When Human is Depicted as Birds: Moral Education through Javanese Saloka

Abstract

Saloka is one of Javanese proverbs which includes comparison of human to other objects, such as goods or animals. Concerning on its structure, Javanese saloka can be expressed in various linguistic units, for instances word, phrase, even clause. Generally, the use of proverb in Javanese people‟s everyday life is still solid, especially when it is involved in advice, criticism, or quibble. In addition, another charm of Javanese saloka lies on the choice of vehicles – what is used to depict the object of discussion – in which human is portrayed as a thing or animal. For that reason, this study aims to reveal the use of bird types as a representation of human in Javanese saloka that contains moral values. The approach of qualitative descriptive was utilized in this work, extracting the data from several books of Javanese proverbs collection. Subsequently, the collected data was analysed through semantic metaphor with the help of literature such as journal articles, encyclopaedia, and internet sources. The result of the study shows that there are nine types of bird mentioned in Javanese saloka: beluk „owl‟, cocak „bulbul‟, dhandhang „crow‟, emprit „Javan munia‟, glathik „padda or Java sparrow‟, jalak „starling‟, kontul „heron‟, pecruk „cormorant‟, and peking „scaly-breasted munia or spice finch‟. Likewise, the motivations behind the use of bird types in Javanese saloka include: (1) bird habit; (2) bird colour; (3) bird size; and (4) bird chirp characteristics. To finish, the objective of saloka with b