Social contexts of the pronoun usage in Balinese

Abstract

There are a number of previous studies on the grammatical aspects of Balinese have been done, however, specific studies that deal with the social aspects of the language are still lacking. This research fulfils this gap and can be utilized in developing materials for teaching and learning Balinese. In this way, the interaction of linguistic research and language teaching and learning can be put into practice. Context in language use is very important. An utterance in one language has functions other than referential; the stylistic shifts of the utterance often mark different social relationships. Balinese is a language that employs speech styles or levels. The principal purpose of this research is to study the impact of the traditional social class which is known as the caste system on pronoun usage in Balinese. This study is a descriptive-qualitative study. It was conducted by observing the uses of pronouns found in Balinese written texts and the analysis and discussion are done descriptively. The results of the data analysis showed that the traditional caste system is significant in determining the choice of pronouns in Balinese.