English versus Bahasa

 

Several months ago I read a short writing in one blog belonging to a youngster (I forgot how young, but I suppose he was still in college for his bachelor’s degree). He complained when one day in one cyber café he heard two users speaking English, and both of them were Indonesians. The blogger considered that they JUST wanted to show off their capability in English! What was wrong with our own national language—Bahasa Indonesia? Why didn’t they just use it instead? He asked himself.

(I am really sorry I forgot to quote the site address. )

Last August 9 2007, Suara Merdeka published one article entitled “Alat Pemersatu Kurang Laku”; page 6 different from the one I quoted above but similar. The writer said that the phenomenon of people using foreign terms, such as bus way, three in one, etc showed that Indonesian people do not love their own language. 

I love writing in English. Perhaps because I am an English teacher and I am accustomed to thinking in English when the first time I made a blog, I used English as the media. Moreover my blog where I got lots of warm comments from people all over the world was at an English website (www.blog.co.uk) This made me write in English more and more. I started writing in Bahasa even when I made friend with an Indonesian guy living in New Zealand. This best friend whom I call ‘Abang’ said that he was somewhat tired to speak English all the time there so he enjoyed speaking Bahasa when communicating with me and some other mailing list friends who live all around the world. My other mailing list friends also said the same thing—they would prefer to speak Bahasa to each other rather than to use English because they wanted to maintain their capability in Bahasa. Instead of using English (to show off who is the best to use this international language after living abroad for years, for instance), they chose the national language to communicate!

So, in this small scope, I absolutely don’t agree with the narrow-minded opinion that when people speak foreign language—English for example—it means the speaker doesn’t love the national language. I want to speak English with my daughter—especially in public so that people will not know what we are talking about, and not just to show off—but she refused to respond in English, perhaps because she is not used to it, or because she felt uncomfortable to people around that perhaps would judge us as arrogant. Meanwhile, I just want her to practice her capability in listening and speaking with me (besides to speak secretly in public). Anything wrong with this learning process? Learning does not always take place in classrooms, does it?  

In a bigger scope, such as the use of Bahasa for titles of books, especially for literature—read it as novels, dramas, or poems, including movies—I am of opinion that in literature, people are free to express their being artistic and creative in using any language. In literature, the choice of one word—in any language—can mean a lot. If the word is changed into another word, the creator probably will think that the ‘sense’ is different. For the name of some television programs, or the name of some buildings / malls  / offices, I somewhat agree that they had better use Bahasa. Should the government made a regulation about this? I don’t really agree with this though. To me this is not really crucial, compared to the government’s responsibility to provide job vacancies for the citizens so that they don’t need to go abroad to be migrant workers only to “let themselves killed by the irresponsible and cruel employers”; or to alleviate the poverty; or to decrease the prices of everything; or many other things: including paying attention to some insane mayors or regents of some cities/regencies in Indonesia that tend to make crazy regulations (such as checking female students’ virginity!!!)

In this globalization era, we all must realize that mastering one international language—in many cases English is considered to be the lingua franca. To master an international language, people must practice it again and again anywhere and anytime, including in public places, with whoever they speak. Will it decrease our love to our own national language? I don’t agree with it. Will it make Bahasa not be used as the national lingua franca among ethnic groups in Indonesia? I don’t agree with it either. The Javanese absolutely need Bahasa to communicate with the Sundanese or Balinese or any other ethnic groups in Indonesia when they don’t understand Boso Jowo (Javanese language). Even in some areas where there are many tribes like in Papua where each ethnic has respective local language and the people don’t understand each other, they need Bahasa to communicate with each other. 

We will always need Bahasa to communicate with our fellow citizens from different ethnic groups who have different local language. Meanwhile, speaking English—or any other foreign language—will not easily reduce our love to our own national language. 

PT56 21.49 190807

Language

 

Language is arbitrary. That was what one of my lecturer said when we talked about the main core of semiotics. There is no reason why one thing is called a certain word. “Let us take the word fuck for example.” He went one saying. That word can be vulgar to swear people, but that can also mean something else, such as very, in a sentence, ‘this food is fucking delicious.”

Last night, before starting our class, my students and I talked about some names that mean one thing in one language, but it doesn’t mean anything in another language. For example, one of the student’s name is Luh Made Setyowati. The word ‘Made’ for Balinese shows the number of that particular person in his/her family (for example if the parents have more than four children). But in English, the word ‘Made’ is the past tense of ‘make’ that means something else.

In 1977 when my family visited our big family in Gorontalo, I got to know a cousin who told me that her nickname was ‘Uyu’. In an instant I laughed because in Javanese, that word means urine (we just need to put letter ‘h’ behind it.) my cousin who was puzzled why I laughed asked me why, but I didn’t dare to explain it to her.

