 Nancy J. Smith-Hefner Department of Anthropology, Boston University

Youth Language, Gaul Sociability, and the New Indonesian Middle Class *

ABSTRACT This article examines the linguistic form and social functions of bahasa gaul, the informal Indonesian “language of sociability,” as it is used among Indonesian university students and in various publications aimed at middle-class Indonesian youth. Bahasa gaul registers youth modernity in both its positive and more contested aspects. It expresses not only young people’s aspirations for social and economic mobility, but also an increasingly cosmopolitan, national youth culture. Perhaps most signifi cantly, bahasa gaul articulates the desire of Indonesian youth for new types of social belonging through the formulation of relationships that are more egalitarian and interactionally fl uid as well as more personally expressive and psychologically individualized. Keywords: Indonesia, slang, youth culture, the new middle class, bahasa gaul

ABSTRAK Artikel ini mengkaji bentuk linguistik dan fungsi-fungsi sosial bahasa gaul sebagaimana digunakan oleh para mahasiswa dan dalam berbagai publikasi yang ditujukan untuk anak kelas menengah di Indonesia. Bahasa gaul meregistrasi modernitas anak muda baik dalam aspek-aspek positif maupun yang diperselisihkan. Selain mengekspresikan aspirasi anak muda dalam mobilitas ekonomi dan sosial, bahasa gaul juga mencerminkan budaya anak muda nasional yang semakin bercorak kosmopolitan. Selain itu, mungkin yang terpenting, bahasa gaul mengartikulasikan hasrat anak muda Indonesia mengenai bentuk-bentuk baru identitas sosial melalui formulasi hubungan yang lebih egaliter, cair dan interaktif serta lebih ekspresif secara personal dan lebih mempribadi secara psikologis. Katakunci: Indonesia, bahasa anak muda, budaya anak muda, kelas menengah baru, bahasa gaul.

* Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Vol, 17, Issue 2, pp. 184-203, ISSN 1055-1360, EISSN 1548-1395. © 2007 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. Direct requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http:// www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintlnfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/jlin.2007.17.2.184. Acknowledgements. Research was funded by a Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Grant and a Spencer Foundation Small Grant; write-up was generously supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. I would like to thank Robert W. Hefner for his careful reading of numerous drafts of this paper and helpful suggestions for revisions. I would also like to thank Asif Agha and three anonymous readers who offered excellent and very useful comments on an earlier version of this article.

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ince the fall of the New Order regime research presented here is part of a larger in the spring of 1998, a new Indone- ethnographic project on Indonesian youth and Ssian youth language has captured public social change. During an eight month period attention and has become a lightning rod for in 1999 and fi ve subsequent month-long visits the latest social trends. Bahasa gaul, literal- between 2001 and 2006, I conducted some 200 ly’ social language’ or the ‘lan guage of so- interviews and participated in innumerable ciability’, is a speech variety associated with informal dis cussions with young people on Indonesian youth and based on Indonesia’s issues pertaining to their lives and experience. national language, bahasa Indonesia. Among In the course of that investigation, I collected Indonesian university students bahasa gaul several hundred gaul words and expressions functions as a type of slang, “the ever-chang- within the context of their use. I then cross- ing and fashionable vocabulary of sociability referenced them with other available lists that students use casually with one another” and with slang usages in youth publications, (Eble 1996:1). The casual language of Indo- including magazines, newspaper advice co- nesian student sociability borrows from other lumns, and self-help books. Periodically, I informal Indonesian speech varieties, includ- took my fi ndings back to students and asked ing Jakartan Indonesian/Jakartan Malay and them to indicate those words and expressions the cant of gangsters and criminals (bahasa they used regularly, those they considered prokem), but expresses the particular experi- gaul (even if they didn’t use them themselves), ences, preoccupations, and aspirations of the and those they felt were not gaul or were current generation of Indonesian youth. no longer gaul. Determining what is or is Like the slang used by American college not gaul is of course a slippery slope, as an students, bahasa gaul emphasizes a shared important part of gaul’s appeal, and of slang’s social identity and sense of belonging among appeal more generally, lies in its up-to-date or its speakers. It speaks to solidarity rather than contemporary character. Gaul, like American status differentials and to a shared positive college slang, is constantly changing as new value placed on cool and occasionally ironic words or expressions become popular and distan cing from the formality and hierarchy of others fall out of use.1 an earlier generation. Gaul differs from Ameri- Bahasa gaul registers youth modernity can college slang, however, in the degree to in both its positive and more contested as- which it is oriented both “upward,” expressing pects. Its metapragmatic multivocality and aspirations for social and economic mobility, competing ideological valences are central and “outward,” expressing an increasingly to an understanding of its social role and cos mopolitan, Indonesian youth culture. Per- linguistic value. As a form of slang, bahasa haps most signifi cantly gaul articulates the gaul has been disparaged by some Indonesian desire of Indonesian youth for new types of observers as “ruining good and proper Indo- social identifi cations through the formulation nesian.” Its critics argue that that gaul will of relationships that are more egalitarian and corrupt the integrity of the standard and limit interactionally fl uid, as well as more per- the linguistic creativity of youth (cf. Sarjono sonally expressive and psychologically indi- vidualized. 1 Some terms, however, may stay around for a significantly longer period of time as slang; these This article examines the linguistic forms words are what Robert L. Moore (2004:59) calls and social meanings of the informal language “basic slang.” Basic slang terms are those which may of sociability used among Indonesian uni- be used for decades and “not wear out” because of the centrality of the values they represent. “Cool,” for versity students and in various publications example, is one such word. Other words eventually aimed at educated, middle-class youth. The catch on and become part of the everyday, colloquial language.

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2004; Suara Merdeka 2004; Direktorat Pen- percent of the population (Sneddon 2003:105). didikan Menengah Umum n.d.) —to say Today, in what is widely acclaimed as a nothing of the countercul tural values asso- remarkable political and linguistic achieve- ciated with its use. In the relaxed social ment, the number of Indonesians who can language of university stu dents, however, speak their national language is well over 90 there is little evidence that gaul is created in percent (Errington 1998:2; Sneddon 2003:11). special or unfamiliar ways. On the contrary, The achievement is all the more remarkable gaul follows quite regular language patterns in inasmuch as Indonesia is a multilingual and forming new words and in adapting dialectal multi ethnic nation, one in which the majority and foreign word borrowings and does not of Indonesians grow up speaking a regional or violate the grammatical patterns of informal, ethnic language as their mother tongue and as spoken Indonesian. Moreover, in infusing the lan guage of ingroup interactions. Indonesian with a liveliness, emotional ex- The spread of Indonesian as the national pressivity, and cosmopolitan cachet, bahasa language is widely associated with the often gaul may in fact be increasing the appeal of heavy-handed nation-making policies of the national language to young people across the New Order state which governed Indo- Indonesia’s diverse ethnic groups, further nesia from 1966 to 1998 (Anderson 1966; eroding the position of regional languages as Errington 1998; Liddle 1988). Language the codes of informal, in group interactions. stan dardization was implemented as one aspect of the government’s ambitious deve- lopment project. Within the context of state ‘Good and Proper Indonesian’ ’developmentalism’ (pembangunan) great emphasis was placed on Indonesian’s role as The nation of Indonesia encompasses some an instrument of modernization and nation- fourteen thousand islands from Sumatra in the making; conversely, less attention was paid west to West Papua (Irian Jaya) in the east. to Indonesian’s communica tive function and With over 234 million inhabitants, Indonesia cultural meanings (Heryanto 1990). Per- is the largest Muslim-majority country and haps not surprisingly gov ernment efforts the fourth most populous nation in the world. at language planning and standardization Estimates of the number of languages spoken focused on formal Indonesian and ignored in Indonesia vary considerably; however, “a informal varieties, denigrated as the antithesis fi gure of 550, one tenth of all the languages of ‘good and proper Indonesian’ (bahasa of the world, is not excessive” (Sneddon yang baik dan benar). The Australian linguist 2003:5). Indonesia’s national language and James Sneddon (2003:17-18; see also Er- the country’s sole offi cial language (bahasa rington 1998) goes so far as to posit the Indonesia) is based on a variety of Malay. “essentially diglossic” nature of Indonesian, Indonesian was declared the language of na- pointing to the signifi cant differences between tional unity in 1928 at a youth congress in the formal stan dard and colloquial varieties Batavia, then capital of the Dutch East Indies. of everyday spoken Indonesian and the rigid Young nationalists pledged the celebrated ‘Oath compartmentalization of their corresponding of Youth’ (Sumpah Pemuda) which recognized functions and contexts of use. a ‘unifi ed [Indonesian] people’ (satu bangsa), speaking ‘one [Indonesian] language’ (satu Formal Indonesian is learned almost bahasa) in a ‘single [Indonesian] home land’ exclu sively in school and is associated with (satu nusa) (Errington 2000:208). In the fi rst print publications, government pronoun- decades of the twentieth century, Indonesian ce ments, and offi cial media, but is not used was the mother tongue of no more than fi ve in everyday, informal interactions. It has

