Abstract
This opinion paper is about a probability in language use, about how a competent speaker should be aware of speaking for politeness or for camaraderie, and be capable of avoiding impoliteness. The main aspects of pragmatics are briefly introduced and then elaborated as building-blocks ofcharacter language. The proposed building blocks are: 1) elaboration of meaning and form strategies, 2) distant languageand close language strategies, 3) politeness and camaraderie strategies, 4) object language and metalanguage strategies. A view on character language in Indonesian context is given, on how politeness, camaraderie, and impoliteness are elaborated; and then, six phases ofcharacter languagebuilding are proposed as a verbal social project: 1) interaction phase, 2) teaching-and-learning process phase, 3) evaluation phase, 4) re-evaluation phase, 5) verification phase, 6) selection phase. Upon the completion of a character language building, a competent speaker is presumably well-equipped for using language in a particular situation that may call.
Highlights
I am not very sure whether this idea works or not, despite my preference or earnest hope on the former to the latter
As I once presented this topic in an international conference on English Language Teaching(ELT) in 20111, and, in the following year, in an international BIPA (Indonesian for Non-Native Speakers) Conference in 20122, both held in distinguished private universities in Indonesia, I found out that, not unexpectedly, because people kept talking about how character students should be in the language teaching and character building in the 2011 conference, and because people talked more about Indonesian language teaching (BIPA) in the 2012 conference―both missed the talk about language with character―this raw concept of thesis did not find its path
The elaborations of meaning and form strategies, distant language and close language strategies, politeness and camaraderie strategies, and object language and metalanguage strategies are evaluated by the teacher teaching a character language
Summary
I am not very sure whether this idea works or not, despite my preference or earnest hope on the former to the latter. The search on meaning was revived by Austin with his speech acts theory (Austin, 1957), and advocated by Searle (Searle, 1965), i.e. pragmatics, a branch of functional linguistics we can enjoy learning today. Politeness and friendship (or better: camaraderie) have become a central issue in what has tempted me for years, whether language use is to hearers with power factor or whether it is to hearers with solidarity factor This far, we have come to the so-called distant language or close language (Jumanto, Teaching a Character BIPA (Indonesian for Non-Native Speakers), 2012).
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