Gender and Politeness in Javanese Language

The purpose of the thesis is to find patterns of gender and (im)politeness within the Javanese language. To attain its goals, the research discussion focused on the patterns of gender and (im)politeness in its formal aspects, power relations, and criticism. To accomplish the goals, the research applied a participation order and quantified data related to recurring actions (frame-based analysis). The research participants were Javanese families living in Surakarta and its surrounding areas, which are in Central Java, Indonesia. The data recorded natural conversations, involving voluntarily recorded daily conversations within familial settings.

The formal aspects analysis indicated (1) husbands use a low style (ngoko) to address their wives; (2) Javanese women of the middle social class use different linguistic styles. Additionally, to express their respect, a higher number of women spoke in ngoko, while others addressed their husbands in higher level (basa). Those who used ngoko speech level displayed a minimal sign of deference by using honorific pronouns (e.g. panjenengan) and titles. The analysis on power relations reflected higher agreement in relation to the Javanese norm of indirection. However, the discussion on criticism demonstrated overtness and mock impoliteness, which disagrees with the norm of indirection.

The last two analyses indicated that the evaluation of (im)politeness is different across social actions (e.g. asking, criticising, etc.). Among the three areas of analysis (formal aspects, power relations and criticism), there were persistent aspects involved in the evaluation of (im)politeness) such as intention, identity, moral orders, and utterances or actions.