EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

RODI HARTONO, M.Pd.

Language is commonly known as a means of communication. We use the language to exchange information, express our feeling, and share our experiences and ideas. Language is also a very important means of establishing and maintaining our relationship with other people. We use certain language to identify ourselves with people who speak the same language and we also get information about the background of the people we are talking to as well as their social status in a society from the language they use.

According to Brown and Gilman (1972:255), power is relationship between at least two persons, and it is non-reciprocal in the sense that both cannot have power in the same area of behavior. In other words, power can be said as self explanatory, whereas Solidarity refers to general relationship that is symmetrical. It concerns the social distance between people – how much experience they have shared, how many characteristics that share as religion, sex, region of origin, race, occupation, interest, etc., how far they are prepared to share intimacies, and other factors.

Historically, Kerinci language was rooted from Malay language. In Kerinci County, there are many kind of code (dialect), each villages have their own code. Each people from the other village can understand the others but they cannot speak fluently. According to Yasin there are three kinds of dialects in Kerinci language, such as dialect Mudik, Tengah and Hilir. In this paper the writer will use the dialect Tengah, exactly in Pulau Tengah code. Now let we see the form of pronouns in Pulau Tengah code in Kerinci in the following data (as compared to English and Indonesian).

From the above data, it can be seen that Pulau Tengah code (dialect) has more choices in pronoun of address than that English both in the first person (Singular and plural) and in the second person (Singular and Plural). In Pulau Tengah code (dialect) Akau as the first person singular pronouns, encode individual regardless of sex, age, wealth, and status. The speaker who has an intimacy relationship with the addressee uses Akau. The example of the use of such term is when the addresser is a boss of the company whom he knows from a distance while the addressee is the employee, and then he will use akau to represent himself. And also if the addresser is a lover, brother, sister, children, relative, classmate of the addressee, then akau is likely to be used. In this case there is no different among the addresser, we can use akau in all addresser, whether the addresses are superior or inferior.

In the first person plural, the form kito and kamai are use differently. Though both of them represent plural addressers, but there is a slightly different in the use. Kito is used when the addressers talk to addressee(s) (singular or plural) about something or an event in which addressee(s) is involved in it. For example when A and B are talking to C about the tour than they have joined. During speaking to C, both A and B uses Kito to represent themselves where C is also involved. In this case, Kito also represent A,B, and C. On the other hand, kamai is used when the addressers talk to the addressee(s) about something or an event in which the addressee(s) is not involved in it. The same example as the above condition can be taken, but in this case C didn’t join the tour. Therefore, in this situation, both A and B represent themselves with kamai.

Kau is used to address the second speaker whose age is about the same or younger than the addresser, for example, when the addresser talks to friends or to his younger brother or sisters or their friends. Mpa is also used to address the second speaker whose age is the same or younger than the addresser, but the situation is different, we use mpa when addresser angry to the addresse.Mpa will be use in this case. Though both kau and mpa can be used to address to the same age addressee. The pronoun awok is a polite term of address. Awok is used to address someone, regardless his/her sex who is older then the addresser. While, the pronoun of kayo used to address someone who is older than the addresser. Kayo is a also a polite term of address in Pulau Tengah code Kerinci.

The second person plural forms Iko is used to address two or more addresser regardless of their sex and age. In this case, Iko is used as a polite term to address people in the daily life.

Kerinci people also uses the choice of name in addressing someone else but is not frequently used as above pronouns of address. The principle choice in Kerinci is between FN and TFN (Title with First Name, not last name as in English), for example, Bapak Umar (if his name is Umar Bakri). FN is used when the addresser and the addressee are the same (about the same) age, social status, or occupational status. In this case, both of them share the same solidarity. TFN is likely to use when the addresser has less power (inferior) than the addressee. Here addresser gives TFN and receives FN in return. But it could also be that both of the addresser and addressee has the same power. They share TFN simply because they want to be more respectful and more polite to each other.

References

Brown, R.and A. Gilman. 1972 The pronoun of Power and Solidarity. In Giglioli,P.P. Language and Social Context. London: Penguin

Brown,P and S. Levinson. 1987. Pooliteness: Some Universals in Language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hudson,R.A. 1996 Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.