Language Shift, Gender, and Ideologies of Modernity in Central Java, Indonesia.

Smith-Hefner, Nancy J.

This article explores the shift away from formal styles of Javanese to the use of the national language, Indonesian, within the context of new educational and social opportunities for Javanese youth. It focuses on gender differences in language attitudes and considers how socialization and cultural ideologies regarding men's and women's relationship to language shape those attitudes. Recent changes in possibilities for social and status mobility linked to language use have challenged traditional language ideologies and have led Javanese men and women to develop different language strategies and patterns of interaction. A new subjective concern with emotional and interpersonal expressivity among youth—particularly among young women—is identified as an important mediating valence in the shift to varieties of Indonesian identified as more “communicative” and “participatory.” [Indonesia, language shift, gender, ideologies of modernity]

JAVA (Indonesia); INDONESIA; LANGUAGE policy; IDEOLOGICAL analysis; MODERNITY; MODERN society

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2009, Vol 19, Issue 1, p57

1055-1360

Academic Journal

10.1111/j.1548-1395.2009.01019.x