On language democratization
By Joko Kusmanto
BANDUNG (JP): Democratization of discourse or language needs thorough investigation as many of our expressions are inherited from our ancestors who lived in an undemocratic environment.
Democratization of discourse or language has attracted Dr. A. Chaedar Alwasilah, a graduate school lecturer of Bandung Teachers Training Institute, and Riyadi Santosa, a lecturer at the Sebelas Maret University's School of Letters in Surakarta, Central Java, to write articles in The Jakarta Post, showing that they both shared the idea that seems to be the problem of the language use practiced in Indonesian political discourse.
Alwasilah's article "Language democratization a must" was published in the newspaper on July 3 and "Language education builds critical thinking on Aug. 3, while Santoso's "Language democratization needs more understanding" was printed on July 13.
One that was given much attention to and which pertains to the Indonesian political discourse dealt with the use of euphemism.
It can clearly be deduced from their articles that the use of euphemism reflects the undemocratic language imposed on Indonesian political discourse by government officials.
Their major difference lies in the methodology of their analyses. Alwasilah focused his analysis on what he called "macrosociolinguistic" realities, while Santosa based his analysis on Systemic Functional Linguistics -- he did not mention it explicitly, delicately.
Both of them discussed the "ideological meaning" of language use in relation to the political, social and cultural environments existing in Indonesia and related them to the present need of democratization in all aspects of life, including language use.
However, their conclusion sounded more prejudicial, since they did not investigate it also from the opposite side's point of view.
The first point that needs attention is the question of what is meant by "language democratization".
It is a term that sounds very promising but will be absolutely misleading if it is not understood well.
Either Alwasilah or Santosa seems to take its notion for granted without first of all establishing a kind of mutual understanding to hinder any misinterpretation as it presumably will raise different definitions.
The term "discourse democratization" seems to be more appropriate than "language democratization". The notion of language bears too much of a general meaning, besides it is the use of language that is not democratic, not the language per se.
The notion of discourse, in line with Fairclough (1992) in his book Discourse and Social Change, refers to a three-dimensional perspective of discourse, i.e. discourse simultaneously constitutes texts, discursive practices and social practices.
A discursive event is composed of typically distinctive texts as the realization of certain ideological, cultural and social meaning held by a group of people and inherently possesses typical characteristics compared to other discursive events.
Principally, this three-dimensional notion of discourse, in different and implicit explanations, is shared by both of them. In this case, the use of euphemism widely practiced by government officials is a discursive event.
The notion of discourse democratization refers to "the removal of inequities and asymmetries in the discourse or linguistics rights, obligations and prestige of groups of people" as stated by Fairclough. He reviews five areas of discursive democratization, viz. relation between languages and social dialects, access to prestigious discourse types, elimination of overt power markers in institutional discourse types with unequal power relations, a tendency towards informality of language, and changes in gender-related practices in language use.
It appears that the field of discourse democratization covers an extensive use of language in society -- it not only deals with government officials' language, but also deals with seemingly common practices of language use in society, such as a dialect supremacy and even a certain gender of ethnic superiority.
Therefore, it is absolutely unfair to address discourse democratization or, in Alwasilah's term, language democratization, merely to government officials' language which is claimed to be undemocratic. Meanwhile it only constitutes a small part of discursive events to be investigated in terms of democratizing language use practiced in the society.
In this point of view, discourse democratization, then, seems to be complicated, not as simple and obvious as it is commonly taken for granted.
About the phenomenon of euphemistic language excessively practiced by the government officials, it is not so easy to draw a conclusion whether such a phenomenon is related to this discussion, that is discourse democratization in terms of the above understanding.
To claim that euphemism is an undemocratic way of representing realities implies that there is an ordinate-subordinate relationship between certain euphemistic expressions and other "similar" expressions. Such an inference is certainly biased if it is not done equally to both distinctive expressions.
Rawan pangan (scarcity of food) is claimed to be the euphemistic form of kelaparan (starvation)-- both are more or less referring to hunger -- is absolutely dissimilar ideologically to kelaparan. But linguistically, politically and socially, rawan pangan is superior to kelaparan.
Rather it only represents distinctive ideologically-soaked expressions hiding the realities. In this case, there is no difference in interpretation -- as Alwasilah and Santosa said.
But explicitly, it could not be concluded that the use of this euphemism is undemocratic. On the other hand, kelaparan is an expression which is also ideologically formed by a different group of people in perceiving realities and, at some degree, exaggerates them.
It means that if rawan pangan has to be substituted by kelaparan, implicitly (1) kelaparan gains linguistic rights politically superior to rawan pangan and (2) we unilaterally impose another interpretation on the same realities. Yet this is what the undemocratic way is.
The best way to deal with such a phenomenon is just to let them live equally in the political discourse. A certain regime always brings with it its own key terminologies.
Therefore, this use of euphemism, which was excessively used during the New Order government and to a certain extent continues up to now has nothing to do with the idea of discourse democratization, rather than ideological meanings established in a certain discursive practice.
They only expose their different focus on realities, one is centered on the objects not considering the subjects, while the other one is centered on the subjects not considering the objects. Rawan pangan implies that the food is running out, while kelaparan implies the people are starving.
Henceforth, language education must be directed to cope with such a phenomenon, to enable language learners to detect any undemocratic expression and to enable language learners to differentiate whether a phenomenon of language use or that of a discourse is undemocratic or just constitutes a social variation caused by different environments in which there does not lie any idea of inequalities and asymmetries. One undemocratic expressions is the use of orang rumah (the house inhabitant) to refer to a wife. Orang rumah implies a superiority of man in the social discourse which definitely has to be avoided.
Thus, "what constitutes the democratization of discourse or language" needs further investigations, theoretical frameworks, and a historical understanding.
It cannot be denied that many expressions, ways of saying, ways of constructing language, etc. are inherited from our ancestors who lived undemocratically.
However, there are also many of them which have just been recently established in accordance with the last three decades of our political discourse.
Briefly, the idea of revealing and promoting the democratization of discourse (language in use) still invites us to conduct much further and deeper investigations.
But most of all, democratic attitudes most of us possess still necessarily have to be developed; that is what is reflected in many social activities, including in the most academic environments.
The writer is a student of Postgraduate Program of Linguistics Padjadjaran University, Bandung.
Window: The term "discourse democratization" seems to be more appropriate than "language democratization". The notion of language bears too much of a general meaning, besides it is the use of language that is not democratic, not the language per se.