International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 3 | Page 154
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES
SPRING 2016
The Socio-Political Factors of the Emergence of Teaching English in
Postcolonial Indonesia
Dewi Candraningrum
Biodata: Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta & Jurnal Perempuan.
[email protected]
Introduction
This essay addresses the question of how English entered Indonesia in relation to European
Colonialism in the early Sixteenth century. In order to identify more closely the place
occupied by English in postcolonial Indonesia, the rest of the paper will be devoted to
sketching the position of the “surrounding” colonial languages — Portuguese and Dutch in
the interplay with the position of Bahasa Indonesia, the Indonesian national language in the
mid-twentieth century. This sketch will be framed from the perspective of the entry of
foreign languages into pre and post-colonial Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia as one of the
Austronesian or Malayo-Polynesian languages had been used as the lingua franca in the
Indonesian archipelago before the seventh century. It is a modern dialect of the Malay
language which borrowed heavily from many foreign languages: the notable ones are
Sanskrit, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese and English. This paper will also “untangle”
the sedimentation of foreign languages into the history of foreign language teaching in
Indonesia, beginning with the arrival of Sanskrit along with the Hinduism and Buddhism; the
arrival of Arabic accompanying the introduction of Islam; the arrival of Portuguese, Spanish,
English, and Dutch with Christians and Catholics missions, and, finally, the introduction of
Japanese following the brief colonial occupation by Japan in the 1940s.
In exploring further the impact of the English language on Indonesia, I will provide a
general account of Dutch colonization. In discussing this, I will supply information of the
language policy of the colonizer wherever necessary to provide a better picture of the
existence of English: how its significance and impact was different from and similar with
other European foreign languages in the course of Dutch colonization. I will use a critical
perspective in cultivating the history of the arrival of English language during the Dutch era
as well as uncovering the socio-political factors that imbued the establishment of English
departments in Indonesian universities through the policies developed by the Indonesian
government. I argue that the existence of English language, besides normal, neutral and
beneficial as viewed publicly, was also embedded by other significant factors such as social,
political, economic, and religious elements. These dimensions played significant roles in the
emergence of English language teaching in Indonesia during the pre and post-colonial
periods of Indonesian history.
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