Understanding the language ideologies of Papuan Malay in Tanah Papua

Submission note: A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce, La Trobe University, Bundoora.

Papuan Malay (PM) is one of the world’s many languages of minorities and the politically powerless. However, it has begun to increase in value both to its speakers and to those who have traditionally devalued it. Although some studies have been made of this language, there is a serious lack of research into the field of language ideologies and the revaluation of PM. These are the focus of this thesis, and in particular, the revaluation of PM in Tanah Papua, Indonesia, since the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2015 in Jayapura, it draws on the concepts of language ideologies and revaluation processes to show two overlapping findings. First, that the involvement of the exemplary authoritative figures (traders, Protestant and Catholic missionaries and teachers, Dutch and Indonesian governments) in spreading languages across eastern Indonesia (from the eighth to the nineteenth centuries) was shaped by four different ideological influences which coexisted, competed, and combined in complex ways to form early PM. They include the growing influence of trader language ideologies in the eastern Indonesia; pragmatic awareness of the high instrumental value of Malay varieties and Papuan languages as languages of church teachings and school instruction; the language maintenance ideology of Papuan languages by the speakers, and the standard language policy of Malay and Bahasa Indonesia during the Dutch and Indonesia periods respectively. Second, that the involvement of some of those figures (priests or pastors, school teachers, government language policy makers) and new ones (television and radio announcers, journalists, bloggers and storywriters, songwriters and singers, comedians, film producers and actors, and public signs producers) in revaluing PM in Tanah Papua (1998-2017) was informed by three different language ideologies which also coexisted, competed, and combined. They include the national language policy on the regional languages in Indonesia, the appropriate language ideology of Papuan Malay by its speakers, and lastly, the mixed language ideology of the people residing in Tanah Papua. The thesis argues that the diverse exemplary authoritative figures played their languageideology roles in producing, reproducing, appropriating, revaluing, and mobilizing PM during two different periods. The first, in which early PM was constructed, was the colonial period. In the second period, of Indonesian reformation, the established PM developed discursive practices in both verbal and written forms through both corporeal and virtual media. In this era, PM went through political and ideological processes of revaluation in Tanah Papua and beyond. The exemplary authoritative figures examined in this study are the heart of three phenomena which have a determining impact on the past, present and future construction of PM: colonization, globalization and the commodification of language. These findings provide an ideological analysis of the valuation and revaluation of minority languages in a multilingual country.