PACIFIC LINGUISTICS Series D - No. 63 THE CHINESE OF PASURUAN: THEIR LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY D6d6 Oetomo (MATERIALS IN LANGUAGES OF INDONESIA, No. 26) W.AL. Stokhof, Series Editor Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY PACIFIC LINGUISTICS is issued through the Linguistic Circle of Canberra and consists of four series: SERIES A - Occasional Papers SERIES C - Books SERIES B - Monographs SERIES D - Special Publications EDITOR: S.A. Wurm ASSOCIATE EDITORS: D.C. Laycock, C.L. Voorhoeve, D.T. Tryon, T.E. Dutton EDITORIAL ADVISERS: B.W. Bender H.P. McKaughan University of Hawaii University of Hawaii David Bradley P. Miihlhausler La Trobe University Linacre College, Oxford Michael G. Clyne G.N. O'Grady Monash University University of Victoria, B.C. S.H. Elbert A.K. Pawley University of Hawaii University of Auckland K.J. Franklin K.L. Pike Summer Institute of Linguistics Summer Institute of Linguistics W.W. Glover E.C. Polome Summer Institute of Linguistics University of Texas G.W. Grace Malcolm Ross . University of Hawaii Australian National University M.A.K. Halliday Gillian Sankoff University of Sydney University of Pennsylvania E. Haugen W.A.L. Stokhof Harvard University University of Leiden A. Healey B.K. T'sou Summer Institute of Linguistics City Polytechnic of Hong Kong L.A. Hercus E.M. Uhlenbeck Australian National University University of Leiden John Lynch J.W.M. Verhaar University of Papua New Guinea Divine Word Institute, Madang K.A. McElhanon Summer Institute of Linguistics All correspondence concerning PACIFIC LINGUISTICS, including orders and subscriptions, should be addressed to: PACIFIC LINGUISTICS Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies The Australian National University , Canberra, A.C.T. 2601 Australia Copyright O The Authors First Published 1987 Typeset by Sue Tys Maps drawn by Theo Baumann Printed by A.N.U. 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ISSN 0078-7566 ISBN 0 85883 349 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION Notes to Chapter 1 Chapter 2: PASURUAN AND THE CHINESE OF PASURUAN Notes to Chapter 2 Chapter 3: GENERAL LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND Notes to Chapter 3 Chapter 4: IDENTITY MARKERS: JAVANESE AND M?&AY/INDONESIAN Notes to Chapter 4 Chapter 5: IDENTITY MARKERS: CHINESE DIALECTS, DUTCH AND ENGLISH Notes to Chapter 5 Chapter 6: CONCLUSION Appendix: SAMPLE TEXTS Conversation 1: In a dentist's waiting room Conversation 2: Two engineering students Conversation 3: A younger brother's family comes to visit Conversation 4: Getting merchandise for the store Conversation 5: At the hairdresser's Conversation 6: A family chat on a Sunday afternoon Conversation 7: At a death wake Conversation 8: The death of acquaintances Conversation 9: At a camera store Conversation 10: Talking about jobs BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX MAPS Map 2.1: Historical map of Java and Madura Map 2.2: East Java Province Map 2.3: Town of Pasuruan Map 3.1: Dialect map of East Java ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to my Special Committee, Professors Linda Waugh, John Wolff, Benedict Anderson and John McCoy, for guiding me through the research and writing of the thesis on which this work is based. I would also like to thank the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics at Cornell University for my teaching fellowship (1978~1982)~and the Graduate School for the Sage Graduate Fellowship (1980-1981). My thanks go to the Ford Foundation for my travel grant, and to the Social Science Research Council for the grant from the International Doctoral Research Fellowship Program for South- east Asia of the Socia1,ScienceResearch Council and the American Council of Learned Societies with funds provided by the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. I would also like to thank the Cornell Southeast Asia Program for supplementing the S.S.R.C. write-up support for 1983-1984, and for providing off ice space. Special thanks go to all my informants in Pasuruan, and to friends and col- leagues at Cornell for their moral support. Jim Collins helped to smooth out my language for the publication of this work; I thank him for his invaluable help. Similarly, my sincere thanks to Wim Stokhof, Lois Carrington for her fine editing and indexing, and Richard C.Y. Lee for his beautiful calligraphy. And finally, a very warm thankyou to Papi, Mami, Mak, Oom Hok Liong, Tante Hoen and Ruddy, for their constant support from far away. Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 AIM AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY This study has as its aim the sociolinguistic description of a Chinese minority community in the town of Pasuruan, East Java. More particularly, in this study I will attempt to look into the interrelation between language behaviour and language attitudes on the one hand and ethnic and class identity on the other. I will look into the situation of the Chinese as an entity and of the variations within the entity. In this way, I hope to discuss the variations in the conunun- ity by looking into variations in language use and attitudes. Furthermore, I will attempt to examine changes that have been and are taking place in the community, mostly as a result of the position of the Chinese asa minority group under pres- sure to assimilate into the majority group, namely indigenous Indonesians. I will also look into the directions which future developments might take. The scope of the study is limited to those people who identify themselves and/or are identified by others as Chinese in Pasuruan.' Since in many ways Chinese see themselves as different and separate from other inhabitants of Pasuruan, and are also seen in that way by the latter, I will assume that they form a community in the sense that they can be seen as a distinct group of people, if only demographically speaking and not in a real sense. I do not claim that the results of the study apply to other Chinese communities in Java or, more generally, in Indonesia. However, one should keep in mind that the Chinese of Pasuruan are sociopolitically a part of the ethnic Chinese of Indonesia. This study is thus a case study, in which I will examine how the social, cultural and political situation in which the Chinese of Pasuruan find themselves affects the interplay between language use and attitudes on the one hand and ethnic and class identity on the other. I would now like to define the terms I will use throughout the present work. A Chinese is anyone who identifies him/herself as Chinese and/or is identified as Chinese by other people, Chinese and non-Chinese alike.' Although the name Pasuruan is used to refer to the town and the regency of which it is the capital, in this study I will confine myself to discussing the situation of the Chinese community in the town. Language as a general term comprises language behaviour or language use and language attitudes. Language behaviour is limited to verbal behaviour; I will not discuss kinesics and proxemics in any depth here. Language behaviour and language use will be used interchangeably to mean the ways in which people use language and the purposes for which they use it. Language attitudes is used to mean the opinions that people have concerning a certain language, as well as the way in which they behave on the basis of those opinions. Ethnic identity refers to one's identity as a member of an ethnic group, namely a group of people who feel they are part of a certain group A rather than B and are will- ing to be identified as such, based on physical, sociocultural and sociolinguis- tic criteria. Wherever relevant and necessary, the term subethnic identity will be used to refer to one's identity as a member of a sociocultural subgroup within an ethnic community. Class identity in general refers to one's socioeconomic status. However, the term does not only refer to one's present status but also to one's family's status in the past which may be reflected in language behaviour and attit~des.~Other less general terms will be defined when they are discussed for the first time in the body of the work. 1.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY 1.2.1 Studying the Chinese of Indonesia: a cultural approach Although numerous studies have been conducted on the Chinese of IndonesiaI4 not many of them examine their cultural life. The majority of the studies place a strong emphasis on the political, economic and social aspects of the Chinese. 5 One would admit that it is highly important to study the Chinese of Indonesia by approaching those aspects, since after all the Chinese community as it is now has been the result of various political, economic and social policies of the different powers that have ruled Indonesia in the past 400 years or so. However, as Coppel (1977a) argues, the lack of a cultural dimension to the study of the Chinese of Indonesia "has distorted our perceptions and understanding of the political dimension to which so much attention has been given" (p.22). Elsewhere (Coppel 1977b3, he argues that there are dangers in looking at the Chinese minority in isolation. It may well be that we have exaggerated the extent to which Dutch colonial policies succeeded in keeping Chinese and indigenous Indonesians separate. (pp.181-182) In this study I will use a theoretical framework which acknowledges the import- ance of the political, economic and social dimensions of the Chinese of Indonesia as people who can be categorised as a commercial bourgeoisie, but which also recognises the importance of a cultural dimension.