Language Shift in Chinese-Indonesian Community

David Werhoru

, Alex Jhon

Language Center, English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, Indonesia 11480

Keywords: Language shift, Chinese-Indonesian.

Abstract: The article explored the language shift within the Chinese-Indonesians community in Indonesia. For this

study, three main respondents were acquired who are all Chinese-Indonesian females, aged 19-22 years old.

They were asked to fill in the questionnaire to value their preferences regarding the language usage as well as

the history of the respondents’ language acquisition and proficiency specifically on the Mandarin language

which is considered as the respondents’ supposedly heritage language. Besides the questionnaire, the

respondents were also interviewed which then transcribed and analyzed thoroughly to examine the

significance of the language shift in each of the participants’ language domains; family, institutional and

social domains. The results of this study has proven that there are several inducing language shift factors

explicitly occurred in Indonesia, mostly the Capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, such the lack of culture exposure,

learning obligation, and language domain, the confusion over own ethnolinguistics identity, the socially and

politically indigenous oppression, and finally the traumatic events that was experienced by the present nor

past generations of Chinese-Indonesians.

1 INTRODUCTION

In Indonesia diverse history, there has been a

controversial stigma that reflects the minorities such

as the Chinese descendants in Indonesia to be the

second-rate citizens albeit the contribution they have

been making for the country throughout history.

According to Xu and Ingketria (2016), these Chinese-

Indonesians were said to experience inappropriate

and unfair treatment from the late 16

century until

the late 1990s. This led to the present conditions

where some Chinese-Indonesians have a very low to

absolutely no competency in using their own

supposedly heritage language, which is Mandarin (or

Putonghua), and instead, only assume the

ethnolinguistic identity as being a native Indonesian

and occasionally an English language speaker. This is

called a language shift. Jendra defined language shift

as a form of full amount language change; this

concept refers to a situation where a speech

community begins to use a new language entirely, or

in other words, discontinues the use of their former

language for their communication needs (Jendra,

2012). Meanwhile, Kandler, Unger and Steele stated

that language shift is the process, whereby members

of a community in which more than one language is

spoken, abandon their original vernacular language in

favor of another (Kandler, Unger, & Steele, 2010).

From the above descriptions given, language shift can

be simply put as a process by which a community

more or less gradually abandons its original language

and via an intermediate stage of bilingualism, adopts

another. Need to be noted that, a shift from one

language to another cannot be stimulated without any

intervening period of bilingualism in the ‘shifting’

community. Many language shifts involve more than

one minority language, whose positions are weakened

not only by the dominant language but also by each

other—this is what makes language shift occur.

Holmes stated that when language shift occurs, it

usually shifts towards the language of dominant

powerful group—this dominant group has (possible)

difficulties in adopting the language of a minority

(Holmes, 2013). In short, it is safe to say that the

language shift mostly occurs when the user or

community selects new language to replace the

previous language. This language shift transpires

because the specific language switches to another

either dominant or prestigious language, which then

being used in the domains. However, it needs to be

noted that there’s a possibility of language retention

in community languages still conceivably uses the

languages collectively in the domains of traditional

usage. In relevance, it is believed that, when

Werhoru, D. and Jhon, A.

Language Shift in Chinese-Indonesian Community.

DOI: 10.5220/0010007300002917

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social Sciences, Laws, Arts and Humanities (BINUS-JIC 2018), pages 321-326

ISBN: 978-989-758-515-9

321

minorities values their own native or heritage

language and has certain degree of respect for it,

language shift will not occur. On the contrary, if the

minorities does not give enough valorization to own

heritage language, language shift will most likely

occur. In general, the identity of minority is defined

as a group of people whose physical or cultural

characteristics are singled-out as the others within the

society they live for (most of the time)

differential/unequal treatment. In addition, it is also

well-recorded throughout the common sense and

history that generally these minorities have always

been the objects of discrimination and are usually

excluded from full participation in the life of the

society. In this research, the Chinese-Indonesians

community fits perfectly as a case of being a minority

of Indonesia. In relevance, there have been evidences

about forced assimilation and anti-Chinese

movements confirmed within the papers by Hoon

(2011) and Setijadi (2006) within the historical

spectrum of Indonesia that supported the clarification

of oppression by fear in Mandarin language or even

admitting a Chinese ethnic identity.

Numbers of speakers of a language do have its

distinction on effective language maintenance; it

seems apparent enough that the smaller the size of a

community, the stronger the threat of language shift

and death. If the language is used less frequently,

either in constitutional or social contexts (especially

in the home domain), then it would be a prevailing

indication of a latent language shift, and in further

possibility, language loss. In the Chinese-Indonesians

case, the full range of language domains is well-

known to be limited due to prejudicial and social

factors. Moreover, in more general sense Holmes

defined the most obvious factors for this phenomenon

such as; losing the value for learning or using the

language, social, economic, as well as political

implications (Holmes, 2013). Nevertheless, there is

no single factor of language shift that can stand alone.

