LANGUAGE CHOICE PERFORMED BY JAVANESE CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS AT KALASAN SUBDISTRICT, YOGYAKARTA INDONESIA

Abstract

Javanese language is geographically spoken in wide areas; however, it seems that its speakers began to give up using it. This can be seen that the quality of its usage among the young Javanese is deteriorated. This phenomenon mainly happens in the urban areas where the young Javanese tend to use Indonesian language rather than Javanese language. They think that Javanese language is complicated requiring its speakers some regulations and etiquettes, thus they tend to use Indonesian language that is considered as neutral and easy. If this language attitude occurs for a long period of time, the Javanese language will be abandoned by its speakers or die. The research sample is taken by restricted random sampling technique. They are 244 children and teenagers (between 5 to15 year old ) living in some housings in Kalasan regency. They are chosen from the genuine Javanese family whose parents and grand parents are Javanese in nature. The research data is all information about language choice of Javanese and Indonesian language done by the subjects of the study in the domain of their houses, schools, and public places spoken to parents, teachers, schoolmates, friends at home, neighbors, aunts and uncles, guest or visitors, grand-mothers and fathers, and strangers. The data is taken by survey questionnaire. Based on the field data, most of the subjects choose Indonesian language when they communicate with parents, teachers, schoolmates, friends at home, neighbors, aunts and uncles, guest or visitors, grand-mothers and fathers, and strangers. Most of them speak in Low level Javanese (ngoko) to parents, schoolmates, friends at home, neighbors, aunts and uncles, grand-mothers and fathers. They rarely use Middle level Javanese (madya) and High level Javanese (krama).