Journal Review 1

Journal Review 

Vol. 21, No. 1, April 2018

LANGUAGE ATTITUDES OF INDONESIANS AS EFL LEARNERS,

GENDER, AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS

Dirtya Sunyi Paradewari and Concilianus Laos Mbato

Reviewed by

Ahmad Zakki Fuadi 

Abstract :

The journal study about explorion of the language attitude in terms of gender and socio-economic status (SES) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The aim of this study was to find out the relationships among five components of languages attitudes in terms of gender and socio-economic status (SES). There were 256 participants from four universities in Yogyakarta. The participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire about the language used and general language attitudes through the Google Form. The results showed that there are five components of language attitudes; 1) Indonesian learners showed positive language attitudes toward English (3.58); 2) positive language attitudes toward Indonesian (3.66); 3) positive language attitudes toward English and negative language attitudes toward Indonesian (3.52); 4) positive language attitudes toward Indonesian and negative language attitudes toward English (3.58); 5) positive language attitudes toward English and Indonesian (3.91). These five components of language attitudes were then correlated with gender; 1) gender was positively related to English language attitude where female learners had higher positive language attitudes than males did toward English (.097); 2) there was no relation between gender and Indonesian language attitude (-.071). In addition, SES was also related to five (5) components of language attitudes in which the learners who came from upper class had higher positive language attitudes towards English (.155) than learners who came from lower class. On the other hand, the correlation between SES and Indonesian language showed the learners from middle class had higher positive language attitudes (.031) than the learners from upper class and lower class.

Goals

The aim of this study was to find out the relationships among five components of languages attitudes in terms of gender and socio-economic status (SES).

Problems : 

Explore the language attitudes towards Indonesian and English in terms of gender and socio-economic status (SES) of Indonesian students studying in several universities in Yogyakarta, Indonesia where English is learnt as a foreign language.

Theories :  Language Attitude

         Kendler (1974) notes that attitude is a willingness to accept or avoid positive or negative things such as social, personal, situations, ideas, and concepts. The characteristics of behaviour language are divided into two types, namely: language and non-language attitude (Anderson, 1984, p. 37). The language attitude is a catalyst to have a successful language learning (Fasold, 1984, p. 36). Language attitude might be a positive or negative depending on how people learn the language (Chaer & Agustina, 2010). Zeinivan, Azizifar, and Gowhary (2015) also assert that language attitude is the internal stage which influence people to do what they want to do. Brown (2000) employs the term of language attitude as the set of beliefs that the learner holds. A successful learner is a learner who perceives a positive attitudes towards the target language (Prodromou, 1992). Dittmar (1976) reveals four characteristics of language attitude, i.e. the selection of primary language that people use in a multilingual community, the distribution of the language, the differences of dialect, and the interaction among individuals based on the common problems that arise. Accordingly, language attitude is “an umbrella term, which refers to various attitudinal objects, including languages, dialects, speech styles, speakers, communities, language learning, and language use” (Ianos et al, 2015, p. 2).

Gender

          Simaki et al. (2016, p. 868) assert that people with different gender tend to have different style of linguistic. Women and men use different language styles depending on the situation (Edlund et al, 2007) and women usually do better than men in learning the language (Ellis, (1994). Dornyei, Csizer, and Nemeth (2006) also note that women are more motivated than men in learning a foreign language. Several studies have found gender differences in language attitude. One of the examples come from Ladegaard (1998; 2000). The result of the research showed that the female participants had the higher positive attitudes towards Standard Danish (SD) than male participants had. In addition, Wang & Ladegaard (2010, p. 16) state that women use the high prestige variety of a language while men use the local vernacular.

Socio-economic Status

        Parson, Hinson, and Sardo-Brown (2001) define the socio-economic status as the term to distinguish between people’ position in the society in terms of family income, educational background, and occupational prestige. The social classes are classified as upper, middle, and lower class (Ariani & Ghafournia, 2015).Lamb (2012) asserts that socio-economic status has an impact on the learners in learning languages. Ellis (1994) also adds that there is the connection between the social class and achievement; particularly it comes from the level of education, income, and occupation (p. 204). Students with the high social and economic status are called as successful students and students with the low social and economic status are called unsuccessful students (Barry, 2005; Ewijk & Sleegers, 2010).

Method

To some extent, this study was replication of a quantitative study by Sicam and Lucas (2016) on language attitudes of adolescent Filipino bilingual learners towards English and Filipino. In order to collect data, the current study employed a survey method in the form of a questionnaire. The researcher utilized Google Form to distribute the questionnaire because the participants were separated in some areas of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The participants of this study were 256 students (184 females and 72 males) from one state universities and three private universities in Yogyakarta. In this study, the participants were invited to participate voluntarily and were assured that the information collected was confidential. This study employed a questionnaire adapted from Sicam and Lucas (2016) to suit Indonesian contexts and consisted of two parts; demographic background information and language attitudes. 

Findings and Discussion

      In line with the research question, this section focused on general language attitudes towards Indonesian and English, and on the correlation between learners’ language attitudes towards Indonesian and English in terms of gender and socio-economic status (SES) respectively.

Conclusion

        Based on the result, it shows that language attitudes diverge among different groups of Indonesian adults. Firstly, these finding refers to the high positive attitude towards Indonesian and English languages. The use of Indonesian as the preferred language in the family context is proven in this study. Moreover, both English and Indonesia are equally used in the context of the school/ university and the place of work and media use. Secondly, the study revealed that there is a correlation between learners’ language attitude towards Indonesian and English in