It means that not all of the factors listed above are

included in every case, there are also other factors that

may contribute to why Chinese-Indonesians shifted

their ethnolinguistics identity. In addition, Mesthrie,

Swann, Deumert and Leap, (2009) also stated that the

cause of language shift is generally multiple and

interrelated. By looking at these variables, the

researcher is interested in the fact that many Chinese-

Indonesians are beginning to lose the competence to

fully use Mandarin as the supposedly one of many

Chinese ethical distinctions.

For this study, the researcher is mainly interested

with the notion that there are several possible

inducing specific language shift factors explicitly

transpired in Indonesia. One of these possible

historical factors is said to have been initiated during

the Dutch colony when the Chinese were accorded

with special privileges as the middle class right below

the Dutch (along with the Arabs and Indians)

meanwhile the indigenous people of Indonesia were

places as the lower class (Davis, 2009). This is one

of the possible aspects that started the whole Chinese-

Indonesian racial jealously by the indigenous people,

called as ‘pribumi’ and then sporadically became an

act of revenge for generations by the act of racial

discriminations towards the Chinese ethnicity. By

utilizing ethnolinguistics perspective in analyzing the

data, the researcher, aside from Holmes’ theory on the

factors of language shift, is interested with the other

prominent factors that are predominantly occurred in

Indonesia. These prominent factors are investigated

by gathering data from the questionnaire and personal

interviews regarding the language background,

language preference as well as valuing own identity

from the context of language and culture.

2 METHOD

The research instruments in this research consist of

two types, a questionnaire, and a recorded interview.

The first one, the questionnaire elicits each

respondent’s individual background, ranging from:

education level, cultural background, age, family and

social networks and language learning experience.

The last one is doing a recorded interview

approximately 20 minutes where each participant

must answer several questions in the Indonesian

language regarding language background, and

preference of why they are less proficient or unable to

speak or use Mandarin any longer. For the recorded

interview, the researcher transcribes the recordings

and then translates them into English. There are three

female participants (AD, EN, and HL) who are all

Chinese-Indonesians, aged 19-22 years old. Based on

the questionnaire results, their first language is

Indonesia and assume English to be as fluent as their

Indonesian proficiency level. All of them have

learned Mandarin from the educational institution but

consider not to be a fluent Mandarin speaker.

The data collected from these two instruments are

then reviewed and assessed to see the validity of the

assumed language shift factors of the Chinese-

Indonesians community in Indonesia. The

questionnaire data are the basis of the background

check for each participant, each section (language

background, language proficiency, and language

usage) are put into tables by using a Likert-scale

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ranging from 1 to 5, 1 means NOT GOOD and 5

means EXTREMELY GOOD. For the interviews, the

transcribed data are analyzed, essentially cropped and

adjusted accordingly to the need of research objective

which is to answer why do these \ Chinese ethnic

descendants in Indonesia are incapable of speaking

fluently or even having no skill in their own

supposedly heritage language, Mandarin.

3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The questionnaire is divided into three sections which

inquire about the participant’s language background,

language proficiency, and finally language usage

(along with its domain).

Table 1. Language background Questionnaire.

D E

1. A

e 19 22 21

2. 1

L INDO INDO INDO

3. 1

L fro

Famil

Parents

4. 2

L ENGL ENGL ENGL

5. 2

L from School Family Parents &

School

6. 3

L MDRN MDRN MDRN

7. 3

L from School Family&

school

School

All of the participants acknowledged that all of

them speak Indonesian as their first language and they

are all acquired from the family domain. HL

specifically said she got it from her parents. All three

respondents also claim English as the second

language but have the different origin of acquisition,

the AD said she got it from school, EN acquired

English from family first and finally HL claimed both

family and education domain that transpire her

English skill. For the third language, interestingly all

of them said to be Mandarin. This questionnaire is an

open-ended question type so there was no request to

fill in specific answers (see Table 1) from the

respondents. All of the respondents said that they

learned Mandarin from school, with an addition that

EN also acquired it from her grandmother

specifically.

