Attitudes of young Javanese toward their native language

Indonesia's national language policy to promote and develop the standard national language (Indonesian) has limited the use of Javanese, a regional language, to home and other informal places. The national language policy has also imposed values associated with Indonesian. The aim of this study is to establish whether the attitudes of young Javanese people toward their native language (Javanese) have been affected by the policy. Based on a theoretical approach that language attitude is a function of beliefs, a questionnaire and a matched-language guise test were developed to elicit the data. A sample of 269 second-year students from Jombang, East Java took part in the study. The findings of the study indicate that some Javanese youth hold positive beliefs about the value of Indonesian and these beliefs have produced a tendency among them to regard Javanese as inappropriate for communication in formal places. However, due to the strong attachment to the norms and values of the Javanese language, the majority of them coherently hold favorable attitudes toward using the language, its speakers, and the maintenance of the language