Entry 8: I Said Yes, But I Mean’t No!

This week for my ENGL 512 class, we had a ‘workshop’ day where we met with our group partners wherever we liked. It does not have to be in class. So we did not have our usual class where we would have class discussions and activities. However, my group still decided to meet in the room during the time the class usually meets. On my way to the room, I met another classmate taking the same course. He saw me right before I got into the elevator to go to the third floor where the room was at. He asked me, “We don’t have a class today, right?” and I spontaneously said “Yes!”. That moment he looked so confused and looking at his reaction I suddenly realized my mistake. I quickly said, “I meant no! No, no!” and laughed. 

In this situation, the question was in the negative form. In Indonesian, if the response of a negative question is positive, the response would be “No”. If the response is a negative, it would be a “Yes”. To better illustrate this, below is an example question and the responses in Indonesian and English.

However, if the question is in the affirmative form, the response made in Indonesian is different.

As we can see, the response made by Indonesians depend on the form of the question. Additionally, the response and supplement to response is not equal or linear in Indonesian when the question is in negative form. This is similar to the analysis of Yes/No responses in Korean by Kim (1962).

References

Kim, S-H. P. (1962). The meaning of yes and no in English and Korean. Language Learning, 12(1), 27-45.

Entry 7: It’s Not Sejuk, It’s Dingin!

Many people say that Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) and Bahasa Melayu (Malaysian) are the same. Even foreigners have a hard time distinguishing between the two. Indeed, both languages are in the same language family, namely the Austronesian family (Finegan, 2015). However, as an Indonesian speaker with Malaysian roommates, I can definitely perceive the difference. Mainly the differences are in vocabulary, but there are also pronunciation differences. The most recurring pronunciation difference that actually went to the point where I got really annoyed was Malaysians pronunciation of ‘a’ in final position as /ə/. In Indonesian, ‘a’ in final position is not pronounced as /ə/, but rather it is pronounced as /Ʌ/. For example, the same word ‘kenapa’ (why) is pronounced as /kənʌpʌ/ by Indonesians, but /kənʌpə/ by Malaysians. As for vocabulary, there are two stories that I would like to use to illustrate the difference between Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu.

One day as I prepared to leave the apartment, my roommate approached me and told me that it will be very ‘sejuk’ that day. I looked at my clothes, a very thick coat with thermal underneath, and decided that if it will be ‘sejuk’ today, then I better change my clothes. Because ‘sejuk’ in Indonesian is ‘cool’, wearing those clothes felt too much. Hence, I changed my clothes and went out of the apartment. What a big surprise did I get when I got out! It was freezing cold! I would never have characterized it as ‘sejuk’. It was ‘dingin’! Or cold in English. I came back into the apartment and asked my roommate, “What did you mean by ‘sejuk’? It was ‘dingin’ out there, freezing cold!”. Then my roommate explained that ‘sejuk’ is cold in Malaysian. Since then we tried not to talk in Bahasa.

Another story was actually recounted by my lecturer back in Indonesia. He was a graduate student in Malaysia and so he had some Malaysian friends. It was a Friday and one of his friends came up to him to tell my lecturer that he will ‘jemput’ my lecturer to a party tomorrow night. In Indonesian, ‘jemput’ means to pick up. Naturally my lecturer waited for his friend to pick him up the next day. He waited, and waited, and waited. He tried calling his friend, but the call didn’t get through. He didn’t get to the party that night. When he met his friend in class, the friend was very mad at him and asked my lecturer in a very angry tone why he didn’t go to the party. He was so confused, he thought he was the one who was supposed to be angry! He then said, “I thought you were going to ‘jemput’ me?”. The friend said, “Yeah, I ‘jemput’ you to the party!”. My lecturer then realized that there must be some kind of misunderstanding. He eventually found out that ‘jemput’ in Malaysian means to invite, not to pick up.

