CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

1. PREVIOUS FINDINGS

Researchers who have done research about Chinese and their language varieties are as follows :

Oka, (1987) in her study on Taraf Asimilasi Bahasa Cina Peranakan dan Taraf Asimilasi Bahasa Pada Siswa Cina Peranakan di SMTA, found that the assimilation level of BCP and Bahasa Indonesia is found to correlate very significantly with social interaction. Social status, however, does not show significant correlation with language assimilation. It is suspected that this might have been due to the fact that the study had assigned the students parents' social status, which might not necessarily have the students' social status. The study also reveals that Bahasa Indonesia is the primary source of interference in the use of BCP. It implies that Chinese Peranakanas students are more likely to assimilate to a national society than to a regional one. The source of interference in the use of standard Bahasa Indonesia is BCP. This 8

interference occurs very rarely and has almost no linguistic significance, however, is considerable, since it is exactly BCP interference that functions as ethnic identity marker.

Oetomo, (1984) in his study on The Chinese of Pasuruan : A Study of

Language and Identity in a Minority Community in Transition, found that there are sociolinguistic differences among the Chinese that reflected the ethnic, subethnic and class identity, even though they are classified into two codes, that is and Malay/Indonesia. Only the Chinese of the lower class and the who spoke Javanese as a code or prime language in the family and socialization. The Javanese which was spoken is Ngoko and its speech variety is a little different with that of the Javanese's. However, the

Peranakans of higher class didn't speak the Javanese both with family members and friends. On the other hand, they spoke neutral informal East

Javanese Malay. In reality, the variety mentioned above is ethnic identity marker of Chinese community, as Bahasa Indonesia was spoken by the

Chinese, primarily the well educated ones, especially when communicating with the non Chinese.

Mintowati, (1992) in her study on Struktur Kalimat Bahasa Cina

Peranakans Siswa SMA di Kotamadya discovered that the structure of BCP sentences are not different from that of Bahasa Indonesia. One thing that differentiates them is the use of elements in the Bahasa

Cina Peranakans sentences. Based on the findings, the researcher stated, an 9

opinion that Bahasa Cina Peranakan is bad, disorderly, and even destructive to

Bahasa Indonesia should not be proposed recklessly.

2. STANDARD AND NON-STANDARD LANGUAGE

In general definition, standard language is the chosen variety of a language where codes have been set through a process of development in some of its language elements like grammar and dictionaries. For the reason of codes setting process, standard language use in print or written.

In Indonesia, standard language refers to standard Bahasa Indonesia where codes have been set as they can be seen in some references like Tata

Bahasa Baku Bahasa Indonesia, Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia and Kamus

Umum Bahasa Indonesia which have been published by the department of education and culture. Those references are used to determine the differences between the standard and non-standard Bahasa Indonesia. Dictionaries are used to indicate both standard and non-standard words like "bikin (make) ", "pengen

(want) ", "nggak (no) ", "kayak (like) ", "dikasih (given) ", "gimana (how)" are all non-standard. However, "buat (make)", "ingin (want)", "tidak (no)",

"berkata (say)", "diberi (given)", "bagaimana (how) " are standard. Tata

Bahasa Baku Bahasa Indonesia is used as the grammar reference of standard

Bahasa Indonesia.

Historically, standard languages are somehow codified for some reasons like political, economic and social. Standard Bahasa Indonesia, for 10

instance, is chosen to be the "mark" of independence and liberty from the invasion of Japanese or any other countries.

Another example is the Finn (19 C)also had developed their spoken language to gain independence over the Swedes and Russians.

Standard languages may also be chosen for economic reason. Meaning, the language which is preferred to speak is the one that is spoken by economically strong people. In England, standard English is chosen just because it was used by economically powerful merchants class.

Apart of those reasons above, social status may also become the reason why a certain variety is preferred,. Again, standard English appeared

"naturally" in fifteenth century from a variety of regional English dialects, mainly because it was the variety used in the court and undoubtedly is prestigious. In other words the development of a standard language either naturally or deliberately really depends on the situations (Holmes, 1992:83).

