Javanese on the internet [2002] (Arps with Supriyanto)

2012

This ethnographic study of language use and English language learners in Central Java, Indonesia examines globalization processes within and beyond language; processes of language shift and change in language ecologies; and critical and comprehensive approaches to the teaching of English around the world. From my position as teacher-researcher and insider-outsider in an undergraduate English Department and the community surrounding the university, I engaged in reflections with students and educators in examining local language ecologies; needs for and access to English language resources; and how English majors negotiated "double positionalities" as both members of a global community of English speakers and experts in local meaning systems within which English forms played a role. In order to understand English, language ecologies, and globalization in situ , I triangulated these findings with language and education policy creation and negotiation at micro-, meso- and macro- levels, (Blommaert, 2005; Hornberger & Hult, 2010; McCarty, 2011; Pennycook, 2001, 2010). Globalization is found to be part and parcel of the distribution of English around the world; however, English's presence around the world is understood to be just one manifestation of contemporary globalization. More salient are the internationalization of standards, global corporate and media flows of information, and access to educational and information resources. These are all regulated by the state which, while working to maintain an Indonesian identity, relegates local languages to peripheries in space and time, and regulates access to all language resources, creating an upward spiral of peripheralization wherein the levels of proficiency in local, national, and English languages represent access gained to state-provided educational resources.

Summary of the B.A. thesis of Sarah Schneider, submitted to the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main in May 2015 / Ringkasan skripsi B.A. oleh Sarah Sarah Schneider, Jurusan Kajian Asia Tenggara, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt, Mei 2015 Summary (English): The object of my thesis is ‘Budaya Panji’ - ‘Panji-culture’ in the context of intangible cultural heritage of Indonesia. This thesis aims to investigate the potential of this indigenous culture by outlining its competence and to question whether it fulfills the criteria for being inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The research method I used to collect my information is primarily based on academic literature and accessed through the OPAC system of the university library in Frankfurt. In addition, I made use of sources such as academic papers, popular literature, local newspapers, and internet websites. This thesis has three major purposes: (1) to outline the potential of this indigenous culture by providing a historical background of the Panji stories, their representations in literature, fine arts, performing arts in Indonesia, as well as in Mainland Southeast Asia.; furthermore to outline the symbolic meaning of the Panji stories which comprise simplicity, harmony and fertility; (2) discussing the implementation of the Panji-culture nowadays which is reflected in the media, in art activities, and in scholarly activities; (3) to demonstrate that it is worth being nominated on the Representative List and to outline the conditions of inscribing Panji-culture on the Representative List. In conclusion, the thesis aims to prove that Panji-culture is high in potentiality and is regarded as an intangible cultural heritage of Indonesia regardless of the inscription on the Representative List. However, before Panji-culture can fully be inscribed, it must be included in the Intangible Cultural Heritage National Inventory of Indonesia first, which is carried out by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in collaboration with the UNESCO Office, in Jakarta. This thesis hopes to raise awareness of Panji-culture, and thus make a contribution to the academic discourse and diversity of Indonesia’s culture. In particular it intends to enhance the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage of Indonesia. Introduction Indonesia is an archipelago located in Southeast Asia and is, through its broad variety of ethnic groups, rich in tangible as well as intangible cultural forms. This thesis is dealing with the intangible cultural heritage of Indonesia. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization referred to as UNESCO, was founded in 1945 in order to establish networks among the different nations in the world. By promoting education, protecting freedom of expression, pursuing scientific cooperation and building intercultural understanding, UNESCO strives to enable solidarity among the nations. In order to protect heritage and support cultural diversity, UNESCO created the idea of World Heritage to help preserve endangered heritages. Germany has currently 40 cultural properties inscribed on the World Heritage List. The most recent nomination is the Hamburg Speicherstadt, nominated in 2015. This nomination has a huge impact on Hamburg and Germany, as it can be seen in various media articles (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). The most famous cultural properties in Indonesia, which have been inscribed on the World Heritage List by UNESCO, are the Buddhist Temple Compound Borobudur (8th century) and the Hindu Temple Compound of Prambanan (9th century) which are both located in Central Java. These historic places are examples of tangible/material heritage and represent outstanding universal values, which are considered worthy of preservation for the future. UNESCO is also concerned with the preservation of cultural expressions, such as maintaining social customs, oral traditions, music, rituals, festivals, arts and crafts skills. These expressions are called intangible cultural heritage. Well-known intangible cultural forms of Indonesia are wayang puppet theatre, kris, batik and the angklung musical instruments. In this work I investigate the case of Panji-culture which represents a cultural identity of East Java that needs to be preserved as a cultural heritage (Nurcahyo 2009:30). It is based on the unique Panji stories which became popular during the Majapahit kingdom in East Java in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries (Vickers 2013). The Panji stories were first orally transmitted as myths and legends, then written down on palm leaves. Throughout the years, Panji stories have been visually presented and depicted through fine arts, such as in temple reliefs and sculptures, as well as through performing arts, such as various wayang and topeng performances. As the Panji stories spread in Mainland Southeast Asia, there evolved different versions of the stories which contributed to the diversity and potential of the Panji-culture today. Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos have their own interpretation of the stories. The submission of the Panji stories as documentary heritage to the UNESCO Memory of the World programme by the National Library of Indonesia in 2014 is still in process. In chapter I, a brief introduction to the figure Panji will be given. The first part of chapter II defines the terms ‘heritage’ and ‘cultural heritage’. Subsequently, the distinction between ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ heritage will be explained. The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage will be introduced with its major articles which are relevant for further discussion of this thesis. The second part of chapter II deals with heritage of Indonesia. The third part outlines the criteria for an intangible cultural heritage to be inscribed. Chapter III gives a description of the historical background of the Panji stories. Chapter IV includes background information, contents and characteristics, the representations in literary forms, fine arts, performing arts, and the Balinese and Thai versions of the Panji stories. Chapter V deals with the symbolic meaning of the Panji stories and comprises the sections simplicity, harmony and fertility. Chapter VI introduces the term ‘Budaya Panji’ — ‘Panji-culture’ which comprises the implementation of the Panji-culture nowadays: the ways of its academical representation, the relevant art activities and the ways of its manifestation through press and social media, such as Facebook. Panji-culture has drawn huge attention throughout the last years, with an immense increase in seminars and festivals throughout Indonesia and Southeast Asia, in 2014. The penultimate chapter discusses the conditions of inscribing Panji-culture on the Representative List with its potential and perspectives. By examining the Panji-culture, the final chapter rounds up the findings and concludes that Panji-culture is worth being nominated on the Representative List. Panji-culture represents a cultural pillar not only for Indonesia but for other Southeast Asian countries, as well.

