Revitalizing Local Wisdom in Balinese Simile: An Effort to Enhance Balinese Youth Character

Abstract

The moral message in local languages is often referred to as local wisdom. Local wisdom plays a very important role in people's lives since it is used as a means and basis for solving their encountered various problems. As one of the big local languages in Indonesia, the Balinese language contains many figurative languages that are rich in local wisdom values. The values have proven to be a shield to protect the Balinese people and their culture from the globalization attack. For this reason, local wisdom found in Balinese figurative language needs to be revitalized to be understood and implemented by the younger generation of Bali. One of the figurative languages studied in this study is the simile. Similes of the Balinese language are studied by combining three approaches, namely ecolinguistic, pragmatic, and cultural approaches, to reach detailed analysis results. Simile as part of a metaphor is an expression or discourse conveyed by the speaker indirectly to the interlocutor with certain aims and objectives. The ecolinguistic approach examines the form, function, and meaning or ideology contained in metaphorical language. Meanwhile, a pragmatic approach and a cultural approach are used to assist the ecolinguistic approach in uncovering the functions of figurative language in society and explaining the meaning or ideology existing in Balinese society. The values were reviewed for relevance to the current people's lives contaminated by information technology and tourism development.