International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Culture Available online at https://sloap.org/journals/index.php/ijllc/ Vol. 7, No. 2, March 2021, pages: 90-97 ISSN: 2455-8028 https://doi.org/10.21744/ijllc.v7n2.1375 Manggaraian Expressions of Environmental Preservation: A Study on Ecolinguistics Kanisius Rambut a Article history: Abstract This paper explores the manggaraian expressions that are used to explain the Submitted: 09 December 2021 initiative of people in Manggarai to preserve the environment. This is a kind Revised: 18 January 2021 of code in which located the local wisdom to manage the surroundings as Accepted: 27 February 2021 well as possible so that they will not disappear. It promotes some problems such as meanings and functions of the expressions in terms of preserving the environment. Then it is designed to describe the meanings and functions of the expressions which become the indicators of environmental development. Keywords: These problems can be analyzed by the theoretical concept of ecolinguistics. ecolinguistics; It is viewed that language is the symbol verbal of communication, used to environment preservation; describe the problems of the environment. The vocabulary of languages in expressions; the world reflects the environment of its speaker. The two statements indicate manggaraian language; what language employs to draw the environmental issues. It is summed up that language has a very important role to manage the environment. Data collections include the information or qualitative statements that given by the informant, gathered from the field. This information has been got through the interview and observation. The interview is a way to get the information. International journal of linguistics, literature and culture © 2021. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Corresponding author: Rambut, K. Flores University, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia Belakang RSUD ende, Jl. Sam Ratulangi, Loa, Soa, Kabupaten Ende, Nusa Tenggara Tim. 86382 Email address: [email protected] a Flores University, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia 90 IJLLC ISSN: 2455-8028 91 1 Introduction Manggarai is one of the regencies in the East Nusa Tenggara Province located in the west of Flores Island. It has its language which is usually called the manggaraian language. It is known as one of the local languages in that area. Then, it is spoken by at least seven hundred thousand people, not included those who live outside of the regency. As stated previously the local language consists of four dialects, such as east dialects, middle dialects, west dialects, and S-H dialect of manggaraian language (Verheujen, 1991; Rambut, 2015). However, one of the manggaraian dialects that urgently discussed is the middle dialect. Besides that, the language is living around the other Austronesians located in Flores Island such as Rongga, Rembong, Bajawa. As a result, the speaker of Manggarai is often influenced by the other speakers from the other districts in Flores Island. There is an example to indicate the intervention from Endeness which is located in the middle of Flores island, like in this sentence: mboko de hau ta. Word mboko comes from Endeness language. On the other hand, the manggaraian language as a local language is coming to the society to bring some roles like as a tool of communication. It means that people of manggarai regency use it as a facility to transfer the idea, feeling to love each other, and wanting to help each other. Then, it also is used as a symbol of the identity of the people of Manggarai. Most people said that language in general is an expression of culture. From the expression as stated above, it can be concluded that it brings several functions, serving the needs of its speakers. Moreover, Keraf (2004) said that a language brings some roles into society such as to express identity, as a tool of communication, as a tool to make integrity and social adaptation, and it is used to control social activity. So at least he promoted four functions of language. From this point of view, Manggaraian language as the focus of discussion has several functions. For instance, the manggaraian language is used to make the relationship among its speakers. It means that the language employs to make interaction among the speakers. If a people of Manggarai wants to say something to another one- he is also people from Manggarai of course, he is speaking Manggaraian language. The manggaraian language can be used to express the identity of its speakers. A tool to express oneself, the language introduces everything in his mind and his heart at least to notify our condition. Things that motivate someone to express himself to attract the attention of other people around and wanting to release himself from all emotional pressure. In a conclusion, all the language functions stated above, can not be separated from each other. So that it is difficult to say where a function starts and where another is ending. Cultural Linguistics points out that language is the plays of symbol verbal that used in communication and based on the imagery of its speaker (Pamler, 1996; Rambut, 2015). An important thing is the symbol verbals employ to reflect the environment of its speakers. They present the place where the speakers live, what the speaker does, and when the speakers begin and end all their activities. And addition, the symbol verbal well describes all the activities of the people every day. The environment is the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal or plant lives or operates (Kravchenko, 2016; Zhou, 2017; Alexander & Stibbe, 2014). On the other hand, the term of the environment is the natural world, as a whole or in a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activities. The district of Manggarai is an area located in the west part of Flores Island which is usually known as a district of Manggarai. It is recognized that this area is surrounded by mountains, hills, and valleys. A long time ago, Most people choose the hilly areas to live in commonly Beo is the term local language (Manggarai) that can be translated as a village in English. In the past, the beo was built up in the top of the hilly area origin the hillside area. Usually, the settlement is habited by a group of people who comes from a single lineage. Several communities in Manggarai build up their beo or village in the flatland or lowland. Recently, the city for the government has been established in the lowland, for example, Ruteng city which is the capital city of Manggarai district. Commonly, the livelihood of people in Manggarai is shifting cultivation. This way of life can support their needs for sustaining their life. The agricultural areas in Manggarai are more dominated by dry land than a wetland. The way they divided the land to cultivate for each people is called spider field. This system is very unique in the world. That is why the system is one of the tourism destinations that is a very interesting view and attracting a lot of tourists from Indonesia and abroad. In the dry land, farmers grow some commodities such as corn, rice, sweet potato, cassava, cucumber, sorghum, pumpkin. Rambut, K. (2021). Manggaraian expressions of environmental preservation: a study on ecolinguistics. International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Culture, 7(2), 90-97. https://doi.org/10.21744/ijllc.v7n2.1375 92 ISSN: 2455-8028 Problem It is said that this paper focuses on the discussion about the Manngaraian expressions that connecting to the initiatives of making the environments unchanging or everlasting. Referring to this topic, the problem that can be promoted firstly is what do the local wisdom that contains in the manggarain language? Secondly, is what do the manggaraian expressions play the role in connecting to make our environment everlasting? Objectives Forest fire is an incident where the forest which is classified as a natural ecology has transformed caused by the massive burning activity of the forest. This kind of incident has both positive and negative impacts of forest fire is more dominant than the positive impact. Forest fire could happen because of the long dry season. This climate season also caused the water resources to dry up including the forest. It losses water due to the evapotranspiration process. Stems, twigs, and dry leaves that rub against each other could cause fire, then the fire will spread quickly. Other factors like human carelessness on throwing cigarette carelessly or forgot to water the campfire. Sometimes forest fire also happens because of volcanic activity such as hit by lava flows or hot clouds from a volcanic eruption. Forest fire could happen intentionally. Some people intentionally burn the forest to open a new land or other vandalism actions. Fire forest in Manggarai is a serious problem faced by the government every year especially in the period of the dry season. It costs funds to cover this problem. However, the manggaraian language provides some expressions that contain the local wisdom which used to persuade, motivate, and most important to give warning to the people to keep the environment. Based on the statements, this paper is designed to describe several points as follows: 1) To inform some environmental problems in Manggrarai like burning forest. It can cause serious impact on the living of human beings around; 2) To describe the expressions of Manggaraian language that contain the local wisdom to stop people not burning forest as well as cutting trees in the forest or shrubs; 3) To identify the functions of Manggaraian expressions in the term that is found in the agricultural discourse. Significance Disaster environment is caused by burning forests that can bring some dangerous impacts such as erosion in the rainy season than can cause the word flood.