Table 2. Language Proficiency Questionnaire

LPQ

D E

Indonesian 4 4 5

English 4 4 3

Mandarin 1 1 1

Another

language

French

N/A

In the assessment on their own languages

proficiency, as can be seen from the Table 2, AD and

EN valued their Indonesian skill to be nearly perfect

by the scale of 4 and HL confidently stated that she

has an extremely good Indonesian skill. AD and EN

also have the similar answer with valuing their

English proficiency by the scale of 4 meanwhile HL

scored 3. HL may show modesty since later on in the

interview she said that she has a friend in London

whom she usually chats within English and she loves

using English as well. Finally, all three respondent

interestingly stated that their Mandarin skill is ‘Not

Good’. This shows that all of them have indeed

valued Mandarin to be their least proficient language

skill. In addition, AD added French as another

language by the scale of 1, later in the interview, it

was revealed that she is currently taking a French

course for her study major.

Table 3. Language Usage Questionnaire

LUQ

D E

IND 5 - everywhere 5

ENG 4 - Social media

& universit

MDR 2- To a relative 1

Others French - 4

University

lecture

N/A N/A

For this section (see Table 3), all three

respondents said that they always use Indonesian

everywhere and every day. For English, the AD said

to use it often meanwhile EN and HL valued that they

also use English all the time. For Mandarin, the AD

said she rarely uses Mandarin, meanwhile, EN and

HL stated they never use Mandarin. This is interesting

because, from the interview, both EN and HL said

that they are able to understand Mandarin (albeit

passively). EN said that her family once a Khonghucu

and still celebrate Chinese culture and with that, the

usage of Mandarin language, meanwhile HL said

Mandarin may still be of use only for Chinese New

Year celebration or just watching the Mandarin-

speaking news passively.

Meanwhile, from the recorded data, the

detachment with own heritage identity, namely

culture, and language can be explicitly seen within the

nuclear family but not from the extended family. All

three respondents said they still celebrate Chinese

New Year or do some Chinese culture related

traditions, but most of these are conducted in

Indonesian and not Mandarin. Specifically, EN and

Language Shift in Chinese-Indonesian Community

323

HL said that they're nuclear rarely conduct Chinese

culture-related activities.

“Itu sih kalau di keluarga saya palingan kalau

tiap Imlek aja, dari sisi mama saya karena masih

idup. ………Karena dari sisi mama saya masih

beragama Buddha jadi masih banyak yang pasang

hio. Masih cengbeng juga, ziarah ke makam kung-

kung saya. ………Tapi kalau keluarga inti sih ga

terlalu.” (HL, 17 November 2017, original interview)

“Well, in my family, from my mother’s side, we

celebrate Chinese New Year. ………But my nuclear

family, not so much, only during the

gathering.”(HL, November 17, 2017, our

translation)

“Attachment… not really (thinking) Oh… once we

did the money burning thing, we once celebrated

Chinese New Year. Back then we were Khonghucu

but now, not anymore. Rarely. But for my nuclear

family. No more.” (EN, November 17, 2017, our

translation)

What can be inferred from HL and EN statements

are that both of their extended family seems to still

keep the Chinese ethnicity tradition however if it’s

within the nuclear family, it is considered to be

seldom. When trying to investigate the possibility of

language acquisition at home, as the supposedly first

and main domain, it was discovered that lack of own

family obligation to learn heritage language caused

all respondents to have a very low Mandarin

proficiency. During the interview, it was also

discovered that there is a lack of domain of heritage

language mostly in the family. All three respondents

said that school or Mandarin courses are mostly why

they have to speak Mandarin.

“Well, actually if I meet my grandmother, I am

usually told to speak in English. No one forces me to

learn Mandarin.” (AD, November 17, 2017, our

translation)

“My nuclear family doesn’t oblige me to learn

Mandarin (laughs). Because both of parents are

coming from different tribes, they don’t know official

Mandarin. My extended family also the same.

Socially, since I was born in Jakarta, so I don’t use

regional dialect nor Mandarin.” (HL, November 17,

2017, our translation)

According to Xu & Ingketria (2016), the Chinese

Indonesians are facing conflict within their own

identity, which occurred possibly due to avoid

situations which would likely increase tension

between them and the indigenous people. This can be

evidently stated in AD’s statement when she said

there’s a mockery from the indigenous people or

‘pribumi’ when she speaks Mandarin with her friend

on the street. The AD also said explicitly 99%

meaning there is a 1% possibility of doubt.

“Sometimes being mocked by the indigenous

people. I mean… we are Indonesian but on the road,

those people called us, “Cici… cici…” if we are using

the Chinese language. Being mocked… annoying.”

(AD, November 17, 2017, our translation)

In addition, HL gave evidence of conflict when

she tried to explain about why she feels

uncomfortable when someone asking her Chinese

ethnicity, she was afraid to acknowledged here

ethnicity because she remembered, or taught the dark

history of 1998 tragedy which happened as the case

of racial discrimination.