2010

Contact between people and things, and the products of such contact, are increasingly discussed using the notion of semiotic complexity. Linguistic anthropologists and sociolinguists have sought to understand this complexity and its many moving parts through multiple theoretical perspectives, including enregisterment, chronotope, value, imitation, heteroglossia, superdiversity, indexical selectivity, and scale. This special issue seeks to show demonstrate how we can productively see all these theoretical bits working together at the same time, enabling us to see patterns at on yet another scale. Crucially, this viewpoint enables us to offer two meta-constructs that subsume many of these previously established theoretical parts. Our constructs are contact registers and scalar shifters. We define contact registers as sign constellations – linguistic and non-linguistic – that emerge through sustained contact between previously established registers, while the latter can be defined as semiotic configurations used to identify scales of participant frameworks with respect to time, space and/or size. We argue that offering these meta-concepts – contact registers and scalar shifters – encourages analysts to consider all of these theoretical parts and their inter-relationships, ultimately providing a more precise understanding of semiotic complexity. Scalar shifters enable interactants and analysts to identify how, and the degree to which, speakers and hearers understand the meaning and function of signs, while contact registers enables us to see how understanding is shaped by the wider ‘social order’ across time and space. The data that we use to demonstrate the utility of this approach is drawn from multiple sources from different scales of time and space in one national context, Indonesia.

Language and culture position in the society is like two sides of coin which cannot be separated. Both of them have coordinative relationship which relates each other. Masinambouw in Chaer stated "Language and culture are a system which adheres to human being". The relationship between them is difficult to be identified because either language or culture influences each other. 1 Additionally, A Germany philosopher, Willem von Humboldt once said "Language by its very nature represents the spirit and national character of a people" (Steinberg, dkk, 2001:244). This statement means that every language in the world is the culture product of the speaker in certain society. So, the point of view of a certain society will be reflected in their language. This very close relationship affects the varieties of unique languages in the whole of the world. The uniqueness of a certain language is showed by its own special characteristics which no other languages have it. Particularly, the uniqueness of language is visible in territory language in Java Island which is Javanese language. As a result, Javanese culture has made many influential roles towards several aspects of Javanese language uniqueness in term of the vocabularies, the politeness norm, and the scripts.

In this paper I will provide brief examples of syncretism between languages defined as Indonesian, Javanese, and English, with a focus on the former two. The examples below are based on my own recent examinations of linguistic landscapes, communicative repertoires, and language in education polices in Central Java, Indonesia. These examples combine to demonstrate that 'modern' approaches to language that treat language as contained and singular entities rarely capture the realities of language use on the ground, which is generally informed by much more fluid and long-term histories than language policies can, or are intended to, account for.

Recollecting Resonances, 2013

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual "Brill" typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.

Yearbook for traditional music, 2002

In this article we analyse some developments in the popular music of Indonesia, especially those that have occurred during the last five years. The concept of "popular music" in present-day Indonesia is discussed briefly along with an analysis of how it is used in the negotiation of the identity of particular communities, playing a vital role in a dialogue of power at local, national and global levels. We ask how the different pop scenes comment on and act to change society in an age of shifting identities and sensibilities. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, issues of copyright and intellectual property rights seem to have become even more important than they were in the 1990s.