I myself experienced embarrassing thing with my family name, PODUNGGE. Obviously, this word is very difficult to be pronounced by Javanese. Due to that, many children (when I was in elementary school) mocked me (also my siblings) by calling us ‘pongge’. FYI, ‘pongge’ is the name of seed of durian, a special tropical fruit. I remember I regretted very much why my family name was difficult to be pronounced, and why not another which was easier, such as Ismail (one family name in Gorontalo too).

In 1981 when my family moved to a new housing complex, we had a neighbor from Batak whose family name is ‘Sitinjak’. Knowing it, we laughed loudly coz that family name is similar to ‘istinjak’ in Arabic that means process or way someone must do to ‘clean’ himself/herself after doing something; for example a husband and a wife must ‘take a bath’ or junub (Arabic) after ‘doing love sport’. Women must do the same thing after their monthly period is over. A man and a woman are considered in a ‘dirty condition’ after having sex; a woman is also considered ‘dirty’ when having menstruation so that she needs to take a bath after it is over.

I felt more relieved when I knew some more family names that were more weird in my ears (such as Rajagukguk, raja means king, while gukguk is the sound of dog’s bark). To have a family name ‘Podungge’ in fact was not really embarrassing. LOL.

Going back to the language that is arbitrary. One good friend of mine got married in February 2005. Her husband said, “When you deliver our baby, my darling wife, I will give him name TUHAN YANG MAHA ESA.” (It means God the Almighty.) To Indonesian people, this name maybe will offend them, seems like to laugh at the power of God the Almighty. However, TUHAN YANG MAHA ESA means NOTHING for people in other parts of the world who don’t know anything about Indonesian language.

After several months of their marriage, my friend didn’t conceive yet, her husband liked to ask her teasingly, “Where is our TUHAN YANG MAHA ESA? When will he be born?”

To end this article, I want to quote one funny scene in Bajaj Bajuri, one successful comedy serials in Indonesia. When Oneng—one main female character in it—took an English course, she was asked by her foreign teacher. “What is your name?” She was confused how to answer that. She turned to her classmate sitting on the right, asking, “Oneng bahasa Inggrisnya apaan sih?” or “What is Oneng called in English?”

PT56 09.31 280407

Language and Women in Advertisement

LANGUAGE AND WOMEN IN ADVERTISEMENT

Advertisement—as defined by The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (SDA) -- is “every form of advertisement, whether to the public or not, and whether in a newspaper or other publication, by television or radio, by display of notices, signs, labels, showcards or goods, by distribution of samples, … by exhibition of pictures, models, or films, or in any other way …”

Ronald Gross (1969:97-98) says that the language of advertisement is language which is used to sell – both products and services. Advertisement copywriters must create words which will influence the largest possible number of people. The subject matter is what most people have in common – their basic fears, anxieties, and hopes. It also means people’s lifestyle. Advertisement copywriters must bear in their mind that they do not only emphasize the characteristics of the products or services, but they also must b able to make people—as consumers—feel that they need the products/services; either to fulfill their daily needs or to fulfill their lifestyle, or to follow the trend.

Why women? 

Patriarchal societies regard women as more consumptive than men. It makes women regarded as potential consumers so that many advertisements show women as models. This image originates from women’s roles as homemakers and as creatures who are concerned with their beauties. Women have to provide all household needs—food, drink, clothes, etc—in order that they will be considered “good housewives or mothers”; they also provide things needed to beautify themselves—makeup, shampoo, hair color, etc—in order that they will look more beautiful. 

This article will elaborate how advertisements make use of women as models and why they use women to get profit as much as possible.

Advertisements in Cosmopolitan February 2002 Edition

In this article, Cosmopolitan magazine February 2002 edition is used as sample to do a small research on the advertisements inside it. Cosmopolitan has a slogan Fun Fearless Female. The slogan shows that the magazine wants to shape women to have fun and fearless characteristics.

Britney Spears—who is given the tile Fun Fearless Female of the year—is chosen as the cover model in this edition. In the cover, Britney Spears posing sensually wearing tight red dress showing her sexy body, her two hands are behind her head, her eyes look at the readers’ sharply and her smile is very pretty. On the whole, Britney’s picture shows beauty, freshness, and youth enthusiasm. Britney—as a singer—appears in most of her video clips as someone who is always full of enthusiasm and energy. It corresponds with ‘fun’ characteristic. Besides that, she is ‘fearless’ because she always appears in sexy clothes among men as if she wants to show her strong body. Therefore, her picture which shows beauty, freshness and youth enthusiasm corresponds with ‘fun’ and ‘fearless’ slogan.

Inside the magazine, there are more or less 84 advertisements, most of which are about products to beautify women, such as lipstick, mascara, shampoo, hair color, nail polish, powder, foundation, hair comb, body lotion. Other advertisements are about breast enlargement, weight loss system, food, car, credit card, cigarette, shoes, birth control pill, books, etc.

