This edited volume presents studies on language practices broadly related to children and youth in Indonesia. The chapters are written predominantly by emerging Indonesian scholars in collaboration with their supervisors. Most of the chapters were written and presented at the International Young Scholar Symposium on Humanities and Arts (INUSHARTS) and the Asia Pacific Research in Social Sciences and Humanities Conference, held at the University of Indonesia in 2017 and 2018, respectively. The volume is divided into three main sections. The first section includes studies on the structure of narrative by children and youth. The second section contains studies on language use in popular culture through analyses of radio advertising, television talent shows, and social media. This section also includes a study on the representation of youth speech styles in popular fiction. The third and final sections of the book present studies on social change as evident in Javanese naming practices and children’s interpretation of traditional Javanese etiquette.

Children’s and Young Adults’ Narrative Production

The term narrative is often used interchangeably with story, account, discourse, narration, or tale (see Gimenez, 2010, p. 200). It also has a broad definition, since it includes the different modes (oral, written, and sign language) as well as content (experiences about self or others). Narrative is a topic widely studied in research on language use among young speakers. This body of research shows that narrative production is one of the most important skills that demonstrate linguistic competence and social skills (see, for example, Colozzo & Whitely, 2014; Horton-Ikard, 2009; Reese et al., 2012). Maturity in language use can be shown by children’s ability to construct well-formed macro- and microstructure in storytelling (Mills et al., 2013). Macrostructure relates to the hierarchical structure consisting of setting, plot, and characters, whereas microstructure refers to the use of linguistic elements (e.g., judged by the number of words and clause density) to form cohesion (see also Hughes et al., 1997 in Mills et al., 2013). A narrative, according to Labov and Waletzky (1997), consists of the orientation, complication, evaluation, resolution, and coda. Children’s narrative skills can be observed in the way they use linguistic elements to produce coherence and cohesion in the story. Narrative coherence relates to the connection between the text and something external to it, whereas cohesion points to the connection between elements within the text.

The authors in the first section of this volume apply Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) theory in the analysis of narrative production by hearing children and young, hearing-impaired Indonesians. Halliday and Hasan (1976) include reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunctions as grammatical cohesive devices, and repetition, synonymy, hyponymy, hypernymy, meronymy, antonymy, and collocation, as lexical devices. Many cross-linguistic studies on text cohesion suggest that sociocultural factors, such as socioeconomic status, gender, cognitive ability, and linguistic background, play a role in the development of narrative competence. Since children’s linguistic skills are revealed through their narrative abilities, narrative is one of the components of academic assessment in Indonesian schools. In Indonesia, as in many countries, storytelling is one of classroom activities introduced in the early years of schooling.

Berman (2009, pp. 358–359) suggests that examining narrative is helpful for understanding the acquisition of referring expressions. Referring expressions can function as cohesive ties in narrative. Competence in narrative can be examined by the way children tell a story, e.g., how they narrate events and use linguistic elements to create cohesion between the different parts of a story. For example, a child may use reference as a cohesive device to invite an interlocutor to direct their attention to some object. In the chapter by Herningtias and Kushartanti, it is shown that young children (aged three to six) who speak Indonesian as their first language can use grammatical devices to create cohesion in a narrative elicited from dialogic reading. The study found that older children are more competent in using such devices, thus supporting the study by Mäkinen et al. (2014). Nevertheless, as the children in this study were still developing their linguistic competence, the point was made that these children were still learning to understand the listener’s needs. These findings align with previous studies (see Kail & Hickmann, 1992; Wigglesworth, 1990).

