Educating the Indonesian Language A Proposed Verbal Social Project for the National Harmony

Abstract

Abstract—This paper presents the exploration of language use pragmatically and to propose educating the Indonesian language as a verbal social project for the national harmony. The word educating here is beyond in-classroom teaching-learning process, as it also involves family and societal participation in the project. With the formats of Distant Indonesian Language (DIL) and Close Indonesian Language (CIL), this proposition is important to avoid rude situations and awkward situations to different types of hearer. Within the formats, DIL is spoken to superiors, while CIL is spoken to close people. Ineligible use of the two formats may cause either situation to happen, which may lead to interpersonal or social friction, or the national disharmony. The formats have never been researched on nor applied in the Indonesian language education policy so far. The social project in this scheme comprises six phases, namely (1) in-family interaction phase, (2) in-classroom teaching-learning process phase, (3) in-school evaluation phase, (4) in-school re-evaluation phase, (5) in-public verification phase, and (6) in-society selection phase. Each phase in this verbal social project is described and justified for its efficacy to contribute to the national harmony. Theoretically, this research develops the notions of positive and negative face, positive and negative politeness strategies, respect and solidarity politeness, and politeness and camaraderie, with elaborated types of hearer. Empirically, this study presents to reduce or to eliminate rude and awkward situations. Keywords—Indonesian language; politeness theory; verbal social project; national harmony