1

THE STRATEGIES OF MIXED-MARRIAGE FAMILIES

TO TRANSMIT LANGUAGES TO THEIR CHILDREN

BY NI WAYAN MELIANA

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, FACULTY OF LETTERS AND CULTURES

UDAYANA UNIVERSITY

2014

ABSTRAK

Jurnal ini berjudul "THE STRATEGIES OF MIXED-MARRIAGE FAMILIES TO TRANSMIT LANGUAGES TO THEIR CHILDREN” yang bertujuan untuk mengetahui strategi yang dipergunakan oleh para keluarga pernikahan campuran dalam mentransfer bahasa kepada anak-anaknya dan untuk mengetahui faktor yang mempengaruhi bahasa yang digunakan oleh mereka.

Data dari penelitian ini dikumpulkan melalui observasi, wawancara dan kuesioner. Metode kualitatif-deskriptif yang dipergunakan untuk menganalisis data. Teori linguistik yang relevan dalam penulisan jurnal ini adalah teori dari Romaine (1995). Terdapat dua keluarga yang diteliti dalam jurnal ini (A) seorang pria Australia dan seorang wanita Jawa (MF1) atau (B) seorang pria Jawa dan seorang wanita Australia (MF2). Keluarga pertama adalah Daniel Macdonald (F1) dan Teresia Sri Ratni (M1), mereka memiliki seorang putra bernama George Macdonald (Ch1). Keluarga kedua Edi Saputra (F2) and Nadia Mitanov (M2) mereka memiliki seorang putri bernama Erica Suryani (Ch2).

Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa (MF1) tidak menerapkan salah satu dari enam strategi yang dirumuskan oleh Romain sementara (MF2) menerapkan strategi tipe 6 “Bahasa Campuran”. Orang tua memperkenalkan bahasa mereka secara bersamaan di mana mereka memperkenalkan masing-masing bahasa mereka sejak anaknya lahir. Anak-anak menerima bahasa orang tua mereka dan mengetahui bahasa apa yang seharusnya mereka pergunakan dalam berkomunikasi. Faktor pribadi dan sikap mempengaruhi dalam mentrasfer bahasa kepada anak-anaknya. Faktor pribadi menyangkut apa yang dilakukan oleh anak-anak tersebut. Faktor sikap dalam hal ini mengacu pada sikap keluarga terhadap anak-anak, teman-teman mereka, guru, dan masyarakat pada umumnya.

Kata kunci: Pernikahan campuran, Mentransfer, dan Strategi

  • 1.    Background of the Study

The mixed-marriage families cannot only be done by some tribes and ethnics in Indonesia such as Balinese and Sudanese, Javanese and Balinese etc, but it can also occur between Indonesian and other people from other foreign countries. Because of the discussion here regarding to the mixed-marriage family between Javanese and Australian, the possibilities of the language used by the parents in the family are Javanese language, Indonesian language, English language or the other languages based on the parents’ language.

There are some studies conducted by some previous researches which inspired the present study such as the language used by Parents in Intermarriage family between Balinese and Australian in Sanur, Bali done by Suparti (2004). The other paper was written by Yanti (2011).In her study, she discussed The Mixed-Marriage Parents’ Strategies in Transmitting Language to Their Children. Yanti’s paper inspired a lot the present study because she formulated two problems that have similarities to the present study. Both of them observed mixed-marriage between Balinese and Western, so that in this study the mixed-marriage between Javanese (Indonesia) and Western was chosen to make it different from the previous studies. The mixed-marriage lives in the area or region which is not their native region. Therefore it is important to know how they transmit their language to the children where the language of the environment is different from their native languages.

Basically, the parents have a very important role to transmit the language used in their families. Besides, there are other people who are also involved in the daily conversation in their family, such as the children, teachers, servant, grandparents and friends as well. In relation to the children who were born in that kind of family, the difference of language background of the parents will influence the language mastery of the children. In this case, the parents of mixed-marriage have a crucial role in bringing up their children’s language and they also have their own strategy to transmit languages to their children.

  • 2.    Problems of the Study

Based on the background of the study above, two problems are formulated as follows:

  • 1.    What strategies do the parents use to transmit language to their children?

  • 2.    What factors affected parents’ languages used in the communication?

  • 3.    Aims of the Study

This paper aims to describe one of the aspects of sociolinguistics which is concerned with the strategies of parents of mixed-married to transmit their language to their children; therefore, the aims of writing this paper are as follows:

  • 1.    To find out the strategies that the parents use to transmit language to their children.

  • 2.    To analyze the factors affect of their language use in the communication.

  • 4.    Research Methods

The method of this study is devided into three. They are Data Source, Method and Technique of Collecting Data, and Method and Technique of Analyzing Data. Those methods would be explained as follows:

The data were taken from some conversations or spoken language produced by the members of mixed-marriage families and the result of interview to the parents. This study used respondents in order to get information and the data were directly obtained from the mixed-marriage families.

To collect the data, the observation technique was used to observe and interview the respondent about the strategy used by the parents in transmitting language to their children. Interview tecnique was not only done with the children to collect the data but also done with the school friends, teachers and especially the parents. The instruments used to collect the data are questionnaires, notetaking and recorder.