63 JURNAL STUDI PEMUDA • VOL. I NO. 1 2012 Nancy J. Smith-Hefner, Youth Language, Gaul Sociability, and the New Indonesian Middle Class been described as stiff, turgid, and “soul- Bahasa gaul is an informal register of less,” and as too impersonal and humorless everyday Indonesian which borrows heavily to ever function as a language of everyday, from the Jakartan dialect of Indonesian social life (Anderson 1966:105-106; Peacock to articulate an attitude of casual ease and 1973:9). Young people who grew up under cool cosmopolitanism. Indonesian students the New Order report their experience of identify it as a form of sleng/slenk or slang formal, schooled, Indonesian as an offi cial (‘slang’), itself a foreign language borrowing voice of the bureaucracy and political elite, as that hints at knowledge of the latest trends. something distant and distinct from their eve- Gaul’s speakers deliberately strike an attitude ryday experience. “My generation,” a young of playful disregard for the social strictures Indonesian critic writes, “was taught to see and status differentials of formal Indonesian, everything in standardized and uniform form” distancing themselves from what they perceive (Swastika 2003:7). as the stiffness and infl exibility of the offi cial Arguments surrounding Indonesian’s standard. Gaul, with its focus on interactional alienation from its speech community, how- fl exibility and relaxed informality, hints at ever, have typically focused on formal, bu- the more inclusive aspirations of a current reaucratic Indonesian, and have discount ed the generation of speakers who came of age in widespread existence of informal Indo nesian the optimistic era of ‘[democratic] reform’ varieties. In contrast to the school-based formal (reformasi). standard (bahasa baku), informal Indonesian, sometimes referred to as bahasa sehari-hari (‘everyday language’), is learned outside of school through daily interactions and is Gaul Ideology often infl ected with linguistic elements which Gaul ideology articulates a rejection of what is refl ect the regional language backgrounds viewed as the previous generation’s orientation of its speakers. Informal Indonesian is used toward patrimonialism, formality, and fi xed to express familiarity and solidarity, espe- social hierarchy. This outdated orientation is cially but not only, between individuals who jokingly referred to by students with the New speak different regional languages and in Order acronym ABS (asal bapak senang) situations of status ambiguity (d. Tanner ‘as long as the boss/ dad/the man in charge 1972:133). Among university students, in- is happy’, and occasionally with the more formal Indonesian is used in informal stu- academic bapakisme (literally ‘father-ism’). dent gatherings, in interactions between stu- An index of gaul’s rebellious undercurrent dents from different ethnic backgrounds, is the incorporation into gaul slang of many and with younger professors or instructors words from bahasa prokem. Prokem is a who are Western-educated or with whom Jakartan slang or cant identifi ed with the one is on friendly footing. In urban areas, in- world of criminals and gangs. In its origins, formal Indonesian competes with regional prokem is a secret language, used to discuss and ethnic languages. In the nation’s capital, the illegal activities of a narrowly delimited Jakarta, informal Jakartan Indonesian is the and proscribed group. Henri Chambert-Loir dominant speech variety in all but the most (1984:105) hypothesizes that elements of formal contexts, and migrants to the capital bahasa prokem fi rst began to appear in the not uncommonly lose their regional language language of young people in Jakarta in the late and begin to speak the Jakartan dialect 1970s. Borrowings from prokem can still be of Indonesian within a generation or two found in contemporary youth slang (among (Sneddon 2003:11; see also Oetomo 1990). them giting ‘high, drunk’; jiper ‘afraid’; and

64 JURNAL STUDI PEMUDA • VOL. I , NO. 1 , MEI 2012 Nancy J. Smith-Hefner, Youth Language, Gaul Sociability, and the New Indonesian Middle Class cimeng ‘marijuana’) and speak to gaul’s illicit also regional varieties labeled kampungan and dangerous roots.2 (‘rustic, bumpkinish’) and medok (‘heavily Despite its countercultural orientation, accented’). Rural, regional dialects are widely bahasa gaul cannot be understood as a full stereotyped by the media and by middle-class blown anti-language in Michael Halliday’s youth as unsophisticated and plodding, the (1976) sense of the term, nor as what Mar- antithesis of gaul’s easy fl uency and self- cyliena Morgan (2002) has called a counter- confi dence. This stereotype of ‘provincial in- language. An anti-language indexes the value security’ (minder, kurang percaya diri) and system of anti-society (a society set up within ‘lack of experience’ (kurang pengalaman) another society as a con scious alternative to explains in part the appeal of gaul sociability it); a counter-language speaks to a widely among students from rural backgrounds, shared (counter-)cultural ideology developed particu larly those from rural Muslim boarding in response to a history of subjugation. Hal- schools (pesantren). Gaul’s associations with liday, for example, describes prisons as anti- a modem cosmopolitanism and social so- societies that may develop anti-languages phis tication are summed up in the follow- which directly oppose dominant institutional ing comment made by a fi rst-year student of norms. Morgan (2002:23) describes African Indonesian language and literature. American English (AAE) as a counter- Gaul means someone who is self-assured language marked by strategies of indirectness and good at adapting socially. A kid who characteristic of African languages which can talk to older people or to people from allow its speakers to maintain an impor tant the village or to city people or modern mea sure of social face and agency in face-to- people is a gaul kid. They’re ‘up-to-date’ face encounters. (tidak ketinggalan jaman), developed, Gaul, by contrast, is not normally used and ‘advanced’ (maju). Gaul is modern. I think whoever or whatever is not gaul is in face-to-face encounters with adults or older just not modern. people who are not assumed to share the same youth values or orientation. Neither is gaul In this way and others, gaul ideology is very some kind of secret code used to disguise the much a product of contemporary polit ical and discussion of taboo or unacceptable topics in social developments which have dramatically the presence of adults. In most instances the altered Indonesian defi nitions of youth. number of gaul items in a single utterance is fairly limited and meaning is typically clear from the context. Utterances made up entirely of gaul items are unusual even in the relaxed Youth Culture and Social Change conversation of students. When they do occur, In December of 1998 I returned to Java after it is usually for the purpose of parody or a 13 year absence to conduct research on dramatic effect. youth and social change in the south-central As is true of language ideologies more Javanese city of Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta is generally (Irvine and Gal 2000:35), the ide- home to dozens of high schools and more ology of gaul sociability poses bahasa gaul than one hundred colleges and univer sities; it in opposition to the other varieties with which also hosts a wide variety of Muslim and non- it contrasts in the larger sociolinguistic fi eld- Muslim religious institutions. Young people most notably, the Indonesian standard, but come to Yogyakarta from across the country seeking an education. Others come looking 2 Historical associations between prokem and gaul for work in the service industry or in the are so strong that some Indonesians use the terms factories which lie on the outskirts of the city. interchangeably.

