Over this past week, my Indonesian friend and his/her (I use "his/her" to conceal the person's identity) friend got into an argument over the phone via text messaging. He/she showed me the texts and had permitted me to write about it.
How does this relate to my cultural topic? My cultural topic is about language registers in Indonesia. And the argument sheds a great deal of insight on the social influences on the use of language register. The fact that the argument was expressed via texts also provides insight on factors that influence language register. What's more, the relationship between the conversational partners is a key dynamic, which also influences one's choice of language register. Finally, the topic influenced their choice of register. As you can see, the use of a language register is contingent upon many factors, and it can get quite complex. Luckily, their argument captures them all.
First, the relationship between the two conversational partners could be characterized as friendly. They are future brother- and-sister-in-laws. The older conversational partner addressed my friend as “kamu” (“you,” informal) and himself as “saya” (“me/I,” formal) which is inappropriate given the social relationship. The person is supposed to address his conversational partner as “adik” (younger “sibling”) and himself as “kakak” (older “sibling) in order to maintain the social norms.
The fact that he used “kamu” purposefully indicated a breach in conversational norms, a clear marker that something went awry. The use of kamu and saya is also rude because it creates a distance between the speakers by changing the nature of their relationship. It is hard to describe in an environment in which loose conversational norms govern speech. In addition, the use kamu and saya sets the tone of the conversation because the sentences that follow each pronoun are mostly composed of formal words, which creates distance.
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