Besides age, gender is also shown to be a factor in children’s narrative production (see Nicolopoulou, 2008), but studies draw different conclusions as to where and how gender plays a role. For example, Mainess et al. (2002) found that girls showed a greater level of elaboration in their narrative production compared to boys, evident in a larger number of words, longer sentences, as well as clauses. Meanwhile, the findings by Sperry and Sperry (1996) found that boys produced a greater quantity of narrative-like talk than girls, specifically in terms of episodes per hour and types of morphemes per minute. Gender differences in narrative production by young children are also discussed by Ferhadija and Kushartanti. These authors compare young boys’ and girls’ tendencies in using grammatical cohesive devices in narrative. Their findings show that, on average, children of both genders used grammatical cohesive devices, such as reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunctions, equally well.

As Indonesia is one of the homes for bilinguals and multilinguals, examining narrative competence in Indonesian bilingual children can contribute toward a better understanding of the multilingual situation in Indonesia. While the subjects of two previous studies were preschoolers who spoke Indonesian as their first language, the subjects in the study by Puspita and Kushartanti were older children who already had learned the language formally at school and who were bilingual Javanese and Indonesians. Their study focused on the use of lexical cohesive devices. Results from this study show that these children are already able to use various types of Indonesian lexical cohesive devices. Their study also shows that younger children tended to incorporate Javanese—their first language and the language they used in daily conversation—when they narrated a story in Indonesian. It was found that they used both Javanese and Indonesian lexical cohesive devices in narrative production. Puspita and Kushartanti pointed out that the older children outperformed the younger children, which again suggests that age is a factor in the acquisition of narrative competence. In this regard, their study agrees with the findings by Purwo and Sukamto (2016), who found in their study of bilingual Javanese–Indonesian children in Yogyakarta, that higher-grade children performed better in Indonesian than in Javanese.

Besides the spoken and written forms, narrative production can be signed. The structures, in terms of plotting, are similar, as found by Sutton-Spence (2010). She found a threefold pattern in vertical symmetry, namely, placing signs at head height, shoulder height, and waist height, and in horizontal symmetry, placing signs in the left, right, and center spaces. In the study of narrative production by young adult signers using Jakarta Sign Language (JSL), which is included in this section, Safitri and Yuwono found similar patterns to those reported by Sutton-Spence. They applied the theory of narrative structure, by Labov and Waletzky (1997), and the theory of cohesion, proposed by Halliday and Hasan (1976) and Halliday and Matthiessen (2014). Apart from the different modes of linguistic expression used, both the hearing speakers and the deaf signers used similar cohesive devices to make coherent narratives. Considering that studies of narrative production by JSL signers are rare, Safitri and Yuwono’s study provides a useful departure point for further research into this sign language variety.

Youth, Language, and Popular Culture

Many studies of youth and social practices stress that the category of ‘youth’ should be regarded as a social construction rather than defined in terms of age alone. Young people growing up in different parts of the world experience life differently (though there are shared practices due to contact of various kinds) and the way they socialize also varies across cultures (Nilan & Mansfeld, 2014; Papalia & Martorell, 2015). As Nilan and Mansfeld (2014, p. 5) state, youth culture can be understood in terms of practices related to, for example, identity construction, socialization, consumption, claims to legitimacy, relation to adult power, and creativity. Studies on Indonesian youth language practices show that when speaking Indonesian, young people draw on a range of language resources, including ethnic and foreign languages, in their interaction with each other in daily activities (e.g., Djenar et al., 2018; Tamtomo, 2016). This section focuses on youth language practices in popular culture.

The need to be connected to a wide social network, as enabled by technology, is one of the characteristics of young people’s social life (Papalia & Martorell, 2015). Mass and social media become important tools for doing this. Two chapters in this section present the study of language in radio and social media. Andiani and Suhardijanto examined cooperative principles in adlibs and improvised radio advertisements involving young Indonesian broadcasters in Jakarta. Based on Gricean pragmatics (1975), this study presents an analysis of cultural mixing. It found that the most common violation of cooperative principles is the violation of narrative relevance. The chapter by Fauzi and Puspitorini discusses written language produced by young Javanese speakers from Banyumas, Central Java. Focusing on Javanese graphemic transcription in social media (e.g., Instant Messaging Line and Whatsapp), they found that the new generation of Javanese language speakers uses graphemic transcription based on the sounds they hear, instead of following Javanese standard spelling, and that the relative freedom that young people have when writing in social media has given rise to variations in graphemic representation of language.

