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.