As stated above, standard languages may occur naturally or deliberately but anyhow once set, it should serve some functions such as political, social and pedagogical. Standard Bahasa Indonesia likewise, politically is codified to eliminate diversity and variety among its people. It is meant to unify individuals and groups within a large community that results from other communities. It is "the one language" that is stated in the Constitution (

Mathoot and Garvin, 1975).

Socially, standard languages reflect and symbolize some kind of identity to their speakers. They give prestige to those who employ it. In the 11

Philippines, for instance, those who have the proficiency in speaking standard

English are those who go to universities or belong to well educated class.

Those who do not have the proficiency are non-educated class. Even in United

States, black people who use to speak Black English tend to speak standard

American English if they belong to high class community as the language reflects their social status and prestige.

Standard languages should also serve pedagogical function. Meaning, the languages are the means of communication at schools, universities and other higher education institutions. They should be the effective means of communication among the experts of any scientific fields in any scientific meetings or seminars (Kridalaksana, 1978).

On the contrary about standard languages as stated above, non-standard languages or vernaculars refer to any uncodified or unstandardised varieties used in communities and which do not have any official status ( Tanner, 1967 and Holmes, 1992). In Indonesia, non-standard languages may refer to any ethnic languages like Javanese, Balinese and Madurese even the non-standard variety of Bahasa Indonesia.

Non-standard languages which are also called vernaculars are the first languages learned by people. In multilingual country they refer to languages spoken in community. These varieties are usually lack of prestige as society consider these languages as low varieties . They are associated with speakers from under privileged, low status groups. Nevertheless, non-standard languages are not "bad" or "incorrect" languages. The differences between standard and 12

non-standard languages are merely due to their prestige and functions, as linguistically, non-standard languages are also adequate for the needs of the speakers since nobody speaks one variety all the time.

Unlike the standard languages which serve some important functions, non-standard languages do not. They are often used for a relatively narrow range of informal functions. Non-standard languages are spoken among friends and acquaintances and usually are acquired in the home. Further, they are used in informal daily conversations. People tend to speak these varieties to show intimacy and use them when they write to their friends and intimates. The non­ standard languages are the solidarity languages between people of the same . The Chinese Indonesian, for example, usually speak Bahasa Cina

Peranakan which is their vernacular to show solidarity among them. The

Javanese people speak low variety of Javanese language (Ngoko)as their vernacular to show intimate relationship among them. However, both

Indonesian ethnic groups above, also use another variety as their vernacular like non-standard Bahasa Indonesia which practically both standard and non­ standard Bahasa Indonesia have the same meaning like "kenapa" and

"mengapa" which means "why". The differences between the two varieties can be in the words or phrases which are shortened, lengthened or changed. 13

3. LANGUAGE VARIATIONS AND SOCIAL FACTORS

The language we speak identify who we are. Through social relationships we establish by making conversations with the people we meet, we give information about ourselves. People will know whether we are well educated or not by listening to the language variety we speak. For instance, when we talk to a foreigner we will find out that he is a businessman because he might use the term like "marketing". He does not necessarily say his occupation as his language may speak for itself.

The example above shows that social backgrounds may reflect in our language varieties .Social backgrounds are varied, however, they might be classified into two categories. The first one is the inner social backgrounds that is the backgrounds that come within ourselves and the other is outer social backgrounds that is the backgrounds that come beyond ourselves. The inner social backgrounds refer to sex, age, ethnicity, and social status like parental education. On the other hand, outer social backgrounds include social networks like church membership, leisure time activities and community organizations, place of residence and education (Holmes, 1992; Fasold and Trudgil, 1974).

