Abstract
As part of a large survey project designed to examine language shift in Indonesia, we examine speakers’ categorization and labeling of the language varieties in their repertoire with respect to language ideologies and the language ecology of Indonesia. This paper is both a methodological paper – arguing for the usefulness of surveys in the investigation of language shift scenarios – as well as an initial report of findings from those surveys, focusing on how speakers in different parts of Indonesia name language varieties. We demonstrate the benefits of a survey with open-ended questions about linguistic repertoire in investigating the use of particular language labels as markers of local and national identity and discuss these in terms of differences in local language ecologies on the islands of Bali, Java, and Sumatra. In addition, we report on how language labels are used in different communities in Indonesia in the context of different local ecologies, and against a backdrop of widespread reported language shift from the local languages of the Indonesian archipelago to the national language Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), following decades of successful language planning efforts promoting Indonesian as a unifying language in a linguistically diverse nation.
Funding source: Fulbright Association
Funding source: Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Linguistic justice and global English: theoretical and empirical approaches
- English as a lingua franca and linguistic justice: insights from exchange students’ experiences
- Unequal English accents, covert accentism and EAL migrants in Australia
- New understandings of the rise of English as a medium of instruction in higher education: the role of key performance indicators and institutional profiling
- English as a global language?: Naturalization of English through intellectual habitus in Korean academia
- Both necessary and irrelevant: political economy and linguistic injustice of English in higher education in Kazakhstan
- The value(s) of English as global linguistic capital: a dialogue between linguistic justice and sociolinguistic approaches
- Varia
- Aboriginal linguistic exchange in an Australian city
- Language labeling and ideology in Indonesia