Reference
Finegan, E. (2015). Language: Its structure and use (7th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Entry 6: A Cornucopia of Ambiguity on the Internet

In our textbook Language: Its Structure and Use, Finegan (2015) discussed the notion of ambiguity. Finegan describes ambiguity as a phrase that has several meanings due to having more than one constituent structure or referential meaning. In other words, there are two types of ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity and semantic ambiguity.

The internet has so many examples of signs and comics showing ambiguity that are uploaded by people because they find humor in the signs and comics. Below are some signs and a comic that I found that shows ambiguity. I also provided the different meanings that can be understood from the sign/comic.

Meaning 1: Young girls are wanted for hire to help with pickling and bottling food. For those who are interested in this job apply within.

Meaning 2: Young girls are wanted to be pickled and bottled. Those who want to be pickled and bottled apply within.

Meaning 1: Be careful of mountain sheep crossing the road. Roads can be slippery when wet. (Implying that when roads are slippery because its wet, it’ll be hard to break to avoid mountain sheep crossing the road). 

Meaning 2: Be careful of mountain sheep crossing the road. Sheeps are slippery when wet. 

Meaning 3: Look at mountain sheep that are crossing the road. Roads can be slippery when wet. 

Meaning 4: Look at mountain sheep that are crossing the road. Sheeps are slippery when wet.

Meaning 1: Any persons, except golf players, who are caught collecting golf balls on this course will be prosecuted and have the golf balls that they took confiscated. 

Meaning 2: Any persons, except golf players, who are caught collecting golf balls on this course will be prosecuted and have their genitals removed.

Meaning 1: Don’t let worries kill you, let the church help with your problems.

Meaning 2: Don’t let worries kill you, let the church help to kill you instead.

Meaning 3: Don’t let your worries make you feel suicidal, let the church help with your problems.

Meaning 1: Children are slowly crossing the road.

Meaning 2: Slow down, there are children crossing the road.

Meaning 3: Unintelligent children are crossing the road.

In this comic, the old man failed to make the right interpretation of the old woman’s utterance. Instead of interpreting ‘nose ring’ as a piece of jewelry pierced on to one’s nose, he interpreted it as literally a nose that rings like a bell. 

References

Ambiguous. Retrieved from http://blogiburton.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html

Finegan, E. (2015). Language: Its structure and use (7th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Semantic ambiguity. Retrieved from http://www.neurolang.com/research/semantic-ambiguity/

Thomas Jefferson and amphibolies. Retrieved from http://blog.ivman.com/thomas-jefferson-and-amphibolie/

T.E.D. (2012, July 10). Re: Meaning of “before” in this sign [Online forum comment]. http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/74054/meaning-of-before-in-this-sign

Entry 5: Sundanese People Can Pronounce [f]!

Sundanese is one of the many ethnic groups in Indonesia. One of my friends at the English Department of Iowa State University is from Indonesia and she is Sundanese. Whenever I talk to her in Indonesian or English, I sometimes find her pronouncing the [f] or [v] sound as [p]. This is because in Sundanese language, there are no [f] and [v] sounds. I was then told by her, that the phonological transfer does not only occur in speech form, there are also examples of written transfer. Thus, for this entry, I browsed on Google to find some pictures showing examples of the written transfer. The examples that I found show the ‘perceived’ written form of Indonesian or English words by Sundanese people*. Based on the examples that I found, it is interesting to note that not only does the transfer occur from [f] to [p] or [v] to [p], but transfers also occurs from [p] to [f] and [v] to [f].

Below is a table showing the correct form of the words and its written ‘version’ according to Sundanese people.