The data were analyzed using qualitative method. Qualitative method is a technique of analyzing data based on such activities, observation and comprehension of the data.

  • 5.    Analysis of The Strategies of Mixed-Marriage Families to Transmit Languages to their Children

The Analysis of Parents’ Strategy to Transmit Language to Their Children

Table 1

Family

Dominant Language of Community

Mother Tongue of Father

Mother Tongue of Mother

Father to

Children

Mother to

Children

Strategy (Romaine 1995)

MF1

BL/IL

EL

JL/IL

EL

IL(dom)/EL

-

MF2

BL/IL

JL/IL

EL

IL(dom)/EL

EL(dom)/IL

Type 6

From table 1, it can be seen that the family of Mr. Daniel Macdonald and Teresia Sri Ratni (MF1) did not apply one of six trategies proposed by Romaine (1995). In transmitting language to their child, F1 speak his native language, English language to the child, while M1 speaks English and Indonesian language. The languages of the environment are Balinese language and Indonesian language, however, the dominant language is the Balinese language. From the interview to the parents, it was found that the parents decided to make the child bilingual in English and Indonesian languages.

After the research was conducted for a month in Edi and Nadia’s family in Seminyak which is considered MF2 is matched with one of the characteristics of type 6 proposed by (Romaine, 1995:183). Type 6: ‘Mixed Language’. The

characteristic of this type of strategy is that the parents have different native languages with each of the parents have some degree of competence in the other languages. In this case, F2 is Javanese and M2 Australian. Although F2 native language is JL, however, he does not use it in speaking to the children or in other words, he does not transmit it. According to him, he does not transmit JL because the language is rarely used in the environment where they live, and IL could represent JL since IL is the national language of the country.

In transmitting their language to the children, F2 uses EL and IL as he can speak both languages, and so does M1. She uses both IL and EL and sometimes in their conversation the parents mix the two languages. The community where they live is also bilingual in which the languages used in the community are BL, IL besides EL. EL is also used by some people in the community because the area belongs to one of tourist destinations.

The Analysis of Factors Influencing the Children’s Bilingualism

As it has been mentioned by (Romaine, 1995:236) and as already described in the previous chapter, there are two general factors influencing children’s bilingualism, namely personal and attitudinal factors. The Personal factor is concerned with those that have to do with the children themselves. It may be how their feeling about being a bilingual or whether they have a natural talent for language or not. Attitudinal factor, in this case, refers to the attitudes of the immediate family of the children, their extended family, their friends (playmates and school friend), teachers at school and the society in general.

From the three parts of attitudinal factors given above, it was rather difficult to judge which of these attitudinal factors had the greatest influence on

the children’s bilingual abilities. In accordance with what Romaine says,

attitudinal factors are influential toward children’s bilingualism. In the case of these children, most of the people they interact with have paid much attention to and have a positive attitude towards their being bilinguals. However, the only people who could actually did a lot of things in supporting and maintaining the children’s ability in any of the three languages concerned are their parents themselves. Certainly, the attitudes of friends and teachers would also have some influence to a certain extent.

  • 6.    Conclusion

Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that the mixed-marriage families have their own strategy to raise their children bilingually. Their consideration is based on such factors as the parents, the language of the community where they live and the strategies to transmit language which they decided to use. In the case of (MF) family, in which the parents had different native languages considered bringing up their children, to be bilinguals. This family tended to introduce their languages to their children since they were born and their son is able to speak both English and Indonesian without applying any kinds of strategy to make their son to be a bilingual. On the other hand, MF2 used strategies types 6 ‘Mixed Languages’ because they spoke to the child in both languages of English and Indonesian and sometimes they mixed or switched them together.

The factors which influenced the parents to transmit their languages to their children were personal and attitudinal factors. Personal factors are concerned with Mixed Married families (MF’s) strategies to transmit language to their child. Both of them considered the way to bring up Ch1 bilingually by addressing each of their native languages; English and Indonesian from birth simultaneously. M2 made their child bilingually by transmitting both of their languages; English and Indonesian with mixed are the languages since they were born. The attitudinal factors in this case concerned with the attitude of the immediate family of the children, their relatives and their friends towards MF1 and MF2 in transmitting

language to their child. The attitude of family and friends towards the way the parents transmit language and the children in accepting language play an important role. Besides, the factors of environment also influenced the children in adopting language.

  • 7.    Bibliography

Burhan, Buingin., 2005. Metodologi Penelitian Kuantitatif, Jakarta, Prenada Media.

Grosjean, 2010. Bilingual, Printed in the united state of America.

Hornby, A.S., 2005. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionar,. Seventh Edition, London, Oxford University Press.

Romaine, Suzanne., 1995. Bilingualism, Second Edition, Oxford, Basil Blackwell.

Implementation of Bilingualism in English Classroom,

Santiana, 2007, The Implementation of Bilingualism in English Classroom, Resources: http://jurnalstba.blogspot.com/2007/08/implementation-of-bilingualism-in.html

Suparti, Ni Wayan. 2004, Language Used by Parents in Intermarriage Family between Balinese and Australian in Sanur, Bali, Denpasar, Udayana University.

Yanti, Kadek Isma. 2007, The Mixed Marriage Strategies in Transmitting Language to Their Children, Bali, Denpasar, Udayana University.