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I fi rst encountered the term gaul as a prominence (Kraince 2003; Madrid 1999; label for a new social category in my initial Rahmat and Najib 2001). discussions with young people concerning the Although the New Order regime was spectacular increase in the number of modern politically authoritarian, state programs im- malls, clothing boutiques, movie theaters, plemented under Suharto contributed signi- and cafes which had sprung up in Yogyakarta fi cantly to the reformulation of youth iden- since I had lived there in 1985. Along with tity. Defi ned as the socially constructed these modern developments was the very period between childhood and adult hood, the visible appearance of a particular group of category of youth is linked cross-culturally young people who frequented them. These to lengthy schooling and thus prolonged young people, most of them males, dressed dependence on parents, to distinct patterns in Western-style jeans and in tee-shirts with of consumption and leisure, and to “modern” logos like Marlboro, Nike, and Levis. They courtship and dating particularly as related to socialized in small groups, playing the pinball self-choice of mari tal partner (Robinson and machines and electronic games on the smoky Utomo 2003:5). These aspects of youth culture uppermost fl oors of the mall and chatting up underwent far-reaching transformation under the foreigners in the cafes, hoping to improve the New Order as a result of state policies their English, bum a cigarette, or possibly begin related to universal education and population a relationship. Though fewer in number, there regulation (Smith-Hefner 2006). were similar groups of young women-some of whom dressed in a manner that suggested During the 1970s and 1980s the New sexual availability in a way that contrasted Order government drew on windfall oil pro- sharply with the more modest Muslim dress fi ts to expand educational opportunities of the university students I spent my days throughout Indonesia (Hefner 1990; G. Jones interviewing. “Oh those people,” I was told, 1994; Robinson 2000). Identifying education “Those are anak gaul,” literally, ‘social as crucial for human resource development as kids’. On further questioning, the category well as national development, the government expanded to include not only mall rats but also undertook an ambitious pro gram of school street kids, runaways, druggies, and suspected construction and made primary education prostitutes. Gaul then seemed to be used to compulsory fi rst through grade six and later refer to an illicit sociability, something over through grade nine (Johnson, Gaylord and the top, excessive, too familiar, and verging Chamberland 1993:8; Robinson and Utomo on dangerous-socially and sexually. 2003:6). Between 1965 and 1990, the The presence of anak gaul in the malls percentage of young adults with basic literacy and cafes, in urban shopping districts and skills skyrocketed from 40 to 90 percent. The around tourist hotels in Yogyakarta, was percentage of youths completing senior high just one indication of a new and widely school grew from four percent to more than expanded category of Indonesian youth that 30 percent today (Hefner 2000:17). These had emerged in the 1980s and 1990s under educational reforms have effected a shift in the “New Order” of President Suharto. In the public perception of youth as inextricably May of 1998, after 32 years in offi ce, Suharto linked to schooling. had fi nally been forced out of offi ce and his State policies regarding population re- New Order government offi cially ended. gu la tion and marriage have also impacted Indonesian youth had played a vocal and Indonesian defi nitions of youth. In 1975 the visible role in the political struggle which led government implemented new marriage to the president’s removal, a role which has legislation which set the minimum age for given young people a new social and political marriage as 16 for women and 19 for men.

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It also “enshrined the principle that the opportunities to meet and interact with consent of both parties must be obtained members of the opposite sex without direct prior to marriage” (Robinson and Utomo adult oversight, a situation which has caused 2003:6). The new marriage legislation was great anxiety for Indonesian parents. Parental linked to the anti-natalist policies of the New concern has been exacerbated by public Order which saw population as a threat to moral panics provoked in part by the mass its developmentist ambitions. The new laws media. The media has regularly featured specifying minimum ages for mar riage were sensationalist allegations of pre marital co- aimed at regulating and limiting fertility. In habitation, high school call-girls and coed conjunction with educational reforms, they prostitutes, skyrocketing rates of premarital have had the effect of signifi cantly prolonging abortions, and such widespread sexual activity the period of time between the onset of on college campuses that ‘lover 97 per cent puberty and marriage. of coeds are no longer virgins” (Straits Times During this same period, New Order Indonesia Bureau 2002; Wijayanto 2003a, economic policies resulted in the availabil- 2003b, 2003c; see also, Radar Jogja 2002). ity of new employment opportunities for The emergence of a new youth culture young people with the requisite skills in light infl uenced by Western and East Asian patterns industry, the greatly expanded civil service, of social interaction and musical, fashion, and in the service sector. Today even many and consumption tastes has only added to factory jobs and service positions require at existing concerns about youth morality. least a high school diploma. The possibility Foreign investment, tourism and information of obtaining a well-paying job and a foothold technologies have also facilitated culture in the emerging middle class has served as an fl ows that have proved diffi cult for parents incentive for parents to keep their children and public authorities to monitor and control. in school. Lower child mortality rates and Initially the New Order government tried to smaller family size have gone hand in hand limit and censor the media, particularly fi lms with a more intensive focus on the talents and and televi sion programming. However, these potential of individual children, both male policies slackened in the face of protests by and female, and a willingness on the part of well -connected media entrepreneurs (among parents to make economic sacrifi ces for the them Suharto’s own family members), who education of the next generation (cf. Lubis called for and won a measure of media libe- and Niehof 2003). ralization as well as a heightened role for In the past, young people stayed under the private investment capital (Robinson and close supervision of parents until they were Utomo 2003:7-8; see also Sen and Hill 2000; old enough to marry. Parents oversaw their Sutton 2003). children’s social lives, made their educational The new youth culture has not gone choices, and arranged their marriages. unchallenged. Many of the same social and Because of new educational and employment economic conditions that have allowed for the opportunities, today it is increasingly common development of a “Westernized” youth culture for young people to leave home at adolescence also opened the way for a more socially and or shortly thereafter for school or work (G. religiously conservative Muslim resurgence. Jones 1994; Smith-Hefner 2005). On job sites At colleges and universities across Indonesia, and in university towns, they often live with Muslim student organizations have expanded other young people in dormitories or boarding their membership and visibility. Conservative houses with little or no adult supervision. groups encourage young people to resist the One effect of these developments is that infl uence of corrupting Western fashions and young people today experience increased consumption and to emulate religious models

