The content of this artifact is a document containing the english quote from Karl Marx's “Capital” and my version of a translation of that quote. The task was chosen with the goal to develop formal presentational writing skills. In this case, the formal context is that of political and economic theory. This context was successful in achieve the goal of the task not only by making me translate words relevant to politics, but also by making me to realize that when translating words that have specific definitions within the context of an academic theory I must be use a Bhasa Indonesia counterpart of that word which is commonly accepted by Indonesian academics to have the same definition within the context of the particular academic field. Acquiring formal written presentational skills is hang in glove with my cultural goal of being able to communicate to Indonesian academics, express my political views and describe abstract ideas.

I provide the document below. Upon reading the english quote, one learns that it is from Part II Chapter 6 of Marx's Capital. Here Marx has already described his view that the exchange of all material commodities requires the creation of a special commodity called money. Firstly, the quote is talking about how extraction of surplus value from the M-C-M' (use money to buy commodities and then sell commodities to get more money) transaction brands money as capital. Secondly, the quote also hints at how a capitalist can create surplus value by purchasing the labor-power of others.

As I previously mentioned, I consider that the greatest lesson and challenge of this task was finding the Bhasa Indonesia counterparts to certain specific words that Marx uses. For example, I found that capital is modal, use-value is nilai-pakaninya, exchange-value is nilai-tukarnya and labor power is tenaga-kerja. The source of these defined words is Oey Hay Djoen's popular “Perang Gerilya”, which despite being about Che's guerrla war contains the Bhasa Indonesia counterparts to Marx's definitions.

Attachment.doc

This week (week 13), I translated a section of “Das Capital” into intermediate Bhasa Indonesia to create the artifact entitled “Presentational Formal Writing” along with watching and writing about “The Act of Killing” for Cultural Post 3. Understanding and effectively communicating about politics had previously replaced being able to express abstract ideas in an educational setting as a cultural goal and after this week will join my other cultural goals of surfing and formal communication. My activities not only enabled me to express my political views in Bhasa Indonesia by allowing me to pick up vocabulary essential in a political context but also gave me an improved realization of the political environment within which native speaker of Bhasa Indonesia are brought up. Three of such realizations are listed below.

First, I realized that I had previously only focused on post-Independence Indonesia since I was writing about the effects of the sudden nation building process on language in Cultural Post 2: Formal and informal language(s). Just like Indian political history, I think the post-Independence period of nation building process is significant in that it set the initial conditions for the Indonesian nation state. However, this sudden, arbitrary and unnatural process, which was the frame through which I had previously examined Indonesian language and culture, was also drawing my attention away from a gradual changes in the nature of the Indonesian nation state and civil society that arose thereafter.

Second, I realized that acquiring so much information about the political history of Indonesia was forcing me to reconsider certain familiar relationships. For example, when I lived in Indonesia I went to school with many middle-class Chinese Indonesians who were the sons and daughters of shopkeepers. The history of the 1965-66 massacre made me realize their relatively affluent economic position also must have accompanied the social position of a minority that is liable of being bullied to pay protection money. Along with the Chinese Indonesians, it also allowed me empathize with the Sama people, who I talk about in Cultural Post 5: Cultural Project, that were forced to flea as the violence between the military and the communists escalated. As a second example, in light of the complicity of the government and media with gangsters I also questioned certain things that I had acquired knowledge of second-hand. One such instance was the image of President Suharto. Between 1993 and 1998 he was the President of the nation that I lived in.

Finally, I realized that I had naively tried to disseminate Marx's “Das Capital” without realizing the context in which it would be interpreted. While Marx uses the ideas of classical economists like Adam Smith, as an abstract theoretician he also takes the liberty to describe certain things in his own way. Although I think this is an amazing stylistic tool, it can sometimes cause readers to question the definitions themselves and refuse to read further. Therefore, Das Capital is sometimes impenetrable to people biased against communism. While everyone in the modern era is biased for or against communism, Indonesia's violent history of rejecting communism makes this mechanism of rejecting Marx highly likely rendering the tool of Das Capital useless for Marxism in the Indonesian context.  

This week (week 11), I came across Lance Nolde's article entitled “Great is our relationship with the sea.” For my cultural project I wanted to explore the relationship between Indonesians and their seascape. My interest in seascapes and the communities that belong to these seascapes was initially sparked as a result of my cultural goal of understanding Indonesian surfing culture. Learning about this topic has allowed me to pick up Indonesian words that related to the sea such as trepang (sea cucumber) and kura-kura (tortoise). Where my thoughts on the relationship between the Indonesians and their seascape were previously greatly influenced by experiences that I had while in Indonesia (such as noticing people on a boat waiting to get far from the shore before dumping any garbage that they were carrying), this article by the University of Hawai'i historian on the Sama people of Sulawesi that raises and answers key anthropological questions about them has provided me with a verifiable case study of a people with a historic relationship with the sea.

