Authority and Language: An Analysis of Language Privilege

BACKGROUND

Different status of various kinds of people is a common phenomenon in the world. Sex, power, economy, ethnicity, and age are important factors that influence the dominance on range of groups. A strong group tends to have powerful authority among vulnerable group which the situation does not only become a chit-chat but a custom. It is inevitable that grouping people according to their social level has occurred and establish a system of social class. The effect of different qualification or status also spread in almost every element of human life, including a manner of speaking, style or linguistic features. For instance, a renowned professor is not expected to speak like a person who works in a private factory. A businessman can never use the beggars’ accent when talking to his friends and the driver’s government has no authority to speak to the president without restraint or viceversa. It is a clear distinction that the existence of semantics, syntax, phonology, phonetics, vocabulary or style also has a role to distinguish particular person and their position in the society. Therefore it can be easily to identify who belongs to which level.

Based on the latter case, certain groups organized by people who have powerful levels and in this research will deeply focus on language authority occur among individual or intellectuals who have the power to speak and respected by many people. Differences in rank or position in essence is often influence and determine the person's speaking style. Someone who has a higher position tend authoritative in conveying style of speech, when he said something, although only a single word, a subordinate will follow him without hesitant and this was seen as something natural. On the other hand, language as tool to communicate becoming much more complex phenomenon as it can be learned in order to become more authoritative in its practical (Milroy & Milroy, 1999). This becomes interesting discussion because not infrequently there are people who did not have a high position in the government or any agency but the use of language is often more listened to than people who have a high position in formal organization, in a concrete example illustrated when an individual tends to believe special individual (dignitaries honored in a community) rather than the Member of Parliament (have a power of the legislative function in a country). Speech codes in that situation became a permanent variety hereditary and thus the linguistic feature has gradually strong influences as a result of language Authority.

In educational context, it is nature that students want to study the language especially EFL (English as foreign language) at a major university, but the unique thing that arises when they learn to be more authoritative, it presents a system of authoritarian, namely habit differences in the language used by a fraction of a professor or influential lecturer in academic environment against his interlocutor that his colleague or his students as a low speaker status. Although the matter use of English in communicating in Indonesia country was minimal, but the linguistic features owned by professors certainly not least, considering they have been spending almost half of their life to learn the language and followed by the increase of students who want to learn English (EFL) with varying motives.

As a result of the development of sociolinguistic research in recent years, it has become possible that language phenomenon has grown and at the same time attracted more linguists to continue exploring the existence of the applied linguistic especially in education and not some cases that cultures may be especially affected by sociolinguistic demonstrations of authority. It has been also long recognized that students from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds express concern about their uncertainty and lack of control in social situations involving people in socially powerful positions. The students from different ethnic often being isolated because of discrimination they felt. “Are their faces so different? Do people think they can’t speak English? Moreover the students feel the sense of power distance between themselves and the school environment that do not create a bridge of understanding and competence for successful interaction.

However there only a few expert discussed the authority of language as their primary research, by that reason the researcher interested in investigating something which is largely unknown by using ethnography design where Mackay & Gass in Heigham & Sakui (2009) add that ‘Ethnographic approaches are particularly valuable when not enough is known about a context or situation’. Departing from the issue the researchers took the initiative to examine more deeply about the authority of language that occurs in daily life and all the parts that involved in educational context. The researcher also tried to find out their feelings, expectancies and presumptions to this diverse situation of language usage in the environment . Based on the explanation above, the researcher will conduct an ethnography research entitling Authority and Language: An Analysis of Language Privilege

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Essential Questions in Philosophy

Philosophy, simply stated, is the experience of asking such grand questions about life, about what we know, about what we ought to do or believe in. It is the process of getting to the bottom of things, asking those basic questions about ideas that, most of the time, we simply take for granted, never think of questioning, and probably never put into words. We assume, for example, that some acts are right and some are wrong. Why? We know that it is wrong to take a human life. Why is this? Is it always so? What about in wartime? What about before birth? What about the life of a person who is hopelessly sick and in great pain? What if the world were so overcrowded that millions would die in one way if others did not die in another?

