Language attitudes of the Konjo community toward the Indonesian language: A sociolinguistics study

Abstract

Language attitudes are beliefs, preconceptions, and opinions that speakers have about a language. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that linguistic attitudes affect social interaction’s behavioral cooperativeness. In general, behavioral cooperativeness is increased by favorable attitudes toward another person’s language diversity, while behavioral cooperativeness is decreased by negative attitudes. Therefore, this study examines the positive or negative the language attitudes of the Konjo language in South Sulawesi. This research aims to analyze the language attitudes of the Konjo Community toward the Indonesian: a sociolinguistics study. A mixed-methods quantitative-qualitative approach was employed using the results of questionnaires and interviews. The data was collected from 135 respondents from various age and education groups. The results showed that most Konjo people in Gantarang have a positive attitude towards Indonesian as the national language. This indicates that Indonesian has been accepted as an official language essential to the Konjo community. However, although Konjo people have a positive attitude towards Indonesian, they still use the Konjo language as their identity language. This shows that the Konjo language is essential to their identity and culture. In addition, using the Konjo language can also strengthen social relations and togetherness among the Konjo people.