Correct Form	Written ‘version’ according to Sundanese people	English Translation
Fitnah	Pitnah	Slander
Konferensi	Konperensi	Conference
Variasi	Pariasi	Variation
Berfoto-foto	Berpoto-poto	Taking pictures
Fly-over (Refers to the fly-over bridge)	Ply ofer	Fly-over bridge
Servis	Serpis	Service
Sofa	Sopa	Sofa
Power	Fower	Power
Lapor	Lafor	Report
Pelan-pelan	Felan-felan	Slowly

Based on the data above, the following transfers can be identified:

• [f] → [p]
• [p] → [f]
• [v] → [p]
• [v] → [f]

I then attempted to do a phonological analysis on the data to see whether or not there is a pattern for this phonological transfer. The following environments were identified:

Environments of the Phonological Transfers
[f] → [p]	[p] → [f]	[v] → [p]	[v] → [f]
initial position_V (in this case the vowel is [o])	initial position_V (in this case the vowel is [o] or [ə])	initial position_V (in this case the vowel is [Ʌ])	V_V (more specifically [o]_[Ʌ])
initial position_C (in this case the vowel is [l])	V_V (more specifically [Ʌ] _[o])	C_V (more specifically [r]_[ɪ])
C_V (more specifically [n]_[ə])
V_V (more specifically [o]_[Ʌ])

Based on the environment analysis, it is quite easy for me to assume that [f], [v], and [p] for Sundanese speakers of Indonesian are all allophones of the same phoneme which is /p/, and are in free variation according to the perception of the Sundanese people. However, due to very limited data, it would not be wise to make such an assumption. They may be allophones of the same phoneme considering the fact that Sundanese people use the sounds interchangeably and do not believe that a different word meaning is produced when doing so, but it does not mean that they are in free variation. Additionally, when the vowels and consonants in the environment are examined, there are several differences. For example in the [f] → [p], [p] → [f], and [v] → [p] transfers, all three occur in initial position_V. But when we look at the vowel there are differences, except with [p] → [f] which has two possible vowels in its environments. Nevertheless, it is highly possible that with a bigger data size, a pattern for phonological transfer made by Sundanese people could be identified.

*For the analysis, it important to have in mind that in Indonesian, the pronunciation of consonants follow its orthographic form. E.g. the letter s is always pronounced [s] and never as [z].

References

andrewhinata. (2013, July 8). Re: orang bandung / orang sunda masuk atau dari daerah lain jugaboleh masuk !! [Online forum comment]. http://www.kaskus.co.id/thread/51dae47b0975b42921000005/orang-bandung---orang-sunda-masuk-atau-dari-daerah-lain-juga-boleh-masuk/

Cuma urang-urang Sunda yang paham ragam kehidupan seperti ini!. Retrieved from http://www.explorejabar.com/2014/11/cuma-urang-urang-sunda-yang-paham-ragam.html

Risadi, A. A. (2013, February 26). Sunda: F/V/P(?). Kompasiana, Retrieved from http://www.kompasiana.com/arisahmadrisadi/sunda-f-v-p_552fe4ab6ea8340d608b457f

Entry 4: Flouting of the Cooperative Principle to Create Humor in the American TV Series “The Big Bang Theory”

One of my favorite American TV series is ‘The Big Bang Theory’. The show is about four genius men who are socially awkward and their social awkwardness results in many humorous situations. Sheldon and Leonard, the main characters who also happen to be roommates, are the one who usually creates the humor. While rewatching several episodes, I noticed that most of the humor comes from the flouting of Grice’s cooperative principle. Thus, in this language journal entry, I would like to give several examples of the situations found in ‘The Big Bang Theory’ that illustrates the flouting of the maxim of quantity, maxim of relevance, maxim of manner, and maxim of quality. 

A. Maxim of Quantity 

This principle requires the interlocutors to provide only the necessary information to be able to understand each other (Finegan, 2015). One example of a situation where Sheldon violates this maxim is when Penny, the beautiful waitress who lives across the hall, asks Sheldon to teach her ‘some’ physics because she wants to show Leonard who is her boyfriend that she is interested in his work. What Penny wanted was just to know what Leonard was currently working in his lab. However, Sheldon couldn’t resist to give a whole lecture about physics, even going as far back to 600 BC to explain the origins of the word physics (Lorre, Rosenstock, Holland, & Cendrowski, 2009). 