Furthermore, responding to these difficult questions, the answers will reveal a network of beliefs and doctrines that may never have articulated before we first found ourselves arguing about them. Not surprisingly, the first time an individual tries to argue about questions he or she has never before discussed, the result may be awkward, clumsy, and frustrating. That is the point behind philosophical questions in general: to teach us how to think about, articulate, and argue for the things we believe in, and to clarify these beliefs for ourselves and present them in a clear and convincing manner to other people, who may or may not agree with us. Very often, therefore, philosophy proceeds through disagreement, as when two philosophers or philosophy students argue with one another. Sometimes the dispute seems trivial or just a matter of semantics.

However, because what we are searching for a basic knowledge especially in accordance with philosophy of language, with that in mind, let’s begin the discussion with series of somewhat simple but straightforward questions, each of which is designed to think about the questions and express opinions by elaborating what the philosopher have achieved.

Below there are nine questions that the writer will try to elaborate each of them by providing the answer in the next section.

• What is Philosophy of Science?
• What is Philosophy of Language?
• What is Analytic Philosophy of Language?
• What is Philosophy?
• What is Ordinary Philosophy of Language?
• What are the major topics in Philosophy of Language?
• In what ways is Philosophy of Language different from Linguistic Philosophy, Philosophy of Linguistic, and Language Philosophy?
• Who are considered philosophers of language; and what are their major concerns or ideas?
• In what ways will your knowledge on Philosophy of Language contribute to your professional competence as a teacher and/or as a linguist?

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Ethnography and Action Research

INTRODUCTION

A. Background

Research is a quest, an attempt to better understand the complex worlds we live in. It is an endeavor that can have the highest possible purpose to help others. In applied linguistics, this means helping language learners, teachers, researchers, materials writers, and program administrators gain a deeper understanding of the multifarious worlds of learning and teaching languages. Qualitative research has evolved over the past three decades into a broad body of knowledge. Within its domain is a wide range of approaches and methods that reflect not only the multiplicity of its root disciplines but also the diversity of contexts and purposes to which it is applied.

A qualitative to research generally involves the researcher in contact with participants in their natural setting to answer questions related to how the participants make sense of their lives. Qualitative researchers may observe the participants and conduct formal and informal interviews to further an understanding of what is going on in the setting from the point of view of those involved in the study. Ethnographic research shares these qualitative traits, but ethnographers more specifically seek understanding of what participants do to create the culture in which they live, and how the culture develops over time.

Qualitative and ethnographic research developed in education in the late 1970s. Ethnographic researchers drew on theory and methods in anthropology and sociology, creating a distinction between ethnography of education (work undertaken by anthropologists and sociologists) and ethnography in education (work undertaken by educators to address educational issues). Other forms of qualitative research drew on theories from the humanities and other social and behavioral sciences, adapting this work to educational goals and concerns, often creating new forms (e.g., a field method approach, interview approaches, and some forms of action research).

The term of Ethnography and Action Research in qualitative research always appear to be essential part of many qualitative discussion, however the research both action research and Ethnoghraphy have their own approach to deal with a certain problem in process of gaining better result. The Action Research for instance have a long story in its development, the research was coined by the social psychologist Kurt Lewin in the United States in about 1944 in connection with research which aimed to promote social action through democratic decision making and active participation of practitioners in the research process. The target group for Lewin's programme of action research was field workers who were trying to improve relations between minority groups in American society. Lewin believed that through action research advances in theory and much needed social change might simultaneously be achieved.

In addition there is a clear understanding that Ethnography research lies on the scope called culture and Action Research is undertaken in the field of workers, teachers, administrators or supervisors in order to change and improve their own practice. The process of each research will bring the researcher into deeper understanding toward the phenomena occur even in everyday practice. Based on this reason, further explanation will include the process of each research and underlining some of data processing both in Ethnography and Action Research.

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Common Errors in Academic Writing (CMIIW)

Here is the example;


    "The objectives of this research are (1) to find out whether the use of Students Team achievement Division (STAD) improve students’ achievement in writing skill at fourth semester of English department (2) to find out whether the use of STAD motivate the students in learning writing skill at fourth semester of English department. 
    This research employed quasi-experimental design. It used two groups, one received treatment STAD and the other group received GI. The subjects of this research were class F and G. These two classes were then taken randomly to represent them as experiment and control group. Class F was chosen as the experimental group consisted of 30 students, while class G was chosen as control group which consisted of 30 students. The data of this research was collected through writing test and questionnaire.
    The result of this research were (1) the use of STAD improved the writing achievement of the fourth semester students in experimental class. (2) The motivation of the fourth semester students as experimental class showed a great positive in learning writing by using STAD. It means that the fourth semester students were motivated in learning writing by using STAD. Most of the students agreed to use of STAD because it could built students’ confidence and finding ideas."