67 JURNAL STUDI PEMUDA • VOL. I NO. 1 2012 Nancy J. Smith-Hefner, Youth Language, Gaul Sociability, and the New Indonesian Middle Class of modesty and piety. On high school and proj ect of personal development and self- college campuses, increasing numbers of discovery has typically involved a rejection young women have taken up the veil; a smaller of regional styles perceived as kampungan number has even adopted full chador (Brenner (‘rural, unsophisticated’) and feodal (‘feudal, 1996; Smith-Hefner 2007). Alongside more hierarchical’) (cf. C. Jones 2004). In their Westernized styles of social interaction and place, youthful proponents of the new mid dle dating, new conservative Muslim social class have adopted a more cosmopolitan style styles have developed which reject dating of speech and behavior to index a familiarity as sinful and promote a pattern of courtship with “modern” trends and a capacity for which foregoes premarital familiarization communication across social groupings. completely (Smith-Hefner 2005). Regardless of the depth of their religious engagement, however, as a result of a broadly From the Margins to Middle class shared social and political formation, youth As I continued my research over the next in contemporary Indonesia see themselves several years, it became clear that gaul is as actively engaged in a new and modern not merely a term of social approbation Indonesian project in which national deve- used in reference to marginals and delin- lop ment and personal development are quents; in fact, I found it was increasingly closely linked. Social observers of the new referenced in youth interactions and in the Indonesian middle class have remarked that print and electronic media in a strikingly a striking characteristic of the new middle- positive manner. The term kuper, which has class culture is the conviction that the future gaul as its root (an abbreviation for the phrase of Indonesia depends on individuals shaping kurang pergaulan ‘unsophisticated, lacking themselves through self-cultivation and self- in social experience’),3 was ubiquitous in my fashioning (C. Jones 2003:190-91; Lindquist conversations with college students, and also 2002). A parallel orientation has been identi- began to appear regularly in magazines and fi ed among Indonesian homosexuals in their on radio and television programs as a focus efforts to achieve an upwardly mobile sub- of discussions on Indonesian youth. Being jectivity, an orientation which Tom Boell- labeled or perceived as kuper (or worse, as storff dubs “person as project” and else- someone who nggak gaul ’doesn’t [know how where, “personhood-as-career” (Boellstorff to] socialize’) was clearly something students 2004,2005). tried anxiously to avoid. Kuper, not unlike the A subtle indication of this new English slang terms “loser” or “dweeb ,” is orientation emerged in my discussions with widely identifi ed as the antithesis of the self- young people concerning their aspirations confi dent, socially fl exible, and cosmopolitan for the future. Whereas in the early 1980s gaul image to which the newest members of young people echoed their parents’ hopes the Indonesian middle class aspire. that they would grow up and simply menjadi Critical to gaul’s spread and popularity orang, ‘become someone’ (literally, ‘become have been the expansion of the Indonesian a person’), in the late 1990s young people media, a post-New Order publishing boom, had borrowed Western pop-psychological and the general atmosphere of media libera- and self-help idioms to speak of ‘self- lization which came with Suharto’s fall. actualization’ (mengaktualisasikan diri), As is true of youth culture in the U.S. and ‘culti vating [their] potential’ (menggali po- tensi saya), and even ‘optimalizing [their] aptitude’ (ngoptimalin bakat saya). This new 3 The bolded elements of the phrase kurang pergaulan are combined here to make up the blend kuper.

68 JURNAL STUDI PEMUDA • VOL. I , NO. 1 , MEI 2012 Nancy J. Smith-Hefner, Youth Language, Gaul Sociability, and the New Indonesian Middle Class elsewhere, the Indonesian media have appeared in 1999 and has since been reprinted been both an imitator and initiator of youth twelve times, most recently in 2004. The language.4 In the mid-1990s, MTV arrived majority, however, were inexpensive ‘pocket in Indonesia under broadcast license to the books’ (buku kantong) offering listings of local television station AN-TV (Swastika gaul abbreviations and expressions for use 2003:13; see also Sutton 2003). Even before in emails and phone messaging (5M5 ‘short that time, a signifi cant proportion of middle message service’), and linking the cultivation and upper-middle class Indonesians living of bahasa gaul to instant popularity. Among in urban areas had access to MTV programs the titles on display was also Gaul, a glossy through the use of parabola antennas to weekly television tabloid for young people receive satellite broadcast. Although few of which was launched in 2002. By 2005, Gaul the young people I interviewed viewed MTV claimed to have over 1,033,000 readers, the on anything resembling a regular basis, the largest following of any popular youth media informal, direct, and expressive style of the tabloid on the market (Indosiar 2005). young announcers or VJs (video jockeys) In its spectacular journey from the who introduce songs and act as commentators margins to the middle class, gaul has not on MTV quickly became the model for tel- jetti soned all of its earlier associations. Like evision and radio announcers on other sta- slang more generally, gaul is used to refer to tions. By the late 1990s, the cool speech style social styles identifi ed as “cool,” “trendy,” of popular VJs like Sarah Sechan, who mixes and “fashionable,” but can also reference a Jakartan Indonesian with English language negative sociability (as too familiar, rude, or borrowings and the latest hip expressions, brash).5 While some observers, for example, had become a requirement for the MCs might describe a gaul headscarf for women of programs for young audiences, rapidly (jilbab gaul) as an “inappropriately alluring/ increasing the spread and popu larity of sexy headscarf,” others would describe it as bahasa gaul (Swastika 2003:13). a “trendy, casual-style head covering.” Gaul Even more critical to gaul’s spread has thus has multiple metapragmatic valences, been the spectacular increase in the num- linked to competing interpretations of youth bers of publishing houses which has occurred and modernity. since the fall of the New Order. These new publishers have created a fl urry of youth publications which have fl ooded the market, Bahasa Gaul all competing to establish a readership. In their attempts to appeal to a young audience, Gaul style is fast, fl uent, and self-confi dent. many of these books are written in casual gaul It is achieved through prosody, intona tion, style-often with gaul items italicized and in and gesture as well as pragmatics. Kacihaaan some cases, with glosses provided. deh lho ‘too bad/what a pity’ is said with a lispy, singsong falling/rising intonation and In the summer of 2005, a computer accompanied by an S-like move ment traced search in the popular Indonesian bookstore in the air with the index fi nger moving down- Gramedia identifi ed 47 books with the term wards. The response, biarin ‘leave it/what- gaul in their titles, a number of which were ever’, is accompanied by a similar gesture, on prominent display. These titles included but moving upward. So what gitu lho ‘who Debbie Sahertian’s bestselling Kamus Bahasa Gaul (‘The Gaul Dictionary’) which fi rst 5 See, for example, Miller’s (2004) discussion of Ja- panese kogal, a female slang which indexes autono- 4 See, for example, works by Miyako Inoue (2002) my and cultural innovation but also gender deviant and Laura Miller (2004). “misbehavior.”

