The Ultimate Traditional Wedding Ceremony: Accommodating Generation Gap of Javanese Family in Celebrating Nostalgic Moment

Abstract

Traditional wedding ceremony legacy helps people to understand their own history, traditions and family better. Marriage is considered as one of the important stages in human life, for a new family will be formed as the next generation in the family. It is also necessary to hold a traditional wedding ceremony since it is the very first beginning to entering the next level of the life cycles for Javanese people. Traditional wedding ceremony is still popular over generations whilst it actually lives and remains amongst the society and becomes valuable cultural experience for the people. People not only celebrate the party but also make the nostalgic moments, which sometimes spark a conflict between generations. This research would describe about how communication contributes its influence in accommodating the generation gap to improve a relationship bonding, especially through the traditional wedding ceremony. In accommodating the generation gap, the communication focuses on the patterns of convergence in communication behaviours. The constructivist paradigm was applied to describe the phenomenon on the Javanese family in absorbing the traditional wedding ceremony as the legacy of the family. The qualitative methods were used to collect data by participant observation and the sampling was purposive sampling. This study found out that that accommodation can resolve the problem between generations and make their interaction as a harmonious interaction. There are surely so many differences amongst generations, such as attitudes, focus, and priorities, the lack of willingness in providing information and doing the voluntary disclosure become another issues in the interaction. However, during the traditional wedding ceremony moments, the communication experiences teaches more than just values and conventions. It also shows moral virtues, generosity, hospitality, love, respect, and the soul of the tradition itself which accommodates the generation gap.

Keywords

• communication accomodation
• generation gap
• wedding ceremony
• javanese family
• nostalgic