Non-Natives’ Attitude Towards Javanese Language Viewed from Multilingual Perspectives

Abstract

The concern of investigating language attitude has been the focus of scholars in many countries, including in Indonesia. One of the prominent languages which used as the object of study is Javanese language. So far, the study on investigating Javanese language attitude has not completely covered the multilingual perspective yet. Therefore, this study aimed at finding out language attitude towards Javanese language viewed from multilingual perspective. The method used in this study was qualitative, designed as case study. The instruments used were questionnaire and interview. The questionnaire was consisting of ten items and designed based on Likert’s five scales. The instruments were formulated to address three components on investigating language attitude, as suggested by Garret (2010). The three components are affective, behavioural, and cognitive component. The study involved 19 adult participants, consisting 6 male and 13 female whose mother tongues are non Javanese. They varied in terms of age, mother tongues, educational background, and occupation. The participants were given the questionnaire by online. To verify the data collected through questionnaire, semi-structured interview was done, involved five randomly selected participants. The collected data analyzed by using interactive model of data analysis, consisted of three systematic steps; data reduction, display, and verification/ drawing conclusion. The result of the study showed that participants had positive attitude towards Javanese language. The positive attitude is expressed through their affective, behavioural, and cognitive attitude toward Javanese. The affective attitude is indicated through their positive interest and feeling to learn Javanese. The behavioural attitude is expressed through their claim that Javanese is easy to learn, while cognitive attitude is expressed through their understanding of Javanese language use in real.