69 JURNAL STUDI PEMUDA • VOL. I NO. 1 2012 Nancy J. Smith-Hefner, Youth Language, Gaul Sociability, and the New Indonesian Middle Class cares’ and Please deh, want to know ‘come language borrowings from English. In fact, the on, tell me’, are also pronounced with a two categories (abbreviation and borrowing) characteristically playful prosody, often over lap and borrowings are subjected to accompanied by a shrug or laughter. many of the same processes of abbreviation For its speakers, however, the most as Indonesian words and phrases. salient element of bahasa gaul is its lexicon. Bahasa gaul has developed against the backdrop of a linguistic culture of multiple Abbreviation codes: elaborate social registers, honorifi c The most productive word formation pro- vo cabularies, ritual languages, and exten- cesses in gaul involve various forms of abbre- sive word games. There are reports of youth viation. Many gaul words, for example, are varieties or ludlings called basa walik- acronyms, made up of the initial letters of an ‘backwards languages’, from across each of the words in a phrase. For example, Indonesia (d. Chambert-Loir 1984:109). One JJS (/jejeEs/) is an abbreviation of jalan jalan such backwards language, identifi ed with santai ‘to walk around/hang out’. PD or youth from the city of Malang in East Java, pede (/pede/), is an abbreviation for percaya is created by literally “reading” words in their diri, literally ‘to believe in oneself’, ‘self- mirror image. Gadis ‘young girl’ thus becomes confi dent’. HTI (/hatei/) stands for hubungan sidag, manis ‘sweet’ becomes sinam, and tanpa ikatan literally ‘relations without [legal] Malang becomes Ngalam (Dreyfuss 1983). connection’ or ‘illicit sex’, also referred to In another “backwards” language, associated as HTS (/hateEs/) hubungan tanpa status or with the youth of Yogyakarta, new words are ‘relations without [legal] status’.6 formed by reassigning pronunciations to the Other gaul items are abbreviations created Javanese syllabary and applying these new by combining the initial, or sometimes fi nal, pronunciations to the corresponding syllables syllables or segments of two words to make up of Indonesian words to effect a transformation a single word, a word formation process called (Chambert-Loir 1984:109; Swastika 2003: blending. Applying this process, curahan hati 16). Most well-known is the word play ‘an outpouring of feelings’ becomes curhat; dagadu which is a transformation of the ex- salah tingkah ‘a wrong or inappropriate clamation matamu! ‘your eyes!’ Dagadu is move’ becomes salting; and telat mikir ‘slow now the name of a successful tee shirt and think ing, dull’ becomes telmi.7 poster enterprise in Yogyakarta. These youth Another common type of abbreviation languages based on word plays (like pig latin involves clipping-the process of shorten ing in English) are generally associated with high a word by leaving off a part of the lexeme school (teenaged) groups and seem to have (typically the loss of one or more syllables). strong links to written forms. Applying this process, restoran ‘restaurant’ While the slang of Indonesian college becomes resto. Minimal ‘minimal’ becomes students has incorporated a number of minim. Demonstrasi ‘demonstration’ similar- words or expressions from these backward word plays, their associated word formation 6 Other common gaul acronyms include ABC processes are largely non-productive in gaul. (/abege/) ‘adolescent’ from anak baru gede (li- The vast majority of gaul words is formed terally ‘a child just recently big/mature’); PHK (/ pehaka/) from putus hubungan kekasih ‘to break up either through processes of abbreviation or with one’s girl/boyfriend’; and PDKT (/pedekate/) borrowing. Abbreviations include acronyms, from proses pendekatan dan perkenalan ‘the process blends, contractions, and clippings. Borrow- of approaching/getting to know someone’. ings include words and phrases from informal 7 Other blends include ortu from orang tua ‘parents’; jadul from jaman dulu ‘an earlier time/era’; and regional and social dialects and foreign jakin from jaman kini ‘the current time/ era’.

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ly becomes demo and eksistensi ‘existence’ Local Borrowings becomes eksis. These are all examples of The other signifi cant source of gaul vocabu- clipping involving the loss of phonetic ma- lary consists of borrowings. There are, for terial word fi nally. Most clippings of this type example, a signifi cant number of word bor- are multisyllabic foreign words. A second rowings in bahasa gaul from the informal category of clippings involves words that that language level in Javanese known as ngoko. have lost an initial syllable through the process As Indonesia’s largest single ethnic group- of aphesis. These forms are quite regular comprising 40 percent of the country’s po- and pre dictable and are typically common, pulation-Javanese have always played Indonesian terms. Examples include gini from a prominent role in national culture and begini ‘like this’; gitu from begitu ‘like that’; politics, and borrowings from Javanese into dikit from sedikit ‘a little’; makasi from ter- Indonesian have always been common. The ima kasih ‘thank you’; and caya from percaya Javanese words borrowed into gaul include ‘to believe’.8 a large num ber of everyday expressions, None of these word formation processes particularly adjectives and adverbs, among is unique to gaul, though in gaul they may be them: saking (‘because/as a result of), pantes applied to unique forms or in unique com- (‘proper/fi tting’), banget (‘very/excessively’), binations. The linguistic processes of clipping gede (‘large/big’), bareng (‘with/together’), and contraction are widespread in informal mepet (‘tight/pressed’), and rada (‘sort of! styles of spoken Indonesian and speakers rather’).10 Rather than adding specifi c content of Indonesian generally have no diffi culty to gaul’s lexicon, these words add to the 9 recovering the full forms. Acronyms and immediacy and informality of student slang, blends are also ubiquitous in standard offi cial as in the following comment on dating from language and are associ ated in particular a discussion with a fi rst year college student. with the various government organizations and programs which proliferated during the Saking enjoy-nya, kami nggak bisa New Order era (e.g., PKK, SMA, UMPT, putus. PUSKESMAS, HANSIP, GOLKAR; see also ‘Because we were so happy / having Sneddon 2003:145-149). Some of the playful so much fun [together] we couldn’t irreverence of gaul comes from the use of break it off. 11 word formation processes identifi ed with go- vernment offi cialdom to create a vocabulary In this example not only is the adverb saking which is anything but governmental, and ‘because, as a result of’ borrowed from Ja- which is used to talk about the everyday lives vanese, but also the use of 3rd person possessive and experiences of particular interest to young marker -nya (here following the pattern of the people. Javanese genitive marker -e/-ne in marking topicalization). Sneddon writes with regard to the use of this pattern in the Indonesian standard, “[i]n most of its occurrences, this 8 Other words in this category include abis (habis construction is avoided and even condemned ‘finished, used up’); emang (memang ‘right, indeed’); ama (sama ‘same, together /with’); udah (sudah ‘already’); and item (hitam ‘black’). The popular gaul 10 Borrowings from Javanese can also undergo pro- expression ember ‘really /it’s true’ from memang cesses of abbreviation and blending. The popular benar is derived via a combination of aphesis and expression ge-er ‘big headed, proud / conceited’ is blending. a blend derived from Javanese gede rasa which has 9 Though in the case of acronyms, speakers may not roughly the same meaning. always know or remember the exact wording of the 11 The gaul elements under discussion in this and original phrase, particularly if it contains English subsequent examples are in bold along with their borrowings (see below). corresponding English translations.

