Statement of the Problem

Title: Women and politeness: The hybrid language and culture of Chinese Indonesian women in Surabaya{From the Dissertation research (2001): Women and Politeness: A sociolinguistic study of two Chinese Indonesian mother-daughter pairs in Surabaya.}

Author: Esther KuntjaraYear of publication: 2009Publisher: VDM Verlag, Germany.Pages: 158

Statement of the Problem

• How does the language behavior of the four Chinese Indonesian women from two generations reveal the concept of politeness?

• What language changes and language maintenance can be seen from the two generations of Chinese Indonesian women?

• What does the use of politeness show about their being Chinese Indonesian.

Subjects of the StudyMother (+ 50 years old)- Chinese education background- Strong orientation in Chinese

tradition & culture- Business woman- Has 4 children (2 boys & 2 girls)

Daughter (+ 20 years old)- S1 degree in English- Catholic- Assisting her mother’s and her

husband’s business- Has just married

Mother (+ 60 years old)- Dutch education background- More oriented towards western /

Dutch culture- Home Business woman- Has 3 daughters

Daughter (+30 years old)- S1 degree in Law- Catholic- Manage her own business as

public notary- Has 2 sons

Methods

Qualitative Ethnographic StudyParticipant ObservationUnstructured Interview

Oral History Constant Comparative Method

Working Hypotheses Triangulation

Conceptual Framework

Brown and Levinson (’78 &

’87) “Model Person” Pos & Neg face

Asian languages of politeness:Matsumoto (1988)Ide (1989)Gu (1990)Mao (1993) etc.

Indonesian Politeness?Appropriateness?

Other languages:Holmes (1995)Tannen (1990)BlumKulka (1987)Etc.

The Speech Acts of Politeness

Terms of address Compliments and their responses Show of appreciation and gratitudes Requests and their responses Apologies

The language behavior that revealed the concept of politeness

• Chinese educated background females showed a tendency of maintaining the Chinese customs that show humility and indirectness. The Dutch educated background females showed more flexibility and pragmatism.

• Compliments and apologies were hardly used by Chinese Indonesian females.

The Language Change

• Younger generation Chinese Indonesian females adapted more to the Indonesian and western customs of politeness language.

• Younger generation Chinese Indonesian female from the Dutch educated mother was more pragmatic and egalitarian than the younger generation female of the Chinese educated mother.

Language Maintenance

• Younger Chinese educated background female maintained the use of Chinese terms to show their pride of being Chinese.

• Younger Dutch educated background female maintained the use of silent language in order to avoid conflict and to sustain relationships.

Being Chinese Indonesians

• Older Chinese Indonesian females used Chinese terms to reflect the fact that being Chinese was undeniable.

• Younger Chinese Indonesian females used direct as well as indirect speech acts and Indonesian terms showing either she was ambivalent about her Chineseness or a strong detachment of being Chinese.

Gender, Bahasa dan KekuasaanPenulis: Esther KuntjaraPenerbit: BPK Gunung MuliaTh terbit: 2003, 2004.

Thank you …