragmatic practice of mbasaaké requires the role of adult speakers in the family circle to novice members of the family. The adult members in the family intentionally deployed this act as a strategy to socialize politeness in the Javanese culture. A small number of naturally occurring interactive turns which involves four family members are presented in this paper to illustrate this mbasaaké practice. The four persons who participated in the casual conversations originally come from East Java, but they have resided in Yogyakarta for many years. The data presented in this paper prove that this linguistic socialization is continuously practiced within the family circle with or without the presence of the novice members of the family. Another important finding is that a respectful kinship term is also given to a family member in absentia. Keywords: language socialization, politeness, Javanese, address terms, mbasaaké Abstrak Penelitian awal yang bersifat kualitatif ini membahas praktik berbahasa untuk menyatakan kesopanan yang umum digunakan di lingkungan keluarga Jawa yang disebut mbasaaké. Mbasaaké berarti menyapa atau merujuk pada anggota keluarga dengan panggilan kekerabatan yang tidak menggambarkan hubungan keluarga yang sesungguhnya. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menunjukkan bahwa praktik mbasaaké ini memerlukan peran orang dewasa dalam lingkungan keluarga kepada anggota keluarga yang lebih muda. Orang dewasa dalam keluarga secara sengaja menggunakan strategi ini untuk menyosialisasikan kesantunan dalam budaya Jawa. Sejumlah percakapan yang melibatkan empat orang anggota keluarga dipresentasikan dalam makalah ini. Keempatnya berasal dari Jawa Timur, tetapi telah cukup lama tinggal di Yogyakarta. Data yang ditampilkan dalam makalah ini membuktikan bahwa sosialisasi berbahasa ini secara terus menerus dipraktikkan dalam lingkungan keluarga dengan atau tanpa kehadiran anggota keluarga yang lebih muda. Temuan penting lainnya yaitu digunakannya kata kekerabatan untuk seorang anggota keluarga senior yang tidak hadir untuk menunjukkan rasa hormat. Kata kunci: sosialisasi berbahasa, kesopanan, Jawa, panggilan kekerabatan, mbasaaké Arapa Efendi, Katharina Endriati Sukamto INTRODUCTION The following paper attempts to discuss how common linguistic practice in Javanese family circle known as mbasaaké (using proper address forms to a family member with a kinship term that does not necessarily portray the actual family relationship) is deployed by the older family members to socialize politeness to the young Javanese speakers. To do that, the following paper takes the sociopragmatic approach to unveil the role of agency (parents and societal institutions) and other resources (semiotic and cultural) to transmit the “expected behavior” to the young Javanese speakers. The behavior is usually reflected through some of the specific Javanese values such as social manners, respects, and sensitivity towards other people. Leech (1983) describes sociopragmatics as how situational pragmatic meanings reveal the locality of language use. It involves not only the interpretation of meanings in terms of situational perspective, but also includes how certain linguistic practice displays the locality of speech community. The locality that may be associated with what Reiter & Placencia (2005) refer to as ‘norms’ rooted in speaker and hearer’s meanings being situated and manifested in the speech acts, the structure of conversation, politeness, and ‘sociopgramatic variation’. The study is to provide the buoyant view over a great concern on the decline of politeness in Javanese language among the young Javanese generations due to the tendency of parents of using bahasa Indonesia as the national language and the lack of ‘intergenerational transmission’ of using Krama (Ravindranath & Cohn, 2014). As in many other cultures, being polite in Javanese is not simply shown by non-linguistic behavior. It also involves complex linguistic aspects that one should indulge in order to be considered polite by the community. Factors such as social hierarchy and structure, values and norms, beliefs, age, and speaker-hearer relations often determine the choices of words in communicative practices. In his seminal paper, Poedjosoedarmo (1968) elucidates Javanese politeness as a proper use of language to show respect to those who have higher status and to indicate the degree of formality while speaking to older people and those with whom one does not share close relations. Such linguistic practice is often referred to as the speech levels or ‘linguistic stratifications’ whereby one form of the language is favored and socially demanded in certain speech situation. Poedjosoedarmo (1968, pp. 57-58) states that the degree of politeness in Javanese is mainly governed by the selection of vocabulary and choice of affixes. For the selection of vocabulary, he classifies four vocabulary types, namely: 1) Ngoko: the words are non-polite and informal, used in communicating with someone who is very familiar with the speaker; 2) Madya: the words are semi-polite and semi-formal, used to express a formality of intermediate degree; 3) Krama: polite and formal words, used in a situation where the relationship between the speaker and the addressee is quite distant and formal; and 4) The fourth type of vocabulary is divided into two: a. Krama Inggil: words used to refer to highly respected people b. Krama Andhap: words used to refer to someone’s actions toward a highly respected person. Poedjosoedarmo (1968, p. 58) further exemplifies the four vocabulary types which govern the speech levels: 166 Linguistik Indonesia, Volume ke-38, No.2, Agustus 2020 Krama Krama English Ngoko Madya Krama Inggil Andhap tell/ask to do akon kèn kèngkèn dhawuh ngaturi something In a different note, Sudaryanto (1989) argued that the choice of words could indicate a different level of ‘affective touch’ between the speaker and the addressee (p. 73). For example, the words lunga (Ngoko), késah (Madya), and tindak (Krama), which mean ‘go’, may lead to different levels of affective touch between the speaker and the addressee when they are not appropriately used. When the three words were not used appropriately, there will be a social consequence in the relationship between the speaker and the addressee. The question Bapak arep lunga? ‘Are you going?’ addressed to an older or respected person can be interpreted as being inappropriate and rude because it violates the concept of tata krama. As mentioned by Zeitlin et al. (1995) and Subroto et al. (2008), a Javanese social value is captured in, for example, the way to address a second person who is inferior, equal, or above the speaker’s rank. For that reason, the question ‘Have you eaten?’ asked to someone may be expressed in three different ways depending on who the interlocutor is. Apa kowé wis mangan? (Ngoko) Napa sampéyan pun nedha? (Madya) Punapa panjenengan sampun dhahar? (Krama Inggil) Note that kowé, sampéyan, and panjenengan, which mean ‘you’, should be appropriately used. The choice of verb must also be appropriate. Using the verb mangan ‘eat’ when talking to an older or respected person will be considered very rude and impolite. The examples demonstrated above indicate how Javanese speech levels are manifested in daily conversational exchanges and how these levels reflect the culture of unggah-ungguh ‘language propriety’ (Poedjosoedarmo 2017) to express politeness. This concept is characterized by the four norms or principles, namely (1) social conducts; (2) proper use of speech levels; (3) speaker’s relevance to particular speech situations, and (4) good manners. Sukarno (2010), similarly, describes the three Javanese values in relation to politeness, namely (1) tata krama (possessing particular social manners as dictated by the culture), (2) Andhap-asor (lowering oneself while exalting others), and (3) tanggap ing sasmita (understanding the inference or hidden meaning). Tata krama dictates Javanese people to behave politely according to the standard of the culture. This concept is realized on the language practice through the proper use of speech levels. The value of andhap-ashor requires a person to humble himself/herself while exalting the others. This attitude is also shown by the proper use of vocabulary choice to indicate that the speaker puts himself/herself in a lower position. As for tanggap ing sasmita, a Javanese is expected to understand the hidden meaning of an utterance. Directness is often considered unacceptable by the Javanese, and therefore Javanese language is characterized by many indirect speech acts. A good Javanese native speaker is expected to be good at making inferences. For example, when a guest