71 JURNAL STUDI PEMUDA • VOL. I NO. 1 2012 Nancy J. Smith-Hefner, Youth Language, Gaul Sociability, and the New Indonesian Middle Class by some non -Javanese” (2003:159). In bahasa sometimes diffi cult to distin guish from word gaul, informal Javanisms are an important borrowings from bahasa prokem (see discus- element of the fl avor of informal youth inter- sion above). In his article “Those Who Speak actions. According to students they make gaul Prokem,” Chambert-Loir (1984:111) identi- speech ‘smoother’ (lebih luwes) and ‘more fi es the infi x -ok as a unique feature of prokem relaxed’ (lebih santai), and as a result ‘more vocabulary. A number of items with the -ok communicative’ (lebih komunikatif).12 infi x appear in the gaul vocabulary of uni- The single largest and most signifi cant versity students today. They include among source of local borrowings into bahasa gaul others gokil from gila ‘crazy’; mertoku from is the informal dialect of Jakarta (Jakartan [calon] mertua ‘[future] in-laws’; bokap from Indonesian or Jakartan Malay).13 Jakarta is the bapak ‘father’; and nyokap from nyak, Jakar- capital of Indonesia and is widely considered tan dialect for ‘mother’. the center of Indonesian wealth and modernity. Certain pronunciations are also bor- The h1donesian fi lm industry is located in rowed from the informal dialect of the capital Jakarta as is the music industry. In imitating (e.g., the replacement of syllable-fi nal / a/ by Jakartan speech styles, young people aspire to the mid-central vowel (schwa) /12/ in many the hip, modern, and cosmopolitan lifestyle of words, such as dalem instead of dalam ‘in- those who live there (Swastika 2003:14; see side’), as are some interjections, as well as the also Oetomo 1990). Sneddon writes, verb suffi x -in which corresponds to the suf- fi xes -kan and -i in formal Indonesian. Some To speak like a Jakartan is to be like a of these features show up in the following Jakartan: up-to-date, prosperous and sophisticated, whatever the reality might examples. The fi rst is from a male engineer- be. The speech of Jakarta is particularly ing student in a discussion of dating. The se- popular with youth as a symbol of gene- cond is from a teen magazine for young males rational solidarity; using it sets them in an article on adjusting to college. apart from the backward countryside and Pantes, dong, cowok demen cewek. allows them to identify with the mystique of the modem metropolis. [2003:155] ‘It’s fi tting/proper, don’t you know, guys like girls’. Borrowings from Jakartan Indonesian in clude verb forms like bacot ‘to fuss/talk a Elo bisa jadi target empuk buat ditoyor lot’, geber ‘to push/spur on’, demen ‘to like’, anak senior. toyor ‘to hit/beat up’, and gaet ‘to attract/in- ‘You could become an easy target for terest’. They also include nouns, pronouns, a beating by an older student’.14 and adjectives like gue ‘I’, (e)lu ‘you’, cewek ‘girl’, cowok ‘guy’, bonges ‘sexy’, cemong ‘dirty, smudged’, and norak ‘inappropriate’.  English language borrowings Borrowings from Jakartan Indonesian are  The most distinctive feature of the slang of university students, however, is the num ber 12 This assessment is no doubt in part a reflection of of English language borrowings. Over 30 the Javanese backgrounds of the majority of the young people in my study. There are gaul elements percent of my corpus of gaul terms come from identified as originating from regional dialects other English. Notable by comparison-particularly than Javanese in my corpus, but they appeared in light of the recent resurgent interest in Islam- relatively rarely. is the dearth of borrowings in youth slang 13 Also called bahasa Betawi. For a brief history and description of Jakartan Malay see Sneddon 2003:153-155. For a more detailed grammatical 14 Example is from Hai magazine July 2003, 27(29):16, analysis see Grijins 1991. cited in Supriyanti 2004:64.

72 JURNAL STUDI PEMUDA • VOL. I , NO. 1 , MEI 2012 Nancy J. Smith-Hefner, Youth Language, Gaul Sociability, and the New Indonesian Middle Class from Arabic (see also Supriyanti 2004:40).15 Some English borrowings in slang have English borrowings are not only signifi cant undergone a process of assimilation to the in terms of their overall numbers but also in sound system of Indonesian. Others remain terms of the frequency of their occur rence. in their original forms. As is evidenced in the They were ubiquitous in my interviews and examples above, the level of assimilation of informal discussions with young people. English borrowings is also refl ected in the spelling of words as they appear in print; Cowok suka hunting. with some words spelled as their English ‘Guys like to cruise for girls’. originals (like trendy and playboy above) and others refl ecting Indonesian pronunciation. Hubungan kami itu nggak serius, lho! ‘Married’ for example is written marit or Kami enjoy saja. merit and is pronounced / mErIt/. ‘Clubbing’ ‘Hey, our relationship wasn’t serious! may be written clubbing or klabing, and is We were just having fun’. pronounced /klabiŋ)/. And ‘enjoy’ is written Itu disebut MBA, ‘marit because enjoy (sometimes enjoi) and pronounced as accident’. in English but with the accent on the initial ‘That’s called MBA, “married syllable /En’joi/. because [of an] accident” ‘. English language borrowings are subject Doi betul-betul care buat saya. to the same derivational processes that affect ‘He really cares about me’. other gaul lexical items. English phrases, for example, may be reduced to acronyms, A similar pattern of English borrowings like MBA (pronounced /Embea/) ‘married is also common in the informal language of because accident’ in the sentence above. many contemporary magazines and novels Other English-derived acronyms include ML targeted at a young adult audience, and in (/EmEl/) ‘making love’ and BT, also written advice columns in newspapers which attract as bete (/bete/), ‘bad mood’. BF (/beEf/), a youth readership. The follow ing examples the acronym for ‘blue fi lm’ (pornographic are taken from the letters of young people to fi lm), has undergone further transformation advice columnists, the fi rst from a magazine through -ok infi xa tion (see discussion of for young men (Hai ‘Hey’) and the second bahasa prokem above) to become bokep; in from a magazine for young women (Kawanku the process its mean ing has expanded to mean ‘My friend’). ‘pornography’ more generally. Soalnya, gue nggak suka klabing.16 There are also English phrases which ‘The problem is I don’t like going become blends in gaul, sometimes in com- club bing [out to clubs]’. bination with an Indonesian word. [H]ilang feeling ‘to lose interest/ feeling for someone’, Ada juga temanku yang sudah trendy, for example, is ilfi l. Jaga imej ‘to guard/protect playboy pula.17 one’s image’ is jaim, and salah kostum ‘an ‘I also have friends who are trendy, inappropriate outfi t (costume)’ is saltum. Yet even playboys’. other English bor rowings undergo clipping. ‘Aggressive’, for example, is agre; ‘America’ is amrik; ‘temperamental’ is tempra; and 15 A possible exception is tajir meaning ‘rich’, which may be related to an Arabic term for ‘merchant’. ‘sensitive’ is sensi. Examples of these types 16 Example is from Hai magazine December 2003, of constructions appear in the quotes below 27(52):19, cited in Supriyanti 2004:56. taken from an advice column in a magazine 17 Example is from Kawanku magazine April 2003, for young men. 32(43): 33, cited in Supriyanti 2004:60.

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Satu lagi tipe orang yang bikin orang lain and experiences and ways of seeing the world gampang ilfi l ya ini, sensi dan tempra.18 (Eble 1996:79). ‘Another type of person who makes Indonesian college students also create others quickly lose interest, is [over] humorous word plays involving English sensitive and temperamental’. borrowings in gaul. These word plays take the form of literal translations of common Abis mereka nggak mau disebut kelompok Indonesian phrases into English. A common cewek jaim.19 leave-taking in standard Indonesian, for ‘Because they didn’t want to be put example, is hati-hati di jalan which means ‘be in the category of girls who worry/ careful on the road’. Hati, however, literally obsess about their image’. means ‘liver (heart)’; in college student slang the phrase is thus rendered heart-heart on The presence of so many English the road. Similarly, the common Indonesian borrowings in bahasa gaul raises a number phrase tidak apa-apa ‘it’s nothing (don’t worry of interesting issues. Connie Eble (1996) has about it)’ in literal, word-for-word English argued that borrowing from foreign langua- translation is rendered no what-what, while ges is not a feature of slang in general or of terima kasih ‘thank you’ becomes receive American college slang in particular. The love, and kembali [kasih] ‘you’re welcome’ reason, she says, is the general insularity of becomes return love. Word plays like these, slang, its primary function being to bind however, involve only a very small number toge ther people of similar persuasions. of the English borrowings which occur in “By its very nature,” Eble writes, “slang is bahasa gaul and are hardly representative of not outreaching and cosmopolitan” (Eble the role English plays in Indonesian student 1996:39). In American college slang she fi nds slang.20 little evidence of foreign language borrow- The use of English borrowings in gaul ings. The exceptions are borrowings which is less about poking fun at English or at enter slang as word plays on phrases learned English speakers than about signaling the in introductory language courses. These bor- speaker’s identifi cation with a fashionably rowings poke fun at students’ attempts to pro- cosmopolitan youth style widely identifi ed nounce simple for eign phrases. So French s’il with Western and East Asian print media, vous plait (‘please’) is rendered silver plate fi lms, radio and television. Western, even or seafood plate and merci beaucoup (French global, youth culture emphasizes the positive for ‘thank you’) becomes mercy buckets or value of cool nonchalance and casual infor- mercy buttercups. Forcing foreign sounds to mality (cf. Bucholtz 2007; Kiesling 2004). approximate words in English, Eble argues, is English borrowings show up in many of for many college students a source of humor; the gaul words which express this hip, laid at the same time it expresses an attitude back orientation: cool, keren ‘cool’; mellow, which is basically anti-intellectual (See casual, cuek ‘to not care’; cuek bebek ‘to also Hill 1998 on “mock Spanish”). In this not care [at all]’; fresh, funky, friendly; and way American college students use foreign ngtren/trendy’trendy’. Related terms have to language borrowings to strengthen their own do with a carefree attitude of having fun and group ties which are based on shared attitudes being happy: relak/releks ‘relax’; hang out,

