Thoughts on language planning

Thoughts on language planning

By Setiono

JAKARTA (JP): The development of Bahasa Indonesia since 1928
has encountered a great number of obstacles. One of the obvious
is reflected in the conflict to develop the lexicon of this
language. There are, on the one hand, proponents who hold the
view that borrowing words from Western languages, especially
English, provides the basis for developing the terminology of
modern science and technology, industry, commerce, government
administrations, as well as higher education. Moreover, the
employment of English words can convey the concept of modernity
and sophistication. In this respect, word borrowing from Western
languages, especially English, can be connected to not only
linguistic reasons but also sociolinguistic considerations.

If analyzed further from the linguistic viewpoint, English
words are inevitably borrowed into Bahasa Indonesia due to at
least three fundamental reasons. First, English loanwords serve
as a lexical gap filler in Bahasa Indonesia. These loanwords stem
primarily from terms of modern science and technology, which are
normally advanced in Western countries.

Therefore, words such as radiasi, nuklir, and radio-aktif, are
necessarily borrowed into Bahasa Indonesia on the grounds that
they denote new things for which the lexical stock of Bahasa
Indonesia does not possess the term. Second, English loanwords
are used to suffice the lack of Bahasa Indonesia's lexicon. This
is due to the fact that many adopted Western loanwords cannot be
appropriately substituted by ordinary words in Bahasa Indonesia.
Thus, words such as delegasi (delegation), staf (staff) and
defisit (deficit), are inevitably adopted because their referents
or notions are so distinctive that no Bahasa Indonesia lexical
items can provide the subtleties or nuances. Finally, Bahasa
Indonesia is so receptive toward English loanwords that English
loanwords can be transformed into various parts of speech through
Bahasa Indonesia affixation, once the word has undergone
phonological and morphological nativization.

On sociolinguistic considerations, lexical borrowing from
Western languages is motivated by the symbolic association
related to social values of the language community. If related to
a certain domain such as advertising, English loanwords are used
to evoke features of ethnocultural stereotype in the audience's
mind as "practical use", "high quality", and "international
appreciation". Thus, according to Weinreich, if a language is
granted prestige, the bilingual is more likely to use
identifiable words of that language as a means of "displaying the
social status which its knowledge symbolized".

On the other hand, there are also proponents who strongly
reject the lexical borrowings from Western languages,
particularly English. They argue that borrowing from Western
languages may cause the linguistic segregation of Indonesia's
elite technocrats from the elite mass unfamiliar with these
terms. Conversely, borrowing from Sanskrit and indigenous
languages such as Javanese, Sundanese, Minangkabau, etc., can
maintain and strengthen Indonesian traditions and cultures as
well as promote a feeling of nationalism among the Indonesian
people.

The strong sentimental attitude to reject English loanwords is
reflected in the attempts to create a policy that replaces
English loanwords with Sanskrit and indigenous languages.
Consider, for example, the English loanwords institusi, fokus,
efektif, and efisien which, respectively, have been indigenized
into pranata, pumpunan, mangkus, and sangkil. It is also
interesting to note that the interest in using classical versions
of the indigenous languages occurs not only as a replacement of
the English loanwords but also as a substitution of the
established Indonesian words. Hence, words such as setakat,
penyelia, and terbabit, among others, are strongly recommended by
central authorities in their use instead of the words/phrases
sampai sekarang (hitherto), pengawas (supervisor), and terlibat
(involved), subsequently.

In this discussion, I would be inclined to argue that the
deliberate attempts to create and implement the above policy are
more likely to face resistances and may hamper rather than
enhance the communication between the central authorities and
society. There are at least two reasons that can be accounted for
to support my argument.

First and foremost, the above English loanwords are widely
accepted and used by certain segments of the Indonesian
population, such as journalists, writers, media commentators,
language teachers, and the like. Empirical research shows that
nongovernment agencies like journalists and writers create and
spread vocabulary with far greater success than a government
bureau. Therefore, efforts to indigenize those loanwords will
less likely have a desirable acceptance by all segments of
language users.

Second, in a multiethnic society like Indonesia, disseminating
such a new policy product may create confusion since words taken
from certain local languages are not known by certain societies
coming from other ethnic groups. The new policy is likely to be
perceived as attempts to force individuals to choose loyalty to
the central authorities, who represent certain ethnic groups.

Thus, it is apparent that contemporary treatment of language
planning in Indonesia does not seem to be sufficiently sensitized
to the complexity of the social rationale of language planning in
practice. Moreover, our language planners have been
insufficiently aware of the social implications of their
decisions. A case study of Irish language planning conducted by
John Macnamara provides an excellent lesson for our language-
planning activities. He suggests that one of the reasons why
Irish language planning has been unsuccessful is the lack of
sensitivity toward the social aspects.

Language planning, therefore, should not take place in vacuo.
This means that language planning has a sociocultural dimension
and must consider the facts of language within the fuller social
context. Since a salient set of goals of language planning
concerns the improvement of communication, it must not be
isolated from the wider social concerns for the improvement of
the entire communication system.

In order to enhance a productive and meaningful communications
with the society, it is imperative that central authorities take
into account several essential issues, such as: What attempts are
made to influence or convince language users to adopt or use the
"products" of language planning? What do language users know
about the language-planning agencies and about their major
"recent product"? And, what are the "attitudes or preferential
views" of the language users with respect to the language
products in question?

In response to these questions, I suggest that the central
authorities disseminate their "recent products" through, for
instance, Lembar Komunikasi (a sort of flier published monthly by
the National Center for Language Development) or through "print
media" such as language rubrics. Through these media, input and
significant feedback from the language users can be obtained and,
thus, can assist language planners to find out the attitude or
preferential views of the language users with respect to language
products.

Finally, attempts should also be made in order to assure that
different groups within the society, varying in their linguistic
repertoires (for either ethnic or social class reasons), have
equal access to the system and opportunities to participate in
language planning. In other words, language planning has to
include not only language specialists but also all varieties of
language users, including teachers, especially language teachers,
groups of journalists and media commentators.

The writer is a teaching staff member at the University of
Indonesia's English Department, Faculty of Education.