The presentation will cover four important questions. First, what is the “settlement narrative” for the initial migration of the Sama people of Tukung Besi. Second, what is the day to day relationship of the Sama people with their seascapes. Third, what caused the Sama people to journey for months to collect and trade for sea resources. Four, how has trade effected Sama society?   

This week (week 10), I wrapped up working on my interpretive skills. First I submitted an artifact entitled “Interpretive Formal Reading” in which I attempted to fill out a EU visa application form in Bhasa Indonesia. Then, this week I also handed in “Interpretive Conversational Listening” in which I attempt to follow my language partner's driving instructions to reach my destination. It was difficult to succeed in these tasks. Therefore I believe that their choice was wise given my level of proficiency and past experience. Moreover they were also successfully designed to strengthen a wide set of skills such as written, verbal, formal and informal skills. I would recommend these tasks to anybody wishing to learn a language. Moreover, Arnanto was an extremely useful resource for the completion of these tasks.

While the tasks were challenging my abilities and I learnt a lot, I had considered my interpretive skills to be better than my presentational skills in the self assessment that I did at the start of the course. Therefore I expect the real challenge to my skills to arise when I work on my presentational skills. To help me achieve this goal I also took some time to prepare for the future tasks by meeting Dr. Scinicariello to get an idea of future tasks might be. Given my cultural goals, her input of the various directions I could take my tasks helped me a lot in finalizing the tasks for Artifact number 4 and 5. In my fourth artifact, “Presentational Formal Writing”, I will translate a paragraph from Marx's Das Capital. In my fifth artifact, “Presentational Formal Speaking” I will give a small speech describing a dive into the sea.   

Map (ThingLink)

The content of this artifact is a map tracing a journey from my apartment in Carytown to the Richmond International Raceway.The goal of this task is to enhance my overall interpretive listening skills and develop the vocabulary surrounding relative and compass directions. This skill achieves this goal by giving me a set of instructions in Bhasa Indonesia once when I start and then once again if I was to get lost. I must then use these directions until I reach my destination or start again with a different destination if I were to get lost a second time. The skill to understand directions is an important part of a “survival language.” Furthermore, this task is doubly important to me because relative and compass directions and an overall developed vocabulary about spatial information is critical when surfing.

For the successful attempt when the destination was the Richmond International Raceway, I provide the audio files and a document containing the transcript of the two set of instructions that I received in Bhasa Indonsia. The transcript of the correctly interpreted instructions in English, along with a map tracing the journey at a smaller scale is included where necessary on the map using the tag feature of ThingLink. Upon seeing it, one learns that this journey is a little longer than 5 miles and is set in Richmond, VA. The red line represents the journey made using the first set of instructions. Once it became clear that I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the highway, I took the first exit off the highway and asked for the second set of instructions. The blue line represents the successful journey made using the second set of instructions.

I evaluate this task to be successful at accomplishing its objective in two different ways. Firstly, in the repeated process of trying to reach my destination I picked up phrases such as utara laut (northwest), putar balik (U-turn or turn around completely) and tempat tujuan (destination). The examples of the vocabulary that I picked up pertain to spatial awareness and goes further than relative and compass directions. Secondly, I managed to complete the journey without expressing myself to the person giving the directions. This lack of communication that did not give me the chance to say “Please speak slowly” or “Can you repeat that” made the task more challenging.

Attempt_1.m4a

Attempt_2.m4a

The content of this artifact is a government form that is completed in Bhasa Indonesia, contains instructions in Bhasa Indonesia and lacks any instructions in English. This task was chosen with the goal to develop formal interpretive reading skills. It is meant to achieve this goal by providing exposure to a formal vocabulary, emphasizing correct spelling and proper sentence formation. Wherever this task of interpretation proved more challenging than expected as a result of a lack of back and forth conversation, I achieved the goal of developing interpretive reading skills by being forced to pick up the skill of making an educated guess regarding the interpretation by finding the root of an unknown word, for example. Acquiring formal reading and writing skill is paramount if I want to delve deeper into my cultural interest in office and education culture in Indonesia.

I provide the form in completed forms in English and Bhasa Indonesia. Upon reading it, one learns that this form is the European Visa Application Form that was acquired from the Spanish Embassy's website. The form's tone and purpose is formal. I provide personal details and go on to provide details regarding my travel to Barcelona. 

I evaluate this task to be very successful at accomplishing its objective in three different ways. Firstly, in the process of reading the form I have created a list of new formal words and phrases. I list some examples of words and phrases such as  utama tujuan (primary purpose), izin (permit), resmi (official), alamat (address) and tanda tangan (signature). Now that I have memorized many of them, I can look at the list to sure up my command of formal vocabulary learnt from this task. I attach the list below. Second, I could explain or understand the meaning of many of these words in a survival situation by using other words. However, the fact that I lacked of back and forth conversation has forced me to learn the exact words. Thirdly, using examples from this list of words along with help from Arnanto I have been able to continue studying the proper use of prefixes such as per-, men- and di-. I am already noticing that this study along with looking at the base words to complex words is allowing me to correctly guess the meanings of certain words.