Try to analyze the paragraph and check your answer then compare with mine in this link (Incorrect Parts)

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Buginese Perception: the Softness of Local Language in Bone

Local language which is also known as mother tongue has to be protected and always be maintained in process. As a part of a local culture and also as national precious wealth, local language has more complexity than people think. In Indonesia, the existence of local language has spread in whole territory. South Sulawesi for instance has various ethnics (Bugis, Makassar, Mandar and Toraja) and each of them use local dialect to show their identity. These four ethnics are the largest in South Sulawesi and one of the most interesting local languages to discuss is Bugis Bone. However, Bone has a fascinating language and continues to receive attention from expert because not even a few phenomenon that arise in a range of Bone dialect.

The Bugineses particularly in Bone is known will not kill the word by means they avoid the consonant letter at the end of words if possible. This is the reason of Buginese often experience excess-letters in pronounce a word. This term is often referred to ókkots by the Makassar young man. Ókkots often befall to Buginese because their speaking character prioritizes to the smoothness of utterance. When a word ends with consonant (huruf mati in Bahasa) it is revived by adding a vowel at the end of the utterance. This pattern can be obviously seen in the words of botol (bottle) and motor (motorcycle) in Bahasa, it becomes botolo (botol) and motoro (motor) in Bugis Bone. Another example, to refine the words in an utterance, it is also done by adding a consonant at the end, like the word amang instead of aman in Bahasa which mean safe, also the same pattern in word macan in Bahasa transform into macang which mean a tiger. This refinement is formed by considering the sound of the utterance. Basically if the words sound harsh, there will be a vowel or consonant to cover it in order to form a polite word. It is clearly described that a language can be powerful that it is treated like a live creature.

Buginese character is evidently reflected in language activities, they always put subtleties in language, trying to avoid a harsh expression and unpleasant word has always been attached to the language of Buginese especially in Bone. The interesting case occurs in when calling second person pronoun. Idi’ is used instead of using kamu in Bahasa. In Buginese literal translation, the word idi’ can be used to describe the word “you” and “we”, and commonly people in Bone use idi’ which truthfully means the subject of the speaker sees himself in other people. The same condition in Makassar, native speakers also use kita as second person pronoun “you” where in Bahasa kita means “we”. The egalitarianism or equality contained in the word of idi’ educates us that all people have the same position and have to be treated respectfully.

Local language as a mother tongue (L1) has many moral values in its existence. Buginese in Bone basically prioritize softness words and, and treat the letters which is the basic form language as well as possible. That is the rationale of Buginese in Bone perception try to avoid harsh words. Local language in Bone be an inherent identity and widely known in the community not only the uniqueness of his accent but more to bring nobleness like refining the words. By that reason, the pride of the language used must always be imparted to the next generation.

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Kinds of Paragraph

      Here I share about some general paragraphs type and provide with simple examples. Hope this is useful  for your academic or scientific writing. I have also added some signal words inserted in each paragraph which indicate their paragraphs types. The most important is you have to remember that there are three basic part in paragraph, it is the Topic sentence (main idea) The supporting sentences (explaining the topic) and Concluding sentence (repeating the main idea or giving final comment about the topic). You can analyze each of the paragraph below and make your own paragraph based on this pattern..!!'
Correct me if the examples have any mistake. Your comment will be appreciated.

A. DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH

WIFI.id corner which is supported by Telkomsel become famous from its first launching, the internet spot mushroomed through over region of Indonesia. Unlike other wifi-hotspot (café or public spots) every laptop and smartphone are able to connect unlimited internet only by paying 5.000 IDR for vouchers or register via texting a message. It lasts until 12 hours with internet speed connection can reach over a hundred megabit per second. The places of Wifi.id corner can easily be found. Sometimes it is placed around the Telkom inc. and has some banners displayed with Telkomsel logo in it. However this innovative concept is introduced by Telkomsel as a famous cellular operator in Indonesia and working hard to fulfill the consumers need.