From those 84 advertisements, 46 of them use women as their models. Most of those women have similar appearance to Britney; they are pretty, wearing sexy dress, and they look sensual. It is understandable because most of the products are expected to be used by women—as aforementioned that women are always related to beauty. Two advertisements use men as the models (one is credit card and the other is music school). Thirteen advertisements use both men and women as models, such advertisements about car, weight loss system, books. The rest only shows the products without models, such as cigarette, candy, hair comb.

Women = consumptive?

So far it is believed that women are big shoppers. This is made use by producers to maintain gender inequality for the sake of beauty and image of a ‘good housewife’. Those idea roles are merely based on what the producers want to make their products sold out. Women are most of the time related to beauty, gorgeousness, or they are merely seen as sexual objects. These images inspire advertisement copywriters not based on women’s needs but based on lifestyle of certain social walks of life. Advertisements dictate women to be ideal and modern by offering beauty products. Beautiful women must hair fair complexion, slim body, no freckles in their face. To maintain their beauty or to make themselves more beautiful, women must use many kinds of makeup products, such as mascara, powder, lipstick, shampoo, etc. To make their body slim, women must consume dietary pills, or go to weight loss medication center.

On the other hand, many women identify themselves with advertisement models who are mostly already beautiful. Therefore, they are always worried if they are not beautiful anymore so that they are willing to spend their money to buy beauty products and to suffer. Naomi Wolf in her book The Beauty Myth, How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women, quoted by Nur, stated that women are willing to suffer by doing strict diet and they are willing to spend much time to maintain their body to be slim, gorgeous, and pretty (2003:122).

In line with that, beauty becomes standard measurement to judge women. pretty and sexy women become identity of quality of certain products. Therefore, sometimes though the products are not related to women’s beauty, the models in the advertisements are also women (in Cosmopolitan February 2002 edition for example advertisements on toothpaste, food, and car.) It is based on assumption that women with their physical beauty are very beneficial to create good impression on certain products. This assumption is base on belief that women’s quality depends on physical beauty only, and not on women’s brain.

Image that women are consumptive, then, is the impact of advertisements that make women’s beauty and gorgeous body as the standard measurement to increase sales. Appreciation toward women which is based on beauty values is made us by capitalist agents to get as much profit as possible.

Women’s exploitation in advertisements is closely related to capitalism that places women as one way to produce profit. Capitalism values things as long as those things have important role to accumulate capital. Therefore, consideration on values, norm, and moral in advertisement is not important.

Women in Advertisement and American Culture

Advertisement does not only offer products and service, it also offers certain kinds of lifestyles and shows certain social classes. Someone’s decision to buy a product is based on certain motivation such as to fulfill physical needs (e.g. food, drink, clothes), secure feeling (e.g. credit card, birth control pill), social class (e.g. car), self-image and self actualization (makeup products).

In Cosmopolitan February 2002 edition there are 84 advertisements ranging from makeup products, car, dietary pills, credit card, birth control pill, food, drink, clothes, etc. Most of the advertisements have women as models. It shows that American society—just like any other patriarchal societies in the world—thinks that women are always related to activities to beautify themselves. They pay more attention to their appearance—to look more beautiful—rather than to their brain—to be more intelligent.

The products which make women look more beautiful are considered women’s needs. Therefore, advertisement copywriters create words to make women feel that they need those products. For example to advertise Covergirl lipstick, the copywriter asks a question, “Can your lipcolor outlast this day?” Women who do not wear such a lipstick will think that they need it.

To look beautiful, women must have qualities just like Britney Spears on the cover of the magazine—fair complexion, blond hair, slim body, flawless skin. Therefore some products are advertised to have similar appearance to Britney, such as hair color, dietary pills, stretch mark cream, makeup products from powder, mascara, until lipstick and perfume.

Conclusion

The explanation above shows that in recent American culture, American people value beauty highly. This is done purposefully to make capitalism survive. Women are made to feel that they need the products so that they will buy them. it will give capitalists much profit. It means that women always become victims in advertisements. Women are exploited in advertisements, and women are forced to buy the products advertised without their awareness.

Reference:

• Gross, Ronald, “The Language of Advertising”, in Neil Postman (eds) Language in America, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc, New York, 1969
• Leiliyanti, Eva, “Konstruksi Identitas Perempuan dalam Majalah Cosmopolitan” in Jurnal Perempuan number 28, published in March 2003
• Nur, Tri Hastuti, “Stereotipe dan Komoditisasi Perempuan dalam Iklan”, in Jurnal Perempuan number 28, published in March 2003
• www.eoc.org.uk/cseng/advice/illustrated_advertisement accessed on September 22, 2003

Yogya, December 2003