As the audience, we know that Sheldon is giving too much information, thus violating the maxim of quantity. 

Another example is when Leonard requested his mother’s advice on his relationship. It is important to know that Leonard’s mother is a distinguished psychologist. Thus, as the audience we expect that she will be able to give some really good advice. However, instead of doing that, she just said “Buck up”. Leonard then pointed out her status as a distinguished psychologist and that she should be able to give better advice. This didn’t change anything however, as she just said “Buck up sissy pants” (Lorre, Rosenstock, Holland, & Cendrowski, 2009). 

This time, Leonard’s mother as one of the interlocutors failed to provide enough information and thus violated the maxim of quantity. 

B. Maxim of Relevance 

In this principle, interlocutors are expected to give relevant responses based on the context of the discourse (Finegan, 2015). An example of the violation of this maxim in the show is when Penny told the four men that she needed some ‘guinea pigs’ to test her bartending skills on. Sheldon immediately suggested that Penny use white mice instead if her ‘research’ was to have human application because white mice have similar brain chemistry to humans (Goetsch, Molaro, & Wass, 2007). Of course as the audience we know that Sheldon is taking Penny’s utterance too literally and thus his response is not relevant to the context that Penny had meant. 

C. Maxim of Manner 

This principle requires interlocutors to be systematic and avoid ambiguity in their utterance (Finegan, 2015). One situation that illustrates the violation of the maxim of manner, is when Leonard attempts to bond with Penny’s friends by watching a football game. Sheldon stops by Penny’s apartment where they were watching the game and asked “So Leonard, how goes the mimesis?”. Naturally Leonard was confused by this question. Sheldon attempted to explain by giving the definition of mimesis, “You know. Mimesis. An action in which the mimic takes on the properties of a specific object or organism. Mimesis.”. This of course did nothing to help Leonard understand. In the end Leonard said “What the hell are you talking about?” (Prady, Molaro, & Cendrowski, 2009). 

D. Maxim of Quality 

In this principle, interlocutors must not tell lies (Finegan, 2015). A clear example of the violation of this maxim in the show is when Leonard lied about going to a symposium to avoid having to watch Penny sing in the play. Sheldon, who agreed that Penny’s voice was terrible, however didn’t see the need to lie (Lorre & Cendrowski, 2008). Thus, the humor came from Sheldon’s inability to participate in Leonard’s lie and nearly exposed it. 

References 

Finegan, E. (2015). Language: Its structure and use (7th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. 

Goetsch, D., Molaro, S. (Writers) & Wass, T. (Director). (2007). The grasshopper experiment. In C. Lorre & B. Prady (Producers), The big bang theory. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Studios. 

Lorre, C. (Writer), & Cendrowski, M. (Director). (2008). The Loobenfeld decay. In C. Lorre & B. Prady (Producers), The big bang theory. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Studios. 

Lorre, C., Rosenstock, R., Holland, S. (Writer), & Cendrowski, M. (Director). (2009). The gorilla experiment. In C. Lorre & B. Prady (Producers), The big bang theory. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Studios. 

Prady, B., Molaro, S. (Writer), & Cendrowski, M. (Director). (2009). The cornhusker vortex. In C. Lorre & B. Prady (Producers), The big bang theory. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Studios.

Entry 3: Unique Free and Bound Morphemes in the Indonesian-Makassarese Hybrid Dialect

Makassarese is one of the ethnic languages in the southern part of the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. As an ethnic language, it is widely used in daily conversations in South Sulawesi. However, Indonesian, the official language also plays a big role as the ‘unifying’ language of roughly 350 ethnic groups in Indonesia (Winter, 2009). 