18 Example is from Hai magazine February 2004, 28 20 These and similar word plays seem to be a more (5):27, cited in Supriyanti 2004:44. central element in bahasa gay, the language asso- 19 Example is from Hai magazine July 2003, 37(26):11, ciated with the Indonesia’s gay community (cf. cited in Stlpriyanti 2004:33. Boellstroff 2004).

74 JURNAL STUDI PEMUDA • VOL. I , NO. 1 , MEI 2012 Nancy J. Smith-Hefner, Youth Language, Gaul Sociability, and the New Indonesian Middle Class refreshing ‘relaxing’; having fun, funny, enjoi/ or specialized vocabulary. This pattern of enjoy ‘enjoy’; hepi ‘happy’. English bor- borrowing has sometimes been criticized as rowings also fi gure prominently among those obscuring rather than adding meaning to the words in bahasa gaul which refl ect the new language as exem plifi ed in the following concern among youth with the articulation quotation from an Indonesian professor eme- of indi vidual wants, needs, and desires, and ritus of law. with the formulation of new types of social Postmodernism telah melakukan dekons- relationships. These terms include: care, truksi terhadap dominasi atau hegemoni con cern, sharing, support, fi rst love, cute, negara. charming, date, soul mate, macho, mood, ‘Postmodernism has already decons- don juan, playboy, jeles/jealous, bossy, killer, tructed the domination or hegemony agre ‘aggressive’, sensi ‘sensitive’, tempra of the state’.23 ‘temperamental’, petting and ML ‘making love’, among others. Similar usages involve the use of English Students regularly describe borrowed words or phrases for ideas or concepts that English emotion terms as “more expressive,” can easily be expressed in Indonesian. The offering as an example, the new “in” expression redundancy of English in these contexts may Bete-in banget! ‘It’s so annoying!’ Bete is even be signaled overtly by the use of the an acronym derived from the English ‘bad equivalent Indonesian term parenthetically mood’21; -in is the causative affi x bor rowed after the English word (or the equivalent from Jakartan Indonesian. Bete-in is therefore English word parenthetically after the Indo- ‘to cause to be in a bad mood; annoying’. nesian term). This practice in particular has Conversely, students say that English word been decried by language purists as eroding borrowings which have sexual referents are the integrity of the national language. The emotionally” distancing,” allowing young citation below is a quote from a prominent people to talk about embarrassing or taboo Indonesian newspaper, commenting on the topics with less discomfort. A group of female relationship between the Indonesian army and students explained that it would, for example, political parties. “hypothetically” be much easier for a young Banyak pula mantan Pati TNI yang woman to say to her partner, Beli safting, bergabung dengan parpol yang lulus dong! ‘Buy protection!’ than to use the threshold. Tetapi, hal itu dapat juga ber- (older Dutch/English) Indonesianized term arti peringatan (warning) kepada ka- kondom.22 (Here, safting, save thing, or safe langan parpol. Tampaknya persoalan thing is apparently derived from English ‘safe diko tomi sipil-militer politik di Indonesia sex’. A condom is thus a ‘safe thing’.) hanyalah materi percakapan di meja A contrasting pattern of English borrowing perjamuan kaum scholars saja. has been described as characterizing the ‘There are likewise many former formal Indonesian of newspaper editorials, high ranking army offi cers who have academic writing and lectures, and political joined together with political parties speeches and publications. The use of English and have breeched the threshold. in these contexts often involves technical This can also constitute a warning to political groupings. It appears that 21 In this case the final / d/ of ‘mood’ is pronounced the dichotomy between the military and spelled as /t/ and transposed for more “pleasing pronunciation.” 23 Citation is from the online news journal of Airlangga 22 Students were anxious to impress upon me that University Warta Online Airlangga University, http:// this was a “hypothetical” utterance, not something www.warta.unair.ac.id (Tim Media Kerjabudaya one of them had ever said. 2004).

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and politics in Indonesia is only ma- gaul articulates a “modern,” interactional terial for discussion at meetings of fl exi bility which emphasizes the expression of scholars’.24 individual needs and desires, and distances the speaker from old styles and hierarchies. Not In the example above the use of English surprisingly, the particular values expanded seems superfl uous to the meaning of the upon in gaul ideology refl ect the social position passage in the sense that there are common of its upwardly aspiring speakers (Kroskrity and easily available Indonesian equiva- 2000:8). Students have appropriated elements lents (ambang pintu, peringatan, sarjana/ from the speech styles of people at the social ilmiawan) for the borrowed English terms. J. margins (gangsters, criminals, street kids), and Joseph Errington (2000:216) calls such usages use them along with other local and foreign “communicatively gratuitous” and argues borrowings to declare their independence that the use of English language borrowings of traditional expectations and established in such contexts serves to underscore the social convention. Through a process of “exemplary” status of the speaker in a pattern enregisterment “whereby distinct forms of not unlike the use of the sta tus marked speech speech come to be socially recognized (or levels of Javanese. These patterns of the use enregistered) as indexical of speaker attrib- of English borrowings in formal Indonesian utes by a population of language users” (Agha add to the stereotyped opacity and formality 2005:38), the language of gaul sociability has of the standard. Such usages are particularly become widely identifi ed with contemporary widespread among academics, politicians, and middle-class youth culture. In the process, bureaucrats and have the effect of identifying gaul has taken on new associations, becoming the speaker as a person who is able, due to a linguistic emblem of the cool, hip, educated, his experience or education, to use language and connected. forms which are beyond the expertise of the Agha (1998) and others have emphasized majority of speakers (Errington 2000:216; the refl exive relationship that patterns of see also Lowenberg 1994; Tanner 1972). linguistic usage have to social status; that is, In this sense the use of superfl uous English that patterns of linguistic usage both respond borrowings in formal Indonesian, as the use to independent status distinctions and promote of technical and abstract terminology, is a status valorizations them selves. As bahasa demonstration and reinforcement of status gaul has become increasingly associated differentials. with the upwardly mobile and trendy, it has de veloped its own kind of coercive appeal linked to the assumed (stereotyped) status of Articulating Modernity its speakers-as revealed in this comment by In contrast to formal Indonesian, bahasa gaul, a third year student attending Gadjah Mada with its popular, youth culture focus, indexes a University, more inclusive ideology of gaul sociability. It Sometimes when I meet up with some assumes a shared orientation toward the values kids from Jakarta and they’re really gaul, of informality and commensurability and an I feel like I have to adjust to their style attitude of self-confi dent cosmopolitanism. and be like them and talk like them even As it is used by urban, educated youth, bahasa though I’m not that used to using bahasa gaul. But when I’m with them, I do that so that they all think, “She’s really 24 Citation is from the online news journal of Airlangga advanced (maju), you know, she’s really University Warta Online Airlangga University, http:// www.warta.unair.ac.id (Tim Media Kerjabudaya modern.” So, I have to use bahasa gaul in 2004). that situation.

