10 - Javanese–Indonesian code switching

Summary

Javanese-Indonesian code switching can be sketched here in two broadly different ways. From a comparative angle, developed with recourse to broad classificatory criteria, I foreground its commonalities with bilingual usage in other, disparate languages and sociohistorical circumstances. An obvious starting point for this general classificatory approach to multistylistic Javanese and un-native Indonesian interaction is John Gumperz's highly infiuential, portable account of code switching as a species of “discourse strategy.”

But Javanese-Indonesian code switching, besides being transient moments in shared social biographies, can also count as among the most intimate points of entry for Indonesian-ness, via Indonesian, into everyday Javanese life. To frame particulars of bilingual usage in these more situated ways, I work here to sketch Javanese-Indonesian code switching relative to a national ideology on one hand, and native conversational practice on the other.

These paired projects can be conveniently broached through a pair of pronominal metaphors. One, at the heart of John Gumperz's approach, is the in-group/out-group, native/non-native, “we/they” distinction which informs his framings of code switchings, irrespective of otherwise huge differences between their originary social circumstances and interactional contexts. By centering this quick review of his classificatory approach on this trope I can also reconsider un-native Indonesian's lack of a “they” from a comparative perspective.

The other pronominal distinction, developed indirectly in prior chapters, is tripartite and helps here to develop a more relativized account. In chapter 3 I sketched ngoko and básá in an interactionally situated opposition, likening them to styles of “I” and “you.”.