FAMILY VALUES IN THE MAINTENANCE OF LOCAL/HOME LANGUAGE

Abstract

Family is part of a social and cultural group. It is from the family a new member of a society has learned his/her first word. Family’s decision to choose local or national language at home to be socialized to the children is one significant contribution for the maintenance of local or national language. Once a family shifts its perspective or values on the choice, there will be further consequence for local or national language preservation. Therefore, this paper is aimed at exploring family language policy to get the idea of how this small group of a society can contribute to positive or negative effect for local and national language maintenance. Several interviews and observation were conducted to investigate the language policy applied in family language practices and interactions in urban city of Surabaya. The result of the investigation shows how changes in government policy, parents’ social, cultural, as well as professional and linguistic background and the global world have influenced family’s, in particularly parents, values in the use of local or national language for socialization.