As one of the inner social backgrounds, ethnicity the kind of language variations one's speak. Chinese , for instance, often signal their ethnicity with linguistics tags, such as the expressive of "/a" and phrases or words from their ethnic language. Sometimes an individual use short phrases, or verbal fillers to signal their ethnicity when a complete conversation using 14

that ethnic language is impossible. Another example, in the , the

Afro-Americans use the language known as Black English to signal their ethnicity. One of its most distinctive features that does not occur in standard

American English is the absence of the copula "be" in some social and linguistic context. For example, Afro-Americans change the sentence of

American English "she is (she's) very happy " becomes "she very happy". The similar thing happens in Britain where Gujerati, Panjarabi, and Turkish generally use Patois, the variety of Jamaican Creole used by British Blacks to signal their ethnic background. Patois has a number of linguistic features such as pronunciation, including stress and intonation patterns which differ from those of standard English. Words like then and thin are pronounced [den] and

[tin]. Plural from mi is used for I, me, and my (e.g. mi niem for "my name").

In Indonesia, however, the have a very distinctive ways to signal their ethnicity. They have their own language which is not only taken from the variety of Bahasa Indonesia but also the Javanese and Chinese language. This language is called Bahasa Cina Peranakans (BCP), or

Malay (Oetomo, 1984) or Chindo (Rafferty, 1978). BCP is a mix of several languages such as Bahasa Indonesia, Javanese, Chinese (Hokkian / Mandarin).

Just like the , Chinese Indonesians, also expose their ethnicity by "borrowing" some words of the Chinese language even when they speak Bahasa Indonesia. Usually, the borrowings refer to numbers relationships, object, concept, and certain practices related to Chinese culture

(Oetomo, 1986). 15

Social class relates to the differences in social prestige, wealth and education. The division of class are based on status which refers to the differences or respect people give someone for his economic and social status.

Somebody who is rich is respected for his wealth and the daughter of an ex president may be poor but respected for his father's social status.

Education may give someone a social prestige that associate with social class, as "education represents the most single important avenue for advancement up the class ladder" (Vander Zanden, 1970 : 323). Meaning, the high education someone's achieve, the high social status he gets. In addition to education, social class may also refer to wealth. Place of residence shows how wealthy a person is. People who live in a expensive real estate areas are considered high class and their language pattern is not likely the same as those who live in rural areas that belongs to low class. People for different social classes speak differently and the most obvious difference in vocabulary. In the

1950s, in English, for example, many pairs of words were identified to have distinguished the speech of upper class and lower class. The upper class groups claimed to use bag, sofa and relations whereas the non upper claimed to use handbag, settee, and relatives (Holmes, 1992 : 148-149).

Language variation are also associated with social networks. Social networks refer to the pattern of informal relationship people are involved in on regular basis. Schools, community organizations, church membership are all social networks. Milroy (1980a) hypothesized that social networks an individual belongs to exerts the most powerful, and interesting, influences on 16

individual's linguistic behavior. In addition Holmes states that people's speech should reflect the type of network they belong if we want to belong to the group and like the people in it. A study which examined language shift is

Oberwart on the Austrian and Hungarian border made good use of the concept of social networks. Some people in the Oberwart who worked in the fields and kept farm animals as their parents did were more likely to prefer Hungarian as their primary language, while those who worked in the industries who made more contacts with their industrial jobs prefer German.

Another social background that may be influential to one's language is reading habit. This assumption is based on the Tarigan's theory (Tarigan,

1992) about the relation between reading and speaking skill. Further Russel and Russel use the formula below to contrast and versus reading and auding ( = menyimak ): "Seeing is to hearing, as observing is to listening, as reading is to auding." As so, auding means listening with complete understanding and attention as well as appreciation (Russell and Russell, 1959; Anderson,

1972:69).

Tarigan (1986: 9-10) clarifies the theory as follows: "Auding and reading are closely attached since both are means of getting information within the communication activity; the difference lies within its kinds of communication. Auding refers to oral communication and reading refers to written communication. However, they are used to get the same purpose that is to get information, understand the context or message, understanding the meaning of communication." In summary, reading attentively does not only 17

give information but also the whole contents of the text. It can be said that the language used in the reading material is one of the contents that is received through the auding. So, reading may influence one's language as well.