“… I understand about the 1998 phobias. My

mother wouldn’t let me go home by myself after

school. ………. Always… terrifying. Chinese people

are afraid, especially those who are the living

eyewitnesses of the 1998 tragedy.………. So yes, how

to say it, if someone asked me, “Are you Chinese?”

I may immediately feel afraid, will answer YES but

still a bit terrified. Such as (thinking) a thought to

take care of myself, for precaution if someone

means ill.” (HL, November 17, 2017, our translation)

HL’s statement seems strongly describes external

oppressive behaviors from the indigenous people

manifested as a trauma caused by past tragedy passed

down by her family who is the living witness of the

1998 tragedy. Her precautious behaviors define one

case to prove possible prejudice against the

indigenous people of Indonesia created from

generation to generation.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Based on all of the findings and discussions, the

researcher is interested in the fact that there are

several inducing language shift factors explicitly

occurred in Indonesia, mostly the Capital of

Indonesia, Jakarta. These factors are such the lack of

cultural exposure, learning obligation, and language

domain, the confusion over own ethnolinguistics

identity, the socially and politically indigenous

oppression, and finally the traumatic events that were

experienced by the present nor past generations of

Chinese-Indonesians. Based on the three participants’

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interviews, the results are as follows (the factors

affecting language shift and the participants who are

affected by (1) Culture exposure (AD, EN, HL), (2)

Learning obligation (AD, EN, HL), (3) Language

domain (AD, EN, HL), (4) Ethnolinguistics identity

(AD, HL), (5) Indigenous oppression (AD), and

finally (6)Traumatic experience (HL).

It would seem that the discrimination from the

indigenous people of Indonesia and the traumatic

events lore that have been passed down through

generation may induce fear amongst the newer

generations. This fear may lead to less valorization to

own heritage language, especially within this

oppressive acts from the indigenous people. In order

to survive, the Chinese-Indonesian family may

subdue to the reality and try to survive by focusing

only on Indonesian language skills. Although

nowadays, the Mandarin language is now being

taught at school, this does not hinder the fact that the

domains of language are still scarce except for

educational institution. Family, as the basis of all

language acquisition also plays an important part,

however, based on the data, it was obvious that the

nuclear family of each participant has not put any

obligation to learn Mandarin, except EN’s father. In

addition, most of the nuclear families of Chinese-

Indonesians tend to rarely celebrate or do things that

are culturally related with Chinese ethnicity except if

in a bigger community such as the extended family.

Although it seems that there has been a certain

degree of language shift within the Chinese-

Indonesians community in Indonesia, there is actually

a focal domain to either start or impede the language

shift process to progress any further the family

domain. It is very crucial for the Chinese-Indonesian

parents to display the right attitudes when discussing

with their children regarding their native or heritage

language. If the parents want to keep and continue to

use his/her heritage language, a good family would

need strong ties and must pass on their heritage

language in the future if not, there will be language

loss.

How to prevent language loss from a minority

group such as the Chinese ethnicity of Indonesia?

One way is by stressing out one's heritage language

and culture to the next generation, valorizing them to

a certain extent where it is still being used in certain

domains. Moreover, parents sometimes do not pass

down good remarks on being a Chinese ethnic to their

children. For instance, in the case of HL, she was told

by her mother that being a Chinese in Indonesia is

considered to be unsafe such as riding a public

transportation and worse, reminding the dark history

of racial discrimination by the indigenous people, e.g.

May 1998 tragedy. These actions may cause the

tendency to negatively fearing her own Chinese

ethnolinguistic features, namely using the Mandarin

language. In addition, Chinese-Indonesian parents,

especially in a big city like Jakarta usually prefer to

utilize and teach children nowadays the dominant

language of either unified Indonesian or the lingua

franca English rather than their native Chinese (and

all varieties) language. A case like what EN

experienced when her grandmother valorizes English

more rather than the family heritage language has

caused EN to consider herself to be more capable in

English rather than the Mandarin language.

On a further note, if children from early age

received only negative remarks about the usage of the

heritage/native language, of course, there would be a

possibility that these children would develop some

discomfort or negative attitudes towards the Chinese

language. This occurred in the case of the AD where

she and her friends received negative remarks or

bullying for using Mandarin in public by the

indigenous people of Indonesia. This led her towards

an attitude of fearing to use or even learn more

Mandarin language outside her limited domains. In

conclusion, as suggested by Noels (2014), diverse

psychological approaches to ethnic identity, within

different perspectives might give different kinds of

relations between identity and language variation.

Finally, it is essential to valorize the heritage or native

language as equally important and to be used in many

aspects such as social and cultural domains without

the dominant society oppression. But is it possible in

Indonesia where racism and bigotry still exist?

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