B. PROCESS PARAGRAPH

A good score mirrors a good student. If you want to get good score in an exam, there are many steps you can follow. Firstly, you should revise theories of all subjects. This step is very necessary because gives us an overall view and knowledge of all the subjects. You can revise theories by reading it text books. One important thing you should remember is that you should not learn new lesson before yotu handle learnt ones. Secondly sometimes in revising lessons, you may not understand them thoroughly. Don’t worry because thus step will help you overcome it. You should discuss with your friend or your teachers, if possible you can ask them to give you some exercises to make sure that you have a good understanding of the lesson. Thirdly do not forget to take care of yourself during the exam preparation. It is very important to be in good mental and physical condition for the exam. And the last thing is to keep a positive attitude about the exam as it is a way to demonstrate your knowledge but not as imposing challenge. If you follow three steps above, I believe that at least you will have a good score in the exam.

C. OPINION PARAGRAPH

I am a loner and a single fighter. I do not regret this condition because I like to be alone. Ordinary people look enjoy themselves as part of community but it doesn’t work in my personality. They always ask me to merge with other people in order to get new experience and communicate with a lot of fun. I don’t understand why I have to spend my time to talk with another people who I don’t even know them exactly and determining whether it is fun for me or not. It is my life and I do everything for myself and this leads my way. No one knows what is better for me than myself. I know what I can do and I know what I can’t do. For that reason I am alone because of my choice and do not disturb my privacy life.

D. FACT PARAGRAPH

Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the internet protocol to link the devices worldwide. By the mid of 1990 the internet had become a popular form of telecommunication for personal computer users. The dramatic growth in the number of persons using the network heralded the most important change in telecommunication since the introduction of television in 1940. By this fact, the sudden popularity of this communication technology raised many effects to whole aspect and it begins to conquer the country with the new era of technology.

E. COMPARE PARAGRAPH

I never realized how similar parents and their children can be. My father, a person I admire the most, has a habit of snapping his feet on the floor while watching a boxing channel in television. This I realized after watching him closely and my father did this habit for a long time. I do not know the reason of my father did that. He kept doing that habit until one day I tried to ask him. The one time I mentioned the behavior, my father looks embarrassed, and he tried for a while to break himself of the habit. Although I vowed never to develop any such quirk, I recently caught myself in the middle of watching soccer channel. I got frustrated because my team could not even try to score the goal. Spontaneously there was unfamiliar sound that bothered me a lot. After I realized, that was my feet who kept snapping like previously my father did. My father who accidentally near me had a quite respond although I knew that inside, he was laugh out loud. Both my father and I have the same habit after all. The lineage cannot deny. Now I know just how maddeningly similar parents and their children can be.

F. CONTRAST PARAGRAPH

My brother and I have different personality and interest. My older brother, Sammy has a neat habit in all the aspect of his life. The room organized perfectly so it looks peace when we watch the room either it’s from corner or front. The chair, the bookshelf, bed are put in order which could be easily to reach. Nothing messed order in Sammy’s room. Although he is a musician, the guitar and all of his music instruments look new because he always take care his own stuff. On the other hand, my life is not as easy as my brother. I am a soccer player and every day I have to wake up early to go to school after tiring-training at the night. I don’t’ have time to arrange my goods neatly, I just put my stuff where it fits although my room end with tight space inside. I am so busy that my club does not even have an off day in process. I cannot manage my time to other aspect and do perfect thing like my brother does. But I enjoy my life and it was fun to have different thing with my brother, at least we can share each other.

G. PROBLEM-SOLUTION PARAGRAPH

Drug is rife in many countries. Billions of dollars are spent internationally preventing drug use, treating addicts, and fighting drug-related crime. Although drugs threaten many societies, their effects can also be combated successfully. Drug abuse can cause multiple problems for countries and communities. The medical and psychological effects are very obvious. Addicts cannot functions normal members of society. They neglect or abuse their families, and eventually require expensive treatment or hospitalization. Huge police resources are needed to fight smuggling and dealing criminal gangs and mafia underworlds develop with the money from drugs. The menace of drugs can be fought. Education is the first battle. Children need to be told at home and in school about drugs. People need to be aware of the effects so they can avoid this problem. A second approach is to increase police manpower and create effective laws to stop dealers. However the main target should be the user. Although the problem of drugs may seem impossible to eliminate, there are concrete steps that can be taken to weaken the hold of drugs on society. The danger from drugs is too great to ignore for us and our children

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