Language Ideology and Attitudes Toward English Among Multilingual Families in Indonesia

Abstract

Focusing on the complex multilingual setting of Indonesia, the present study investigates the representation of Spolsky's (2004) three aspects of language: ideology, management, and practice.Specifically, we look thoroughly at parental language ideology and attitude and how they are reflected in actual language practice and planning, focusing on English as a foreign language.Our analysis draws from a large-scale online survey of 1,344 multilingual parents from different parts of Indonesia, with the survey being distributed to over 28 provinces, including NAD, North Sumatra (North & West), Lampung, Bangka Belitung, Jambi, Bengkulu, Jakarta, West Java, Central and East Java, Yogyakarta, Maluku, Kalimantan (North, South, West, East, and Central), Riau, Sulawesi (North, South, and Southeast), Bali, Nusa Tenggara (West and East), West Papua, and Papua.Our findings indicated that English remains the additional language to learn and not to be used at home for parent-child communication practices.Consistencies were also seen between parents' ideologies and planning in which their positive attitudes towards the mastery and use of English are translated into their desire to support the development of English proficiency of their children.Moreover, the results of the semantic differential pairing in our survey demonstrated that English is perceived to be a language that indexes modernity, usefulness, and formality.Our findings can be used to predict the future trajectory of English in our society and, more particularly, our education system.

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