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Just as might be expected, as gaul style has of youth sociability identify themselves as been drawn up from the world of social mar- devout Muslims. Books like Zaman Gaul: ginals to the world of self-realizing, self- Tips Menjadi Gaul bagi Remaja Islam Tan- fulfi lling, upward-aspiring individuals, it has pa Kehilangan Identitas Keislamannya (‘The become responsive to the sorts of pressures Gaul Era: Tips for Muslim Youth on Be- and concerns that animate the new Indonesian coming Sociable without Losing Your Muslim middle class. As it has moved from informality Identity’) (Salim 2004) and All About Gaul! and solidarity at the margins to informality (‘All About [the New] Sociability!’) (Kurnia within a new and more fl exible system of 2005) are written in casual, gaul style. Their differentiation and hierarchy, gaul has also authors do not condemn gaul ideology but come to express a new form of linguistic instead intersperse their texts with Qur’anic status and identity. After all, if you’re not quota tions and passages taken from the gaul, you’re not cool, you’re not modern, and hadits (traditions of the life of the Prophet) to you just don’t belong. emphasize a carefully measured and acceptably Complicating the development and tra- Muslim style of gaul social interac tion. Even jectory of gaul even further, during its tran- many Muslim youth preachers (ustadh) have sition from dark and rebellious periphery to begun to appropriate gaul’s informal style the well-heeled and hip new center, the speech and casual exchanges in an attempt to reach style has also come to be mediated by a variety out to and engage a youth audience. This is of new social actors, among them: professional especially true, not surprisingly, of those who managers and media talk show hosts, Dale are most involved in the glamorous world of Carnegie-like self-help authors, and sexual radio and television preaching-among them advice columnists.25 In an attempt to both the enormously popular AA Gymastiar and capitalize on and domesticate the new youth Jefri Al-Buchori, who are often referred to by subcultures, these experts have expanded on the media and by their youthful followers as gaul’s con cern with the individual and with a ustadz gaul (‘gaul teachers/preachers’). more fl exible sociability to articulate a whole new catalogue of directives and warnings con cern ing the proper formulation of cool Gaul Community (but careful) modernity (cf. Miller 2004). Gaul then is the product of a particular type These gaul experts use the language of youth of community increasingly identifi ed with the socia bility to caution young people about the educated and “mass-mediated” landscapes dangers of uncritical acceptance of Western of modem Indonesia. It is not a community models of behavior and the need to adjust defi ned by common residence or territoriality. them to an Indonesian value system and social Noris it based on the shared experience of reality. political struggle like that which characterized It is particularly ironic that gaul has the early nation alists of the Sumpah Pemuda emerged at more or less exactly the same of 1928, the revolutionary youth of the 1945- time that the Islamic resurgence has led 1949 inde pendence war, the activist students of many, especially urban, Indonesians to a the generation of 1965-1966 (Ang kqtan 65-66), more religious orientation and pious lifestyle. or even the moderate Islamist youth engaged Perhaps most surprising, a signifi cant number in the struggle for democratic reform (1998). of the new self-help experts and social com- Although it has rebellious undercurrents, mentators who have adopted the language the culture of gaul is increasingly defi ned by lifestyle and consumer aspirations, them- 25 See, for example, Alatas 2006; Astuti 2005; Rachman selves originating, not so much in formal and Omar 2004; Rohani 2004.

77 JURNAL STUDI PEMUDA • VOL. I NO. 1 2012 Nancy J. Smith-Hefner, Youth Language, Gaul Sociability, and the New Indonesian Middle Class politics, as in the educational and mass-media contemporary members of the Indonesian experiences of the new middle class (cf. middle class show that they are still keenly Liechty 2003). This orientation is toward, responsive to the estimations of others. not a political project, but a way of being However, if there is an exemplary center Indonesian in the post-traditional landscape informing the language choices of middle- of multiethnic, urban Indonesia. While gaul is class youth today, it has less to do with the very much at home on Indonesian campuses, centers and standards of Java’s courts or other then, it would be a mis take to view it as just a indigenous aristocracies than it does with byproduct of educated youth. That community the example provided by a diverse array of is itself as much an aspiration and lifestyle as it new media and institutions, among them: the is a fi xed social category. Moreover, the styles educational system, MTV, a plethora of youth and sociability of gaul have now extended publications, international fi lms and fashions, well beyond the more promising segments computers and the internet. In this sense there of the new middle class. This is all the more is not just one settled center invoking the tra- the case inasmuch as pop media and pop ular ditions and received conventions of venerated consumption styles have themselves become ancestors, but a variety of media and social carriers of gaul culture. fi elds themselves highly permeable to outside Gaul is above all an “open” linguistic infl uence and continuing cultural change. variety, a style marked by its porousness and enjoyment of new linguistic and lifestyle fl ows. It is a work in process, unfi nished and References Cited fast changing-as evidenced, for example, by Agha, Asif. 1998. Stereotypes and Registers the recent incorporation of elements of the of Honorifi c Language. Language in language of gay culture into its lexicon (cf. Society 27:151-193. 2005 Voicing, Boellstorf 2004). But it is also selective in Footing, Enregisterment. Journal of its appropriations. The cultural logic of its Linguistic Anthropology 15(1):38-59. selectivity refl ects at its core the aspira tion of urban middle-class youth to styles of social Alatas, Alwi. 2006. Bikin Gaulmu Makin identity and interaction pro foundly different Gaul: Kiat Bergaul yang Asyik from those of their parents and the New Order dan Oke (‘Make Your Socializing era. The new styles do not constitute a radical More Social: The Secret to Great and highly politicized counter-language/ Socializing That’s Still Acceptable’). counterculture to the establishment center. Jakarta: Hikmah Press. They instead refl ect middle-class youth’s Anderson, Benedict. 1966. “The Languages heightened concern for casual informality, of Indonesian Politics.” Indonesia 1: greater emotional expressivity, and the com- 89-111. munication of a new and constantly evolving popular Indonesian culture. ______. 1972. “The Idea of Power in The analysis of language and culture Javanese Culture” in Culture and in Indonesian society has frequently been Politics in Indonesia. Claire Holt, conducted with reference to the idea of the ed. Pp. 1-69. Ithaca, NY: Cornell crowning or singular importance of exem- University Press. plary centers; that is, certain axial points of Astuti, Dina. 2005. Gaul OK, Belajar OK: reference that provide a model and standard Cerdas Gak Berarti Kuper (‘[Being] for the evaluation of all else (cf. Anderson Social Is OK, Studying Is OK: Smart 1972; Errington 1985; Geertz 1960). In Doesn’t Mean Antisocial’). Jakarta: their language styles and social conventions, Kawan Pustaka.

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