SchengenVisaForm_BhasaIndonesia_Completed.pdf

SchengenVisaForm_English_Completed.pdf

FormalVocabList.xls

The content of this post is to summarize the results of the self evaluation in Bhasa Indonesia that was done using LiguaFolio Checklists and Levels of Competence document. In general, the self-evaluation placed my interpretive and interpersonal skills at a higher level that my presentational skills. I believe this uneven development in language skill to be a direct result of having learned Bhasa Indonesia as a “survival language”. That is to say that I spoke in Bhasa Indonesia only when speaking to somebody with whom I could only communicate with in Bhasa Indonesia. The content of these conversations was usually related to my immediate surrounding and needs. This includes conversations such as exchanging information about myself and asking for directions and prices. In order to correct this uneven development I put forth the following four points about my skill as an Intermediate level Indonesian speaker. As I summarize points about my starting position I will simultaneously list the learning goals and the 8 tasks that I will be doing this semester in order to accomplish the stated goals.

First, I observe that I picked up Bhasa Indonesia in an informal setting. This is apparent in the LinguaFolio Checklist. On the checklist I answered that I can express my agreement or disagreement with someone but cannot express neutrality. Similarly, I answered that I can introduce myself but cannot use an appropriate introduction to begin a presentation. Therefore, I decided that I would focus on conversational skills with a formal tone this semester. In order to accomplish this goal I have designed the task “Interpersonal Formal Communication” in which I respectfully decline a senior's offer.

Second, I notice that I am far more comfortable communicating in Bhasa Indonesia when there is a conversation. That is to say that I can understand more when I am given a chance to say, “Please speak slowly” or “Can you repeat that.” Thus, my second goal for this semester is a commitment to learning how to interpret Bhasa Indonesia outside of conversation. Given that on the cultural side I hope to focus on the sport of surfing, I decided that the two best tasks to learn interpretive skills outside of conversation were demonstrating that I can understand complex directions given to me in Bhasa Indonesia and translating a surf radio announcement into English.

Third, I realized that when it comes to presentational skills, I lack the basic ability to describe. On the checklist, I indicated that I cannot either describe the characteristics of my family members or talk about abstract ideas. My third goal this semester is to begin to describe objects, people and ideas. In order to do this, I will need to learn and demonstrate my learning of adjectives and adverbs. Given that on the cultural side my focus is surfing and education, I decided that the two best tasks to learn presentational speaking are describing a sea creature/my daily routine, and teaching a physics class by giving a mock presentation.

Lastly, I concede that my written skills are poor due to a lack of formal education. Therefore, in the last three tasks I will either be reading or writing in Bhasa Indonesia. These tasks are also designed with a focus on culture and the goals stated above. Firstly, I will learn to write formal e-mails and fill out formal forms in Bhasa Indonesia. This will obviously also help in achieving the goal of learning the language in a formal setting. Secondly, I will read and compare the tone of two newspaper articles. Thirdly, I will produce a written translation of a reading from my history class. These two last tasks will also help me with gaining a working knowledge about describing abstract ideas. 

The content of this artifact is a conversation between Arnanto and I. This task was chosen with the goal to develop formal communication skills. It is meant to achieve the goal through understanding how one must address seniors, demonstrating diplomacy by carefully choosing neutral words and probing the complex world of office culture. These skills are not only valuable survival skills but are also specifically relevant to me. This is because the majority of my knowledge about Bhasa Indonesia comes from casual interactions in informal settings. Therefore, by learning formal communication I can best compensate for my lack of formal language training.

I provide a transcript in english of this fictionalized conversation. Upon reading it, one learns that this task is a conversation between myself and my boss. The setting is an office in Jakarta, the political and economic capital of Indonesia. My boss has called me to his/her office because he/she wants to send me to the Singapore office. However, I respectfully decline because I have just settled into Jakarta. Upon learning this my boss offers me a promotion and I say: “Your offer sounds good sir, but for now I still must refuse your offer because my wife is pregnant. Maybe in the future I will accept your offer.”

I evaluate this task to be very successful at accomplishing its objective in two different ways. Firstly, in the process of creating it I learned new words and phrases such as dengan segala hormat (with all due respect), anda (you in formal context) and pak (sir) that are the staple of formal conversation when addressing seniors. Secondly, in the reply quoted above, which was necessary after my boss became pushy about the offer, I demonstrate diplomacy by complimenting my refusal with a reason, crediting his/her offer and adding showing interest in it under different circumstances. However, this task also allowed me to learn about things that I was not expecting. Arnanto and I had conversations about the grammar rules surrounding the use of words kita (we) and kami (our), the prefixes men- and ber-, the suffix nya and the word bapak. Artifact1.mp3Transcript.doc