Studies of youth language practices are not limited to analyses of language use among young people, but also its representations. Lengthy discussions have taken place about youth language practices often being viewed negatively (Drummond, 2016; for a similar discussion on Indonesian youth language, see Djenar, 2012). Nevertheless, young people are often classified in Indonesian popular discourse as a linguistically creative social group because of the way they use the Indonesian language. Djenar’s chapter examines a claim that the writing style in Teenlit, a genre of adolescent fiction, is basically conversational language that is written. Based on data from two novels, the chapter presents preliminary results on how adolescents’ speech and thought are represented in Teenlit. Djenar shows that Direct Speech and Free Direct Speech are two common techniques used in the novels. Her findings support the argument by Leech and Short (2007) that Direct Speech is the norm for speech presentation and indirect thought is the norm for thought presentation.

This section also includes a study by Simatupang and Muta’ali on politeness strategies among young adults serving as judges in a television talent show. In this study, Brown and Levinson’s (1987) and Maslow’s theory (1949) are applied to examine the judges’ strategies for delivering constructive comments to young contestants. This study found that judges took into account children’s psychological condition when they gave comments on performance. Simatupang and Muta’ali argue that the judges generally provide positive comments to motivate the contestants to improve. In doing so, they effectively encourage the fulfillment of the four basic human needs: safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization.

Children, Language, and Tradition

Many ethnolinguistic groups in Indonesia maintain traditional practices by teaching young members moral values and etiquette through their ethnic language. Javanese speakers, the largest ethnolinguistic group in Indonesia, are no exception. Javanese language is spoken by more than one-third of the Indonesia’s population (see Ananta et al., 2015). The chapters in this section show that tradition and modernity can live side by side. Though for the younger generation of Javanese speakers globalization and modernity are part of their everyday reality, many still observe traditional etiquette. The authors in this section show this through studies of personal naming and childrens’ knowledge of and adherence to the etiquette, respectively.

Conventions for naming a child lie at the core of Javanese traditions. Naming is tied up with myth, spirit, and culture (Widodo et al., 2010, p. 260). Moreover, names reflect the name-giver’s beliefs and aspirations for the bearer (Aldrin, 2016; Nyström, 2016). In a semiotic study of personal names given by Javanese parents to their children, Untoro and Rahyono point out that a shift in naming has been occurring across generations of Javanese speakers, forming part of an overall process of cultural change. Based on names collected from written sources, interviews, and questionnaires conducted in a high school in Kediri, East Java, their study shows that contemporary names include sounds not found in the names of Javanese from the previous generations. In many cases, contemporary names do not have any discernible meanings.

The second and final chapters in this section are concerned with the interpretation of Javanese etiquette taught to children through a set of prohibitions. It has been pointed out that traditional Javanese child-rearing practices prioritize teaching a child to be obedient to parental commands (Hoffman, as cited in Kuntoro et al., 2016, p. 1394). The chapter, by Erviana, Widhyasmaramurti, and Puspitorini, discusses Javanese-speaking children’s understanding of Gugon Tuhon, a set of Javanese prohibition maxims related to table manners. Based on questionnaire data, the authors found that Gugon Tuhon maxims are still being applied as a means of parenting among Javanese families.

Closing Remarks

This volume presents studies mainly by linguists based in Indonesia and includes topics that have never been studied by non-Indonesian scholars (e.g., narrative production among children in Chaps. 2–4, interpretations of Gugon Tuhon in Chap. 11). In that regard, this volume can be considered as an exploration of potential areas for future research. We therefore hope that despite its lapses, this book will serve as a useful resource for students and scholars researching languages and cultural practices in Indonesia, particularly in relation to children and young people.