38th Annual Student Research Conference
Translanguaging of Vocatives by Sundanese Speakers in Indonesia
Kimzey Spreeman
Dr. Darrin Hetrick, Faculty Mentor
Indonesia is a multilingual nation in which its citizens are proficient in two or more languages. Oftentimes, Indonesians will “translanguage,” or use more than one language in a sentence or clause when conversing with others, such as their local language and Indonesian. The Sundanese people of Indonesia are no strangers to this phenomenon. Interestingly, Indonesian languages, including Sundanese, use honorifics, rather than a pronoun like ‘you’, to show respect to others. The study evaluates how Sundanese speakers use these honorifics, referred to as “vocatives”, to address others in response to certain social variables, and furthermore, observes which language, Sundanese or Indonesian, is used more in certain situations. Initial findings note that the Sundanese honorific teteh is frequently used for young women, and the Indonesian honorifics bapak and ibu are frequently used for older men and women. Furthermore, participants’ responses for familial terms were varied both in the honorifics and languages used.
Keywords: linguistics, translanguaging, honorific, Indonesia, vocative, Sundanese
Topic(s):Linguistics
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Session: 106-1
Location: SUB Georgian C
Time: 8:45