In Makassar, the capital city of South Sulawesi, and its surrounding areas, besides the ‘pure’ Makassarese and Indonesian languages an Indonesian-Makassarese hybrid dialect is also commonly used. I termed it hybrid as it is not fully Indonesian nor it is fully Makassarese. A unique phenomena within this dialect is the use of free and bound morphemes taken from Makassarese and attached to Indonesian words. This is also the type of dialect that I would use in my hometown which is an hour away from Makassar. I decided to analyze this topic as part of my language journal because of a recent Facebook post that my friend had posted. The post highlighted the free and bound morphemes that are most common in the Indonesian-Makassarese dialect. I remember when I was still an undergraduate student studying at a state university in Makassar, I had a classmate who was originally from Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city. She had a hard time understanding the dialect that we used. Knowing Indonesian is not sufficient to understand this dialect.

Below is a table showing my analysis of the morphemes. In the analysis, I identified whether it is a bound or free morpheme and its function along with an example on how to use the morpheme when paired with in an Indonesian word. For this analysis, I chose the word ‘makan’ which means eat in English.

Morpheme	Free/Bound	Function	Example of Use
mi	Bound	to invite another person to participate in an action (strong)	Makanmi (Just eat it)
		to make a positive statement	-
pi	Bound	to indicate a specified time	Makanpi (When I eat)
ji	Bound	to question whether an action has been done	Makanji? (Did you eat?)
		to indicate that only a single action is conducted	Makanji (Only eating)
ki’	Bound	to invite another person to participate in an action	Makanki’ (Please eat)
		the polite form to address a person (pronoun)	-
ka’	Bound	to address oneself	Makanka’ (I am eating)
ma’	Bound	to indicate that an action is currently being conducted, assuming that the person uttering it was previously suggested to do the action by another person	Makanma’ (I’m eating now)
pa’	Bound	to indicate a specified time, similar to ‘pi’. However, ‘pa’’ is pronounced with a glottal stop at the end	Makanpa’ (When I eat)
ja’	Bound	to convince someone that an action is being or will be conducted	Makanja’ (I am eating)
ka’	Bound	to indicate that an action is currently being conducted (less marked compared to ‘ma’’)	Makanka’ (I’m eating now)
tong	Bound	to indicate that the person uttering it is participating in an action with another person(s)	Makantong (I’m eating too)
rong	Bound	to indicate that an activity needs to be done first	Makanrong (Let’s eat first)
mo	Bound	to indicate that an activity is preferred to be done over another activity (or activities)	Makanmo (Let’s just eat)
pade’	Free	when standing on its own, it means “OK”	-
		if it is attached to a word it has the same function as ‘mo’	Makanpade’ (Let’s just eat)
di’	Bound	to question whether the action is the one to be conducted	Makandi’? (We’re going to eat?)
ko	Bound	to suggest (very strongly) for someone to do something. Can be an order	Makanko (Just eat already/You have to eat)
na	Free	when standing on its own, it is used in question form to ‘nag’ someone to do something. Sometimes used repeatedly, e.g. na na na na	-
		if it is attached to a word, it functions to suggest for an action to be conducted (weak)	Makanna (Please eat)
gang	Free	when standing on its own, it means ‘stop it’ or ‘don’t do (something)’	-
		if it is attached to a word, it is used to indicate that an activity is currently conducted or had already been conducted, assuming that the person uttering it was accused of doing another activity instead	Makan gang (I am/was eating!)
sede’	Bound	to point out that an activity was conducted again	Makansede’ (You’re/I’m eating again)
lalo	Bound	to indicate that an activity should be conducted immediately or as soon as possible	Makanlalo (Eat right away)

As I did this analysis, I did not realize how complex the morphemes were. Each had their own situations in which they can only be used, even if there are some morphemes that could be used interchangeably in certain situations. I also realized that there are certain instances where two morphemes are attached to a single word. For example makanka’di’, which roughly means ‘I’m going to eat okay?’. The combination of the two bound morphemes resulted in quite a different meaning compared to when they are used separately.

References

Winter, G. (2009). Towards sustainable fisheries law: A comparative analysis. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.