CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1
Research Contexts All human beings speak, as long as they are normal.
Their speech represents or symbolizes
the set of common understanding of their culture. Speech is reflection of culture, because it is the means by which
mankind symbolize all culture for the purpose of communication .
It cannot be denied that language
is the most fundamental institution of society, as well as the first institution encountered by
the individual biographically. It is fundamental,
because all other institutions, be they economy, politics, education, religions, etc, build upon the underlying regularity pattern
of language. All these depend on the
world of meanings that is constructed by means of language and can only survive by language.
Because the social aspects are dynamic, so the
language phenomena do.
Therefore, we can catch many phenomena of
language exist in the real world, such as the function of language as the power,
especially in term of the hegemonic system.
Language and power cannot be
separated as single phenomena. Today, language is regularly used in term of a political
power. As a symbolic reality, language reflects what people feel; such as sad or happy.
Moreover, language also a means to transfer the Mudjia Rahardjo, Basic Concepts and the areas
of Sociolinguistics. www.mudjiarahardjo.com (Tuesday, 23 March 2010 06:00) Ibid Mudjia
Rahardjo, Bahasa, Pemikiran dan Peradaban: Telaah Filsafat Pengetahuan dan
Sosiolinguistik (UIN Malang: Pidato
Pengukuhan Guru Besar Ilmu Sosiolinguistik, December 9,2006), ideology of someone or groups. In other
words, it can be simplified that someone who speaks or uses a certain utterance has brought
and preserved a certain ideology. Since language
is the central representative of a subject,
the language ideology belongs to it.
Furthermore, it is because in modern era many
people use language as a way to get some
supports from the society, such as to be voted in the election parties and to maintain their authorities. For describe these
phenomena, this researcher cites what Berger
said in Rahardjo (2007:7) that “…the words of the strong carry more weight than the words of weak”. In other words, the
strength of word not only depends on its utterance, but also who speaks it, such as
Bourdieu (1994:170) said: “What creates the power of words and slogans, a power
capable of maintaining or subverting the
social order, is the belief in the legitimacy of words and of those who utter them. And words alone cannot create
this belief”.
So, if we say ”power” in
language, it is certainly not just the matter of what we might think of as the “powerful language” that
drowning out the voices of others by shouting
loudly, but it refers to an authoritative voice in decision making of
individuals or groups.
Besides that, language and power include
hegemonic system or hegemonic discourse.
The word “hegemonic or hegemony” is a system of alliance in which a state exercises power (predominant military) and
political leadership. That is actually the researcher is more concern about. In short,
the concept of hegemony is one of keys to relate between language in the context of
discourse and the hegemony (power) itself.
How are hegemony (power) and
language (discourse) related? According to Thomas and Wareing (1999:11-12), power or
hegemony is often through language: it is Eriyanto, Analisis Wacana: Pengantar Analisis
Teks Media (Yogyakarta: LKiS, 2001), 4 Talbot
also actually achieved or „done‟ through language. For example, the political power exists by means of language, through speeches,
debates, through the rules of who may speak
and how debates are to be conducted. Furthermore, language often serves the interest of the dominant social groups,
usually because these are the groups who have the most control over it: politician and
lawyers, other influential and high-profile figure.
Moreover, a discourse is media to
link between the dominant and resistant (subordinate)
groups. The dominant groups produce a discourse hegemonically. A hegemonic discourse is not just created for
the dominant groups. Every group has the right to interpret and define a meaning.
Ironically, a certain group produces some behind meaning to persuade the societies.
Therefore, it is needed a “subjectivity”.
Then, Faucault in Darma
(2009:103) proposed that every discourse is the practice of the hegemony (power and
authority). The opinions and the concepts of discourse which are produced have authorities.
In other words, the opinion will become a
power that subjugate the people awareness to follow a certain idea. If it is a
dominant and hegemonic discourse, it
will be received as taken for granted and normal. These discourses are able to control, to instruct,
and to ask someone does what the speaker aims because hegemony is very soft process to
make people follow what the speakers say.
In addition, the ideology of
hegemony is a believe system which is made consciously. In this case, the dominant
(super-ordinate groups) press the sub-ordinate groups with their ideologies. However, the
sub-ordinate groups see the phenomena as something natural; they can be received as
general truth or normal. The dominant groups
convey them from the education, politics, and mass media.
7 On the hegemonic leadership, the societies support to criticize
the social politic problems based on the leader of hegemony‟s point of
view. The level of hegemonic leaders are measured based on the willingness of society to follow the
rule of hegemonic leaders.
According to the meaning above, these
phenomena of hegemonic language are described
in Gramscian‟s theory. In this theory, Gramsci said that hegemony is a dialectic relationship on power based on
consensus (egomenia) and forcefulness (dominio).
Because the uniqueness of his theory which can apply in anything research; such as media: Rahardjo (Politics Media:
2009), Allan (News and Television: 1998), Currant (Mass Communication); Culture [Hall
1979, Latif 1997, Rusmini 2007], Economy
[Kompas April 7, 2010], and the Ideology [Sajad 2007 and Santoso 2005].
Still in the same theory of
Gramsci, the researcher also tries to apply his theory as apparatus in conducting this research.
In addition, she uses Fairclough‟s theory (1995: 96); because the discourse analysis links between social practice and
language, and the systematic investigation of connections between the nature of social
processes and the properties of language texts (discursive). Furthermore, as Gramsci pointed
out (Forgacs 1988:357ff) in Fairclough (1995:95)
that the hegemony of a class or group over an order of discourse is constituted by a more or less unstable
equilibrium between its constitutive discourse practices, which may become imbalanced and
open to being restructured in the course of hegemonic struggle.
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